The God Disproving Industry

A.K. Willard




There is a huge Industry based upon seeking to disprove Christianity,. It's a subset of valid academic research. No it's not a conspiracy but it's atheistic academics taking advantage of the scholarly publication industry to manufacture atheist propaganda. That would be fine except the studies they produce are marked by bad methodology. On Monday we saw a couple of  examples of these bad studies; the methodology of the study by Amitai Shenhav was putrid  ( the one about belief in God is magical thinking). [1]  Another study mentioned in the article  was done by A.K. Willard and A. Norenzayan, I'll be examining that study here along with another one by the same team.Those two are associated with a large body of badly done studies. They themselves specialized in this sort of ideological attempt to disprove the validity of religious belief. For example their study that supposedly finds that a feeling of God;s presence is reducible to a natural psychological survival mechanism.



Some studies have explored questions about brain function and the texture or mechanics of mystical experience. Van Elk et al find that the sensation of supernatural presence is an adaptation from the need to over-detect presences of predictors in the jungle.[2] In other words if one sets out on a jungle trail, and there is darkness, sensing a predictor and turning back from the trek would be helpful. If the sensation was wrong and there was no predictor the mistake of being wrong would be less graven that of being right but ignoring the sense. Thus, the sensation of presence is selected for. This might be used by a skeptic to answer the argument from mystical experience. Elk has five experiments that that seek to explore weather processing concepts about supernatural agents enhances detection in the environment.


Participants were presented with point light stimuli representing kinds of biological motion, or with pictures of faces embedded in a noise mask. Participants were asked to indicate if the stimuli represented a human agent or not. In each case they used three “primes,” one for supernatural, one for human, one for animal. They found that supernatural primes facilitated better agent detection.[3] The argument is that the perceived presence of agents in threatening situations and tendencies to anthropomorphizing leads stronger belief in ghosts, demons, angels, gods and other “supernatural” agency.[4] They point to a body of work consisting of several studies showing that particular paranormal beliefs are a reliable predictor of illusory perceptions of faces and agency detection. These studies include Willard and Norenzayan (2013), Reikki et. al. (2013), and Petrican and Burris (2012).[5] “[Al]...though these studies provide tentative support for the relation between agency detection and supernatural beliefs, the notion that reigious beliefs are a byproduct of perceptual biases to detect patterns and agency has been challenge by several authors...” (Bulbulia, 2004, Lisdorf 2007, and McKay and Efferson, 2010).[6]


While it may be true that some aspects of mystical experience are genetically related, and may be related to agent detection, that is no proof that mystical experience originates wholly within a naturalistic and genetic framework. First, because these studies only demonstrate a correlation between supernatural beliefs and agency detection. There is no attempt to establish the direction of a causal relationship. If there is a connection between supernatural and agent detection it could as easily be that awareness of supernatural concepts makes one more sensitive to agent detection. Secondly, of course just being genetically related doesn't reduce the phenomenon wholly to genetic endowments. Thirdly, there is a lot more to mystical experience than agent detection. Both involve sensing a presence beyond that point the differences are immense. I am not even sure that facial recognition and sensing a predator are similar enough to count for anything. In sensing being observed one is not usually aware of visual ques as one would be in facial recognition. There's no guarantee that the quality of the sensing is the same. Feeling the divine presence is much more august and involves levels and textures. Such an experience is, overall, positive, life changing, transformational (even noetic) but merely feeling one is being observed could be creepy, negative, or even trivial.


Every study I have seen by Ara Norenzayan appears to be an attempt to disprove the validity or Religious belief. He did one called, "Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose," [7] in which he uses many of the same approaches used in the magical thinking study:

Cognitive theories of religion have postulated several cognitive biases that predispose human minds towards religious belief. However, to date, these hypotheses have not been tested simultaneously and in relation to each other, using an individual difference approach. We used a path model to assess the extent to which several interacting cognitive tendencies, namely mentalizing, mind body dualism, teleological thinking, and anthropomorphism, as well as cultural exposure to religion, predict belief in God, paranormal beliefs and belief in life’s purpose. Our model, based on two independent samples (N = 492 and N = 920) found that the previously known relationship between mentalizing and belief is mediated by individual differences in dualism, and to a lesser extent by teleological thinking. Anthropomorphism was unrelated to religious belief, but was related to paranormal belief. Cultural exposure to religion (mostly Christianity) was negatively related to anthropomorphism, and was unrelated to any of the other cognitive tendencies. These patterns were robust for both men and women, and across at least two ethnic identifications. The data were most consistent with a path model suggesting that mentalizing comes first, which leads to dualism and teleology, which in turn lead to religious, paranormal, and life’s-purpose beliefs. [8]

Intent of disproof seen here:

Religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people around the world, and a cross culturally recurrent aspect of minds and cultures. Over the past decade, several theories have emphasized the natural basis of religious belief and experience, found in cognitive biases that are byproducts of brain functions (Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Barrett, 2000, 2004; Bloom, 2007; Boyer, 2001, 2008; Kelemen, 2004). These theories converge on suggesting that belief in supernatural agents such as gods and spirits, and related phenomena, emerge from a set of interrelated cognitive biases, such as perceptions of agency and mentalizing, mind-body dualism, and teleological intuitions. Equipped with these cognitive biases, human minds gravitate towards religious and religious-like beliefs and intuitions.[9]

He is treating conceptual philosophical ideas as though they are determined by brain functions with the implication they are glitches. It's not a philosophical idea to be reasoned about but a mistake a misfire a primitive cognitive ability that has grown obsolete. This is just the ideological reaction to counter ideas. Here is the proof. Dualism is a philosophical idea."In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical – or mind and body or mind and brain – are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing."[10] Here he treats it like primitive cognitive ability:

1.2.2. Dualism Another hypothesized cognitive foundation of religious belief is mind-body dualism, which refers to the intuition that minds are separate from bodies (Bloom, 2005; Damasio, 1994). According to this theory, minds are seen as a non-physical substance that can be related to bodies, but not reliant on bodies, opening up the 380 A.K. Willard, A. Norenzayan / Cognition 129 (2013) 379–391 possibility of minds existing without bodies. In a sense, the ability to think dualistically is a necessary condition for understanding concepts such as ghosts and spirits or any other disembodied supernatural agent (Bloom, 2007). [11]

Here he implies that mind itself is just such a primitive cognitive function."Consistent with this, neuro-imaging studies found that among Christian believers in the US (Kapogiannis et al., 2009) and in Denmark (Schjoedt et al., 2009), thinking about or praying to God, activates brain regions associated with Theory of Mind." Here he is still harping on teleogy as he did in the magical study:

1.2.3. Teleology A third cognitive hypothesis is that religious beliefs are rooted in teleology. Teleology is the tendency to see things in the world as having a purpose and having been made for that purpose (Kelemen, 1999; Kelemen & DiYanni, 2005)." Teleology is a philosophical concept but it is indicative of a belief in higher order. He is against higher order since he's an atheist, this is his ideological bias.[12]

His methodology is based upon students answering surveys. two samples test for replicability, robustness, and generalizability. Sample 1: 492 undergraduate psychology students. Sample 2 "consisted of 920 adult Americans collected though Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.;" Surveys completed online. For several concepts such as teleology they had no standardized scale and had to makeup their own. Of course if we suspect bias we can't trust their scales.

......The Conclusion:

Although our cognitive biases remain predictors of purpose above and beyond the variance predicted by belief in God, belief in God remains the strongest predictor. Further, the model no longer passed the test of fit when we reversed this relationship to have belief in purpose lead to belief in God. This suggests that much of the variance in belief in life’s purpose, is coming from belief in God. The remaining relationships with our cognitive biases could be seen as an intuition towards purpose above and beyond what is encouraged by belief in God, or it could be something left over from growing up in a largely Protestant Christian culture. This interesting question could be answered by going beyond a Christian sample. Regardless, it does not seem to be the case that purpose is another sort of intuition that leads to belief in a supernatural power. Rather, belief in God appears to lead to a greater sense that there is a purpose to life[13]

They have made the astounding discovery that belief in God gives one a motivation to believe in a purpose in life. The non belief in God while laden with a sense of purpose is not necessarily transmute into belief by that sense. This is hardly an anti-religious finding. The problem is they way they treat belief and other aspects of reason that support belief. They even include "1.2.4. Mentalizing All of the above cognitive tendencies have a clear common feature: they require some mentalizing ability. There has been some speculation about the relationship between metalizing and religious belief." "mentalizing means imagining, which is necessary for science as well as religion, and for math and any kind of reasoning. They are treating all uses of the mind as though they are some obsolete function developed for life on savanna. The implication being that belief in God just a throw back to primitive brain function: "Regardless, it does not seem to be the case that purpose is another sort of intuition that leads to belief in a supernatural power. Rather, belief in God appears to lead to a greater sense that there is a purpose to life." In other words purpose does not lead to God, but God to a sense of purpose. The sense of purpose is an illusion based upon the primitive nonsense of belief in God.

Williard and A., Norenzayan are valid academics. they have the credentials, their works are published and they work with good people. Norenzayan has published with R.A.McNamara for whom I have the utmost respect.[14] Do not think I'm attacking his credentials. I am attacking his bias. There has come to be a whole industry fueled this this ideological atheism in science. Nor am I advocating policing science. I am totally for academic freedom. The only thing we can do is get more Christians to study social science.


Sources


[1] magical thinking study: Willard is Post doctoral fellow at UT Austin, psychology, received her Ph.D. in Psychology university of British Columbia. She primarily works with Hindu and Muslims. Norenzayan is a graduate student, he is at University British Columbia.

[2] Michiel Elk, Bastiaan T. Rutjens, Joop van der Pligt,& Frenk van Harrveled (2016) Priming of Supernatural agent concepts and agency detection, Religion, Brain and Behavior, 6:1, 4-33, DOL: 10.1080/2153599X.2014.93344.

[3] Ibid., 4.

[4] Ibid., 5.

[5] Ibid., 5. A.K. Willard and A. Norenzayan, “Cognative Biases Explain Religious Belief and belief in life's purpose,” Cognition 129 (2013), 379-391. T. Reikki, M.Litterman, et. al. “Paranormal and religious believers are more prone to illusary face perception than skeptics and none believers.” applied cognitive psychology 27 (2013) 150-155, and R. Petrican and C.T. Burris, “Am I a Stone? Over attribution of agency and Religious Orientation,” Religion and Spirituality 4 (2012), 312-323.

[6] Ibid., 6. J. Bulbulia, “The Cognitive and Evolutionary Psychology of Religion,” Biology and Philosophy 19, (2004) 655-686, A. Lisdorf, “What's HIDD'n in the HADD,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 7, (2007), 341-353, and R. McKay and C. Efferson, “Subtitles of Error Management,” Evolution and Human Behavior, 31 (5)(2010) 309-319.


[7] Aiyana K. Willard Ara Norenzayan , "Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose."   Cognition, published by Science dorect, 1 article info Article history: Received 4 March 2013 Revised 25 July 2013 Accepted 27 July 2013 Online PDF format, URL:
http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Willard_Norenzayan_Cognitive_Biases.pdf

[8]Ibid.

[9]Ibid.

[10]Robinson, Howard, "Dualism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

[11]Norenzayan,"Cognitive biases...," op cit.

[12]Ibid.

[13]Ibid.

[14] McNamara, R. A., Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2016). Supernatural punishment, in-group biases, and material insecurity: Experiments and ethnography from Yasawa, Fiji. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6, 34-55.

Who is Really Self Actuzliaed, Atheists or Theists?

Yeat another example of atheist attempt at social sciences, on the blog: God is for suckers

An atheist on the blog linked above discovered that actual sercet to realising the reality of God and he's too ignorant and vein to even figure what it means. He's trying to prove that Atheists are self actualized nd religious people not. In fact the studies actually, including those by Maslow whom he quotes and lauds, quite the opposite. Studies show that religious people are self actualized and atheists are not. But this guy, can't find his name, doesn't have a clue. So he uses anecdotal evidence and just asserts "all the atheists I nkow are like this so they must be self actualized, I hate Christianity so it must not be."

Here is how this advanced self actuzed enlightened human describes his site:

Commentary, news, and rants on the evils and stupidity of belief in the big invisible daddy in the sky. Illuminating and watchdogging the widespread attempts to institutionalize the theocratic rule of the US. Making fun of believers everywhere.

---

The graphic is from his blog

Now he's going to tell us what self actually is:

Atheism As Self Actualization

12 August 2007 by KA

Let’s talk about actualization, you and I. Take a good, strong look at where we stand.

Abraham Maslow, in 1943, a leader in humanistic psychology, came up with the theory of self-actualization.

No, this is no New Age nonsense: it’s not some Deepak Chopra chaff. It’s a theory that makes a lotta sense.

Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs is as follows:

a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of man’s innate curiosity. His theory contended that as humans meet ‘basic needs’, they seek to satisfy successively ‘higher needs’ that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”^[1] Maslow also studied one percent of the healthiest college student population. While Maslow’s theory was regarded as an improvement over previous theories of personality and motivation, it had its detractors. For example, in their extensive review of research that is dependent on Maslow’s theory, Wabha and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described, or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all.

his description of the nature of self actualization. He's quoting an article on Answers.com Even though he basis his arugment upon Maslow he takes issue with Maslows ideas.

I disagree with this last sentence. We require our physical needs be met. We yearn for security, routine. As pack animals, we absolutely must be loved, and provided with a sense of belonging. From those three, flows the fourth. We are, after all, hierarchal creatures.

My addendum to this, is that the religious folks are pretty much stuck at the Esteem level.

As pack animals we must be loved? He's making leap into unsupported claims by implying that love is a need of pack animals. He makes the unsupported assertion that religious people are stuck in one of the phases. Of course he can't see atheists aer stuck just the rule keeping stage. This is a rank armature.I am betting he's in high school, it's certain he has not studied social sciences at the college level.

Now he's going in deeper, from supported claims to anecdotal evidence.

Let’s elaborate, with a personal anecdote. I had a pretty tough childhood (yeah, I know, we all did, just bear with me). Insecure, bullied, wrestling with the divergent hormone avalanche, I sought out alternative ways of validation. Food was one. The occult was another.

It gave me a secret, it gave me the illusion of power. Adolescent fantasies of strength. Luckily, I outgrew all that folderol.

And here is my take: there are many, many things in this life, this world, this universe, that are out of our individual control. Weather, other people’s behavior, other variables over which we exert zero control.

Of course if his low self esteem is what drove him to atheism, then we would search through a succession of positions that would grant him the best illusion of power and worth. It somehow just doesn't occur to him that since he hasn't gotten healed emotionally then the one stuck with is just the one that offers the greater illusion. So my theory about atheists is that they are into the hate because it give them the rush of feeling Superior. They can prop up their failing self esteem by saying "look at these stupid religious slobs, they are so much dumber than i am." One would never think that by reading he hateful intro to his blog above.

So it is in this cloak of flesh we wear, that insecurity plagues us, dogs our footsteps, and sends the wearer on various bunny trails.

Gnostic dualism yet?

So, of all the paths we tread, those that are most tempting, are the ones that are well trodden, that whisper of the ego of personal power. Whether it be of ourselves as the mighty warrior or the keeper of darkness, the vessel of some ghostly power that will act upon us or to impart some supernatural element in hopes that all will be made right one day, that keening wail of the down-trodden that someone comes someday to pass judgment so that the scales will be righted.

If we look at the fifth level, the formula comes clear: most atheists I know are in possession of those attributes (that I know of: there are exceptions, no doubt).

Atheism is what adults do, that is, when the bloom is off the adolescent rose.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Let's talk about what adult don't do. First of all, if they have academic training at all, even at the undergraduate level, they don't' blather unsupported assertions and they try to support them with nothing more anecdotal evidence. This is nothing more than the atheist tendency to play social scientist which we see going awry in so many failed atheist arguments all over the net. This is about the worst one I've ever seen. Another thing adults don't do is mock, ridicule and deride people with other view points just becuase they differ from our own. The only reason this guy doesn't this is because he's not an adult he's probably a high school kid rebelling against Dad because because he's gotten a big does of super ego to counter his own id, and obviously he discovered some bits of psychoanalytic theory and he can resist trying to play shrink.

And so we as atheists go about, attempting to educate our fellow adults, who are trying to clutch the dreams of their youth with tremulous hands. It falls to us, then, to lead the world to maturity.

This is the
Apostate, signing off.

so that's what they are doing when they mock, deride, and ridicule me and claim I didn't go to graduate school and refuse to read the posts I spend hours researching, and tell me I have never read the books I've read. They are trying to educate me. In what? In anecdotal evidence?

To be an educator my deal little ignoramus you must know something! You do not know shit from shinola!

The fact of the matter is Maslow would have thought this approach imbecilic. Maslow, though an atheist, did not think religious people were fools. he said "atheists and believers can go a long way down the path together." He admired religious people adn thought they were strong. He admired because the research data that he did proved that people with religious experience re much more self actualized than those who don't have it.

I'll say it again. The studies show that people who have religious experience (what Mslow called "peak experience") other call "mystical," score much higher on self actualization tests than do atheists.

Maslow was concerned with showing healthy psychology. He noted that Freud,Jung, and all the major thinkers in the field of psychology focused on what makes people abnormal, they wanted to know what makes people healthy. His notion of self actualization is the idea, the epitome of healthy psychology. In his research Maslow discovered that religious people tended to be more self actualized than those who do not have religious experiences and he wrote a book about it: Religious Values and Peak Experience (the entire text of the book is on line).



studies have validated Maslow:


Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 3, 92-108 (1982)
DOI: 10.1177/0022167882223011

Scale Development and Theory Testing

Eugene W. Mathes

Department of Psychology, Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois 61455.

The research reported here involved the creation of a measure of the tendency to have peak experiences called the Peak Scale, and the testing of several hypotheses drawn from Maslow's theory of peak experiences. It was found that although individuals who report having peak experiences are also likely to report having experiences involving intense happiness, they are even more prone to report having cognitive experiences of a transcendent and mystical nature. This suggests that although the peak experience involves positive affect, it is primarily a transcendent and mystical cognitive event. Individuals who report having peak experiences are more likely to report living in terms of Being-values, such as truth, beauty, and justice, than individuals who report not having peak experiences. Finally, self-actualizing individuals are more likely to report having peak experiences than less self-actualizing individuals, though the relationship is not a very strong one. In general, these results are consistent with Maslow's theorizing.

Many other studies have done as well.



Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:

"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Gagenback

Quote:

In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)

But let us turn to quotations by Maslow himself, becuase it's very instructive. Maslow was an atheist but the had Buddhist leanings and he did not hate religious people. He respected religious people, especially mystics. He said:

My feeling is that if it were never to happen again, the power of the experience could permanently affect the attitude toward life. A single glimpse of heaven is enough to confirm its existence even if it is never experienced again. It is my strong suspicion that even one such experience might be able to prevent suicide, for instance, and perhaps many varieties of slow self-destruction, e.g., alcoholism, drug-addiction, addiction to violence, etc. I would guess also, on theoretical grounds, that peak-experiences might very well abort "existential meaninglessness," states of valuelessness, etc., at least occasionally. (These deductions from the nature of intense peak-experiences are given some support by general experience with LSD and psilocybin. Of course these preliminary reports also await confirmation.

This then is one kind of peak-knowledge of whose validity and usefulness there can be no doubt, any more than there could be with discovering for the first time that the color "red" exists and is wonderful. Joy exists, can be experienced and feels very good indeed, and one can always hope that it will be experienced again.

and again:

Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it invovles a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypical symbols? (For more on archetypes see Jesus Chrsit and Mythology page II) The "prematives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numenous, that is the origin of religion."

"In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, fromPeak Experience

Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred and the eternal is blind... does that sound like the adult Maslow is ready to join in with your friend in mocking and ridiculing religious thought?

The Greely study spcificially disproves the notion this guy sets forth that religious people are losers and unsuceesful and trying to pretend about a "sky daddy" becuase they can't make it in life:

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)

Long term effects of religious experience have been demonstrated by such major studies as Noble and Wuthnow:

Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:

*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

Short-Term Effects (usually people who did not previously know of these experiences)

*Experience temporarily disorienting, alarming, disruptive
*Likely changes in self and the world,
*space and time, emotional attitudes, cognitive styles, personalities, doubt sanity and reluctance to communicate, feel ordinary language is inadequate

*Some individuals report psychic capacities and visionary experience destabilizing relationships with family and friends Withdrawal, isolation, confusion, insecurity, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, panic, restlessness, grandiose religious delusions

Links to Maslow's Needs, Mental Health, and Peak Experiences When introducing entheogens to people, I find it's helpful to link them to other ideas people are familiar with. Here are three useful quotations. 1) Maslow - Beyond Self Actualization is Self Transcendence ``I should say that I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still `higher' Fourth Psychology, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, selfactualization and the like.''

Abraham Maslow (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, Second edition, -- pages iii-iv.



2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.

``Within the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.



3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences

``It is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.




Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

"These states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig (1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of society have been reported including education and business as well as personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al., 1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group have found that mystical experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."

(4) Greater happiness


Religion and Happiness

by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD


Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness



Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.

J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:

"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]

70% of the time believers are more likely than non believers (or at least experiences are more likely than non experiencers) to have these effects of self actualization

Atheist Propagadna and Religious Experience

 

 

 

 

Perhaps nothing scares atheists like feelings. They scared to death of religious experience arguments. Nothing raises their hatred like talking about religious experiences. Daren Brown is some sort of British stage magician who has a new stage act supposedly inducing religious experiences. Atheists waste no time in arguing that this is proof that such experiences are just accidents that mean nothing. He states "I examined the Placebo effect and proved just how powerful fear and faith can be." Of course he assumes that because there is a psychological process that produces faith that then there's no object of faith beyond that process that has any real bearing on life. This is really no different than the one's who claim to stimulate parts of the brain to induce religoius experiences.

In calling it "placebo" he's trying to set up the suggestion that it's unreal, it's unnecessary, God is the great cosmic sugar pill. Then he totally ignores the nature of real placebo. It's only for medicine, there's no evidence that such suggestive keys can manipulate us apart from expectation. All the things that he does in relation to evoking the psychological process are manipulative means of setting up the association. Yet most religious experience of the sort called "mystical" is not expected. In about half the time it's experienced in childhood, and much of the time mystical experiences contradict the doctrine of the experincer. If it was a real placebo it should confirm expectations. Placebo work by expectation. They don't work by challenging expectations. Calling it a placebo is wrong and improper and it's probably only done to evoke the concept and prepare the atheist to inoculated against emotion by making her suspicious of religious feelings.

He sets up several incidents before the main show (the phony atheist conversion) that are intended to get across the idea that suggestion works powerfully and most such feelings as one associates with the supernatural are also just manipulation. He makes people feel afraid by putting them in a room alone after reading to them some satanic right supposedly form the eleventh century. People are turned on by a sense of dark mysterious and ancient.  He gave people a fake drug which is no more than a sugar pill and by getting them to believe in it I got them to make dramatic changes in their lives. Of course he doesn't follow them in their lives or do a longitudinal study to determine if the changes are really transformational (dramatic, positive, and long term). He has no real control and no real way of determining if he's given anyone a real experience. Empirical study has demonstrated that religious experience is real, that's transformational, and that there is a way to determine real experiences from phony ones. No there is no proof direly that it's caused by God but this can be argued successfully by paying attention to what can be proved and using it with logic. It is the M scale that provides us with that means of verification for religious experience and it's been validated by a half dozen studies around the world.

His psychological explanation for the process is typically convoluted and not well throughout. He does an experiment that shows people in private when not watched lie about their mistakes. The idea is tp show that there's a presence in the room no one cheats. If people are given a idea of supernatural presence they act more moral. It is asserted that there are evolutionary reasons why we developed the idea of a supernatural presence. Don't want to be outcast form the tribe so we can reproduce. divine presence would ensure the sense of being cought out. God is made up to make us be moral. In other words like Foucault's take on the Panopticon the prisoners are learning to watch themselves. The problem here is he's convoluted several different reasons in to one.

First of all, if we feel a sense of presence that in itself is reason to assume we feel it. It doesn't have to be the result of needing a moral campus and inviting an invisible God. the illustration itself shows cave men ostracize a guy because he lied. So the fact of how people treated each other would be the reason for moral behavior and the fear of being rejected by the tribe and not being allowed to make would be enforcement enough, why make up an internal watch dog to do the job as well? If one has not felt experiences one doesn't know what they are. why invent a psychological process to evoke them then try to explain them. The fact that one has had such experience itself the reason to believe in the reality of such experiences, then the need to explain it comes out of having the need. The idea of ancient cave men trying to produce a sophisticated psychological technique for evoking some experience they haven't had is ridiculous and if they had it, it has its own reality.If they had it prior to producing the process of evoking it then it is real.

 Brown is certain that the experience explained by psychology. He asserts that these kinds of experiences come from big religious rallies with hyper suggestibility but there's no basis for that assumption. He's not using M scale studies to determine what percentage of religious experience is privately induced and percentage comes out of the big hyper rallies. Here's a clue, with half coming in childhood they are not coming form big rallies.

Then he goes through an elaborate production to produce a fake conversion in an atheist woman. He dose this indirectly without mentioning God. He uses several techniques such as tapping his fingers while they talk about her father to make her associate emotions the sound of the tapping with feelings of fatherly love. In several ways he evokes feelings of powerful father figure to bring atheist to believe. Establishes rapport. learns about her father. The woman is unconsciously processing, core religious belief evoked that God has plan for us and pulls strings to help us. No direct mention of God was made the woman made the connection to God herself through feelings of the father figure (tap tap tap). Brown says things that imply a grand plan, talk about things going wrong for a reason. sense of awe and wonder. Talks about the stars and space, evokes being cherished with awe. The woman describes her experience as "all the love in the world had been thrown at me. I pushed it away by not letting it into my life." Now she sees it's so stupid and she sees through it.

He says "I feel douty bound to make sure you understand that the postive stuff you got through this is not religious belief." This is what he tells her latter after they brought back befoer the audiecne. She's already been debriefed. He says explicitly "it certainly didn't come form God." The result of this elaborate dog and pony show is that we are supposed to come away with the grand feeling religion has been totally exposed and deconstructed and unraveled we see close up who fake it is there's no need for it. Of course the Brit media is opporating from the assumption that atheism is the standard, the grounding for society, the status quoe. The Audience is pre slected to reflect this idea. So one's going to challenge it.

It is a dog and pony show, he has no longitudinal study, no double blind, no control, he has no scale to measure the nature, depth, or effect of experience. He has no theory of religious experience to play it off of. That is all very crucial without that he's proved nothing. He can't guarantee that what she experienced is even a religious experience. One clue to that question is she says nothing about undifferentiated unity. she didn't say that she felt an all pervasive presence. She felt there's a plan and a purpose and she's cared for but that doesn't prove that it's the same religious experience that W.T. Stace talked about (see my link above on M scale).

The real problem is without a control there's no way to know if he isn't just evoking the we are given by God to be able to find him. The fact that he's evoking some of them doesn't prove that they are merely a matter of manipulation. There was no guy tapping when I got saved. Any associations that were evoked alone in my living room had to be coincidental or accidental rather than arranged. To say that there's a psychological process that enables to internalize the value of belief in God is hardly a denunciation of the reality of validity of that process. So there is a psychological process and we can manipulate it. I also had a need for a father figure, and guess what, I had a father. Saying that having a psychosocial need disproves the reality of the solution is just foolish.

That's like saying you have proved that love is just a psychological trick becuase when you when you do  things to make them think they are loved they respond emotionally. He's giving all the ques that God would give us to guide into a relationship with him, thus they respond becuase it's put in them to respond. The only real test of the validity of such feelings is the long term change and production of positive experiences and behaviors resulting from it. Plenty of studies establish that this is the case with mystical experience. It's not been proved that it is the case with phony evoked experiences.

 Essentially there is a psychological process to conversion. it make sense that there would be becuase if God wants us to have  a personal relationship with him then there must be affects which would draw us into a psychological state that is conducive to that relationship. Those affects are not hard to find because we all know  about them, the they things that motivate us and turn us on. So he merely found them and induced them in cleaver ways.

oct 13

Atheism is not increasing as of Nov 2015

The atheists propaganda machine is at it again. Another spate of articles based loosely upon a Pew study talking about Christianity is in decline. As I write it is Nov. 3,2015. They are still failing to distinguish between affiliation and belief in God. The Pew Study says belief in God is holding steady what is declining is affiliation with organized religion. The amalgamation none as "none" (as in religious affiliation: none) is what is growing and while those do include atheists they are not the majority in the category. First let's look at the propaganda. Friendly Atheist Blog says "the momentum is with us." He's talking about the results of a Pew study that follows up the 2014 follow up to the 2009 follow up to the 2007 study. The comment section is hilarious:

Aloha:
"People who believe in God have decreased among the unaffiliated. (Top chart - right side
As usual,"

Rastaman 462 says "the momentum is on our side. When it comes to belief in God, it’s getting smaller with each generation."[It's within the margin of error]

The wretched:
[Atheist reasoning. I told them about the margin of error.]
"You haven't show you can read survey results, why would we believe you when you are telling us what we think? [wrongly I might add, I quoted the study directly; If I haven't proven I understand the results then they have proven to me they can't count. 3%is obvious.]

Astreja
"Kind of hard to bail when you're already at the bottom of the lake." [I'm at the bottom when it's 3% atheist vs 89% Christians?]

The figures they rave about say that belief in God declined from 92% to 89%, That's 3% which is in the margin of error. In an election they would call it a dead heat. But "religion hasn't changed" is not comforting to atheists, nor does it sell copy. My thesis is that there is a real problem and Christians should not feel complacent. Yet belief in God is not declining.

Let's look at some of the articles fueling this orgiastic triumphalism

Tobin Grant, Religion News Service
"he great decline"
http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/ They explain the gradual decline they chart over five decades but they never explain what they take as "average." With no analysis of the context for establishing the "average" the whole thing is meaningless.

The graph of this index tells the story of the rise and fall of religious activity. During the post-war, baby-booming 1950s, there was a revival of religion. Indeed, some at the time considered it a third great awakening. Then came the societal changes of the 1960s, which included a questioning of religious institutions. The resulting decline in religion stopped by the end of the 1970s, when religiosity remained steady. Over the past fifteen years, however, religion has once again declined. But this decline is much sharper than the decline of 1960s and 1970s. Church attendance and prayer is less frequent. The number of people with no religion is growing. Fewer people say that religion is an important part of their lives. All measures point to the same drop in religion: If the 1950s were another Great Awakening, this is the Great Decline.

RNS is a non-profit, limited liability corporation owned by the Religion Newswriters Foundation and based at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., with a business office at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Mo. RNS’s mission is to provide in-depth, non-sectarian coverage of religion, spirituality and ideas.

Apparently they also deal in yellow journliam.

What does the pew study really say?

Pew Research Center: US public becomes less religious. Nov 3, 215
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious

"The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007.1"

As I said before this is in the margin of error. They alway7s assume any survey could be off by 3% so they call it a dead heat in an election. What is really funny is that they will answer my book by saying M scale is a survey so it's not scientific, when it's a survey that suggests a loss in God belief atheists are all to happy to accept the validity of surveys. But atheism is not increasing in fact it could be an increase in belief since it's in the margin of error.

But the Pew Research Center study also finds a great deal of stability in the U.S. religious landscape. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the “nones” – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith. Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. Indeed, by some conventional measures, religiously affiliated Americans are, on average, even more devout than they were a few years ago.

Belief in God is down among the nones. It's down from 71% to 61% but that's 61% of 10% of the country so it's in the 3% over all. Nones up from 16-23% That is not a loss in belief in God it's a loss in Christianity or maybe not even that but in organized church goers. Over all 77% still identify with a faith.

Pew Research Center surveys consistently show that not all religious “nones” are nonbelievers. In fact, the majority of Americans without a religious affiliation say they believe in God. As a group, however, the “nones” are far less religiously observant than Americans who identify with a specific faith. And, as the “nones” have grown in size, they also have become even less observant than they were when the original Religious Landscape Study was conducted in 2007. The growth of the “nones” as a share of the population, coupled with their declining levels of religious observance, is tugging down the nation’s overall rates of religious belief and practice.

Gallop offers figures from a a 75 year period given that long view we can see a real change in the level of non affiliated in the last 20 years but while that is undeniable there have been ups and downs before.

Galllop Religion

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/Religion.aspx It's only been within the last 20 years that none and non-denominational grew enough to report. While none has increased a from 2% to 16% (1948-2016) so has non-denominational grew proportionately. The loss in protestants could be taken up in growth for non-denom and none.Between 1948 and 2015 Protestant declined from 69 to 37%. Call it 40%. That 20% could be the 10% rise in nonn-denominational and 10% none that would fit with the stats. The majority of nones still believe in God. That would only be a 5% decrease in Christianity. That means there could be no increase in atheism. Most of that fits with the charismatic movement that spawned ecumenical feelings. We see from the graphic at the top that religiosity has held stable much more so than the religious news article would have us believe.

1948 prots 69%	Non dom na	Catholic 22%	None 2%
1958 Prots 69	Non dom na	Cathyolic 23	none 2

68

1968 prots 67	non denom n	Catholic 25	nonje = 3
1998 prots 58	non denom na	Cathoics 27	non 6

2008 prots 47	nondenom 8	Catholic 22	none 12
2014 prots 37	nondenom 10	catholics 23	none 16

While America slips in Christian id China gains.

Realistically we should assume there's been more loss in Christian belief, maybe 20%. That is a problem Christians should be concerned. At the same time there is an increase in Christians in places like China.

US News and world Report: God isn't losing Ground
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/faith-

At the same time, according to "A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China," Christianity is surging in China. The authors of the new book – Rodney Stark, co-director of Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, and sociologist Xiuhua Wang – explained that in 2007 there were about 60 million Christians in Communist China. Now, they noted, more than 40 new Christian churches (not including underground churches) are starting up every week. "If this trend were to hold for even another decade," they wrote, "there would be more Christians in China than any other nation in the world."

Jill	Smith	50	fred
Eve	Jackson	94

Atheist Social Science Menu

Atheist Social Sciences




Atheism not increasing in America: nov 2015New

The God Disproving Industry*NEW!*
A huge amount of studies done to disprove God they almost
always have crappie methodology

Who is actually self actualized, Atheists or Theists?New

Philosophy and History of Science Disprove Atheism New
Various articles on philosphy and history of scinece and how
they disproves or elucidate atheist ideology.


Is Belief in God Magical Thinking?
a clear exampe of the atheist illusion of technique applied
to "religious thought" and the falsehood of that appraoch.


Are Atheists Their Brother's Keepers?New
Saslow study indicates atheists give more and more motivated
by compassion than religious people. The study has problems.

Are Religious People at Risk for Depression?New
New study form Europe idicates Religous people there are
at higher risk for depression than in U.S. A huge body of
work shows not true.

Atheist Propaganda and Religious Experience
Con Man Darren Brown Fakes Religious Experience
arguing that if he can induce them they are not real.


 Atheist Inflation: Atheists Infalte Numbers
to Look More Popular
 constant refernce to atheism increasing are exaggerated

Zuckerman (Phil) and Paul an Introduction
the idea that increased education increases atheism and causes religious decline

(Phil) Zuckerman File parts 1-3.Includes new paper on history welfare state in Sweden


Nigel Barber's Study: Part 1 cross national test
of uncertainty hypothesis (the Cross Cultural Research Article)
the notion that religion is based upon fear of uncertainty and
declines with increase in income.

Barber part 2: Psychology Today Article
"The Human Beast."
Summarizing his Cross cultural article.


Are Christians More Likely to Go To Prison?
Some atheists argue Christians are 40x more likley but
I have proved their stats are fabricated. Page 2
page 3 A discussion about the question "did Swift fabricate
the Data. (Christians more likely to go to Prison)

Switching faiths in Prison is common according to Pew Sutdy

Study among Chaplains shows that people switch faiths,
Thus the no way to prove that the percentage of Chrsitians in
prison reflects the fate of Christians in society. In other words
many of them became Chrsitians in prison.
Religious Belief and IQ File (Atheist IQ scam)
Includes New Major IQ Study, (by Zuckerman)  
 Part 2 Zuckerman IQ study

Are Natural Scientists Smarter Than Believers? 


Religious belief of Professors Reflects that of General Population.
Taken across the board n all fields, the majority of professors are religious.

Atheist Propaganda On Prayer: Controlled Studies vs. Empirical Miracles
Not studies done by atheists, but atheist spin on prayer studies vs. Lourdes
miracles.

Prayer Study and Atheist Echo Chamber
atheists try to cast suspicion on Lourdes medical committee
their suspicions are disproved.

Center for Inquiry: Atheist Propaganda Machine
Propaganda Machine tries to pass itself off as a valid
research institute does bogus studies inflating the percentage
of atheists in America.

Half Scientists Believe in God.

Is Higher Religious Higher Self Esteem only a Measure of Cultural Norm?
Studies show that religious people have higher self esteem than non religious, but
new study implies this is only in countries where religion is valued.

More Improper Use of Survey Results by Atheists:

New Pew Study: Atheism not Increasing in World Population
every other month a new article comes out saying atheism is increaseing.
Now they make a big thing of the rise of the "nons" but atheism is not 
increasing. 

Are atheists increasing in world population?
Earlier from the one above, the one above is in asnwer to this.
This one warns of the bogus Gallup international.


No Rise In Atheism in America
Atheist claim atheism goes up to 19% but follow the data the truth is
they speaking of 19% of 5% of U.S. Media Hype in USA Today exaggerates
increase in unaffiliated and references old survey that puts atheism at 1.6% real 


American Belief in God in Decline? Half Don't believe with Certainty.
1/6/14. a new Harris poll is bothering people with this new scare that
atheism is increasing.

Social Science that supports validity
of Religious Belief.

 300 studies support Value of Religion


 

Are Athesits their Borther's Keeprs?

 



A Study supposedly shows that atheists are more motivated by compassion than are religious people. Atheists have used this in various ways to show that atheist can be moral, that relgion doesn't produce compassion and so on. The study is done by entitled "My Brother's Kepper: Compassion Predicts Generocity More Among Less Religious Individuals."[1] First published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, 00 (0) April (2012) 1-8. The Authors were Laura R. Saslow and Bob Willer, et al. It was published on line before print and can found in a pdf:

http://rifters.com/real/articles/MyBrothersKeeperCompassionPredictsGenerosityMoreAmongLessReligiousIndividuals.pdf

Abstract

Past research argues that religious commitments shape individuals’ prosocial sentiments, including their generosity and solidarity. But what drives the prosociality of less religious people? Three studies tested the hypothesis that, with fewer religious expec-

tations of prosociality, less religious individuals’ levels of compassion will play a larger role in their prosocial tendencies. In Study 1, religiosity moderated the relationship between trait compassion and prosocial behavior such that compassion was more critical to

the generosity of less religious people. In Study 2, a compassion induction increased generosity among less religious individuals but not among more religious individuals. In Study 3, state feelings of compassion predicted increased generosity across a variety of

economic tasks for less religious individuals but not among more religious individuals. These results suggest that the prosociality of less religious individuals is driven to a greater extent by levels of compassion than is the prosociality of the more religious.[2]

 They want to know if religion makes people more pro-social does it make them more compassionate? If not then can non reiloigious people be more compassionate. They use giving money to charity as the benchmark and thus decide that non religious are more compassinate not because they give more money but becuase tehy have fewer motivations to do in addition to compassion. So they see non religous motivation as stripped away compassion is what's left but religous people more more than one motivation. Let's look at the methodology and results.

Methodology

Across three studies, we compared the influence of compassion

on prosocial tendencies among more and less religious

individuals. In Study 1, we examined whether religiosity would

moderate the relationship of trait compassion on prosocial

behavior. We hypothesized that trait compassion would be

more critical to the generosity of the less religious than the

more religious. In Study 2, we tested whether a compassion

induction (vs. a neutral video) would increase generosity

among less religious individuals, but not among more religious

individuals. In Study 3, we assessed if momentary feelings of

compassion would predict increased generosity across a variety

of economic tasks for less religious individuals but not more

religious individuals. By measuring and manipulating compas-

sion, and measuring various forms of generous tendencies and

behavior, across three studies we test our hypothesis that

compassion is more integral to the generosity of the less

religious versus the more religious[3]

 They used a scale: Items include,

"I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,When I see someone beingtaken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them, andOther people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a greatdeal" (reverse-scored). that' how they measure compassion.

Results

Study 1 yielded evidence in s

upport of our main hypothesis:

Religiosity moderated the relationship between compassion

and prosocial behavior such that the compassion-to-

prosociality link was stronger for less religious individuals than

it was for more religious individuals. Further, these results held

while controlling for gender, political orientation, and educa-

tional attainment—variables that might otherwise account for

our findings. In sum, these findings indicate that although com-

passion is associated with prosociality among both less reli-

gious and more religious individuals, this relationship

is particularlyrobust for less religious individ.[4]

That's the result for study 1 the others are similar.

Obviously there are definitional issues that need to be addressed. There is a methodological problem involving the nature of their definition of religion. how do they define religious? they say more religious are more conservative are they just saing religion = conservative thus not counting liberals as motivated?

Religiosity.

Participants indicated the strength of their

religious identity. The scale was recoded so that higher values

represent greater religiosity: 1 (no religion), 2 (not very strong religious identity), 3 (somewhat strongreligious identity), and 4(strong religious identity),M¼2.99,SD¼1.03. Single-item

measures of religiosity have been found to have sufficient

reliability and predictive validity in other work (Gorsuch &McFarland, 1972[5]

That's pretty shallow understanding of religious faith. That's going to be a problem for them. It's not just a matter of either you religious or you are not. There are levels of commitment. It's not too absurd or hard to to prove to assert that those are are more deeply convicted and who have had spiritual encounters would take the teachings more seriously and be willing to live by them. This has major import in two ways. First of all because it means that there's more involved than just feeling compassion and giving. Their major study says that non religious people have compassion as a motivator more so than religious people. That doesn't prove that religious people are less compassionate. It means that religious people might have three or four motives for giving and compassion might not be the main one (like doctrine or teaching might be more important). Non religious people will have mainly just that, compasion. This is the way the study has been understood by critics. "That doesn't mean highly religious people don't give, according to the research to be published in the July 2012 issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. But compassion seems to drive religious people's charitable feelings less than it other groups."[6] One of the study co-author's says:

"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," study co-author and University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer said in a statement. "The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns."[7]

In other words it's not that the religious people are less compassionate but that they may not use compassion as the top of lexically ordered value system they go by.

The other reason knowing the depth of commitment matters is because "religious" covers a lot of ground. It includes people who don't feel the love and those who do. If you don't examine them in separate groups the averages will probably be dragged down by the less committed group. Like having bad students brings down the class average. There is a lot of evidence that those who experience the real spiritual side of their faiths are more giving and have more social consciousness than those who don't. Andrew Newberg says the kind of faith is what make the difference in terms of the result of faith upon the subject.

h+: In your new book, How God Changes Your Brain, you argue that religious fundamentalism can actually be good for you. How do you figure?
AN: It really depends on the nature of the belief. Fundamentalism, per se, isn’t bad or good. It all depends on the nature of one’s beliefs. We’ve found that if one’s beliefs are positive and loving and compassionate that can have a very profound effect on one’s health and happiness. But the opposite is true. If you believe in a punishing god, or if that fundamentalism preaches hate and anger — then the effects are going to be bad. Anxiety levels will go up, a stress response can occur, and like any stressor, if that continues for long enough, it’s going to impact health outcomes in a negative way. The real point is that what we believe has a very direct effect on the quality of our lives and we need to remember that.[8]

Two major studies of mystical experience found that those experienced the form of spirituality known as "mystical" or "peak" experience tended to have increased sense of social consciousness and became more giving. These studies are by Greely and Wuthnow.

Other positive consequences of religious experience include being less authoritarian and racist, less materialistic and status conscious, and showing more social concern and more self-assurance (Greeley 1975, Wuthnow 1978). In fact, it is in large part because of such consequences that scholars continue to acknowledge the importance of the experiential dimension of religion, even if not many study it.[9]

There are some studies that show religious people either have a high level of pro social behavior and/or generosity and compassion.John Lieff reports higher moral development among mystics.[10]
It's important to understand that just doing the two hours a week in chruch and hearing that we should love and be good to people is not enough to change one into a Mother Teresa. Those who have had actual spiritual encounter with the divine have been changed. They will always be the minority and so the average is drug down. There studies form scholarly sources that show not only giving and compassoin assocaited with religious belief but pro social behavior in general. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion finds:

An important discrepancy seems to exist between self-reports and laboratory studies regarding prosociality among religious people. Some have even suggested that this involves moral hypocrisy on the part of religious people. However, the assumption of the four studies reported here is that the impact of religiousness on prosociality is limited but exists, and does not reflect self-delusion. In Study 1 (N= 106), religious young adults tended not to use indirect aggression in dealing with hypothetical daily hassles. In Study 2 (N= 105), female students' religiosity was associated with willingness to help close targets in hypothetical situations but the effect was not extended to unknown targets. In Studies 3 (N= 315, 105 triads) and 4 (N= 274, 109 targets), religious targets not only reported high altruistic behavior and empathy, but were also perceived as such by peers (friends, siblings, or colleagues) in three out of four cases. Other results from the studies suggested that the prosociality of religious people is not an artifact of gender, social desirability bias, security in attachment, empathy, or honesty.[11]

One critique against the kind of study Saslow conduction with laboratory conditions is a study of  Israeli Jewish women Published by McGill University that seems to indicate the short comings of laboratory conditions. The study indicates that religious prompts have to be backed by real world ques that reinforce the religious training.

We may conclude based on the results that reports show higher charity and volunteering among the religious not because they are more altruistic, but rather because these individuals live in an environment that more often pressures them to give, in accordance with popular moral codes. As explained previously, worship rituals and holidays often contain cues to give money and time (Shapiro 1971; Bird 1982; Cascio 2003). Without exposure to customs designed in part to solicit donations, it is possible that the non-religious inclination to give often lies dormant.[12]

  Those findings might seem to be anti-religion as a force for giving, it must be pointed out the atheists would have the very same motive to exaggerate giving. They have social ques and a social movement (many tend to be politically liberal) that endorses compassion and giving. In those studies that involve self reporting there would be a motive to exaggerate one's on giving.


a study by Einlof in Sociology of Religion Quarterly consisting of life narrative interview from midlife in the United States "examine how religious values, ideas, and language motivate prosocial behaviors." This including giving and self Scarface and living up the teachings of Christ.

Using ratings from independent coders, statistically significant relationships were found between most of the themes and prosocial behaviors, particularly for respondents who engaged in multiple helping behaviors. In addition to documenting the relationship between religious ideas and values and helping behaviors, the study demonstrates how language mediates the relationship between the social and personal aspects of religion.[13]

Reader of this blog, Yonose, had a cogent criticism:

I saw the Brothers Keepers' study from the link. It is interesting nonetheless. If there's a positive correlation between compassion, empathy and prosocial behaviour, this would actually imply that, somehow, less religious people need to be fed of compassion more consecutively, to do any good deed with our human brethren, by applying constant sense data by stimuli and induction. All of the above seems to be correct. I don't see anything weird about that by now.As a consequence,This would also mean that less religious people are easier to be lied to with political propaganda e.g. like SOME extremist environmental alarmists.Where I believe the study is somehow flawed in context, is the linking of a positive correlation between prosocial behaviour and the making of good deeds per se as universal, because many people who love to be vocal about their lack of religiousness, just like to do good deeds in a preferential way: most probably they will help non-religious people only. Such behaviours have been demonstrated by themselves over and over.It is just overly simplistic to have a positive correlation with compassion, by induction, lack of religiosity, and then conflating such, with the actual making of good deeds to people. There is not a single trace in that study that confirms which types of people they had helped, whether religious or not.

This would also imply that the idea of correlating actual charity with lack of religiousness is not a universal statement, and that it is completely falsifiable, and in consequence, it is not possible to make a proof that "Atheists have more compassion than religious people".That's where I agree that there's a double standard with these types of Atheists.This is just reduced to a mere political game. Have these types of Atheists forgot about their intellectual roots??

These high integration states were also correlated with peak experiences including inner calm, maximum wakefulness, alertness, lack of fear, effortlessness, a sense of perfection, and a sense of being “high.” In an unusual finding these people also had higher moral development, better self-image, better sleep and a better reputation. - See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences#sthash.tr6LYxOk.dpuf

These high integration states were also correlated with peak experiences including inner calm, maximum wakefulness, alertness, lack of fear, effortlessness, a sense of perfection, and a sense of being “high.” In an unusual finding these people also had higher moral development, better self-image, better sleep and a better reputation. - See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences#sthash.tr6LYxOk.dpuf

I agree.

These high integration states were also correlated with peak experiences including inner calm, maximum wakefulness, alertness, lack of fear, effortlessness, a sense of perfection, and a sense of being “high.” In an unusual finding these people also had higher moral development, better self-image, better sleep and a better reputation. - See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences#sthash.tr6LYxOk.dpuf

soruces

These high integration states were also correlated with peak experiences including inner calm, maximum wakefulness, alertness, lack of fear, effortlessness, a sense of perfection, and a sense of being “high.” In an unusual finding these people also had higher moral development, better self-image, better sleep and a better reputation. - See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences#sthash.tr6LYxOk.dpuf

These high integration states were also correlated with peak experiences including inner calm, maximum wakefulness, alertness, lack of fear, effortlessness, a sense of perfection, and a sense of being “high.” In an unusual finding these people also had higher moral development, better self-image, better sleep and a better reputation. - See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences#sthash.tr6LYxOk.dpu

[1] Laura R. Saslow, Robb Willer, Mathrew Feinberg, Paul K Piff, Katharine Clark, Cacher Kelntner, and Srina R. Saturn."My Brother's Kepper: Compassion Predicts Generocity More Among Less Religious Individuals."Social Psychological and Personality Science (April 26, 2012) 1948550612444137
pdf: http://rifters.com/real/articles/MyBrothersKeeperCompassionPredictsGenerosityMoreAmongLessReligiousIndividuals.pdf
accessed 11/12/13

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Staff Writer, "Atheists More Motivated by Compassion Than the Faithful," Live Science. (May 1, 2012) online ressource
http://www.livescience.com/20005-atheists-motivated-compassion.html
accessed 11/12/13

[7] Ibid.

[8] Andrew Newberg quoted by Steve Kotler, "the Neurology of Spiritual Experience" h* sept. 2009
http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/09/16/neurology-spiritual-experience/
accessed 11/12/13

[9] Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, William H. Swatos, Jr. editor
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/exp.htm
accessed 11/12/13

[10] John Lieff, Searching for the Mind,Online resource.
 http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extraordinary-mental-states-5-spiritual-and-religious-experiences
accessed 11/12/13.

[11] Vassilis Saroglou, Isabelle Pichon, et al. "Prosocial Behavior and Religion: New Evidence Based on Projective Measures and Peer Ratings" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Volume 44, Issue 3, , (September 2005), 323–348.

 Article first published online: 25 AUG 2005,DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2005.00289.x

pdf: http://www.uclouvain.be/cps/ucl/doc/psyreli/documents/2005.JSSR.pdf

[12] Salomon Israel and Maoz Brown, "Faith, Fellowship, and Philanthropy: Giving Rates as a Function of Religiosity among Israeli Jewish Women," McGill Sociological Review, Volume 3, February 2013, pp. 36-54.
On line versoin posted by McGill University: http://www.mcgill.ca/msr/volume3/article3

accessed 11/13/13.

[13]  Christopher J. Einolf. "The Link Between Religion and Helping Others: the Role of Values, Ideals, and Language." Sociology of Religion Quarterly Review  (2011) doi: 10.1093/socrel/srr017
first published online April 6, 2011.