Comments on: How Does Religion Influence Our Behavior?

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:46:03 +0000

Hi Kelly! Welcome to the blog!

I think faith might be one of the mechanisms whereby religion influences behavior.

@ SG: You’re welcome!

By: symbolicgodzilla

symbolicgodzilla — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:08:46 +0000

@Paul – My comment on a different article really belonged her. Thanks for your response to my page and starting the discussion.

@Kelly – Faith is such a complicated issue. I think the religion and faith tend to interconnect though I know many people who go through the habits of religion without a real faith in their God whereas there are many people who are full of faith without practicing any religion.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:24:11 +0000

Do you think it’s “religion”? I don’t. I think it’s faith. I think when one accepts faith as a way of knowing and understanding the world, the door is open for blatant dishonesty to be condoned as not only essential to the human experience, but ethical as well. That’s a huge problem when one grants one’s own autonomy and self-interest to one he/she thinks is the monitor of thoughts. I mean, if these people can be convinced that if they believe something “hard enough” with no evidence, then it’s automatically true, well then, what’s stopping them from taking whatever anyone else says on faith alone?

Or, I don’t know, maybe faith and religion are isolated elements. Maybe a god existing “makes sense,” but they rationally know no one can sell them the Brooklyn Bridge. But when reason ends, myth begins. I guess it just depends on where the person allows reason to end.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:50:09 +0000

@ Webs: I agree! I think that religion is a great enabler. Some people it enables to do ill. Some people it enables to do good. It seems pretty much up to the individual whether they use religion to enable them to do good or to do ill.

@ DOF: Unfortunately, I agree with you there seem to be no reliable external markers of character. It therefore seems a bit puzzling to me that so many people do indeed believe religion is a reliable marker.

@ Faisal: Your observation that many people change behavior when they adopt a religion — not because of the religion per se — but because of they were looking to change anyway — that strikes me as a deeply insightful observation. Thank you for that!

@ SG: I think the notion that confirmation bias has a lot to do with how we interpret our religion is a very profound insight indeed! Thanks for blogging about that!

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:25:07 +0000

In addition to SG's very good essay, there are some interesting comments on this subject and post here.

By: symbolicgodzilla

symbolicgodzilla — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:44:04 +0000

Hey Paul, I was really interested by your question so I wrote a whole entry about it but I really agree with you about ow it almost seems too complicated to fathom which came first.

By: Faisal

Faisal — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:28:31 +0000

I also believe that people might change their behavior once they start to believe in a certain religion or a certain belief, not because of that belief, but because they wanted something to be the trigger of change which they were ready for long time before even thinking to adopt that particular religion.

By: Faisal

Faisal — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:25:05 +0000

That’s a very smart way of putting it. I think many things in this life are relative and we usually fail to see that and rush into blind judging of others just because we want to finish it up, nothing more and nothing less.

By: decrepitoldfool

decrepitoldfool — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:27:03 +0000

I have been wrestling with this for a long time; religion serves a social purpose as an external marker of legitimacy, of good intentions, of trustworthiness. Of Truthiness. But does it correlate to any of those things at all? Or is that a common social fiction?

It’s an important question because people are desperate for reliable external markers of character. But my best guess on reality is that there aren’t any.

By: Webs

Webs — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:55:39 +0000

But then religion acts somewhat as an enabler either by giving meaning to actions or by taking advantage of personalities and weak minds.