9
votes
Accepted
Is there a scientific explanation for dramatic body shaking and trembling in religious settings? (see videos for illustrative examples)
The exhibited behaviours are episodic glossolalia, collapsing, fainting, trembling, jerking, convulsing, contorting, and shaking. The individuals performing these episodic behaviours report ...
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6
votes
Accepted
How to measure the correlation between "spirituality" and the susceptibility to false memories?
Maybe what you are looking for is the field cognitive science of religion:
Cognitive science of religion is the study of religious thought and behavior from the perspective of the cognitive and ...
- 1,801
4
votes
Is there a scientific explanation for dramatic body shaking and trembling in religious settings? (see videos for illustrative examples)
As the OP notes, this has been a difficult topic for Skeptics.SE. I'm going to try to answer here, but over on Skeptics this would probably be labelled as "Original Research".
The problem ...
- 149
3
votes
Does belief in an afterlife play a role in suicide rates?
I think, from a statistical point of view, this question will be impossible to answer, because belief in an afterlife is almost always tied to powerful confounding factors, such as participation in a ...
- 171
3
votes
Accepted
Psychological explanation for exorcisms?
Google Scholar reveals a substantial quantity of learned research on the topic of exorcisms, of which the items below are but a few:
Ferracuti, S., & Sacco, R. (1996). Dissociative trance ...
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2
votes
Why does Jung suggest that we need to defend our psyche from original religious experience?
For a really quick and clear understanding of why sometimes it is better to stay in the container of dogma read Edward Edinger's Moby Dick.
Jung's position is that religious energy must only sometimes ...
- 19
2
votes
Accepted
How do we explain that some humans require far more evidence for some claims than others?
There are at least two important factors or phenomena at play here. The first is whether the subject of the belief has real-world consequences to the believer. The second is whether the belief relates ...
- 855
2
votes
Is there a psychological explanation for people being 'overcome by the Holy Spirit'?
Research in this area is pretty patchy. Summarizing what Wikipedia says on the topic:
"God helmet" experiments were plagued by failures to reproduce by independent research groups
TLE (temporal lobe ...
2
votes
Why are people inclined to praise or fear the unknown?
I'm going to focus on your third question:
What does scientific research tell us about why humans have this tendency?
I use the word "focus" because, well, I can't answer that. But I can introduce ...
- 1,801
2
votes
Is there any evidence for a link between religiosity and belief in conspiracy theories?
Another paper that has some empirical results from Australia:
The results showed that believers and non-believers did not differ in the belief in conspiracy theories. Unpacking this further though, ...
2
votes
Is a concept of good and bad innate or learned?
Psychologically, guilt can be described as "a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined" (Dictionary.com).
Guilt is an emotion triggered by a ...
- 454
2
votes
Accepted
Do bodily manifestations (e.g. jerking) and intense euphoric sensations (e.g. "heat", "electricity") always co-occur in spiritual experiences?
An inherent problem with the line of investigation is that the exhibited behaviours are inconsistent with the claimed emotions. In no other situation do the emotions of love, peace, ecstasy and ...
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1
vote
How do I score people on the Religious Orientation Scale?
I don't know about Gupta & Mishra as I cannot find the paper you are referring to, but Allport & Ross (1967) on page 436 (page 5 of the pdf) points out that the full Religious Orientation ...
- 12.3k
1
vote
Is there a robust method to prove the existence of reincarnation?
Short answer
You are confusing belief or faith with a hypothesis.
Background
Instead of a methodological answer, this question might, perhaps arguably, be tackled better from a slightly more ...
- 20.8k
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