If the first question Ken DeBono asks upon meeting you is, “What are your religious beliefs?” should you be offended?
Not if you are a student in his Psychology of Religion class. Turns out the question is quite the icebreaker. Some of his students have developed their own beliefs; others have clung to the beliefs of their parents; and still others have walked away from their religious origins. Most claim they believe in a higher being; some admit to atheism. Not exactly cocktail party chat.
Kenneth G. DeBono, Gilbert R. Livingston Professor of Psychology, has long studied the psychology of persuasion, but is happily steeped in something a bit different-the psychological origins of religious beliefs as well as the apparent behavioral consequences of holding such beliefs. Course topics include religiosity as an evolutionary, psychological, and social phenomenon; the role of religious beliefs in mental health, physical health, interpersonal relationships; and prejudice. The reading list is extensive and includes works from anthropology, sociology, biology and psychology.
The course is part of the concentration in religious studies created in 2002 by a group of Union faculty responding to a growing interest in such matters.
DeBono got involved early in the program: “I had been working in the same line of research for 15 or 16 years-looking at relations between personality and persuasion-how different individuals are persuaded by different types of advertising. I got to the point where I thought I had answered most of the questions of interest to me. I wanted to use my sabbatical to start exploring different areas, when I got a phone call from Linda Patrik (Philosophy). She and Peter Heinegg (English) were trying to put together this minor and find faculty on campus who could teach relevant courses. Linda knew that as an undergraduate, I had had a fairly strong background in religious studies, so she asked me if I'd be interested in contributing. I saw this as a great opportunity to explore an area I'd always been interested in. So I used my sabbatical to read, think about it, and plan the course.”
Of Union's psychology department, says deBono, “We are relatively small and we have a lot of majors. (It's always one of the top three.) So almost by necessity we have to offer the basics over and over, and we don't often have the opportunity to develop other kinds of courses. I would guess that every faculty member here has a specialized course in mind that they'd like to develop. So it's a luxury for me to be able to teach this.”
The student reception to the seminar has been tremendous, DeBono says, adding that he gets the sense that students really want to discuss issues of religion.
Is the course at all controversial? “A handful of students have resisted, though they're interested in trying to understand their religiosity and their religious beliefs from a scientific perspective. Addressing it this way means you're looking for natural causes. Some students don't even want to entertain the idea that religious beliefs might all be just a series of chemical reactions in the brain. They want to hold onto the belief that it might be something more.”
The first class reading this year was Angels and Demons, a novel by Dan Brown, which looks at relations between science and religion, and how much of a threat each is to one another. “It's a great fast read,” says DeBono, “and a good springboard for a discussion about these relationships, and particularly the tensions between science and religion.” DeBono thinks these tensions will only increase in the coming years. “Psychology is getting more reductionistic- holding that the mind exists as a function of something physical-and this would include religious and spiritual experiences. Then there's the new field of neurotheology, and new perspectives of evolutionary psychology, which include evolutionary theories about religious beliefs.”
After reading Freud's The Future of an Illusion, the class took on The 'God' Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper, who suggests there may be parts of our brain responsible for religious experience. This led to a discussion of the relations between evolution and religious beliefs. “So a lot of the course begins to evolve around the big questions,” says DeBono. “For many students, it represents one of the few opportunities to sit back and think about those questions, in the context of their major.”
The next book was Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God. Miller, a biologist at Brown, is a firm believer in evolution, and also a very devout Catholic. His book is an attempt to reconcile his beliefs in both. “I think it's a struggle a lot of people in the sciences have to face,” says DeBono.
The class also reads contemporary research that looks at the relation between religiosity and mental health. And once they've explored the origins of religious beliefs, they're ready to look at the question, what does it mean to have religious beliefs? The book God, Faith, & Healing, by Jeff Levin, reviews a growing body of evidence suggesting that religious affiliation is associated with or predictive of positive mental/physical outcomes, such as lower blood pressure, healthier lifestyles, and less depression and anxiety.
“Many psychologists are not impressed by this research,” says DeBono. “There's nothing special about religion, they say-social supports, a sense of optimism that increases the chance of a healthy life-these are things we already know. But the evidence for religion is impressive. And some researchers have been looking at spirituality, as opposed to just organized religious affiliation, and finding fairly similar results. Just having a belief seems to be the key variable. So it becomes an interesting question-whether there's something special about being affiliated with a religion.”
Is the course offered strictly from a scientific perspective? “I try to be true to the discipline,” says DeBono. “In the psychology of religion, we try to understand religious beliefs as we would any belief system -in terms of known variables.”
There is room in the class, however, for discussions of soul, mystery, awe, the sacred, the numinous, the ineffable, the miraculous. “It's those childlike questions-'Where does the sky end?' and 'How did time begin?'-that keep me interested.”
The class includes “no exams, although written work as well as class contributions are evaluated-I want students to do it because they find it interesting. I think it relaxes them a little bit, makes them feel freer to say what's on their minds.” During the last week, students get to present their major research project-essentially on anything to do with the psychology of religion. “Their job,” says DeBono, “both in the paper and in this informal presentation, is to teach us, so that we come away knowing something we didn't know beforehand. I've learned a lot from them.”
Exploring Religion
Lori Farrell '04, an MBA student at the Graduate College of Union University, signed up for the Psychology of Religion last year. “I needed a seminar course as part of my psychology major. I could have taken any of several; however, my background contributed to my taking this course. My mother grew up in a Jewish home and my father grew up in a very Catholic home, and neither wanted to push the tenets of their religion, so I was never very exposed to either.
I wanted to take this course to explore religion and its impact on other people; it does not play a large role in my life and I wanted to see what it did for others. Religion in general interests me. Also, as a side note, Professor DeBono was my favorite prof at Union, so I felt I would like the way he ran the class, and I did.
“I remember being impressed by how willing people were to share details of their lives. We had people whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors too.
“I loved reading The God Part of the Brain, which says that humans are the only beings that can reflect on their existence and therefore can contemplate the fact that they will die. The book goes on to propose that because of this, humans had to come up with a biological adaptation allowing them to believe in a purpose for living; this adaptation is the 'God part of the brain.' Obviously a very controversial idea. Possibly even more interesting was the discussion in class. With all their different backgrounds, this book got to them in different ways.
“The class got me thinking about how different everyone can be. And honestly, it made me wonder if I would be able to marry someone who strongly felt differently from me because this is such an important issue.
“Though I took this course over a year ago, I still talk about it. I kept my book (which I must admit I rarely do) and have encouraged others to read it. It was the best class I had at Union.”