The best Psychology & Religion books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Check out The Righteous Mind, a great and deep analysis of morality.

One of the takeaways I found fascinating is not that liberals and conservatives align differently on morality -- that's not really a surprise -- but that conservatives overall consider multiple different categories very important (e.g. sanctity, authority), while liberals HEAVILY consider fairness as a category that far outweighs the other moralities.

The short version is, it may feel satisfying to say that "Democrats will be fine with all that shit" and just sweep it under the rug, but I don't think that statement is true. I think the Democratic approach to leadership has plenty of its own flaws, but fairness is not one of them. I think Democrats tend to hold their own to higher expectations of fairness behavior than what we're seeing in the GOP.

(mods, please remove if my source is bad)

I like the book The Righteous Mind and its discussion of morality. One of the points it makes is that being loyal to one's tribe and obeying authority are deeply moral matters for some people - and that those are more important then being nice, or being fair. The President is the head of a group they identify with and thus they are loyal.

I recently read the book "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt. He's a social psychologist and tries to answer your question: how can a rational individual vote conservative, when that vote seems to go against one's self-interest? He answers the question by analyzing people's morality systems, and goes on to say that people don't vote based on rationality (active thinking), but based on morality (feelings). The book is very well written and meticulously built up -- I strongly recommend giving it a read! Amazon link here

The classic treatise on Cognitive Dissonance is When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger (the Psychologist who coined the term). It's a fascinating read. Festinger and a few of his students infiltrated a Chicago-based UFO cult in the 50s. They observed firsthand what happens in a religious group when presented with undeniable evidence that their beliefs are false.

If you want to understand the psychology of belief, this is an invaluable book.

You're starting to get it. You walked right past the real point.

I would suggest a book to you that you may find interesting.

Since you seem to like to compare religions for insight, this shows a method on how to do so.

Some make headlines for obvious reasons but come on, most?

I don't doubt that some homophobes are closeted, but most is an exaggeration.

Read "The Righteous Mind". Our perceptions of right and wrong frequently stem from our upbringing, and they rarely make sense.

Each religion tackles a different problem.

From the book God Is Not One:

Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission

Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation

Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening

Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God

I can only suggest you read his book or his research papers at this point because you have the wrong impression about how the research was done and you are rejecting the results because of your assumptions.

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0015141

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion-ebook/dp/B0052FF7YM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1621983200&sr=8-1

I apologize I don't have free links for either.

You might want to read Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion".https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion-ebook/dp/B0052FF7YM/

He explains that humans are fundamentally irrational creatures driven by intuition first then look for rationalization second.

People have an intuition about how the world should be. Religious people look for rationalization for that intuition in scripture and their faith tradition.

In conservative christianity, you're not going to convince anyone that being gay is NOT a sin unless and until they're willing to consider the possibility. They have to be willing to listen to the stories LGBTQ+ people tell about their experience. They have to meet and come to love LGBTQ+ people as individuals.

Their intuition about how the world should be has to change first.

I know I will get downvoted but this book gives a somewhat convincing case that very young kids (age 2-5) most likely believe in some type of a creator without indoctrination..

Appreciate your compassion and suggestions. Thank you kindly.

There's an illuminating and relevant collection of work about somewhat similar states of being called "Spiritual Emergency" with Ram Dass, Stan Grof, and others.

Without delving too deep into a complex issue, I've discovered that the resonances I mention extend beyond the online digital matrix. There are definitely algorithms that data-mine everything and create feedback loops using keywords and such, but the really bizarre realization is that the echo-like nature (what Dr. John C Lilly called the Earth Coincidence Control Office [ECCO]) cascades over into the so-called real world. For example, phrases are repeated back to me: I'll say something on the phone to one individual, and then later that day have the exact phrase said to me from an entirely different person. If the reality could indicate the purpose of these recursive repeats it would be easier to deal with why it duplicates and reverberates redundantly. It can be alienating and disorienting to impart a specific phrase to someone, like the number: 161803, and then have a totally different individual repeat it back to me in a separate and unrelated occasion. Is this a common experience for other people? It truly feels like being in the matrix.

Great recommendation about spending time in nature. I enjoy being outdoors - sauntering and cavorting on this beautiful planet. The extended time in cyberspace is due to all of the "pandemic" issues and general lack of friends. I don't need a counselor, I need love.

I absolutely love The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. It is not really an intro to psychology, but it focuses on aspects of human thinking that relate very strongly to the politically divided world we currently find ourselves in. What is the foundation of our morality? How do we make decisions? How do we change our minds? Fascinating stuff.

It's different for everyone. It was very painful for me. Loads of self-hate. It took a long time to get over all the things you listed, tackling each issue one by one, with always more coming. And then I'd be blindsided by yet another aspect I hadn't specifically considered yet. I based my whole life and plans for the future on church teachings. When I left, I had to figure out how to separate the person I was from the belief system I had. It was miserable. Sometimes it still hurts. The betrayal runs deep.

Be patient with yourself. It may take a while. If you're open to resources, one thing that helped me was reading Recovering Agency, by Luna Lindsey. It helped me recognize the ways I'd been controlled and manipulated, and it helped me be more patient with my believing LDS family.

Just the fact that you wrote this out - that you're able to name and articulate the things you're facing - is remarkable. So painful, but it says a lot about you as a person. You can do this.

It contains conscious things that are networked into a meta-consciousness.

I don't know if we can have a structural relationship with ultimate concepts ~except~ via consciousness and modeling, since to the best of our determination, that's all "we" as entities are doing - what we see is the inverted picture on the backs of our eyeballs, what we touch are impulses traveling up our arms, and then combined into an internal simulation which then reactions as a series of stages outward. Consciousness is an emergent property of strange loops that can self-refer, and we're building these outward into the universe - literally and metaphorically - so we can simulate the experiences of the entire universe, but within our simulation, we can simulate things that extend past that universe. We put forth organizing principles so understand this, and the relationship of our selves, experiences and other things - I believe in both primordial consciousness and that it made existence for it to evolve, to change.

As for things like a Final Theory of Everything, I don't think it's that there will be a Line Zero in the code, so to speak - it's going to be an infinitely complex latticework - just like there's no conceivable center of the universe: http://www.universetoday.com/111561/where-is-the-center-of-the-universe/ - the First Principle will be that it's all connected and support by everything else.

The book God's Debris by Scott Adams is a good reference for this sort of thinking: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0740747878 He presents it as an atheist, but as a thought experiment about the nature of the physical universe, the progression of Time and the interaction with consciousness.

This has been an interesting post and threads!

Human knowledge isn't one congealed mass, every discipline comes in with different aims and different assumptions. and in the case of wisdom traditions and religions, different problems and solutions offered, due to wildly different cultural origins. read this book for example :

https://www.amazon.com/God-Not-One-Eight-Religions/dp/0061571288

Here's some possible support:

> Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms, that, like love or anger, function independently of reason. (On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, xi)

I found that in John Loftus 2013 The Outsider Test for Faith.

You're getting lots of downvotes for simply asking a question, but Kundalini experiences can, in fact, be very psychedelic. Tuning into some other threads at /r/kundalini may align with the discussion you're looking for.

For many people, yoga is an hour long "class" where they're instructed to stretch and breathe, before walking or driving back to their regular life. However, the roots of yoga includes living in nature, smoking charas, fasting for days, prolonged silence or isolation, and activating cosmic energies.

And Rogan isn't "trolling for listeners". Activating Kundalini can harm a person who isn't prepared physically, mentally, and spiritually. A related book is Spiritual Emergency, which features numerous doctors and therapists who discuss the delicate relationships between psychological distress, catharsis, and genuine activation of paranormal or metaphysical energy.

That was an interesting read (if a bit difficult with a hyperlink every third word in each sentence). I get the sense he really believes everything. Will be interesting to check back a few months from now and see how When Prophecy Fails is kicking in.

> I'll be brutally honest and please don't kick me out of the sub for sounding like a theist, but I had a couple of interesting experiences as well.

Why on Earth would a theist be kicked out a sub dedicated to debating atheists? The whole point is for theists to challenge atheists. There wouldn't be much content here if theists were banned, lol.

As to your actual point about experiences, however, how do you know what you experienced was actually caused by your beliefs? Even if we reject physical explanations, how do you know what you experienced isn't evidence of Christianity or Islam or Buddhism instead?

After all, it's certainly true that Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists have religious experiences and claim that those experiences are evidence for their own religion. It seems rather convenient that the experiences which appear to confirm your religious views also happen to correspond with the religious views you were taught as a child, especially when people of other religions (also taught the same as child for their religion) claim the exact same thing.

While I'm not denying that you had experiences, it may be worth asking yourself why you don't find a Christian's experience of God convincing evidence for the truth of Christianity. And if you are wondering how an atheist views your own claims about religious experience, well, it's probably very similar to how you would view the Christian's experience...interesting, but it probably wasn't actually an experience of something supernatural that conforms to their belief system, because it's more likely another truth explains the experience.

Something to think about. This logic is based loosely on Loftus' Outsider Test for Faith, which may be worth checking out if you are curious about the deeper philosophical argument behind it.

> He would shatter himself into 8 billion peices, and see if he could put himself back together again.

So you're saying we're God's Debris?

A book relevant to this subject is titled "Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis," and features a variety of different authors and researchers with holistic perspectives.

The book, "Spiritual Emergencies" may offer helpful clarity for you.

Also, to reimprint yourself with positive, relaxing energy, you may find it worthwhile to connect with nature and silence, to include meditation, and frequency soundscapes that help you to feel at ease.

For a mental reset, here's a map of medical ketamine clinics.

Maybe read the book The Righteous Mind- you'll sleep better if you don't think half the people in the world/country are bad. Some righties, most aren't. Same for the left, though.

sorry but that is simply false and the fact that you continue being so angry and bitter only shows how pathetic your minority is, also it might not make it true but it makes it the default, it is not just that most people believe it, it is that it comes naturally by birth regardless of place and time, as all studies have shown,

regarding the population again, according to all projections (whether gorgons, pews, and the rest) Christianity and Islam are growing in both absolute numbers and as percentage, while atheists remain a tiny minority of angry neckbeards, and a declining one at that, in fact there were more atheists in the world in 1970 (ironically for you, when the fascist regimes tried to destroy the world) than there are today, and this is mostly due to them having very low birth rates and very high suicide rates, i already showed you the projections, they all show the same thing, it seems like you based your own claim from your tiny english-speaking neckbeard internet circle, but reality on a global scale shows a very differnt picture

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/04/StatusofGlobalChristianity20191.pdf

moreover the general gist of all researches is that "humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. Research shows that people across all different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death."

https://www.amazon.com/Born-Believers-Science-Childrens-Religious/dp/1439196540

it is a well established fact that humans are naturally inclined to religion even as babies and this has been shown by all studies and agreed by virtually everyone, it is not something controvertial since it does not really address the truth of it but the defaultiness, which is also what we observe throughout all of history, humans are naturally inclined to believe in god, souls and the afterlife regardless of where or when they are born, while atheists are an unnatural minority of very angry and miserable individuals, and they always chose that direction later, nobody has ever arrived at atheism naturally

the general gist of all researches is that "humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. Research shows that people across all different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death."

https://www.amazon.com/Born-Believers-Science-Childrens-Religious/dp/1439196540

Because Christianity started out as an apocalyptic cult. Apocalypticism gives it a sense of urgency. And that is great for mobilization.

Of course, Christianity doesn't really make sense today if you really think about it. Paul believed Jesus was going to return the next week, and advised accordingly. Gospels too give a message that the world is at the precipice of final end, and thus to disregard family, material wellbeing, justice, and everything else that's important for the life in the world which is supposed to end any day now (Truly I tell you, you will not reach all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes). Since Jesus failed to return, that should've been the end of it, but apparently, when cult predictions fail, they start proselytizing.

If that's what you're looking for, buy a copy of Recovering Agency lifting the veil on Mormon mind control, because it's exactly that, across the entire bite model, spelled out with quotes, examples and easy to understand diagrams.

Highly recommended for anyone deconstructing exactly how the Mormon cult operates.

Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control https://www.amazon.com/dp/1489595937/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_EMZNM5SDKH6Y5MA9BCSM

What's a cult?

When people ask me to defend why I think Trumpism is fascist I actually can quote Umberto Eco's 14 qualities of fascism. There's an operational definition of fascism which Trumpism fits like a glove.

But what's a cult?

Leon Festinger's When Prophecy Fails does a lot to explain how cognitive dissonance works in Trump's favor. That whole book is about like . . . okay when a doomsayer's prediction of the end of the world doesn't come true - surely that must shatter the faith of everyone involved in the movement. In Festinger's research he found the opposite was true. That the most committed members of the cult became MORE committed to the group and that an individuals level of commitment correlated to how much MORE committed they became.

And it's cognitive dissonance 101. The sunk cost falacy. Extremely committed members of the doomsday cult who had sold their houses and divorced their spouses and given away their live savings . . . when the doomsday prophesy didn't come true they didn't say "Oh well I was wrong. Let me return to the ruin I've made of my life" - no. The most committed members became more committed to increasingly ludicrous rationalizations of the cult leader why doomsday didn't happen.

So at least through that lens . . . yeah MAGA is a cult. There have been so many opportunities for true believers to get off this bus (Trump Train) yet somehow the failures, the unrealized promises, only seem to harden their beliefs and draw them closer to dear leader. It's textbook cult behavior.

It's a little broader than just Christianity and Judaism, but I'd highly recommend <em>God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World</em> by Stephen Prothero. It's a great academic introduction to the major world religions, but it's still an easy and engaging read.

Wow, that’s a rough situation to be in. Hang in there! And remember your earlier stance against them. Remember your reason(s) for leaving.

I bought a book and it just came in the mail, so I haven’t had time to read it yet. I’ve heard great things about it though! It’s called “ Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control

If you want to watch something that could help solidify your stance, check out this interview given by John Dehlin and RFM, with an Expert Egyptologist named Dr. Ritner about the Book of Abraham. It is INCREDIBLE and mind-blowing how obviously wrong Joseph’s translations of the BoA are. 😁

Good luck to you! ❤️