Religion and Human Behavior

Schoenfeld wonders why scientific Psychology has for so long ignored religious behavior when billions of people through the ages have come to practice some form of religion. To stimulate discussion, he abstracts features that are common to all religions, describes the behavior we must observe in order to identify those features, and explores principles that underlie the genesis and continuance of that behavior. From what behavioral properties are key religious concepts drawn? What makes a given religious dogma believable by an ordinary man? What makes the utterances of one man, say a religion's founder, attractive to a potential convert? What makes one religion viable in the behavioral repertory of people, and therefore 'successful,' while another religion is not? There is no definitive reason why, when religious behavior is studied as natural phenomena, the results of a scientific analysis should not illuminate, and even strengthen, the conclusions of religion about behavior.