Assignment Two Commented

Personal Faith and the Supernatural 1

Personal Faith and the Supernatural

Assignment Two

Mariam F. Khan

University of North Carolina at Charlotte


Introduction and Background

Michael Shermer, an American science writer once said, “The reason people turn to

supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation. Because we do not

yet have a fully natural explanation for mind and consciousness, people turn to supernatural

explanations to fill the void.” So what does Mr. Shermer actually mean when he says this? We

have heard the saying everything happens for a reason at least once in our lives. But what is that

supposed to mean? The supernatural world can consist of many different terms and ideas. Some

may believe that supernatural is strictly ghosts and urban legends. But is there something more to

that? Of course there is. The supernatural world can consist of things other than the stereotypical

ghosts and goblins; they consist of religious beliefs that can influence a person’s personal beliefs.

In this research paper, I will be reporting the different clashes of ideas and people that relate to

the supernatural and paranormal phenomena. Using those clashes, I will be able to form my own

opinion regarding the supernatural and how it correlates or does not correlate with personal

beliefs. Furthermore, I will accentuate the difference between religious beliefs and personal

beliefs concerning the supernatural and paranormal world.

Literature Review

Terms:

Believers: Individuals that believe in the supernatural and paranormal world; their

religious and non-religious personal beliefs influence their way of thinking and influence their

perspective on the specific phenomena

Magic: The concept of magic is defined as to having some sort of higher ability and

characteristic that one does not usually see in the normal environment. Exceptional qualities and

characteristics could include in a variety of things such as having the ability to control events in


nature.

Inhibitory control: The ability to control inappropriate responses and/or behaviors using a

range of mechanisms.

Skeptics: Individuals that do not believe in the supernatural and paranormal phenomena;

they tend to favor logical reasoning such as science to prove the explanation of an event

Superstition: The concept of superstition is a false belief that according to Lindeman is

assumed to be held by “ignorant lay people” (Lindeman 242).

Supernatural: It is a religious concept which states that something belonging to a realm or

system higher than that of nature.

Stroop Colour-Word Test: Test measuring inhibition. The test consisted of three trials:

two trials were used for statistical analysis where participants name colours from non-word

stimuli, the third trial is the incongruent trial where participants named colours from words

written in different colours.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: This test consists of four stimulus cards and 128 response

cards that depict various figures, number of figures, and colours. Using the presented cards,

participants have to sort the randomly presented cards from a deck to the stimulus cards to reveal

a rule.

Religions that are listed in this research paper include: Christianity, Islam, Judaism,

Buddhism, and Agnostic/Atheism.

Supernatural vs. Religion

Religion and the supernatural somewhat go hand in hand and correlate with each other.

Christians differentiate supernatural from paranormal phenomena because some supernatural

phenomena such as miracles, God, and angels are accepted as real. One the other hand, some Comment [H1]: Change it to “certain”


paranormal phenomena is not endorsed by the church such as psychokinesis (Lindeman 242). In

Vail, Arndt, and Abdhollahi’s study, they created three to test out functions of religion and

management of death. The first study consisted of Christians and Athiests, the second consisted

of Muslims and Athiests, and the last study consisted of only Agnostics (Vail 1290). In Francis,

Williams, and Robbins’s article, they created a study among teenagers where they completed a

questionnaire regarding beliefs of the supernatural and Christian beliefs. Baker and Draper

convey that religious beliefs and the paranormal correlate with supernatural phenomena. The

relationship is known to be curvilinear while forming the hypothesis which states that individuals

with “moderate levels of religiosity will be more apt to incorporate paranormal beliefs” (Baker

415).

Conventional and Unconventional Beliefs

Conventional beliefs consist of Christian beliefs whereas unconventional beliefs consist of

paranormal beliefs. Francis, Williams, and Robbins created a table which included the different

types of beliefs associated with the conventional and unconventional. Conventional Christian

beliefs consist of the belief in God and the belief of Jesus Christ rising from the dead.

Unconventional paranormal beliefs consist of the belief in black magic and the belief of the

possibility to contact the spirits of the dead. On the other hand, Baker and Draper have a

completely different view of the relationship between conventional and unconventional beliefs.

They agree that conventional religious beliefs and the unconventional paranormal beliefs both

correspond with supernatural phenomena (Baker 413).

Skeptics vs. Believers

In the case of supernatural and all things paranormal, there are two types of people:

skeptics and believers. These two types of people are highly apparent among adults in the

Comment [H2]: Since phenomena is plural change “is” to “are”

Comment [H3]: There will be a comma after the word church

Comment [H4]: Three what? Specify

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modern day societies. Within the topic of skeptics and believers, Lindeman, Riekki, and Hood

created a study assessing adults that identified themselves as one of those two types to test out

their inhibition. Using the Stroop Colour Word Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the

authors assessed the participants and concluded that believers made more mistakes than skeptics

on the WCST whereas in the Stroop test, there were equal results. The reasoning of the two tests

was to assess the idea of supernatural beliefs and the correlation it had to inhibitory control.

Towards the end of the test, Lindeman, Riekki, and Hood concluded that supernatural beliefs

were definitely correlated to some sort of inhibitory control.

Purpose of Events

Does everything happen for a reason? Why did that happen? What was the meaning of it?

These are some of the questions that come up when something drastic or different happens to us

in our lives. Svedholm, Lindeman, and Lipsanen asked questions just like this in their article

when exploring the nature of the beliefs with the topic of the purpose of events and their

cognitive foundations. Forming a hypothesis that events are a part of supernatural phenomenon,

they sampled a large population to help them understand and test out their curiosity. They

created a table of correlations between core knowledge confusions, paranormal beliefs, and the

purpose of events. In the core knowledge confusion, they had four different types. The four

different types of knowledge confusion included mental is biological, mental is physical, matter

is animate, and energy is biological and mental (Svedholm). The purpose of events relates

mutually to supernatural and religious beliefs. When believing in a higher power, whether it

would be God, Allah, Yahweh, etc. religious individuals tend to believe that everything will play

out well in the long run, which is also known as destiny. Considering that supernatural events are

taken in account by religious individuals, the purpose of events plays an important role within

Comment [H6]: Questions are very well played out


their lives.

Personal Belief Beyond the Religious Scope: A Narrative of the Research Paper

During the course of this research, I realized that there is so much more beyond the

religious aspect of personal beliefs regarding the supernatural world. My sources mostly

concluded that personal beliefs correlate with religious beliefs on a very high note. However, I

believe that personal beliefs can mean a variety of things and it does not usually have to go hand

in hand with religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. are religions that tie in with

the personal beliefs of an individual. Majority of religious individuals believe in the supernatural

world. They believe that there is another world beyond us and there are people that surround us

that cannot be seen or heard. But what if you are Agnostic? Or an Atheist? Or you believe in

science over a higher power? It is all black and white. Personal beliefs and religious beliefs are

both two separate entities that are defined completely differently than what the other sources

have stated. Religious beliefs are beliefs regarding a higher power in which individuals gain that

knowledge through holy books and scriptures and religious authoritarians. Personal beliefs, on

the other hand, do not. Personal beliefs are beliefs that an individual forms throughout their life.

They start off forming their beliefs by watching and learning from authoritative figures like their

parents, teachers, etc. As they grow older, their friends and peers help them mold their beliefs,

which brings us to the formation of cliques and groups in high school. When individuals cross

that stage in their life, they become somewhat self-actualized and take all that they learned from

the past and form their own beliefs about the world. Personal beliefs can include an individual’s

personal experience. Did that individual encounter some sort of paranormal entity in which they

began to believe in the supernatural? Did they listen to a lot of ghost stories back in their

childhood that formed their opinion about the paranormal events and entities? Religion may play

Comment [H7]: Do not capitalize it

Comment [H8]: For the overall entering the conversation portion, write more about it

Comment [H9]: Change it to “my” to make it more personal

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a large role in the supernatural world, however, personal beliefs that one forms throughout their

life may be the one that can give proof of the world beyond our spectrum of thinking and seeing.

So What? Why Should You Care? (Conclusion)

We live in a society that makes money off of anything that relates to the supernatural and

paranormal world. We have documentaries, movies, television series, etc. that show off the

paranormal side and dimensions. Everywhere we turn we will see something related to the

supernatural. Supernatural is a popular television series that revolves around the paranormal

phenomena. The show concerns itself with supernatural beliefs, religious beliefs, as well as

personal beliefs. In a later season of the show, more specifically the fifth season, it revolved

mostly around religious aspects of the supernatural. This included God, the Prophets, believers,

skeptics, and the apocalypse. Media tends to gravitate towards this certain theme of things

because of how popular it is in our society. It is something that every individual has a stance

about whether it correlates with their religious beliefs or their non-religious personal beliefs.

Religious beliefs differ with personal beliefs in a variety of ways and prior to this research, I

believed that both these terms were basically the same thing. The big reason on why religious

beliefs is different from personal beliefs is because of the whole religion aspect of it all. Personal

beliefs can mean different things that usually do not have to do with anything relating to religion

whereas religious beliefs concur with it. All the sources prior to this conclusion can say that the

supernatural and paranormal world has people talking. Whether it is about the clash between

supernatural vs. religion, conventional vs. unconventional beliefs, and the clash between skeptics

and the believers.

Comment [H11]: Looks a bit strange; maybe take out the “of”

Comment [H12]: This is sentence fragment; you started saying something but did not finish the whole thought. Add to it.


Works Cited

Baker, Joseph O, and Scott Draper. "Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and

the Curvilinear Relationship between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs." Journal for the

Scientific Study of Religion. 49.3 (2010): 413-424. Print.

Francis, Leslie J, Emyr Williams, and Mandy Robbins. "Personality, Conventional Christian

Belief and Unconventional Paranormal Belief: a Study Among Teenagers." British

Journal of Religious Education. 32.1 (2010): 31-39. Print.

Khan, Mariam. “Assignment One Observations”

Lindeman, M, and A.M Svedholm. "What's in a Term? Paranormal, Superstitious, Magical and

Supernatural Beliefs by Any Other Name Would Mean the Same." Review of General

Psychology. 16.3 (2012): 241-255. Print.

Lindeman Marjaana, Tapani Riekki, and Bruce M. Hood. "Is Weaker Inhibition Associated with

Supernatural Beliefs?" Journal of Cognition and Culture. 11 (2011): 231-239. Print.

Sperber, Dan. "Agency, Religion, and Magic." Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 27.6 (2004):

750-751. Print.

Stieger, S, and A Hergovich. "Together We Are Strong: Explicit and Implicit Paranormal Beliefs

Predict Performance in a Knowledge Test of Paranormal Phenomena Better Than

Explicit

Beliefs Alone." Personality and Individual Differences. 54.5 (2013): 562-565. Print.

SVEDHOLM, ANNIKA M, MARJAANA LINDEMAN, and JARI LIPSANEN. "Believing in

the Purpose of Eventswhy Does It Occur, and Is It Supernatural?" Applied Cognitive

Psychology. 24.2 (2010). Print.

Vail, KE , J Arndt, and A Abdollahi. "Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and


Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics."

Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 38.10 (2012): 1288-300. Print.

Vitalii, Svintsov. "Faith and Unbelief." Russian Social Science Review. 43.1 (2002): 73-103.

Print.

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