Muffin
I’m sorry I missed that thread, it must have been during my hiatus from the board but I’ll try and catch up. And thanks for the reference to Persinger, fascinating stuff. When I think about it, the difference between a cult and a religion seems to be more a matter of degree and of how successful they are. Religions with millions of followers are automatically not a cult. Religions with only a few followers or are of recent vintage are almost inevitably under suspicion of being a cult.
I’d have to agree that some neurotransmitter abnormality could be at the root of religious conviction. My own opinion and experience is that most religions don’t want to depend on a rational decision and go out of their way to avoid it. They’d prefer that you either inherit your religion as most people do, or get some little, emotionally-based neurotransmitter upset that makes you believe what you’re told.
To help this along, religions use various tactics to maintain and increase the number of their own believers:
a) Building communities with intense social and emotional ties among themselves while reducing such connections with the outside world. Amish, JWs, and lots of others. Even the more reasonable religions have “retreats” and the like where the principles of that religion are repeated more-or-less 24 X 7. As you say, the sense of community can then be held hostage to your good behavior.
b) Discouraging independent thought. God forbid (literally, in some cases) that someone would critically examine their religion. While they can’t do it in most Western countries now, in previous times a too-critical examination of your religion would get you burned. In some countries today it can get you stoned to death. Even the written words of the particular deity most be “properly interpreted” by someone with a vested interest in the maintenance of that religion. As if an omnipotent deity is somehow unable to write clearly.
c) Forbidding liaisons with unbelievers in some circumstances. Islamic law dictates that women cannot marry outside the faith while men can. Your JW BF couldn’t date you but could marry you. I wonder whether JW women are held to a different standard? It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Some guy in his mid-twenties that has just bumped into the perfect, non-believing woman is not going to ask his local Imam whether it’s OK to pursue this. Speaking personally, I’d have told the religious authorities to take a running jump if they forbade me to associate with some woman I wanted.
d)Encouraging a sense of “us vs them” persecution by non-believers. This is done even when it makes no sense. The US is populated (mostly) with religious people yet they consistently wail about how religion is persecuted in the US with campaigns against Christmas, banning the 10 commandments, etc.
While these sorts of tactics might be underhanded and intended to control the attitudes of the unwary, they are, after all, “for the greater glory of God” and “for your own good” and are allowable because of that.
And these are just the mainstream religions. If you get into something like the Hare Krishnas, they add sleep deprivation and constant repetition of their mantras.
In some cases, the neurotransmitter upset is insufficient but the rest of the tactics tend to keep the faithful in line. In other cases it works too well and then you get suicide bombers, Jonestown, abortion doctor murderers, women killing themselves during childbirth, and similar loons.
I’ve often wondered why the religious get a pass on having their sanity questioned. A person who professes a serious belief in any other magical being is automatically considered a loon and is in danger of incarceration whereas the same person professing a serious belief in the Middle-Eastern God is supposed to be respected and revered for their faith. Somehow I truly cannot get a handle on the difference between the two situations.
Regards
Testy