The Psychology of Religion, Chapter 25: Speaking in Tongues

Some religions feature unusual behaviours that are accepted as manifestations of divinity. One example is glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”). Every cultural group has rituals that symbolize transcendence or divine intervention somehow, but it is concerning in modern times that people would treat this as a literal case of God “speaking through” someone, rather than as a human psychological and social phenomenon.

So what do we actually know about glossolalia? It usually isn’t the dramatic idea some imagine—suddenly speaking a real foreign language you never learned. Instead, it’s speech-like vocalizing: it has rhythm, emotion, and a kind of “word-like” flow, but it doesn’t reliably carry stable meaning or grammar the way a normal language does. When linguists study recordings, they tend to find that it draws heavily on the sounds and speech habits the person already has in their ordinary language—almost like a voice improvisation that feels like language, without functioning as one in the usual sense. When glossolalia happens in a context where it is expected, taught, and socially supported, it looks like a learned trance or skill—comparable to hypnosis, flow, or dissociation.

One can find examples online—there are widely circulated clips of a high-profile “faith leader,” close to a major political figure, performing “tongues” in public. I think a lot of people seeing this for the first time have a mixed reaction: perhaps, with a nervous smile, followed by some discomfort, and then a sharper concern once it lands that the performer has a large following of fervent supporters, and has mainstream political influence. It is deeply ironic that a communicative tool which does not carry any semantic meaning can be so persuasive to otherwise logical observers.

From a psychiatric point of view, glossolalia can be understood as a particular kind of altered attention state that can be learned, practiced, and performed. Put someone into the right mix of conditions—music, group emotion, high expectation, authority cues, shared language about the sacred—and a person can produce vocalizations that feel deeply meaningful. The speaker may experience it as surrendering control; the group experiences it as proof that something “beyond” is present.  Others practice it quietly, in private prayer, and describe it as calm or soothing. So the phenomenon is broader than revivalist spectacle, even if spectacle is where its social force becomes most obvious.

This is where the social function matters most. Like “miracles,” and like behavioural restrictions that visibly mark membership, glossolalia can work as a signal: it makes the group feel special, chosen, and close to the divine in a way outsiders “don’t get.” That feeling is intensely bonding. It strengthens loyalty, rewards conformity, and makes doubt feel not merely intellectual but socially dangerous—almost like betrayal. The experience itself becomes the evidence, and the shared intensity becomes the glue.  

Of course, the same machinery can be used for darker purposes. A leader who is skilled at spectacle and emotional orchestration can use these displays as tools of persuasion: not by offering reasons, but by creating awe, certainty, and a sense of “we are witnessing the sacred.” The danger is not the oddness of the behaviour; it’s the way the resulting belief and allegiance can be redirected into real-world authority—sometimes including political authority, or as a tool to obtain financial donations—under a banner of divine mandate.

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The Psychology of Religion, Chapter 24: Behavioural Restrictions

In some cases, religious groups prescribe particular foods, styles of dress, grooming habits, and behavioural expectations that are only loosely related to the ordinary moral concerns most people would recognize—kindness, honesty, fairness, nonviolence—if they are related at all. Sometimes these practices can be understood as ordinary cultural variations with obscure origins. But often the rules are treated as rigid and imperative, such that veering away from them is not merely unconventional but offensive—against the religious community, the family, or God. At times these restrictions make it difficult to live freely or comfortably in the wider pluralistic society.

One major function of these rules, in practice, is their signaling value. They make loyalty visible. They remind others—and, through repetition, remind oneself—of group affiliation and allegiance. When there are recognizable styles of appearance and behaviour that clearly mark membership, it becomes easier to find fellow members, easier to distinguish outsiders, and easier to notice who may be wavering. These rules do not merely symbolize belonging; they make unbelonging more conspicuous and more costly.

Of course, many members experience such rules sincerely as discipline, modesty, reverence, or protection from vanity. That is often true. But these meanings do not cancel the social function. In fact, moralizing the rule is part of what gives it strength. Once a custom is linked to purity, holiness, or obedience, noncompliance ceases to look like preference and begins to look like sin.

Over time, people can become deeply attached to these behavioural symbols. They can evoke powerful feelings associated with the religion, and can function almost like wearing a ring with special significance every day and night for years, beginning in childhood. The symbol stops feeling external. It becomes part of one’s emotional life. A person may then feel uneasy, exposed, or guilty without it, and feel relief when surrounded by others wearing the same symbol. In this way the group’s surveillance gradually migrates inward, until conscience itself begins to speak in the voice of the group.

But if the “ring,” so to speak, becomes massive and cumbersome—if it begins to hinder ordinary life—then what once felt meaningful can become a burden. It starts to resemble the peacock’s tail: a costly display that signals loyalty precisely because it has a real practical price. The burden is part of the proof.

We see similar dynamics in many parts of modern culture—uniforms, fraternities, subcultures, luxury brands, corporate logos. Often these are harmless variations. The darker side appears when people do not wish to participate, when the rules become tools of control, or when symbols are used to police appetite, sexuality, courtship, self-presentation, and ordinary freedom. Then noncompliance is no longer treated as a harmless difference in style; it becomes a source of shame, suspicion, rejection, or punishment.

These burdens also tend not to fall evenly. In many settings, women, girls, adolescents, and sexual minorities are scrutinized more intensely than adult men. Their bodies and behaviour become the stage on which the community performs its idea of moral seriousness. At that point the rule is no longer merely symbolic. It has become a way of distributing power.

A related dark side of religious dogma is condemnation or discrimination against people whose lifestyles are not endorsed by the group. Often, at root, this is not uniquely religious at all. It is one ordinary human tendency—present in many non-religious settings as well—to exclude or denigrate people who are different, even when they are not harming anyone. Religion did not invent this tendency, but it can sanctify it, organize it, and give it an air of cosmic authority.

Yet there are also humane strands within religious traditions that push in the opposite direction. Alongside all the purity language and social policing, there are scriptural moments emphasizing humility, mercy, and love toward precisely those people whom the surrounding culture was most inclined to vilify. That tension is revealing. At its best, religion asks people to transcend tribalism. At its worst, it turns tribal markers into sacred obligations.

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The Psychology of Religion, Chapter 23: Eschatology

Many religions have teachings about the “last things”—what happens after death, and, in some traditions, how history itself will end. This broader subject is called eschatology. What concerns me most here is one especially vivid form of it: apocalyptic belief, the idea that history is moving toward a dramatic divine climax. In some communities there is an almost excited anticipation of the world’s ending, paired with the idea of a glorious ascent of the worthy up to heaven. Of course, those with this view usually assume they will be among the worthy.

In turn, some people cultivate a kind of passive resignation about trying to improve the world’s problems: they say these are the “end times,” so why bother. And to some degree this kind of thinking can shape how people relate to society and politics—sometimes pulling them away from the work of changing the world. A 2022 Pew survey found that 39% of U.S. adults said humanity is “living in the end times.” The same research found a modest but real relationship between end-times belief and lower concern about climate change: those who believed humanity was living in the end times were less likely than others to say climate change is an extremely or very serious problem (51% versus 62%), and among those who held the more catastrophic view that the world would deteriorate before Jesus returned, the figure fell to 40%.

I realize, of course, that eschatology does not always produce passivity; in some forms it can motivate people toward reform or activism. But when apocalyptic belief becomes an excuse for disengagement—or an indulgence in catastrophe—it becomes a bleak and cynical example of what happens when dogma is taken literally. At its darkest, it can spill into extreme behavior, as in Heaven’s Gate, a fringe apocalyptic new religious movement whose 39 members died in a mass suicide in California in March 1997. Even if the world were ending, it seems profoundly dishonourable to adopt passive resignation—or even a quiet feeling of comfort—about helpful action. It would be like watching a burning building with no attempt to help the people trapped inside, while taking solace in the thought that heaven is getting closer.

I think most of us would agree that the most noble and beautiful actions humans are capable of are helpful and altruistic: working to improve a situation even when it is bleak or seemingly hopeless. A truly noble person would not be motivated by thoughts of a glorious heavenly reward upon death; they would be motivated to do good because of the intrinsic goodness of the action itself.

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The Psychology of Religion, Chapter 22: Heaven and Hell

Many religions have concepts of Heaven and Hell: Heaven an eternal state of perfect happiness, and Hell an eternal state of punishment. Religious doctrines often advise that people live appropriately during their lifetime on earth, and after they die they will be judged and sent to one place or the other. In some doctrines, the criteria are not even that you live a good life (for example, to be kind, to not hurt others, to contribute to society, to make the world a better place, etc.) but rather whether you profess belief in a very particular way. Thus, one could be the kindest, most helpful person in human history, but still go to hell if the appropriate beliefs are not endorsed. Or one could commit the worst atrocities in history, and just be an all‑round hurtful person, yet go to heaven afterwards if the appropriate beliefs are endorsed.

This concept functions as a powerful engine of group affiliation using a combination of threat and reward. It is like a company offering permanent safety and support if you sign a lifetime membership, agree to promote the brand, and guarantee not to deal with competing companies. But the same company would also threaten to ruin you permanently if you broke the deal. There would be frightening rules in the contract, such that the act of challenging company policy would be branded with words like “heresy” or “apostasy,” discouraging anyone from questioning the status quo.

Such a system is in contradiction to the spirit of fairness, grace, and justice—the striving toward mature morality—present in religious doctrines at their best. An infinite punishment for a finite set of crimes does not make sense. And the idea of punishing someone not for a crime, but for having an idea, belief, or thought that does not conform to a prescribed norm, is contrary to most people’s concept of a healthy society, and contrary to the “bill of rights” ideals that many of us—religious or not—value highly.

Pascal's Wager

A classic argument used to prop up religious belief is Pascal’s Wager. The reasoning goes something like this: if you believe, and the religion is true, you gain Heaven and avoid Hell; if you do not believe, and the religion is true, you face infinite punishment; if the religion is false, there is little or no cost either way. Therefore belief is said to be the safest bet.

But this reasoning is invalid. First of all, one could apply the same logic to any number of mutually incompatible religions, each with its own reward-and-punishment scheme. Which one, exactly, are you supposed to choose? Many religions explicitly require that you renounce the others. One could just as easily invent a magical rabbit in orbit around the moon who grants eternal reward, or literal Santa Claus delivering salvation at Christmas, or Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot drifting between Earth and Mars. The wager does not tell you which claim to believe. It merely exploits fear.

Second, it is a very poor moral foundation. It reduces belief to a selfish reward-or-punishment calculation: believe so that you can profit, or believe so that you can avoid pain. But this kind of motive is at odds with the lofty ethical language religions themselves like to use. If a deity valued sincerity, honesty, courage, and intellectual integrity, then strategic belief adopted out of self-interest would look shallow, selfish, and hypocritical.

Third, the claim that there is “no downside” to belief is obviously false. Much of the rest of this book is about that downside: the psychological distortions, tribal loyalties, guilt, fear, dogmatism, social coercion, and political consequences that can follow from false sacred beliefs. Belief is not cost-free. It can shape an entire life, a family, a culture, and a society.

So Pascal’s Wager is not a deep argument. It is a fear-based sales pitch dressed up as prudence.

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In the world, on average, roughly two people die every second—about 7,200 deaths per hour, and on the order of five million per month. Only a fraction of these people follow any one particular religious belief system. Therefore, if one holds a strict doctrine of Hell tied to a strict interpretation of “correct belief,” it would follow that thousands of people every hour—including many who lived gentle, kind, generous lives—would be banished into eternal punitive suffering because they did not endorse the right beliefs. Conversely, many who behaved cruelly all their lives could receive an infinite reward if they endorsed the correct beliefs at the last moment. Imagine an all-powerful divine creator, pushing about one person every second--many of them kindly elders who simply didn't happen to endorse the appropriate beliefs--into a flaming inferno.

If one truly believes this is the fate of countless people, one would be forced into a grim psychological choice: either adopt indifference to unimaginable suffering, adopt a horrific view of how reality works, or devote one’s life to converting as many people as possible so as to save them from hell. It would not make sense to devote one’s life to rescuing people on a smaller scale (being a firefighter, a physician, a therapist, a humanitarian worker), since this would distract from the colossal task of saving people from an infinitely worse fate than any earthly accident, illness, or war could impose. Proselytizing would seem to be the only fully rational altruistic activity. And if you wanted to “save the most people efficiently,” you would focus your efforts on those with shorter life expectancy, since their impending eternal suffering would arrive sooner. If one’s own friend or child strayed from the perceived correct religious involvement, it would be understandable—within this belief system—to view this as the most horrifying contingency imaginable, infinitely more devastating than losing them to illness, assault, or accident, because the imagined suffering would be permanent.

This is one reason the Heaven-and-Hell framework is so morally destabilizing. It incentivizes fear, coercion, and tribal control, while undermining the best ethical themes that religions also sometimes teach: compassion, humility, grace, and love.

There is a sentiment, often attributed to Mother Teresa (probably not her exact words) that I find ethically beautiful: if Hell truly existed, the only morally coherent response would be to abandon Heaven to comfort those suffering in the abyss. To enjoy eternal bliss while remaining fully aware that others are enduring eternal conscious torment requires a catastrophic suspension of empathy. The impulse to forsake one's own salvation to sit with the damned represents a true transcendence of character. It highlights a profound theological irony: the highest conceivable expression of morality—unconditional, self-sacrificial compassion—demands a fundamental rejection of the traditional boundaries of divine justice. We should all strive toward such transcendence of character, prioritizing radical empathy.

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The Psychology of Religion, Chapter 21: Historical Atrocities

Humans have engaged in all manner of atrocities, and despite the horrors of the past century, we see repeatedly—across earlier centuries as well—how easily cruelty can be normalized, ritualized, and justified. The human capacity for harm is ancient. What is especially sobering, though, is how often major institutions—including major religions—can make cruelty feel righteous.

Many historical atrocities have occurred under the banner of religion, especially when religious identity fused with conquest, state power, or tribal domination. Charlemagne’s campaigns against the Saxons (772–804 CE), for example, fused military conquest with forced Christianization. Saxon resistance was treated not only as political rebellion but also as resistance to Christian rule. Forced conversion was backed by severe legal penalties, including death for refusal of baptism, and there were episodes of mass killing in the course of suppressing Saxon resistance, most notably the Massacre of Verden in 782, where 4,500 Saxons were reportedly executed in a single day.

The Crusades (1095–1291) likewise included mass killing justified in explicitly religious terms. The Rhineland massacres of 1096 saw crusader mobs attack Jewish communities in Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, forcing conversion or death. And when Jerusalem fell in 1099, the city was taken amid large-scale slaughter of Muslims and Jews.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)—which began as a struggle between Catholic and Protestant rulers within the Holy Roman Empire before widening into a broader fight over power, territory, and dynastic advantage—became one of the most devastating catastrophes in European history. Ending with the Peace of Westphalia, the conflict killed millions and devastated wide stretches of central Europe, with some German territories losing a third or more of their population and the worst-hit areas suffering even more.

The Spanish Inquisition (established in 1478 and lasting until 1834) created a machinery of coercion and intimidation, with religious motives explicitly invoked. It targeted conversos—Jews who had converted to Christianity, often under intense pressure—and later Moriscos, Muslims who had likewise been baptized, as well as Protestants. Exact numbers are debated, but the core point is not: it was a system designed to enforce conformity through fear, punishment, and, in many cases, execution.

Other episodes fit the same pattern. The witch hunts of early modern Europe and the European colonies, spanning the 15th to the 18th centuries, led to nearly 100,000 prosecutions and roughly 40,000 to 60,000 executions, most of them women. These persecutions were not merely random superstition. They were tied to a specifically Christian demonology that linked witchcraft to heresy, Satan, and a cosmic struggle against evil. The same logic also appeared in campaigns against peoples classified as pagan or heathen. In the Baltic Crusades, military orders such as the Brothers of the Sword and later the Teutonic Knights pursued conquest together with Christianization, and forced conversion was part of the program. In Muslim history, the language of jihad was also at times used to frame warfare, though that point should be stated carefully: jihad does not simply mean “holy war,” and in Islamic thought it has long included moral and spiritual struggle as well. 

Colonial movements in later centuries often used religious language—“civilization,” “salvation,” missionary uplift—as moral cover for extraction and domination. Leopold II’s Congo Free State (1885–1908) was not simply a Belgian colony but effectively Leopold’s personal state. It was presented as a humanitarian venture that would end slavery and bring religion and modern life to the Congolese. In practice it became a regime of forced labour, hostage-taking, mutilation, and terror, likely causing millions of deaths, though exact numbers are disputed. It was surrounded by Christian and “civilizing” rhetoric, and missionaries were part of that colonial world, though many later helped expose the abuses.

The transatlantic slave trade and slavery (spanning roughly the 16th to the 19th centuries) were likewise defended by many religious leaders and institutions, often through distorted readings of scripture. One recurring example was the so-called “Curse of Ham”—actually Noah’s curse on Canaan, later twisted into a supposed justification for African slavery—even as other religious figures, especially Quakers, became central to abolitionist movements. The point is not that religion uniquely caused exploitation, but that it was repeatedly available to sanctify it.

The same pattern appears in Canadian history. “Christianization” was one motive—alongside state assimilationist policy—behind the Residential School system. Church-run schools began earlier, but by the 1880s the federal government had adopted an official policy of funding residential schools across Canada, and the last school closed in 1996. More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children passed through these church-run, state-funded institutions, which were designed to separate children from their families and cultures and were marked by widespread abuse. Thousands died, and the records remain incomplete.

The Spanish conquest of the Americas, beginning with Columbus in 1492 and intensifying with Cortés’s overthrow of the Aztec empire in 1519–1521, likewise brought catastrophic Indigenous death and cultural devastation. Disease accounted for much of the mortality, but religious institutions were deeply entangled with the colonial project. Conquerors often invoked the Requerimiento—an official legal demand drafted by Spanish authorities and read aloud before conquest. It asserted the Pope’s authority and Spain’s claim to the land, demanded submission to the Crown and acceptance of Christian preaching, and threatened war, enslavement, and dispossession for refusal. In practice it was often read to people who could not understand it, sometimes with no real translation at all. To be fair, some clergy, most famously Bartolomé de las Casas, later fought publicly against the abuse of Indigenous peoples.

Of course, violence and atrocity have also occurred outside religion, and secular ideologies have justified horrors of their own. But religion has plainly not been a reliable protection against humanity’s worst impulses. 

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