My interest in developmental psychology has led me to consider what sort of developmental questions should I be asking concerning my ability to be religious. Thinking about this, I had a thought that perhaps the capacity to have profound religious experience may actually be a necessary stage of cognitive development. The thought was, if we are capable of such profound religious thoughts, I wonder what is beneath the ability to do so. What sort of building blocks is religious built upon. I thought about it, and decided that the best way to figure out what builds up to form religious would be to look at my own experiences. From this I may be able to get some working definition of religious experience upon which to start pondering developmental intricacies. Here is my own first look at religious experience.
When people experience a religious experience they undergo a process in which no objective description may be made. Similar to Ethicist David Hume’s explanation of beauty and morality, one may find similarities between religious experiences and be able to find things that can categorize them, but due to the uniqueness, cross-cultural existence, and existence only in interaction with humanity, one can never find something that defines exactly religious experience. Although when looking through the pages of the Evolutionary Psychology textbook written by David Buss one does not see the presence of religious experience, I am going to argue that the cognitive ability to have such an experience is a trait that has evolved over the course of human development for the betterment of human existence.
This being said, can there be a general purpose, if not definition, of religious experience? To answer this question it is necessary to examine what happens to the person when a religious experience occurs (not to try and define as stated, but for the purposes of understanding a developmental goal achieved, if there is one). When one has a religious experience they feel an odd sensation of being completely disconnected to the world, yet never more fully connected. A sensation that as stated cannot be objectively defined, but is universally experienced. An understanding that I have developed based off of my own experience involved a sudden ability to realize that I am a part of something larger than myself, in my example a faith tradition, and I have a purpose and a part of this larger goal or being. This is a strange thought. While feeling this sense of being disconnected form the wold, I seem to find myself never more connected to it’s core and never more a member of its existence.
So a general description of religious experience has been laid out, but what sort of purpose could such an experience have, if any? Something that I myself have noticed is that when I have a religious experience I feel like I am actually a being in the world and are no longer a by-stander in it. Let me explain. I notice in day-to-day life that what I perceive in nature and around me is separated from me. That I am an entity, the singular Andrew Gonzalez, but everything around me, the trees, the buildings, grass, etc., are of themselves in their existence. This struck me as very strange because I understand that what I am is a part of what they are; we live in the same world and are of the same matter, and are co-existing on this planet. But what made me realize this? When I answer this question I turn to one of the few profound religious experiences that I have had in my lifetime. Experiences where I feel as if I am in the presence of a being greater than anything I can understand to be real and malleable on this planet, but instead something that connects everything that I see to be separate. This is to say something more real and more powerful than my own experience. I understood this force to be a singular God, but I propose that this same experience can happen under any faith tradition. I propose that every religious experience can allow that beholder a sense of connectedness and purpose in the world.
So what sort of benefit could arise from such an experience, that is to say, why do we have the cognitive capacity to understand such a profound level of our existence? When I think of this question, many more question arise in my mind. For instance, at what point in human’s evolution or existence, was man first able to have religious experience? Is there a time we can point out that we can definitively say religious experiences were able to be experienced, here! A point where we can see human capacity leaping to this profound experience. For the sake of defining this experience as a trait that has evolved and has purpose in our development, I am going to tentatively answer yes to this question and say that it is a trait mankind has been experiencing for a long period of time due to the fact that it can occur independent of education and other modern acquired knowledge.
The next question that appears in my mind is one that concerns religious experience as an evolved mechanism, that is, does the ability to have a religious experience in any way make our lives better or serve a purpose to the efficacy of our reality? To answer this question, another must first be addressed, and this is whether or not everyone experiences a religious episode. If I am going to argue that everyone has the evolved capacity for religious experience I must first recognize whether everyone does. This is a tricky question. From my understanding, witnessing a number of religious experiences, I am under the assumption that everyone is capable of a religious experience, and the following is why. Under the Christian tradition I have witnessed many people, including myself, having religious experiences, but from having been at events in which this experience is desired and not attained personally I feel as if I can make a few objective points concerning its attainment. To be specific, I was at church camp one year and I remember being at function later in the week that involved the understanding of our sins under the Christian faith and the acceptance of salvation from Jesus Christ. This specificity is not necessary for understanding religious experience in general, but may prove useful in analyzing my own experiences. At this evening event individuals are asked to step forward and pray with pastors working at the camp talking with them about how they have not understood what Christ has done for them, that what they have understood to be a singular existence in themselves is false and that we are all connected under one God. Also needing to be said, in writing of the specifics in the Christian faith tradition, I am in not in any way attempting to simplify what is happening to the individual in these circumstances or demean their value, in fact quite the opposite is true. I am recognizing their incredible power and trying to see what are the circumstances in which such and incredible experience can be attained. Back to my example. People go up and talk to pastor about such profound thoughts and through intense meditation are able to experience a revival of themselves such as they have never felt before (or at least I had never felt before when I experienced my own). These people are overwhelmed with the new knowledge of how connected their existence is with the rest of humanity’s and how they are not as alone as they previously felt. This knowledge has an incredible impact on how the individual feels about their existence. This experience has the power to remove people from feeling alone, from being depressed about their life the way in which they have lived it, and even the power to bring people back from the brink of suicide. I was able to witness firsthand the intense power that religious experiences were able to attain and how they had the power to transform people’s lives.
To me, this experiencing of religious connectivity is an experience that cannot be underestimated in it’s value. To refer back to my example at the church camp, the day proceeding this profound evening, people stood up in front of the entire group at camp and professed how they had been changed for the better and now understand that what they do actually has meaning and that they can change the world around them for the betterment of humanity. People gave testaments of their own life flaws and mistakes, citing how horribly they’ve lived, how close they have been to the brink of suicide. They then state how what they felt being suddenly connected to God has had such a profound impact on them that they now feel their life to have meaning again. I don’t mean to go on and on about what I experienced at this camp, but I feel that taking a closer look at this example can yield some important discoveries.
So what exactly happened to these people that had the ability to change their lives? Looking back on what I noticed, I would propose that what happened can be seen in the following stages, and propose that similar stages are experienced in every faith tradition. People understand that they are not alone. People have the sudden sensation that, dependent on the specific religious tradition, they are connected to everything and everyone around them making what actions they do significant now not only for their own being, but for everything in which they are also connected to. People have a realization that they can be living a better life. In the Christian tradition this involved a recognition of sin, but across religions as I understand it, there is a sense that people have been contributing poorly and insufficiently to their society and earth (the society and earth they now for the first time feel deeply connected to). And finally, people experience a calling to be better. People, now understanding their place in the world, have the desire to help make it better not only for themselves but for those around them. With this new-found invigorating perspective on life and their purpose, people are able to put the past behind them and continue living and contributing to the world. It is when a person realizes that they are connected to everything else and have the power to make a positive contribution that they are able to be saved from the depths of depression and guilt that plagues so many.
Now, another question that comes into my mind; I know that the presence of pain and depression exist cross-culturally and throughout the world in many forms, but can we say the religious experience exists in the same way? I am going to say that people everywhere experience this religious invigoration due to the presence of religion everywhere in the world. This is to say that I feel wherever there is religion, there will be religious experiences. To me the very point of religion is to explain the unexplainable phenomenon that everything in existence is is relationship to everything else. But, could this ability rest on some cultural realization found selectively throughout the world limiting the religious experience to these areas? Once again I will answer no because of the nature of religious experience not resting on any educational or societal capacity (that is to say one cannot have a religious experience unless they understand that there are many people in the world with them) but instead resting on the cognitive ability for people to understand the nature of their reality. This sounds intimidating, but let me explain. People, to have religious experiences, do not need to be educated to the degree in which we are today, but simply need to be able to look at themselves and understand they are an individual entity, look at the world, and then understand that they are a part of it.
We can see this sort of development occurring when we examine the cognitive development of the human child. Although this examination may seem futile, I am confident that it will yield illuminating results. When I say that the person needs to simply understand that they are an individual entity I am entirely understating the incredible cognitive phenomenon that has evolved in the human race. Through the discipline of Developmental Psychology much of these incredible cognitive leaps have been mapped and evaluated. It is from this discipline in which I will cite the following. Children are not born with the immediate capacity to understand that they exist, but instead through a series of cognitive stages are able to understand that they exist. It is around the age of one year in which an infant starts to typically show signs of understanding individuality. This realization is referred to as self-awareness, or, “a person’s realization that he or she is a distinct individual, with body, mind, and actions that are separate from those of other people” (Berger. pg.182). This is to say that a human’s capacity to understand individuality is a developed trait. The second cognitive leap in which I want to analyze is that of understanding that there are others around you in which you are attached. This is referred to as attachment, and consists, according to American developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, “is an affectional tie that an infant forms with the caregiver- a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time.” This ability emerges in the infant around the age one as well. Once again, what I have taken as a simple cognitive ability to understand a connection to others is actually a developed trait in humans that have evolved over time. According to Ross Thompson in the Handbook of child psychology, “Over humanity’s evolutionary history, proximity-seeking and contact-maintaining behaviors contributed to the survival of the species” (pg.192).
We have now established the cognitive abilities of attachment and self-awareness as developed cognitive abilities, but the next question proves to be most important: Is the cognitive ability to have a religious experience an evolved trait similar to attachment and self-awareness? In answering this question one needs to examine what could be the purpose of having such a trait. I am going to cite previous objective observations on what happens during a religious experience to answer. As previously stated, when one undergoes a religious experience the person has a sudden realization that their existence is not insignificant, but that they are connected to a larger body of existence through various mediums depending on the religious tradition. I feel that this trait is a next step in cognitive development that pushes the human being to contribute positively to society because the individual now has a deepened understanding that they are a part of a larger society. Let me explain. A person at a very early age understands that they are an individual and what they do is separate from what everyone else does. Once a person has the cognitive capacity necessary for religious experience, one can come full circle and understand that although they are an individual, in reality they are a part of something bigger than themselves. This capacity also falls in line with the theory of inclusive fitness, that is the sum of and individual’s own reproductive success plus the effects the individual’s actions have on the reproductive success of his or her genetic relatives (Buss pg.13). The way in which religious experience expands on the concept of inclusive fitness is in it’s capacity to extend beyond kin, but to the rest of mankind. In my mind this is a logical step in cognitive development benefitting the species. I cannot say that it is the next step, or how closely connected these two developments are, but I am convinced that the human’s ability to connect with the rest of the human race is an evolved psychological mechanism that caused humanity to have a deep desire to aid in their fellow human’s existence, thus, aiding the survival of the species as a whole, thus having the trait be selected for existence today.
To conclude, many variables still remain in the acknowledgment of religious experience as an evolved psychological mechanism. These include the variety found in religions, as well as the idea that there is a deeper connection in which religion is simply the surface of. That is to say, what we perceive as religious experience is actually just a proxy for which an even more spectacular process is occurring. More time will need to be spent on the subject, but developments in the teleological biases and traits may illuminate this topic in the future.
Notes:
Berger, Kathleen S. The Developing Person: Through the Life Span. Madison: Worth Publisher, 2008. Print.
Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. 3rd ed. Pearson Education Inc., 2008.
Handbook of child psychology: Vol 3. Social, emotional, and personality development . (6th ed., pp.24-98) Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
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