The varieties of nonreligious experience: meaning in life among believers, non-believers, and the spiritual but not religious

Supplemental material is available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2153599X.2025.2546324# .The Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) have grown rapidly in developed, secularizing societies. We hypothesize that one reason for the proliferation of the SBNR is that spiritual beliefs, distinct from religiosity, afford some degree of meaning in life to people leaving religion. In two pre-registered studies (USn = 917; UKn = 1,289), we compared meaning in life among religious believers, SBNRs, and non-believers. Religious believers reported the most meaning, followed by SBNRs, and then non-believers, who reported the least meaning. Further analyses revealed that the differences between SBNRs and non-believers are largely mediated by differences in their degree of spiritual beliefs, whereas the differences between SBNRs and religious believers are largely mediated by differences in their degree of social connection. We conclude that spiritual beliefs and social connection play distinct roles in the creation of existential meaning in life, which may partly explain the popularity of SBNRs in secularizing societies.This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 435-2019-0480.]

Variation of Moho depth in the central part of the Alborz Mountains, northern Iran

International audienceThe Alborz Mountains of northern Iran form a belt of active crustal deformation along the southern side of the Caspian Sea within the broad Arabian-Eurasia continental collision zone. Although the range has an average elevation of about 3000 m with the volcanic peak Damavand reaching an elevations of 5671 m, early gravity studies found that the crust beneath the range is no thicker than that beneath the surrounding region suggesting the range is not supported by a crustal root. We determine a model for the crust of the central Alborz Mountains using teleseismic receiver functions from data recorded on a network of broad-band seismographs temporarily deployed across the central part of the range. The receiver functions from these recordings have been inverted simultaneously with fundamental-mode Rayleigh wave group velocity measurements in the 10-100 s period range. Our analysis shows a thickening of the crust from ~48 km beneath the northern part of the Central Iranian Plateau to 55-58 km below the central part of the Alborz Mountains, then a thinning of the crust to ~46 km north of the Alborz Mountains beneath the coastal region of the South Caspian Sea. Our seismological results show that the central Alborz Mountains have a moderate crustal root but of insufficient thickness to compensate the elevation of the range. The analysis of free-air gravity shows that the elevation of the Alborz Mountains is largely supported by the elastic strength of the Iranian Plate, the South Caspian Plate, or both

Segmented seismicity of the Mw 6.2 Baladeh earthquake sequence (Alborz mountains, Iran) revealed from regional moment tensors

The M (w) 6.2 Baladeh earthquake occurred on 28 May 2004 in the Alborz Mountains, northern Iran. This earthquake was the first strong shock in this intracontinental orogen for which digital regional broadband data are available. The Baladeh event provides a rare opportunity to study fault geometry and ongoing deformation processes using modern seismological methods. A joint inversion for hypocentres and a velocity model plus a surface-wave group dispersion curve analysis were used to obtain an adapted velocity model, customised for mid- and long-period waveform modelling. Based on the new velocity model, regional waveform data of the mainshock and larger aftershocks (M (w) a parts per thousand yen3.3) were inverted for moment tensors. For the Baladeh mainshock, this included inversion for kinematic parameters. All analysed earthquakes show dominant thrust mechanisms at depths between 14 and 26 km, with NW-SE striking fault planes. The mainshock ruptured a 28A degrees south-dipping area of 24 x 21 km along a north-easterly direction. The rupture plane of the mainshock does not coincide with the aftershock distribution, neither in map view nor with respect to depth. The considered aftershocks form two main clusters. The eastern cluster is associated with the mainshock. The western cluster does not appear to be connected with the rupture plane of the mainshock but, instead, indicates a second activated fault plane dipping at 85A degrees towards the north