Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

Pope Francis prayed for God’s protection:  “We seek refuge under your protection O Holy Mother of God.” ( Vatican News , 2020, March 26). Southern Baptist pastor, Tony Perkins, encouraged people to pray for the protection of our families ( Perkins, 2020, March 12 ). Amid crisis, whether coronavirus, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack or another calamity, we must not allow the mockery of the anti-faith crowd to drown out our prayers for the hurting, for the protection of our families, our communities, and our country. Let the mockers mock, but let the people pray to the great Physician first and then get to work helping the sick. Around the world, religious people pray to God or gods for divine protection from evil. In western cultures, Catholics, Protestants, and adherents of other branches of Christianity pray for God’s protection from the Coronavirus in 2020. As Christians get sick and die by the thousands, do such prayers for protection engender false ...

FUNDAMENTALISTS – SCARY AS HELL “The problem is the extremists,” a Jewish friend said during a discussion about religiously motivated violence.   BBC news story on violence Religious fundamentalists are frequently in the news nowadays—largely because of some threat or horrific act. Recently, a Muslim group made news in France with the murder of Charlie Hebdo magazine staff in Paris (BBC). Hindu fundamentalists are on the rise in India and persecuting Christians according to a story in Christianity Today 23 January 2015. Some 300 clergy and church leaders are targeted. A report from 2014 claims some 7,000 Christians faced aggression and persecution from non-Christians. Muslims have also been under attack by Hindu fundamentalists who seek to convert Muslims and Christians. Muslims are about 14% of the population according to Free Speech Radio News . Popular Pope Francis has seen the need to speak out against all fundamentalists with a challenge to th...

Evolutionary Psychology and Christianity This week Pope Francis commented on creation and drew lots of media attention. Pope Francis has a huge audience as the leader of most of the world’s Christians— some 1.2 billion out of about 2.2 billion .  Like many scientists who also hold Christian beliefs, the Pope reaffirmed Catholic teaching that there is no contradiction between religious beliefs and scientific theories about origins of the universe (e.g., so called “Big Bang Theory”) or life (theory of evolution).    RNS reported on the story 27 October 2014 . The fact that the story became news in the United States reminds us of the continued teaching of a competitive creation narrative that is presented as incompatible with scientific explanations of the origins of the universe and of life.  They assert that the biblical story of creation in Genesis should be understood in a literal (or close to literal) fashion. Although creationists vary in how t...

Afterlife What do  people  believe? Surveys of religious beliefs are common in the USA.  Christians are the largest group of religious people in the US so, it makes sense to consider the context  of beliefs about life after life. The primary story is from the Gospels, which can be found in the New Testament section of Bibles. Easter events begin with MaundyThursday or Good Friday (Some protestant groups skip Maundy Thursday). Jesus celebrated the Jewish Passover with his followers. He was betrayed and accused of wrongdoing. He was sentenced to die by crucifixion and buried. On Easter Sunday, his followers found his tomb empty, encountered Jesus in different situations, and spread the word of the resurrection. The Gospel of Luke reports the events beginning in  Chapter 22 . A Harris Poll (16 December 2013) has some findings relevant to the Easter story. The survey of 2,250 adults was conducted between 13 and 18 November, 2013. Belie...

UNBELIEVING  CLERGY The clergyproject.org People convert to faith and people lose faith. But what happens when clergy lose their faith? Last year (2014) I posted an article about conversions, deconversions, and transformations . In December, Philosopher Daniel Dennett and Clinical Social Worker, Linda LaScola reported the results of their qualitative study of 35 clergy and seminary students who lost their faith. The title of the book, Caught in the Pulpit , captures the dilemma. Who did they study? All of the participants were Caucasian Americans.  Most were clergy with pulpit ministries (27) but some were in seminary (5 students, 3 professors). There were Jewish Rabbis but the rest were Catholic or Protestant Christian clergy. There were men (30) and women (5) from theologically conservative and liberal denominations. The authors use the word literal to refer to fundamentalist groups. By literal they mean religious groups that view the Biblical text as in...

Feeding Children in South Africa WORLD  VISION, MORALITY        & RIGHTEOUS MINDS World Vision made waves earlier in the week when they announced plans to hire same-sex married couples. Multiple news sources carried stories and blog posts were filled with comments from irate donors. To be sure, there were supportive comments as well. After a few days, World Vision announced a change of heart . They issued an apology to their upset supporters. And reversed their policy . The wide variety of remarks offers a trove of data to illustrate how people focus on different aspects of a situation when reaching a moral decision. In this post I will draw on the work of Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues to frame the six dimensions of morality. QUICK THINKING MORALITY First, several researchers have written about how the mind works when thinking about anything—including morality. One of the best summaries of thinking is the book by Daniel ...