Psychology And Religion

I was raised by Jewish atheists, and psychology was one of my majors in university. For a long time I was against religion, especially against Christianity. That is no longer the case.

There are several reasons for this. One is that I've had very real spiritual experiences. Atheists and materialistic psychologists scoffed at them, called me crazy, called me weak, called me irrational, claimed that I was not living in the real world. But the experiences that I've had are as real as you and as real as me, and I am willing to face whatever persecution may come my way to defend them.

Secondly, I've seen horrible behavior by atheists, especially ones of the “skeptic” persuasion. Quite simply, they were the most vicious people I've ever known. Lacking the humility and the grace that is taught by most religions, they maliciously attack anyone who's had spiritual experiences. Most of these people are not even scientists. That does not prevent them from thinking that their ignorance of spirituality makes them the only sane people in the world.

Finally, while psychology damns people for life, religion offers redemption. According to personality psychology, once a sociopath always a sociopath; once a borderline always a borderline; and once a narcissist always a narcissist. According to personality psychology, some people are evil and can only be evil whatever they do, however hard they work, and whatever work they do on themselves. Whereas Christianity and Islam teach that any sinner can be redeemed, and yogic and zen disciplines offer a workable path toward personal betterment that can be taken by anyone. The people who are denied life by personality psychology find life in Christ, Mohammad or Eastern religion.

In this manner religion is light years ahead of personality psychology. Psychological views on this matter are not even rational. If people are responsible for their behavior then anyone – even a sociopath – can choose to act rightfully; and if some people cannot act rightfully whatever they do, then people are not responsible for their behavior. This is a worthless ideology, useful only for conducting witch hunts. And that is exactly what we have seen from believers in these things.

At a church I attended in Virginia, the pastor said that the Christians must be “dangerous people for God.” This of course carries appeal to all the many people who have been described as dangerous by the purveyors of social totalitarianism. The people who otherwise would be seen as human garbage are given a way to live and to do the right thing. Psychology fails to do that. Religion does.

I've found religious people to be far more tolerant and merciful than materialist fundamentalists. Not all Christians are good human beings, but Christianity does not damn people. It gives them life. This makes it a wiser direction than personality psychology and one far more humane. Having gone from the point of hating religion to the point of practicing it, I recommend it as a wiser and nobler alternative to psychological theories that lead to witch hunts, persecution and relentless abuse against people accused of having personality disorders.

 

best post on the subject I have seen in a long time!

 

Thank you Kokomojojo.

 

There is a distinct difference between religion and spiritualism.

 

Why? That isn't an automatic consequence of atheism or psychology so it must have come from you personally. Have you addressed that in yourself

So what? I've seen horrible behaviour from people who happen to be members of pretty much any generic grouping of people you care to mention. That says literally nothing about that group or any of the concepts that might define it.

I can't help wondering if your opposition to atheism now comes from the same place as your opposition to religion in the past? Other than the target, what is the difference?

I'd suggest you're grossly oversimplifying psychology there but even if it were accurate, it isn't psychology "damning" anyone, psychology is only presented as a representation of reality. You might disagree with the message but that's no reason to shoot the messenger.

I'd also disagree with the dichotomy you're presenting. The monotheistic religions still present humans as flawed sinners by our very nature and, in life at least, we can only work to manage and minimise the impact of that nature, which is very much the approach to most psychological and social issues in psychology. There is typically some promise of something better in the next life from religions of course, but that only works if you actually believe it is true.

I'm not even sure why you're pitting them against each other. Why can't we have both?

 

My apology if this is off topic... but what do you think of the possibility that Messiah Yeshua -Jesus may have said the following words to his disciples?

This was given to a near death experiencer during his meditations after his brush with death..... and I have to admit....this impresses me and reminds me of the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov or the modern Rabbi Alon Anava.

http://www.thomastwin.com/6 A Thomas background.html

HUMILITY.... seems to be one of the huge goals that our Creator has in mind for each of our higher dimensional hard drives within us......and yes..... we can all be given power to make miraculous changes in our very nature and ways of thinking and reacting.

 

I was raised by Jewish atheists, and psychology was one of my majors in university. For a long time I was against religion, especially against Christianity. That is no longer the case.

There are several reasons for this. One is that I've had very real spiritual experiences. Atheists and materialistic psychologists scoffed at them, called me crazy, called me weak, called me irrational, claimed that I was not living in the real world. But the experiences that I've had are as real as you and as real as me, and I am willing to face whatever persecution may come my way to defend them.

Secondly, I've seen horrible behavior by atheists, especially ones of the “skeptic” persuasion. Quite simply, they were the most vicious people I've ever known. Lacking the humility and the grace that is taught by most religions, they maliciously attack anyone who's had spiritual experiences. Most of these people are not even scientists. That does not prevent them from thinking that their ignorance of spirituality makes them the only sane people in the world.

Finally, while psychology damns people for life, religion offers redemption. According to personality psychology, once a sociopath always a sociopath; once a borderline always a borderline; and once a narcissist always a narcissist. According to personality psychology, some people are evil and can only be evil whatever they do, however hard they work, and whatever work they do on themselves. Whereas Christianity and Islam teach that any sinner can be redeemed, and yogic and zen disciplines offer a workable path toward personal betterment that can be taken by anyone. The people who are denied life by personality psychology find life in Christ, Mohammad or Eastern religion.

In this manner religion is light years ahead of personality psychology. Psychological views on this matter are not even rational. If people are responsible for their behavior then anyone – even a sociopath – can choose to act rightfully; and if some people cannot act rightfully whatever they do, then people are not responsible for their behavior. This is a worthless ideology, useful only for conducting witch hunts. And that is exactly what we have seen from believers in these things.

At a church I attended in Virginia, the pastor said that the Christians must be “dangerous people for God.” This of course carries appeal to all the many people who have been described as dangerous by the purveyors of social totalitarianism. The people who otherwise would be seen as human garbage are given a way to live and to do the right thing. Psychology fails to do that. Religion does.

I've found religious people to be far more tolerant and merciful than materialist fundamentalists. Not all Christians are good human beings, but Christianity does not damn people. It gives them life. This makes it a wiser direction than personality psychology and one far more humane. Having gone from the point of hating religion to the point of practicing it, I recommend it as a wiser and nobler alternative to psychological theories that lead to witch hunts, persecution and relentless abuse against people accused of having personality disorders.

 

Your "spiritual experiences" were what exactly?

 

My degree is in psychology. My next question could be about why anyone would knowing succumb to a fear-based ideology, but there are many questions here. For instance, how does one ethically choose a religion where all of your crimes disappear if you whisper some words to the what you consider the highest authority? That's a huge ethical loophole and it's terrifying to know that so many people have no issue with doing hateful things while believing they won't be held accountable somehow. There's a big list of questions.

 

Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human
history than any other single idea.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Atheists need to stop knocking on doors spreading our “truth” and having tax exempt organizations dedicated to atheism that have influential political action committees. We need to stop printing “in atheism we trust” on all US currency and saying “one nation, under atheism” in the pledge of allegience. We will also stop insisting that everyone who disagrees with us will be sentenced to eternal damnation

 

Yes! We also need to make sure everyone says "merry atheistmas" all the time and get really offended when people don't say it. Going door-to-door spreading non-theistic principals is good too. Maybe petition to get non-theist orgs a tax-free status.

 

this is one of those incredibly ignorant posts that really gets my goat and i hear this tripe all the time.

there are no "words" to whisper into the darkness that can magically make your transgressions disappear. repentance isn't about words, it's about honest sentiment. it's about really understanding just how wrong you have been and a willingness to spend an eternity to try and make up for all you have done. the only fear in religion is the fear that one's baser self might make it impossible to attain an enlightenment that a lifetime of striving could have made possible. is that enlightenment a seat at the left hand of some god? is that enlightenment merely the satisfaction of a life well lived? to each his own. the faithful of different sects believe different things, but the goal of most is that life well lived. all else is politics.

i hate to break it to you, but that degree of yours is of use only for wiping your ass. it is a degree in voodoo science. we live in an age where too many people see science as the answer. science is merely a method by which we seek answers. while witch doctors and childish experimenters claim they have answers, all they are really doing is peering through a keyhole and describing the elephant pressed firmly against the other side of the door. to take that limited experience and use it to discount centuries of seeking truth is the ultimate hubris. we are creatures who understand only a tiny fraction of what exists beneath our own seas, yet feel confidant in describing the origins of the universe. we have only the faintest understanding of the wogkings of the human mind, yet are willing to classify the outcome of those working to suit some vague societal construct.

me? i've chosen the path of atheism. i find comfort in chaos and the concept of a universe unencumbered by some "plan". most cannot stand the notion of such a messy realtiy. they require the regimentation of religion or, like you, the rigid disciplines of scientific certainty. where i see "god" as merely another unproven theory, neither wrong nor right, most people seem to need to either prove or disprove this oldest of mankind's questions. i see no more need to denigrate the beliefs of the faithful than to make fun of the more outrageous tenets of theoretical physics.

 

I'm not usually drawn into long posts but this was so well written and thought out....appreciated your thoughts.

 

Oh, damn that's funny.

I guess I'll have to be the one to explain xtianity to you. If you ask for forgiveness you're now clean of all sins according to the abrahamic god.

That means they disappear. That means they do not count, and they really feel like they don't want to end up in hell (we're back to fear-based thinking) so that's why they confess. The sins are gone, except of course for those who said person has actually harmed.

I'd go on but science deniers are like flat erfers, anti-vaxxers, and moon landing conspiracists and have no credibility or understanding of how science and evidence works. Enjoy your aura.

 

you're going to school me on comparative religion? i've got news for you, i was studying this chit when the best part of you was running down your daddy's leg. though the catholics may have their rituals, the dogma clearly states that the repentance must involve an honest recanting of evil ways. i realize that honesty may be an alien concept to folks like you, but it has real meaning to the ethical and the truly faithful. to the faithful it is a stripping away of falsehood by the godhead, to the rest of us it is about intent and acceptance of responsibility. this is not about a mere fear of damnation, but a real reversal of the mindset that led to those transgressions. if you believe then this is something that can't be faked. if you don't believe then it hardly matters.

as for flat erfers (by the way, the term is "earth" and not "erf"), anti-vaxers and other conspiracists, i'm not sure what any of that has to do with it. that you lump such people in with the religious says more about you than about them. questioning is, after all, an important part of the scientific method. the flat eathers may be rather laughable at this point in time, but many of the anti-vaxers have legitimate concerns that should be allayed by science (the method, not the dogma) and the various conspiarcies out there are often based on evidence that should be investigated instead of merely dismissed. that you dismiss those who question shows that you are far more concerned with the dogma of science than its tue application.

i kind of feel sorry for you.

 

You should feel sorry for me, I’m having to explain simple religious dogma and it’s taking forever. While those seeking repentance may be honest in their eager prayers, they still go right back to committing sins. Every day it’s sin after sin, then asking for forgiveness. If they don’t, they wind up in some imaginary hell.

that’s a fear-based system, and it makes no difference whether the person is really super sorry or not. That’s what makes it such a poor ethos.
I’d address the concept of humor with you but there appears no path to success there.

I can certainly see why you’d throw rocks at both psychology and science. I’m not dismissing those who question, I’m dismissing those too stupid to understand science and evidence and that most certainly covers the anti-vaxxer crowd.

 

~ You don't. Having "faith" means you do better each day by not repeating bad behavior and expecting repentance. There is personal responsibility involved.

~ While I mostly agree with you we must remember that there are people who work in mental health with a true desire to help others.
Psychology is likely one of the easiest subjects to study and get a degree. Can be interesting too .

 

the road to hell is paved with good intentions. i'm sure you've heard this many times before, but it is most apt in the field of psychology. these are people most practiced in the art of providing excuses and in laying blame far from those where anti-social behavior originates.

i feel sorry for you because you lack an understanding of the simple term "honesty". an honest repentance does not result in a repeat of the offence and fear is not the same as faith. it is apparent that you lack faith in anything, even science, or you might begin to understand this. these aren't rocks i throw, but questions and questioning is the very basis of science.

while you sit there, quite cozy in the certainty of your "science", there are those of us who question everything.

 

https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought/logic-religion-and-spiritual-experience

 

Thank you.

 

while i previously only responded to your reply to my post, i must give you kudos for bringing up the concept of "personal responsibility". this is one aspect of christianity that most rabid anti-christians overlook and is important to the faith. yes, christianity teaches that all men are born to sin. yes, christsianity teaches that christ died to absolve man from his sin. no, this does not mean that merely subscribing to the faith absolves one of their transgressions or that, as the papists seem to insist, one can buy their way to a higher plane. one of the most important aspects of christianity is that each and every one of the faithful is responsible for their actions upon this earth. while i do not adhere to the notion of kowtowing to some imaginary force as the way to salvation, i do see a life righteously lived as a portal to some small bit of enlightenment.

 

Thanks for the response which was not what I was expecting. Do you feel any of the experiences you mention align with any religion?

 

You are incorrect, & I find it hard to believe that it is out of ignorance of all the terrible things that have been done in the name of religion. That is not to say that there have not been terrible people who were also psychologists or atheists. But no other single idea, besides that one is representing God, has had the power to unify the masses in pursuit of evil ends, as well as being used by hypocrites to justify their actions. Priests have abused children, and then had their acts concealed by the Church. The Spanish, upon arriving in the New World, used the pretext of bringing God to the heathens to excuse enslaving & torturing them-- to the point that the # of Caribbean, "Indians," committing suicide became a real problem for the Spanish Capitalist Christians. (They stopped that trend by threatening the natives, saying if they killed themselves, so would the Spanish, who'd then pursue them to continue their torturous treatment in the afterlife.)

Before that, untold millions died in the wars between Catholics & Protestants, two varieties of Christians. There was nothing Christ-like in their hypocritical behavior. Entire cities were laid waste by neighboring cities for nothing besides differences in dogma. It had been the same in the early Church, when Donatists & other CHRISTIAN sects were slaughtered wholesale over theological questions. Millions more (even the lowest estimates are in the hundreds of thousands) were killed, usually quite unpleasantly, & after gruesomely sick tortures, to cleanse the Church of, "heretics," during the Inquisitions. Interesting historical note is that research has shown the vast majority (80% or more) of these, "witches," were women, often who were widows who owned land but could not legally pass it on. Upon their deaths, the land was confiscated by municipal & Church officials.

There's hardly room here for me to begin on Christian wars of persecution, "outside the family."Though the, "HOLY WARS," as they were called, with Muslims, were against a faith, Islam, that accepts Jesus as a great prophet, it may surprise many to learn. And of course, it was not merely the Catholics who were aggressors with their, "Crusades;" but the Muslims also were conquerors of part of Europe. Because land, wealth, & power were at the root of these conflicts, but religion served as a great incentiv-izer for the masses, who would not reap the material rewards of the elites.

One of the first things, "followers of Christ," did when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire was to attack the adherents of the Greek Orphic Mystery School & destroy it (this was not a sect that persecuted Christians or anyone else). Burning the greatest collection of knowledge in the Ancient World, the Library of Alexandria, was also one of its early, "cleansings."

But religious wars did not begin with Christians, nor with Jews whose battles, including wars of conquest, are documented in the Old Testament. Back through time, immemorial, there's been no catalyst the equal of religion to give people the ability to feel JUSTIFIED in hating others & treating them as less than human because those, "non-believers," are evil.

Likewise, it has been religion, not the science of, "psychology," which has provided the greatest opportunity to manipulate the, "good intentions," of others. Though those manipulators, one could say, had a natural understanding of group psychology.

We do not hold all these past sins against current adherents of Christianity, or any other faith, of course. It is, after all, the Christian belief to forgive the trespasses of others. So why is it, then, undertheice, that you have no charity in your heart for psychology, ignoring any good that has been accomplished through it, only to malign it (& w/o any substantive examples, that I've seen)? Are you not familiar with the proscription against bearing false witness, or forgetful of the admonition, let the first stone be cast by one who is without sin? I am sorry that ibshambat, who began this thread, endured what he perceived as such cruelty at the hands of the adherents of psychology. But to let that small sample (in relative terms) stain your impression of all its practitioners is to merely repeat a bigoted & biased path, with a very poor history among, "those of faith." Have you never heard the parable of the good SAMARITAN?

In case anyone is wondering, I am not a psychologist or someone w/ any vested interest in it. Nor am I, any longer, a Christian, in my mind, though I do believe in God, and still have respect for the wisdom of Jesus, ingrained in me from my formative years on up into adulthood. Lastly, for whatever it's worth, it seems to me, in reading the New Testament, that the one thing that really got Jesus pissed off, so that you could feel his angry disdain, if not disgust or even contempt, was hypocrisy.

 

We can begin with where you've managed to mislabel psychology and then run straight for the end zone. No one is providing excuses for poor behavior.

Your concept of an honest repentance is woefully unreal. People ask for forgiveness for the same things they do every day, even though they feel sorry. It's you who cannot stomach actual honesty, these people engage in this repetitive behavior as a method of...avoiding hell.

That is a fear-based response. Maybe questioning why people respond so strongly to this primitive but understandable issue might lead you towards understanding evidence. As of now the only thing you're questioning is why you are asking the wrong questions and why.

 

There is no personal responsibility involved when people commit the exact same sins over and over and still ask for forgiveness. There are no consequences as they "believe" they still become free of any of the negatives from sin and get to enjoy heaven with other people just like them.