This video is already making its way around the blogosphere but I wanted to comment on it and find out what others think about how this effects our belief systems. In his posts on "Everyday evil" Richard Beck, a psychology professor at Abilene Christian University and blogger at Experimental Theology, raises the question about how religious communities develop using our physiological conditioning to conform.



I have 2 main questions. How much of what we believe is due to our subconscious desire to agree with our faith community? How much of what we often label "the conviction of the holy spirit" is the internal tension (tugging) that is created by this same drive to conform and respond as expected?

Whatever is happening in that video is magnified when applied to religious settings. I have experienced peer pressure in religion and I've seen it used to shape beliefs and produce particular physical responses to an emotional stimulus. It makes me wonder if most of what we have claimed as belief is due to the pressure to fit in with a faith community. Most of my life, I've felt like the people in this video who are shaking their heads and grimacing as they subconsciously agree with the group against their better judgement. I don't feel like churches do this intentionally, but it is nevertheless a powerful subconscious force that enables us to build beliefs in hard to believe things and create conditioned responses to sacred rituals.

You may think I'm claiming religion is evil and God doesn't exist, but I'm not. I am a big advocate of religion and I do believe in God even if it isn't the image of God I was taught in Sunday school. I'm simply suggesting that when we explain an aspect of nature as an externally manipulated event then we create all sorts of problems for later generations who are likely to find out what we label as an external miraculous force is actually a reaction to a chemical released by our brains. It isn't any different than explaining an earthquake as punishment for the sins of a city then scrambling to discredit science when an archaeological dig discovers that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were built on a fault line. If we make God equal to the gap in our current human understanding then we end up with a God that is constantly shrinking.

There is a silver lining to this issue because these same physiological forces can contribute to positive behavior which could allow our society to exist peacefully, but I think religious leaders should be more sensitive to what is causing people to fall in line. We have all felt that tugging feeling to perform by responding to worship experiences in the proper way and agreeing with the things that are taught in groups. I don't think there is anything wrong with peer pressure. It may be something that saves our lives by helping us shape our behavior in a way that affirms life and protects us from harm. I don't think religions should stop doing this, but I wish our religious leaders would correctly label the "spirit" that is doing the tugging.

It is hard to shake thoughts and beliefs that are deeply rooted in our psyche. At times it feels almost like an external force is pulling or pushing us to conform. Maybe that is exactly why we have traditionally described God as an "external force". Is it possible that much of what we mean when we use the term "God" is the collective will of our faith group which is proven here to be a very powerful force? If that is true, then I can certainly affirm that I believe God is real, that God has positively directed my life, that I'm committed to God, and that I deeply desire for God to be the driving force in transforming my life.