Religion has always been a very emotional topic in which some are not comfortable with sharing their beliefs or lack thereof. Even if people are not comfortable with sharing it, they still believe in something or nothing. There is an aspect of believing, or not believing, that helps make us who we are and influence the decisions we make. There is a psychological aspect behind everything we do and/or believe in. I’ve done some research and tried to answer this question and get some valuable understanding with different religions, it just is not a very researched topic by psychologists. First, I wanted to do the psychology behind religion but I felt as if that was too broad of a topic that could be narrowed down more. Doing this research has opened my eyes as to why I myself believe and what role it plays in my life. Virtue is basically your moral standards and what they’re explaining is how religion does play a part in those standards. We have numerous virtues and they are very complex. Having those different sources where the psychologists come from different places really helps me prove that having those virtues is not only in religious people. Having those virtues are essential in our lives, religious or not, no matter who we are. Being a somewhat religious person myself and coming from a very religious family, I know how religion plays a major role in my life. I’m just very curious as to why.  

A study was conducted on religious people (with different religions) and it was shown that we all, different people of different religions and races, share the same 16 basic human desires (Grabmeier 2015). Those desires may be in different orders, but they are still ones that we all have in common. A few of these desires are acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honor, etc. He informed us that the goal of this study was not to prove the existence of God or of anything really. Knowing that we all share these desires makes me feel as if we’re all emotionally and mentally connected even if we don’t share the same religion. Just within my social group, I have noticed that we all share some of these desires. Of course, there were some that didn’t, but majority of us did and we were all different races and practiced different religions. Not only did our religions differ, our races and cultures as well.

Understanding the different definitions is a very difficult and complex thing to do since there are different things that play a major role in developing that definition. Schnitker touched on a very helpful point in understanding the dimensions that help people create those definitions. This is based off the understanding that virtues are; embedded within a cultural context and community, embodied traits of character, integrate ethics and health, sources of human strength and resilience, contribute to a sense of meaningful life purpose, and grounded in cognitive capacity for wisdom (Schnitker and Emmons 2017). This is a very good foundation to help form a definition and opinion on something that you will abide by your whole life. Knowing what these dimensions are helped me understand exactly what it was that helped me create those virtues I live my life by and what it is that helps others create theirs as well. Since the late 1990’s researchers in positive psychology have been investigating how intentional activities can promote the development of character strengths and virtues in efforts to promote happiness and eudaimonia (human flourishing) in adults (Schnitker & Emmons 2017). We participate in these intentional events in order to try and better ourselves for our own personal satisfaction. One of the key virtues that tends to be ignored is the virtue of patience. Patience is defined in this context as “the propensity of a person to wait calmly un the face of frustration, adversity, or suffering.” Part of the reason we believe in a religion is because religion is what makes suffering, sufferable (Schnitker & Emmons 2017). 

Virtues are the focus of where the psychology of religion and spirituality meet (Luna 2017). Virtues of humility, patience, and gratitude are all valued in both positive psychology and religion systems. For those who don’t know, positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play (Seligman et al. 2017). Naturally, everybody’s main goal in life it to be happy so we do purposely things that will increase our happiness.  Knowing that definition gives you a better understanding of what exactly the psychologists and I are looking at. Positive psychology isn’t a simple topic to wrap your mind around on its own. Thinking about that definition along with the way it impacts who we are, really open your eyes to look and think about things differently when it comes to my virtues.

“Values such as humor, intelligence, or beauty may be desirable but not necessarily something one ought to bring into practice. Therefore, not all values are virtues (Oudenhoven et al. 2012).” Some people do tend to think that the term value and virtue are interchangeable, which they are not. Oudenhoven defines virtues as “morally good person characteristics” that one can either learn or possess even though psychologists can also see virtues as a subset of values. When people follow new religions, they adapt to the religious morals, values, and traditions that have been adapted in to the national culture as well since most foreign nations have a national religion. Seeing that religious practices merge into the culture and evolve as part of the culture, it’s harder to know which one came first and impacted the other.

Another key factor in all this is our definition of grace which coincides with the virtues we live our lives by. Different people have different definitions of grace (Graves 2017), just like a lot of other spiritual words or just words in general. It’s more so different races where the definition differs because different races have had different histories within their own country and other countries. Although Graves wrote this article, he was working with another psychologist, Schnitker, who was also researching this topic. Reading his article gave me a better look into what I was really researching and showed me that even if we have those same virtues, our different definitions of grace still plays a role in understanding what exactly those virtues mean in our lives. Our definition of grace also plays a minor detail into the bigger picture. Meaning, it determines the details or our virtues that cause us to live a certain way.

It is a common thing to hear people refer to religious people as if they are intellectually subordinate than those who are not religious. As if they have less worldly knowledge than others and a study was conducted on college students. They could that religious belief is inversely associated with intelligence so, the more intelligent people generally are less likely to be religious (McGreal 2014). It has previously been found that there is a negative relationship between intelligence and religiosity, but it is unsure what is causing this relationship. Trying to figure out if religion made them less intelligent, if they just were never that intelligent to begin with, or if there is another factor that plays a major role in the declination of intelligence. Our level of openness to experience is also another thing they found that was lower in those who believed in God than those who didn’t. “Openness to experience, along with intelligence, is also associated with greater general knowledge of the world” (McGreal 2014). McGreal seems to feel that “those are high in openness to experience are intellectually curious and therefore motivated to learn new things about the world” (McGreal 2014). I agree with this point of view to a certain extent. I understand that this may not apply to everyone, but it still makes me feel a little uneasy because of who I am as a person, the people I choose to be around, and people that I’m not around as well. I would acknowledge the fact that people who are religious are a little more fearful than those who aren’t, but at the same time, I wouldn’t say that religious people don’t have a high level of general knowledge and aren’t open to experiences.

Whether people want to believe it or not, there is a relationship between religion and morality which in whole makes us who we are. Most people want to stop all mentioning of it because people can be good without God (Vernon 2010). He looks at more of the science aspect of it instead of the psychological. He states that the two sciences that explore the nature of morality is neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Rational considerations are ultimately deciding what counts as good since there are plenty of cooperation and competition in nature, but there is deeper challenge to ethics that seems to come from science. Science does not alter the earlier understandings of morality. Otherwise known as virtue ethics. According to Vernon, “it shows how our capacity for moral reflection and self-examination plays a critical role” (Vernon 2010).

The point of me saying all this is to ensure you that there is a relationship between our virtues and who we are as people even if you aren’t religious. Even those with different religions and from different races still have around the same virtues, so I do not think there is an exact correlation between virtues and a specific religion. Because of the fact a lot of our religions traditions and practices have merged into our culture, it is hard to tell if someone is doing something without any “religious reason”. Nobody wants to be considered “dumb”, even if that isn’t the proper term for the lack of knowledge, and since they’ve basically showed how religion negatively correlates with worldly knowledge, it might push people away from religion. Do I believe that is the case? No, I surely do not, but I can’t speak for everyone else. But, do I think there is still a relationship between virtues and morality that makes us who we are? I sure do! Religious or not, everyone has some type of virtues that helps guide us in a specific direction to live our lives a certain way. By doing this research it has opened my eyes to bigger things. I’ve always been a very curious person and I’ve recently started to explore those curiosities. These aren’t all the studies that have been done on this topic, these are just the ones I found and they have really opened my eyes to the bigger picture. It has made me open my mind as well to let everything in and it stopped the thoughts I’ve always had about everybody being so different, especially those who practice a different religion. I was always ok with the fact that people don’t always lie what I like or do the things that I do, this has just made feel as if we aren’t as different as society and other things make us seem. Not saying there aren’t a few that stray away from that thought though. Since religion plays a big role in creating those virtues that we live by, there is of course going to be some discrepancy. A lot of critical and crucial things differ in different religions that do cause us to have different crucial and critical details in our virtues. 
