{MOVED} Does having an "Internal Narrative" effect one's likelihood of being a Religious Funde?

[Landon Caeli]

I was just thinking how there are two types of people -those with an inner narrative, and those without:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...-the-viral-internal-narrative-phenomenon/amp/

...I was thinking this might have some relationship with whether one tends to be more of a fundamentalist Christian (Bible based) or a Spiritual Christian (feelings / charitability). What do you think..? Do you see the parallel..?

This is merely a thought I had that I thought might be worth going further into.

 

[jacks]

Interesting article, though I thought it came to the conclusion that people weren't' one or the other.

"So, what’s the standard setting for our brains? It turns out most people fall on a spectrum, thinking both visually and verbally, according to Ivy League researchers. A 2017 study, published in NeuroImage, found that even when thinking verbally, people tend to use visual images along with their inner speech.

“I think a lot of people have both,” says Curtis Reisinger, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with Northwell Health on Long Island. “It goes well beyond two types.”

If a person fell strongly on one side of the continuum, it might influence their spiritual beliefs and the nature of God, though I don't see that it would necessarily divide Christians into two distinct camps or that one would be more charitable than the other.

 

[Carl Emerson]

This is an interesting topic, I am a 'feeling thinker' mostly...

I must say that there is another aspect to this that is more serious...

For years I had a 'narrator' in my head like a constant observer that was giving a running commentary on my behaviours.

During my journey out of darkness the Lord pin-pointed this as a matter so be sorted out.

He alerted me to a book I had read called the Sociological Consciousness by Peter Berger.

In the book one was advised to take on the persona of an independent emotionless observer when considering societal issues. I took this seriously.

This resulted in the voice of the narrator which plagued me for years.

So I renounced this and immediately the voice disappeared never to return.

 

[Carl Emerson]

By the way I don't expect a link between ones religious persuasion and the way our mind works - however the conscience clearly plays a part - I guess some may experience this as a voice?

 

[Landon Caeli]

By the way I don't expect a link between ones religious persuasion and the way our mind works - however the conscience clearly plays a part - I guess some may experience this as a voice?

It crossed my mind that thinking in words, and religious texts (words) might have some kind of relationship as opposed to more spiritual types of Christianity that exist outside of linguistics.

...But you might be right, that there is no relationship. I'm just not sure either way.

 

[pescador]

I was just thinking how there are two types of people -those with an inner narrative, and those without:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...-the-viral-internal-narrative-phenomenon/amp/

...I was thinking this might have some relationship with whether one tends to be more of a fundamentalist Christian (Bible based) or a Spiritual Christian (feelings / charitability). What do you think..? Do you see the parallel..?

This is merely a thought I had that I thought might be worth going further into.

We as Christians are told that the Holy Spirit lives in us. He is may main guide. I try to live by what the Spirit "says" to me about my behavior, my attitude toward others, and if I have the qualities listed as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5...

"... the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Unfortunately I don't not always show those qualities but they aree always in my mind.

Also, I read the Bible every day for about an hour. I try to let the words speak for themselves without my interpreting them, but of course that is very difficult to do. I look on the English translation of the Bible as the best that accomplished professional translators can do, the more modern the better since we are a 21st Century audience, not ancient Greeks nor Romans nor ...

I believe that both living by the Spirit and reading the Bible are both essential to being an aware Christian.

As you can see below, I believe that the Bible should never be used to "club" others.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I was thinking that people who mostly do not have an internal monologue might become confused on those rare occasions when they do hear it. They might attribute it to a divine source rather than an internal one.

 

[Carl Emerson]

The divine is internal in the believer.

 

[Landon Caeli]

The divine is internal in the believer.

Would you say it exists in both frames of mind, if such a two exist as stated in the OP?

 

[Landon Caeli]

I was thinking that people who mostly do not have an internal monologue might become confused on those rare occasions when they do hear it. They might attribute it to a divine source rather than an internal one.

But then again, there could be holy thoughts on the other side too -something just seeming right.

...So I'm not sure we could pinpoint hearing an inner narrative as the source of religion, if that's what you meant.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Would you say it exists in both frames of mind, if such a two exist as stated in the OP?

My sheep hear my voice and they follow me...

How that happens is a matter of individual difference.

I know that He speaks in a way that the individual requires otherwise how could we be accountable to His word?

 

[Radagast]

I was thinking this might have some relationship with whether one tends to be more of a fundamentalist Christian (Bible based) or a Spiritual Christian (feelings / charitability).

Please define "fundamentalist." That's a word that's mostly used as a pejorative today.

Properly speaking, "fundamentalist" means someone who believes in miracles, the Resurrection, the Deity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, etc. (the fundamentals of the Christian faith).

The Church has always (until modern times) been "fundamentalist," and personality types or thinking styles have never affected that.

 

[Paidiske]

Would you say it exists in both frames of mind, if such a two exist as stated in the OP?

I've certainly experienced God both in words and in other ways (feelings, images etc). I think God uses whatever is most helpful for each of us at the time.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I have both free-form thoughts-as-feelings, and the translation of those feelings into explicit language. The inner monologue is usually deliberative thought processes (Kahnemann's system II thinking) as the rational 1st person 'adult' persona, organising, chiding, planning, etc. It's always 'me' talking to myself (as I would talk to someone else), even when I use the 2nd person pronoun, e.g. "Oops, you shouldn't have done that".

I think this linguistic mode is mostly learned and contains the speech patterns and phrases of parents, teachers, and other internalised social influences - i.e. it's cultural (and closely associated with the conscience). You can often hear small children imitating their parent's patterns of speech and phrasing in lone play. I suspect that in less individualistic cultures (Japan?) the inner monologue more explicitly represents societal norms.

But apparently quite a few people (3-10%) regularly hear voices that they do not identify with; I read a paper some time ago that presented some evidence to suggest that they were thought trains that failed to activate, or only weakly activated, the self-identity/ownership/agency discrimination area that normally accompanies the internal monologue, so they enter consciousness identified as not self-originated. It doesn't seem a big stretch to suppose that, given suitable contextual priming, these can be interpreted as, or attributed to, supernatural sources, e.g. angels, demons, gods, spirits, ancestors, etc.

 

[essentialsaltes]

But then again, there could be holy thoughts on the other side too -something just seeming right.

Yes, but that's very different (I think) from occasionally hearing a voice -- that you don't recognize as your own -- telling you something.

So I'm not sure we could pinpoint hearing an inner narrative as the source of religion, if that's what you meant.

Not necessarily all religion, but an explanation for some fraction of people who say, "God told me X." or "God told me to do X."

 

[grasping the after wind]

Yes, but that's very different (I think) from occasionally hearing a voice -- that you don't recognize as your own -- telling you something.



Not necessarily all religion, but an explanation for some fraction of people who say, "God told me X." or "God told me to do X."

It may well be that a person unaccustomed to internally verbalizing could make that mistake. I was surprised to learn that there are people that do not immediately put every thought into language inside their brain. It is a flaw in me to generalize my own experiences of life even at times when my situation is not typical. For instance, I have had tinnitus as long as I can remember. So long that I was under the impression that it was the norm and never realized that I had a condition until I was in my 40s and people began to talk about tinnitus. Suddenly I realized that other people have a different perception of reality than I do when it comes to hearing. I have never experienced actual silence. I am sure that colors my perceptions of many things to some degree. When we assume that others think or perceive things the same way as we do ourselves, and I think that is a common assumption, we can misunderstand them and often misjudge them as well.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

I've always considered my self to be very, very self-aware. Seemingly more so than most other people that I know, which of course is purely speculation since I cannot access the thoughts and feelings of anyone else directly, but just based on conversations about such topics and also on behaviors "in the wild". As an example, when I am intoxicated I am acutely aware of my condition. Unless I literally lose consciousness (which has only happened twice in my life in my younger days) I am aware of my actions and behaviors and the next day I remember everything that I perceived and did while I was intoxicated. I don't "black out." My perceptions of what did happen may be different than others that were with me, but I think these are differences in focus and attention. This may be common, but I've personally never met anyone who gets heavily intoxicated and remembers and thinks about everything the way I seem to. That is that aware of how intoxicated they are and can still make decisions based on that awareness and what's going on while intoxicated.

Given that, I have the internal narrative. I am reading these words "aloud" in my head as I type them, for instance. I read "aloud" in my head as well and "talk" to myself pretty much constantly. I personally have a really hard time imagining someone who does not do this. Someone that only feels or is visual. I am somewhat visual also, but mostly verbal.

I have always been this way. I've been a believer and am now an atheist, so I don't know how all this relates.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I've always considered my self to be very, very self-aware. Seemingly more so than most other people that I know, which of course is purely speculation since I cannot access the thoughts and feelings of anyone else directly, but just based on conversations about such topics and also on behaviors "in the wild". As an example, when I am intoxicated I am acutely aware of my condition. Unless I literally lose consciousness (which has only happened twice in my life in my younger days) I am aware of my actions and behaviors and the next day I remember everything that I perceived and did while I was intoxicated. I don't "black out." My perceptions of what did happen may be different than others that were with me, but I think these are differences in focus and attention. This may be common, but I've personally never met anyone who gets heavily intoxicated and remembers and thinks about everything the way I seem to. That is that aware of how intoxicated they are and can still make decisions based on that awareness and what's going on while intoxicated.

Given that, I have the internal narrative. I am reading these words "aloud" in my head as I type them, for instance. I read "aloud" in my head as well and "talk" to myself pretty much constantly. I personally have a really hard time imagining someone who does not do this. Someone that only feels or is visual. I am somewhat visual also, but mostly verbal.

I have always been this way. I've been a believer and am now an atheist, so I don't know how all this relates.

Other than the intoxication part, my internal narrative is similar and imagining how people could be otherwise is difficult.

 

[pescador]

I was thinking that people who mostly do not have an internal monologue might become confused on those rare occasions when they do hear it. They might attribute it to a divine source rather than an internal one.

But it might actually be the Holy Spirit. John 16:13, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come."

If it is in accordance with the New Covenant it is from God. He will never contradict Himself.

 

[grasping the after wind]

But it might actually be the Holy Spirit. John 16:13, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come."

If it is in accordance with the New Covenant it is from God. He will never contradict Himself.

The only problem with that is that different people interpret the New Covenant in different ways. So someone may be convinced that the words they heard comport perfectly with the New Covenant as they themselves have decided to interpret it. So they end up relying upon their own interpretation to decide if the voices in their head are from The Holy Spirit and not just in line with their own interpretation of how to be in compliance with the New Covenant.

Here is an example of that sort of circular reasoning which could lead to problems.

A-I believe that to love my neighbors I must save them from Hell by converting them to Christianity because that is how I interpret the words of Jesus about love and the Great Commission.

B- A voice in my head tells me that to love my neighbor by converting my neighbor I must isolate (aka kidnap though the person in question would bristle at the use of the word.) him and use behavioral and attitudinal modification techniques (aka brainwashing though the person in question would bristle at the use of that word too . ) in order to convince him to see the light

C- That must have been the Holy Spirit telling me to do that because it does not contradict my personal understanding of the New Covenant.