April 11, 2016

April 11, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand explains how religious experience is induced by a situation by giving the example of a soldier in a foxhole . “Regardless of one’s belief system, when faced with death people often pray or experience peculiar self-reflective and sensory experiences (as when one’s life flashes before one’s eyes; James, 1902/1958).” Surprisingly, Strand doesn’t characterize the fighting behavior of the soldier as effortful, as belonging to the acquired category of religious behavior. Instead, he states “According to the present formulation, these experiences are genuine, graceful, and foundational. They do not arise out of previous reinforcement, but, instead, are induced by the confluence of a history of verbal training that permits organizing behavior according to the frame of self-as-infinite, and a proximal stimulus that triggers that response pattern.” 

This writer agrees there is a great difference between effortful and effortless religious behavior, but he disagrees with the notion of the soldier who fights for his life as having effortless behavior. Such absurdity is against anything we know about biology. In the face of imminent threat human beings will experience fight, flight or freeze (read: dissociation) responses. To equate these responses with effortless religious behavior is to equate religious behavior with shutting down instead of opening up. Viewed from the SVB/NVB distinction, we notice that a lot and perhaps most of our so-called religious behavior should be considered as the shutting down of our spoken communication.

Most so-called religious behavior is our private speech getting out of control, meaning, getting out of touch with our pubic speech. Speakers who acquired Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) are the most extreme example of NVB, as they may experience a safe environment as threatening and a threatening environment as safe . As already stated, effortful religious experience maps onto NVB and effortless, graceful religious behavior maps onto SVB. There is no way of changing NVB into SVB. SVB can only occur when NVB has been stopped. Likewise, we cannot be effortful and effortless at the same time.