Fear of death and supernatural beliefs: Developing a new supernatural belief scale to test the relationship by Jong, J, Bluemke, M, Halberstadt, J

“…Fear of death features in both historical and contemporary theories of religion, but the relationship between death anxiety and religious belief is still ambiguous, largely due to the use of inappropriate or imprecise measures. …”

Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief by Jong, J, Halberstadt, J, Bluemke, M

“…Although fear of death features prominently in many historical and contemporary theories as a major motivational factor in religious belief, the empirical evidence available is ambivalent, and limited, we argue, by imprecise measures of belief and insufficient attention to the distinction between implicit and explicit aspects of cognition. …”