Psyche and Religion

By Liam Wiser

Discussions of religion share a common disadvantage: their typically emotional character. Founded on subjective experiences and invocations of authorities, they rarely refer to knowledge about emotions, beliefs, society, etc. grounded on methodology, the purpose of which is to eliminate or minimise the influence of human beliefs on the process of observation and drawing conclusions.
It is highly probable that a large percentage of believers, and maybe even non-believers, are not aware of the fact that religion/religiousness can be discussed on the basis of a wide range of empirical data.
The purpose of this book is to educate by quoting the results of research in social science published in peer-reviewed scientific journals on subjects related to religiosity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liam Wiser
• Release date: Dec 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465748140

Book preview

Psyche and Religion

by Liam Wiser

Copyright 2011 Liam Wiser

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Contents

Introduction

So man created God in his own image

Psychological functions of prayer

How do we know about scientific research?

The origins of human morality. Do they derive from holy scripts?

Religiosity as a trigger and intensifier of obsessive-compulsive disorders

Why do educated and intelligent people believe in God?

What does faith in the supernatural (including God) depend on?

Are atheists MORE intelligent than believers?

Do religious people have different personalities than those who are not religious?

Can religion reduce stress in our daily life?

Does the relationship with parents influence faith in God?

Why do people convert to Islam?

Why religiosity grows with age, or how religion protects from death

Is religion a source of happiness?

Notes

Bibliography

Introduction

Discussions of religion share a common disadvantage: their typically emotional character. Founded on subjective experiences and invocations of authorities, they rarely refer to knowledge about emotions, beliefs, society, etc. grounded on methodology, the purpose of which is to eliminate or minimise the influence of human beliefs on the process of observation and drawing conclusions.

It is highly probable that a large percentage of believers, and maybe even non-believers, are not aware of the fact that religion/religiousness can be discussed on the basis of a wide range of empirical data.

The purpose of this blog is to educate by quoting the results of research in social science published in peer-reviewed scientific journals on subjects related to religiosity.

Both religion and religiosity are depicted negatively in many of my texts. I am aware of that. Yet this is not due to the fact that I am an implacable atheist striving to promote anti-religious content, but because throughout my research I have failed to come across other resources.

So man created God in his own image

Religions tell people what is right and what is wrong. But how do people know what in God’s eye is good and what is evil? ‘From the holy writs’, the believer would reply, and more specifically, ‘we know it from our contemporaries’ interpretation of the scripts and the written interpretations of our ancestors, which we call tradition’. In order to conclude that using a condom is bad, we have to ascribe a new meaning to certain passages of the holy scripts.

Cognitive psychology teaches us that the way in which we interpret information depends on various unconscious mechanisms, known as cognitive biases [1]. How, then, did all the interpreters of the holy script manage to remain ‘objective’? They might just as well have failed to succeed. We may find a certain level of support in studies that aim to answer questions such as How do we know about the intentions and motivations of others? and Is it possible that people tend to resort to similar mechanisms to draw conclusions about the intentions of their God?

We probably do know the answer to the first question. Nickerson (1999) analysed a significant amount of research on the subject and concluded that we base our knowledge on the beliefs of others on two sources: 1) in most cases we ascribe them our own motives and intentions, and 2) from the available data about that person. Obviously this is merely a starting point, because the image we have of other people evolves following our interactions with them.

The same applies to believers, whose knowledge of the attributes of their God will be