Does psychology threaten Christianity?

[Jonesboy]

1. Psychology seems to support Christianity where it promotes a negative view of human nature.
Thus we have the psychological concept of “disorder” as a metaphor for original sin - the idea that we are forced to cast a shadow over our own selves and the world. There is even a metaphoric parallel here in Dawkinian evolutionary “selfishness”.

2. Psychology does not support Christianity in the way that it promotes a negative view of human nature.**
Psychology offers a whole new belief that is incompatible with redemption. This belief is chemical possession. For psychology, certain chemicals or chemical “states” prevent us from acting freely, without conflict. These chemical possessive states can only be controlled by psychological chemical elixirs such as anti-depressants. God has no influence here.

But there is a much bigger reason why psychology is a threat to Christianity. The Church has always borne some remarkably clever people, and it is regretful that they have not more thoroughly exposed the linguistic and empirical incoherencies that prop up the claims of psychology. Anything that “works” in psychology is not down to their technical procedural stunts propped up as they are by reductionist babble that “we are affected by the brain” and similar, but to Mother Wit which they have hijacked.

The brain sciences and the psychologies are trashing the human experiential wardrobe by employing pathology as moral ringmaster to our narrow range of contemporary acceptable behaviours. Pathology - chemical possession, moulds the brain into a moral pseudo-object, and it brings us a dangerous, fictitious account of human nature. It acts as a middle man to which we, relegated to a ghost in the machine, must now defer. What nonsense.

The psychological “brain” is the new God. But it’s impressive technical description mirrors only our own local emotional predispositions, social taboos and moral prejudices. The fact that this mirror is phrased in physical technical language such as “limbic system”, chemical imbalance, etc, should, really, not fool any of us for these are only physical, associations made to our natural assessment of human nature. But it does fool us, and that is sad.

 

[exnihilo]

People will always seize upon ideas that can explain away God. But that does not mean they are successful. Psychology has nothing to say about creation, the incarnation or the resurrection. So it cant in any real way threaten Christianity.

General practice or internists might be the biggest prescriber of psychiatric drugs, not psychiatrists. In my opinion medical doctors far too often seek to treat any problem with a pill. They tend to ignore other treatments. This is as true with psychological problems as mechanical problems.

As long as psychologists are able to help some people with talk therapy then the practice is actually lending credibility to religion as it is working on the assumption that we have a mind, which is metaphysical, and able to influence our experience. What if a doctor was able to heal your broken leg through talk therapy? Wouldn’t that help prove the metaphysical nature of man? I believe to some extent doctors can do this. In fact the efficacy of placebos indicates that belief has a strong influence on healing.

Psychology does tend to focus on the state of the brain to suggest the state, often influenced by chemicals, is solely responsible for what we experience. I dont think that is in any way proven. But at the same time the state of the brain does at least influence our experience. If we get drunk our mind is surely affected. Christianity does not deny that. But at the same time even our feeling of drunkenness is caused in part by our mind. I saw an episode of Mythbusters where they gave people non-alcoholic beer. The subjects thought it was alcoholic and acted and felt drunk.

I think the mind is a marvelous and mysterious creation and how exactly it works will continue to be a mystery.

 

[meltzerboy]

1. Psychology seems to support Christianity where it promotes a negative view of human nature.
Thus we have the psychological concept of “disorder” as a metaphor for original sin - the idea that we are forced to cast a shadow over our own selves and the world. There is even a metaphoric parallel here in Dawkinian evolutionary “selfishness”.

2. Psychology does not support Christianity in the way** that it promotes a negative view of human nature.
Psychology offers a whole new belief that is incompatible with redemption. This belief is chemical possession. For psychology, certain chemicals or chemical “states” prevent us from acting freely, without conflict. These chemical possessive states can only be controlled by psychological chemical elixirs such as anti-depressants. God has no influence here.

But there is a much bigger reason why psychology is a threat to Christianity. The Church has always borne some remarkably clever people, and it is regretful that they have not more thoroughly exposed the linguistic and empirical incoherencies that prop up the claims of psychology. Anything that “works” in psychology is not down to their technical procedural stunts propped up as they are by reductionist babble that “we are affected by the brain” and similar, but to Mother Wit which they have hijacked.

The brain sciences and the psychologies are trashing the human experiential wardrobe by employing pathology as moral ringmaster to our narrow range of contemporary acceptable behaviours. Pathology - chemical possession, moulds the brain into a moral pseudo-object, and it brings us a dangerous, fictitious account of human nature. It acts as a middle man to which we, relegated to a ghost in the machine, must now defer. What nonsense.

The psychological “brain” is the new God. But it’s impressive technical description mirrors only our own local emotional predispositions, social taboos and moral prejudices. The fact that this mirror is phrased in physical technical language such as “limbic system”, chemical imbalance, etc, should, really, not fool any of us for these are only physical, associations made to our natural assessment of human nature. But it does fool us, and that is sad.

Welcome to CAF!

As a psychologist, I must ask you whether you have taken psychology courses and have some familiarity about what the modern field of psychology, as well as the history of psychology, is all about. If you have, you are probably aware of the fact that modern psychology contains a number of major branches as well as many derivatives. The six major branches are abnormal psychology, biological psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, and social psychology. Most psychologists study humans, while some study only animals. The commonality between the major branches is that they all study four things: affect (internal emotion), behavior (external expression: motor, verbal, facial), cognition (internal thinking), and drive (internal motivation). While these branches may share other beliefs, they each have their own focus regarding how they study affect, behavior, cognition, and drive. Only clinical psychologists focus on studying abnormal processes, while the other five branches of psychology study either only normal processes or both normal and abnormal processes.

So much for my introductory lecture! My point, however, is that psychology does NOT have a uniform theory about humans or a uniform focus concerning what it studies. (It does have a uniform approach: the scientific method.) Many psychologists, for example, hardly even refer to the brain or brain chemicals and have nothing whatsoever to do with abnormal behavior or therapy. Therefore when you ask the question whether psychology threatens Christianity, you really have to specify which particular area of psychology and which precise theories of psychology (past or present) you’re talking about.

 

[Jonesboy]

Welcome to CAF!

As a psychologist, I must ask you whether you have taken psychology courses and have some familiarity about what the modern field of psychology, as well as the history of psychology, is all about. If you have, you are probably aware of the fact that modern psychology contains a number of major branches as well as many derivatives. The six major branches are abnormal psychology, biological psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, and social psychology. Most psychologists study humans, while some study only animals. The commonality between the major branches is that they all study four things: affect (internal emotion), behavior (external expression: motor, verbal, facial), cognition (internal thinking), and drive (internal motivation). While these branches may share other beliefs, they each have their own focus regarding how they study affect, behavior, cognition, and drive. Only clinical psychologists focus on studying abnormal processes, while the other five branches of psychology study either only normal processes or both normal and abnormal processes.

So much for my introductory lecture! My point, however, is that psychology does NOT have a uniform theory about humans or a uniform focus concerning what it studies. (It does have a uniform approach: the scientific method.) Many psychologists, for example, hardly even refer to the brain or brain chemicals and have nothing whatsoever to do with abnormal behavior or therapy. Therefore when you ask the question whether psychology threatens Christianity, you really have to specify which particular area of psychology and which precise theories of psychology (past or present) you’re talking about.

Psychology and science are tools for enforcing an ethics that has its roots in Christianity. This ethics is often in conflict with our natural state or identity.

Psychology (and the sciences), but not Christianity, threatens our natural state and the human race from its physical and ultimately permanent, genetic interventions.

Psychology, through it’s concept and practice of pathology, or the belief in chemical possession, threatens Christian belief because it disqualifies unethical experiences and behaviours, thus placing them outside the purview of God.

Psychology is a threat to our natural state because it limits knowledge of what it is to be human to the ethical limits laid out by pathology. Pathology has its ethical roots in Christianity.

I use the term psychology to embrace all ethical studies, doctrines, laws, taboos and enforcements that model awareness on the behaviour of physical objects.

 

[Jonesboy]

People will always seize upon ideas that can explain away God. But that does not mean they are successful. Psychology has nothing to say about creation, the incarnation or the resurrection. So it cant in any real way threaten Christianity.

General practice or internists might be the biggest prescriber of psychiatric drugs, not psychiatrists. In my opinion medical doctors far too often seek to treat any problem with a pill. They tend to ignore other treatments. This is as true with psychological problems as mechanical problems.

As long as psychologists are able to help some people with talk therapy then the practice is actually lending credibility to religion as it is working on the assumption that we have a mind, which is metaphysical, and able to influence our experience. What if a doctor was able to heal your broken leg through talk therapy? Wouldn’t that help prove the metaphysical nature of man? I believe to some extent doctors can do this. In fact the efficacy of placebos indicates that belief has a strong influence on healing.

Psychology does tend to focus on the state of the brain to suggest the state, often influenced by chemicals, is solely responsible for what we experience. I dont think that is in any way proven. But at the same time the state of the brain does at least influence our experience. If we get drunk our mind is surely affected. Christianity does not deny that. But at the same time even our feeling of drunkenness is caused in part by our mind. I saw an episode of Mythbusters where they gave people non-alcoholic beer. The subjects thought it was alcoholic and acted and felt drunk.

I think the mind is a marvelous and mysterious creation and how exactly it works will continue to be a mystery.

Fair enough. two disagreements though.
First, I know it’s a popular saying, but I haven’t any idea what is meant by how the mind “works”. I would rather say that it doesn’t work and that there is no mystery. Cars and TV’s work. And then I would rather say that the “mind” is itself another one of our popular modern inventions, myths.

I would also say that nothing “causes” our perceptions or experience. There’s no spatio-temporal causality at work. What we have are associations, not relationships between mind and brain. And as a mere associations, we can’t use the brain as a source of knowledge.

 

[Pieman333272]

My friend,

There is no contradiction between psychology and Christianity. Psychology does not espound the view that all thoughts are chemical controlled (biological determinism), while some specific Psychologists do. Many also promote concepts such as free will, so it’s balanced out. Psychology has many theories, and the tables turn over time. Sigmund Freud was once the standard, now he’s considered pseudoscientific, and according to a relative of mine who is an art therapist, a lot of the evidence is looping back into Freudian psychology. The point is, there is no (current) conclusive theory of psychology (except for, POSSIBLY, some very broad concepts and ideas) which answers philosophical questions like this. There are attempts, but quite a few support - or can be reconciled with - Christianity.