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Freethought
Association of West Michigan
Meeting Minutes for July 9, 2003; #142
Topic:
The Psychology of Religiosity, Fundamentalism and Atheism
The following
is the calendar listing of topics and events through October:
July 13; 7PM: Freethought Movie Night At Jason and Deanna's. Contact
at 616-634-2471 or jpittman@backpacker.com. This particular night
is to be more social than film- oriented.
July 23 is our next regular meeting with the topic: "The
Philosophy of Vedanta" to be presented by Renu Malhotra and
Fred Stella of the Interfaith Dialogue Association.
August 13: "WWJD: Debunking Popular Myths About Jesus"
to be presented by Jeremy Crow, FAoWM member.
On August 27, GVSU Evolutionary Biology Professor and FAoWM member,
Dr. Carl Bajema, will present "Richard Dawkins- The Devil's
Chaplain."
"A Critique of Atheism and Humanism" will be presented
on September 10 by Judith Walker-Riggs, Interim Senior Minister,
Fountain Street Church.
Then, on September 24, "Nature vs. Nurture" will be
the topic presented by GRCC Biology Professor and FAoWM board
member, Dr. Gregory Forbes.
The meeting for October 8 is still to be announced at this writing.
Rounding out October, "Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian
Symbolism" will be presented on the 22nd by David Fideler,
PhD, who authored a book with the same title. Fideler is the Director
of the Concord Grove Education Center.
Our topic for this meeting was "The psychology of Religion-
Research on Religiosity, Fundamentalism and Atheism" and
was presented by Luke Galen, Assistant Professor of Psychology
at GVSU and FAoWM member.
Areas of Interest
in the Psychology of Religion include why people believe in god,
the evolution of religion as a function of brain development,
mythology and the psyche, cultural values: influence on psyche
and religiosity, life- span development and religious thought
(e.g., parental influences), how religion is learned (modeling,
social learning theory), personality traits and religion, psychopathy
and religion, exceptional religious experience, neurology and
neuropsychology, and the physiology of meditation, trance, stigmata,
ecstatic group experiences, and glossolalia.
Empirical research done on religiosity relies on the scientific
method, surveys and experiments that generate measurable and objective
data but due to the bias inherent in this subject for study, much
of the work regards social- behavioral issues.
Dr. Galen
contrasted the research presented to our group by two recent speakers,
Dr. David Myers and Kimberly Blaker as to a value characterization
on what religion provides. Dr. Myers, in a talk with the topic
question of whether religion does more harm or good, came down
on the side of religion's positive attributes, including how it
can lead to better mental and physical health. Ms. Blaker's appraisal,
centering mostly on the Religious Right, Fundamentalism and in
particular, Christian Fundamentalism, depicted this form of religious
expression as a destructive force in society, leading to prejudice,
negative attitudes toward women and minorities, etc.
Our presenter
showed how, indeed, a religious attitude can be positively linked
to better physical and mental health, as Dr. Myers claimed, but
that the pathways linking them are not a simple 1-1 alignment.
The psychological factors of religiosity include optimism, a sense
of purpose and coping skills. Behavioral factors include a decrease
in smoking, alcohol and drug use and more inclination toward physical
exercise. The social ones deal with components such as social
support and positive role models. A sense of purpose does not
require religion but religion provides one with a built in system
of feeling specially loved and cared for by a higher power. Work
and goals can be elevated in the minds of the religious as doing
"God's work." Religions that see the use or abuse of
tobacco, alcohol or drugs as either sinful or at least a sign
of an undisciplined life adhering to physical sensations, can
tamp down this behavior in believers somewhat. The social network
that is there through the church, complete with mechanisms for
response to members who are depressed, hospitalized or in other
tough situations, provides comfort for many. The placebo effect
kicks in when one believes others are moving God to heal via their
prayers. In an increasingly depersonalized medical treatment delivery
system, faith healers, 1-1 attention givers employing "alternative"
treatment, or those calling on a deity to intervene on behalf
of one in ill health, can make for a powerful response in that
individual. Religiosity is not, however, necessary for any of
the above-mentioned quality of life factors to be present.
Professor
Galen next turned to the relationship of religion to social attitudes
and behavior. Exploring whether or not religious people behave
in a pro-social manner, and whether this confers upon them the
label of being "good" and conversely, are the non-religious,
then, "bad"? The research on this relationship depends
on two issues: how does one define "religious" and how
does one define "good/positive" and "bad/negative"?
Scrutinizing religiosity in an objective manner requires measurements.
Some ways suggested for this are to measure church membership,
attendance and denomination, frequency of prayer and involvement
in church activities and personal beliefs and attitudes.
Galen drew
from Allport's Religious Orientation Scale to explore the dimensions
of religiousness, breaking it down along the extrinsic, intrinsic
and quest approaches. These were exemplified in the presentation
through the animated television family members, the Simpsons,
with the hedonistic Homer using religion in a utilitarian manner-praying
to get relief or protection, not deriving a higher spiritual feeling
from church membership, but rather using this weekly habit as
a social outlet, and having many other things in life, besides
basic religious beliefs that are important. The intrinsic was
shown in the form of Marge, of the towering blue hair. Hers is
an internalized belief where the entire approach to life is based
on her personal religious beliefs and the honest attempt to live
life by her religious dictates. This individual enjoys absorbing
the stuff of her religion. Quest religiosity, as personified by
Lisa, the precocious middle child in the family, is where the
individual questions her religious beliefs, spurred on to investigate
what her religious precepts tell her against the backdrop of the
real world tensions heightened by a global awareness. The dialogue
is open- ended and responsive and includes existential questions
raised by the contradictions and tragedies in life. Doubt enters
the picture and the worldview is more complex, for the quest form,
with the results of one's active wrestling with ideas subject
to change and revision.
The Simpson's
neighbor, Ned Flanders, was the image and exemplar for Fundamentalism,
the form of religious belief that says that whenever religion
and science clash, science must be wrong. It involves ultimate
truth claims and a belief that there is an ever- present battle
against evil to fight. The Fundamentalist convictions include
having a personal and special relationship to the deity and an
adherence to unchanging doctrines and dogma. Using the declarative
statement from the Fundamentalist mindset: "Whenever science
and scripture conflict, science is wrong." In one of the
classes of GVSU Intro. Psych. students that he teaches, Dr. Galen
generated a bar graph from their responses, displaying along percentage
lines whether they very strongly disagreed… all the way
over to very strongly agreed. What it showed was a very nominal
ripple all along the low percentage bars for the side in agreement
with the statement until you get to the precise middle bar between
extremes-this bar shot up the highest, tapering down again as
one went to the side tending toward stronger disagreement (all
higher than the agreement side of the middle bar) and then boosting
back up again to the second highest bar for "very strongly
disagree."
The rest of
the bar graph displays with the same group of subjects all had
one striking commonality: they featured higher percentages at
the extremes in belief for agreement and disagreement, falling
off toward the middle range and then spiking up again in the dead
center. The next item statement was: "God doesn't favor any
certain group." The highest bar was on the VSA (very strongly
agree) side, but with the above-mentioned pattern to be seen.
The study group was next given the statement to rate: "All
religions have flaws." The pattern prevailed once again though
with all on the agreement side of the graph having higher bars
than the other end of the spectrum.
In measuring
for the extent to which people agree with standard Christian teachings,
such as the Sermon on the Mount, Golden Rule and Ten Commandments
one could not distinguish between liberal and conservative party
allegiance. Former presidents Reagan and Carter were shown to
emphasize this finding where two men of devout and earnest faith
but of two disparate political stripes were indistinguishable
for their beliefs in the religious orthodoxy.
Getting more into the research findings presented by Blaker and
others, we next turned to Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). This
is not a measure of religion specifically, but is associated with
it and is a combination of submission to authority, willingness
to aggress against outsiders and "sinners", and adherence
to societal conventions. RWAs tend to carry the teachings of their
childhood into adulthood, go to church more often, pray and read
scriptures more and report having experienced little doubt as
to their religious convictions.
They also
tend to believe that democracy gives people too much freedom,
are more willing to help locate and arrest homosexuals, communists
and cult members, believe in physical punishment and longer prison
sentences and deliver more shocks in lab testing where people
are given to comply with an authority figure's gentle verbal prod
to continue the experiment, even when it becomes increasingly
obvious that the subject they believe is receiving their shocks
("the learner") cries out under ever more painful shocks.
There is actually no one being harmed in this experiment and the
"learner" is not the subject at all. It is the "teacher"
who is observed-seeing just how far she or he will go in punishing
the learner for incorrect responses, when only a lab coat wearing
figure, without any coercion, simply asks them to go on.
RWAs are "equal
opportunity bigots to outgroups and employ their religion to justify
a non religious agenda. Data collected show that those with no
religion are the least Right Wing Authoritarian. Professor Galen
quoted Altemeyer in Enemies of Freedom as to Authoritarianism:
"Thus. High Authoritarians tend to be religious (and vice
versa), to have tightly wound ideologies, to be under pressure
to believe, keeping doubts tucked away. Complicated biblical material
is lined up to support authoritarianism and contradictory material
is disconnected (many Authoritarians agree with Jesus' admonition
not to judge but it has no apparent effect on their behavior).
Their belief system appears to be self- confirming, enduring and
closed. Really, the beliefs could be anything, and hostilities
based on them appear highly resistant to change." In a display,
Galen showed spheres representing RWA, Fundamentalism, Christian
Orthodoxy and Intrinsic Religiosity. The spheres were all different
categories but had overlap with each other showing them to be
different species of the same basic organism.
In examining
religion and pro-social behavior (ascetics versus altruism), we
looked at factors for sexuality, alcohol/drug abuse, honesty,
altruism and obedience, with the caveat that these were more difficult
to gather non-biased measurements. People want to come off as
looking good. Past research on correlates of religious measures
showed that extrinsic religiosity tends to be associated with
"negative" values and pathology, whereas the intrinsic
variety correlates more with pro-social behavior and subjective
well- being; i.e. happiness. It also shows that intrinsic religiosity
correlates with social desirability (the need to be seen as "good"-as
noted above). Quest (remember Lisa Simpson?) tends to be associated
with lower prejudice and more liberal political attitudes and
complexity but is also associated with negative mood and slight
maladjustment. There is not a ready answer or simplistic belief
scenario to fall back on and there is more awareness of injustice
and far reaching implications to the conclusions drawn from a
more aggressive mental wrestling with issues and ideas for the
quest individual.
We explored
religion and ascetic values by determining attitudes versus behavior
in intrinsically religious individuals. They are typically more
conservative, with a stronger opposition to abortion, divorce,
pornography, contraception, homosexuality, feminism, nudity in
media, suicide and euthanasia. They express support of marriage,
capital punishment, traditional sex roles, conservative politics,
criminal sentences, and censorship of sex and violence. As to
sex, they are more likely to disapprove of "untraditional"
sexual behavior (premarital, homosexual, cheating) and have lower
rates of such behavior themselves. Religiousness, however, is
unrelated to marital sexuality such as frequency of sexual intercourse,
consistency of orgasm, etc. At this point Galen mentioned Blaker's
talk to us on the negative findngs on Fundamentalism and sexuality
such as traditional gender role belief-the "rightness"
of subservience and passivity of women, negativity toward women
in general, spousal abuse, sex on demand and greater expectations
for child bearing, etc.
As to alcohol
and drug use, findings show that fundamentalism and intrinsic
correlates negatively with drug use but, interestingly, more weakly
with alcohol use. Those in more conservative denominations report
a lower frequency of use, and more absolute abstention (see the
push for abstinence policies pushed from the more conservative
wing of the GOP). Those however in non-conservative denominations,
even though they may be very religious, show a wide range of drinking
behavior-therefore, religion alone is a weak predictor of drinking,
outside of conservatives. Another bar graph was shown for a breakdown
of abstinence levels in different denominations. Those of no denominational
affiliation had a level of abstinence level of just over 20%,
Catholics at 15%, moderate Protestants, slightly lower, but conservative
Protestants at slightly over 45%. He also presented us with a
chart plotting the mean number of drinks per occasion with the
mean intrinsic religiosity. So what are the findings about the
religious emphasis in the home-and its influence on quantity of
alcohol consumed? Using the GVSU Intro. Psych. Students as samples
again, he generated a graph showing that those with a moderate
religious emphasis in the home averaged the highest number of
drinks per occasion, descending in order in the "little"
religious emphasis category and lower still at "none."
However, "none" was higher than the descending "large"
emphasis bar and this was higher than the one marked "high"
for religious home emphasis.
As was mentioned,
since self reporting taps into self presentation issues, many
studies focus on behavioral measures. Religiosity seemed to present
no evidence for deterring cheating on exams and in some studies
the more religious students, in fact, cheated more! As to volunteered
assistance in situations where one gives of oneself to work with
children, assist a stranded motorist, checking on a woman in distress,
etc., religiosity showed no relationship to helping! It was noted,
interestingly, that this is seen in volunteering OUTSIDE the church
sphere, but that in the church context there is indeed more likelihood
of giving assistance.
Still on the
subject of volunteerism and altruistic behavior, Dr. Galen presented
a study done by Batson featuring the "Good Samaritan"
scenario. One must keep in mind that the targeted group was Seminary
students and that they had the Good Samaritan ideas fresh in their
minds, as they had just completed questionnaires on religious
orientation and had been asked to prepare a short talk based on
either the G. Samaritan parable or on jobs that students may pursue.
They were then given a map to show them how to get to another
building where they would give this talk. Some were told they
needed to hurry. As they passed down an alley a man was slumped
in a doorway, head down, eyes closed. As the students passed,
the "victim" coughed and groaned. The key measure in
this was whether they stopped to offer help. If help was offered,
the victim indicated that he had just taken medication and that
he would be fine if left alone.
Here are the
results: 40% of subjects overall stopped to help. Those in the
hurry condition were less likely to assist as might be predicted
but contrary to expectation for many who see religious orientation
as an important factor in being "good", the subject's
orientation had no bearing on their stopping and offering of help.
Also of note was that the speech topic the students were to prepare
(jobs or on the Good Samaritan parable) made no difference on
their behavior. One interesting difference that was , however,
related to taking the victim at his word-he would be fine if left
alone-or the student's insistence on helping despite what the
victim's protestations. Those of the intrinsic religiosity type
were the more insistent on helping (whether the "helpee"
wants it or not) where as those of the quest orientation were
negatively associated with insistent aid. In other studies, the
intrinsic pro-social behavior appears to be associated with thoughts
of personal reward or need to feel or be perceived as altruistic
rather than actual compassion for others.
The response
to an authority figure (a lab coated researcher) by one cast as
a "teacher" as to delivering increasingly painful shocks
to a supposed "learner" was mentioned above. It is known
as Milgram's Obedience Paradigm. The learner even complained nervously
about a heart condition but the experimenter said that the shocks
were indeed painful but not dangerous. The subject only had to
make a clear refusal to discontinue the experiment for it to cease
and then s/he would be briefed as to the deception and actual
variables of interest (his/her willingness to continue with a
simple verbal prompt from the "experimenter.") When
this was analyzed as to degree of religious belief it was found
that it was the moderates who were the most obedient/ delivered
the greatest amount of "shock" to the "learner!
To either side of the looming moderate bar the less extreme non-believer
was higher than the less extreme believer. These findings came
as quite a surprise to many in our attendance. When the scale
was further broken down along the lines of "Fundamentalists",
"Moderates" and "Humanists" we saw the same
pattern emerge of the moderate group having the highest bar for
mean maximum shock administered. The next highest were the fundamentalists,
and lowest were the humanists.
Bock and Warren
were cited for their suggestions as to why these patterns emerge.
They state that the religious extremes consist of persons who
have arrived at strong commitments and firm decisions and are
capable of decisions consistent with moral conscience. The moderates
are those who do not know for sure and are therefore more willing
to have decisions made for them. There is NO evidence that religiosity
makes one more humane; and some tendency for the opposite effect.
In investigating
religion and pro- social behavior we looked next at how this relates
to prejudice, racism and homophobia. Galen began this portion
with two quotes: "We have just enough religion to make us
hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Jonathan
Swift. And, "The role of religion is paradoxical. It makes
prejudice and it unmakes prejudice…Some people say the only
cure for prejudice is more religion; some say the only cure is
to abolish religion." Gordon Allport.
Once again
we see the now familiar pattern show up where it is the moderately
religious people who have the highest degree of prejudice, intolerance
and specific negative attitudes than the weakly, or no-religious
individuals.
Relationships
between prejudice and religiosity are often complex and curvilinear
with extremes at the lowest ends. This too was broken down into
denominational groups with the results (by Altemeyer and Hunsberger)
being that the highest scores for ethnic prejudice were found
in Mennonites, Lutherans and Catholics, followed by "Fundamentalists"
then Anglican and United Church and with the lowest level (about
half that of the lowest of the religious denominations) in the
non-religious category. It has to be asked that since all religious
traditions emphasize compassion and altruism why that content
of the belief system seems to make no difference as to the expression
of the belief. To what extent does the sanctioning of prejudice
by a deity make it easier to practice one's religion from a likewise
prejudicial standpoint? It was suggested that the overlap between
High Right Wing Authoritarianism with High Fundamentalism might
have more to do with stronger prejudice than the religious content
per se.
The same researchers
as noted above, in teasing apart the same denominations also listed
above as to negative attitudes toward homosexuals, found that
the Mennonites and Fundies had the highest degree of negativity
toward this group with non-believers (or at least those not officially
affiliated with any particular denomination) being, again, the
lowest. Anglicans and United Church are seen as being the next
lowest on the ranking for negativity. Because of the noted proscribed
prejudice inherent in some religious groups, individuals from
them may not feel they are being prejudicial at all if they dislike
homosexuality. In less fundamentalist groups, the attitude becomes
modified to "hate the sin, but love the sinner." Bateson's
study addressed just this issue.
In the study
participants could help earn money for either of 2 same sex peers
by working on a task. Typically, people spend more time helping
a peer that they know something about, than an anonymous one.
They could ivied their time between one who disclosed the sexual
orientation or an unknown student. The "discloser" gave
the participants two notes; the first either revealing or not
if the discloser was gay, while the second note revealed that
the discloser wanted money for an activity that either would or
would not promote homosexuality (i.e. visit grandma or attend
a gay pride parade). The design tested the willingness to help
with three conditions: Non-gay Discloser, a Gay discloser without
promoting homosexuality, and a Gay discloser, promoting homosexuality.
As noted,
people tend to help those they know something about in general,
so there was seen a higher percentage of help given in all cases
to disclosers. But the high intrinsic religious people helped
less for the gay rather than non-gay discloser even when that
help would in no way promote homosexuality. The results suggest
that religiosity is associated with antipathy toward value violators
(the "sinner"), not just the value violating acts (the
"sin"). In the time spent in helping, high intrinsic
individuals split their time equally between the discloser who
was known to be gay and the unknown (remember, that not knowing
anything about an individual decreases the likelihood of helping
response to them). When asked about this, respondents rationalized
that they divvied up the time as they did to "be fair to
the other [unknown] student." In other words they explained
their actions not as a moral stand against homosexuality but rather
as a moral stand for equality! This explanation was very common
among the high intrinsics.
As to religion
and mental health, Dr. Myers was accurate in his coverage of this
area, finding that average effects are positive, although not
dramatic, for intrinsically religious individuals-as to higher
levels of well- being and lower depression. Extrinsics, on the
other hand were associated with negative mental health. Some of
this has been covered earlier in these minutes. But once again,
when plotted on a graph, we saw that at both ends of the spectrum
the relationship between religiousness and unhappiness was lowest
as to unhappiness itself and physical and mental symptoms, with
the very religious and the anti-religious almost paralleling each
other; the slightly and moderately being high on the graph.
In examining
religion, intelligence and cognitive complexity, religiousness,
especially orthodoxy, has been slightly negatively correlated
with intelligence and intelligence tends to be correlated with
liberal and radical attitudes, including agnostic or atheistic
views. The study by Hoge found social and religious liberalism
to be positively correlated with higher verbal SAT scores. Hunsberger
and Brown found the most important difference in apostates versus
non-apostates was that of perceiving oneself to be intellectually
oriented (not educational attainment per se, but enjoyment of
arguments about god, or other intellectual wrangling).
Our next area
of examination took into account some of the information generated
by an earlier speaker to our group regarding critical thinking
skills and the various levels of intellectual attainment as to
complexity of thought and ability to see various sides of an argument.
Examples Dr. Galen presented over issues such as immoral actions
and death showed a laxity in critical self examination and far
reaching implications in the lower complexity oriented individual,
whereas the high-level individuals tended to think of all sides
of an issue and have an intellectual curiosity about them, connecting
their thoughts and potential actions to logical implications.
Batson and Raynor-Prince found that those who were religiously
orthodox had lower Inegrative Complexity for religious and existential
concepts (e.g. death, morality) but NOT non-religious concepts!
Quest religiosity,
by contrast, was related to complexity for BOTH religious and
non-religious concepts. As mentioned earlier, this deeper thinking
about the vagaries of life and vexing problems can lead to a lack
of decisive direction and lower peace of mind. This leads one
to ponder whether it is better to think complexly from a standpoint
of truth/anxiety versus simplified/peace of mind-a sense of moral
certainty as opposed to deeper thought…
So are religious
people "good" (and therefore non-religious people "bad")?
No differences were found in measures of altruism, helping others,
honesty and cheating. So it depends on how we define "good."
If by that term, we mean to say that ascetic behavior, lower use
of drugs, less sex, and negative attitudes about homosexuality,
suicide, nudity, criminal sentences, pro- death penalty…then
the answer becomes "yes." Reasonable people can disagree
on the innate goodness of such views. If by religious, one means
a fundamentalist or non-questioning orientation and by "good"
one means non-prejudiced, compassionate, and accepting- then the
answer becomes "no."
Conclusions
that Dr. Galen presented: When evaluating the effects of religion,
or lack thereof, on social behavior and attitudes, one should
assess "what type of religiosity" is being exhibited.
As to benefits and drawbacks regarding religious orientation or
lack thereof-we must keep in mind the different dimensions that
are included in terms such as "moral behavior", "values",
"altruism", and "pro-social behavior". Ascetic
values may not translate into altruism.
Openness and
flexibility may be associated with some uncertainty and anxiety,
so tradeoffs emerge from one's level of certainty and fixity/rigidity
of thought/belief. Those who move away from mainstream religion
may be characterized as more altruistic but may pay a price in
regards to social acceptance and cognitive certainty.
This Secretary
wishes to thank Dr. Galen not only for a superb presentation (on
behalf of the group) but also, personally, for him generously
providing wonderful materials to draw upon for me.
Secretary:
Charles LaRue
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