Response to"The Cognitive Psychology of the Belief in the Supernatural"

This article was very interesting and it had brought up some ideas and thoughts that truly intrigued me. I never knew thought that intense religious behavior would be looked at as "madness." I believe that every individual has their own outlook on religion and has their certain set of beliefs. If an individual considers himself or herself devoted to a certain religion usually they have to abide by that religions code of belief system and its rules and regulations. Some people are fully devote and some believe half way and some just do their own thing. I personally am Christian but I do not fully follow the Bible entirely. I do read it and I believe in it yet I have my own spiritualistic system of my own. I believe in self -meditation and when I do get into my meditating mode I feel as if I am one with my own spirit. When I am finished doing this after I feel a lot stronger and a lot more in tune with myself and my spirit. This brings me back to Berings article when he talks about the primitive societies in the past and how they used to believe dreams are real and that they believe that spirits survive death. In which a lot of religions that we can take a look at have very similar beliefs when it comes to spirits and its survival after death, because as in the Christian religion we believe there is life after death and that life is Heaven that is if our "spirit"/"soul" is righteous enough and "good" enough. With this said there is a lot of controversy and talk about whether there is life after death. Yet religion in historical societies and in the present has always had positive influences. Whether it was to help establish some type of control to regulate violence or a type of system that was established to farm and help people get into jobs to support their family. Though Religion has always had a big impact on society I believe that it is has created a very positive influence rather than a negative one.