Rick Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Actually, what I'd LIKE to see is a discussion of the psychology
of religion _in general_, instead of focusing on any one single
religion. That is, what are the psychological basis of faith and belief?
What would cause an individual who was not raised religious to select
one religion over another? What psychological results come from changing
religion (radically--as in moving from, for example, Christianity to
Wicca--not just moving from one sect to another) as an adult? What are
the long term effects of having been "inducted" into an extremist cult
(i.e., the Moonies, Scientology, the "Children of God," the Branch
Davidians, etc.)? Etc.
Well, I was raised as a Christian fundamentalist (a religion my parents converted to when I was five). I left that when I went to college, eventually became a Unitarian, and have finally decided to do what I always wanted to and convert to Judiasm.
Knowing that case studies have their limits and the plural of anecdote isn't data, I nevertheless feel competent to ask: So whaddaya wanna know about religious experience?
That could be a discussion that had real merit here--particularly
if we tried to avoid "pointing fingers" or claiming that one particular
"flavor" of religion (ANY religion) was "different" from the others in
those areas (e.g., logically, there should be a similar effect on an
individual whether he or she moves from--for example--Islam to
Christianity or from Christianity to Islam).While there may be some similarities in the conversion experience overall, I should think that the from-and-to would make a HUGE difference. (This is certainly the case in second-language acquisition--L1 has a great influence on L2.) For one thing, a person converting from Christianity to Islam in the US would be converting from the majority religion to a minority one, and not the most comfortable minority either.
Also, religions genuinely are different, otherwise why convert at all? Part of conversion to Judaism, for example, is learning the history of the Jewish people and becoming part of a Jewish community. Learning to bake challah is as much a part of my education as studying Torah. There isn't really a parallel to that in Protestantism.
I should think it would also be different to convert to a religion that does active proselytizing (most of Christianity, Islam as far as I know) versus those that don't (like Judaism or, as far as I know, Buddhism and Wicca).
Robin
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