The original text of this website was written in German. The English version of the website is AI-generated and has not yet been fully reviewed.
What is Credition?
The term credition is derived from credere the Latin word for to believe. The expression credition is formed in the same way as emotion or cognition. Credition [in the singular] refers to the central function of the brain that belief produces belief. Creditions [in the plural form] refers to the processes that give rise to belief. They primarily take place unconsciously (subliminally). Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs).
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That is a problem. However, it is widespread for people to think of religion first when they think of faith or belief. This is the result of around two thousand years of European intellectual history and is therefore also linked to Christianity.
Creditions can be activated in different situations, e.g. in self-assessment or the assessment of unclear situations. They can occur in very different areas. In addition to those relating to religion, there are also belief processes in the context of politics, technology, climate change, business, leadership behaviour, financial investments - but also in connection with nutrition, health or partnership.
Yes, creditions are activated, for example, when you think about questions of meaning, such as the meaning of life or the importance you attach to your relationship with another person. Creditions influence what and for whom you want to live or what you want to commit yourself to. In addition, creditions play a role in the perception and judgement of other people, as well as in the assessment of one's own abilities. Creditions are also extremely important today because the flood of fake news is causing us to become uncertain and ask ourselves the question: What can we (still) believe?
The process of creditions begins outside of conscious perception. The resulting "preconscious ideas" are subliminal and are called primal beliefs . When the "threshold of consciousness" is crossed, we can consciously perceive the attitudes and behaviours generated by creditions. Now they can be recognised and expressed linguistically as "belief that..." or "belief in...". Although creditions are already effective in a subliminal phase, the results of our creditions - namely beliefs - have a lasting effect on our actions from the moment they become conscious and are verbalised.
It is not indifferent which beliefs and convictions we develop during the course of creditions. If they are stabilised through metacognitive reflection, they influence our own emotional state and mindset, but especially our actions and behaviour. However, the stability of belief-based convictions can change again due to new stimuli from the external or internal world. This is of particular importance when it comes to religious belief (see [10]).
Around two million years ago, hominids underwent a far-reaching evolutionary development. Their brain development made a huge leap from this point onwards (Iriki & Taoka 2012). It can even be assumed that brain development was also driven forward because the ability to believe emerged in the further course of evolution. For the ability to believe, the brain needed new resources. The emergence of creditions could thus become a driving force of brain development (Seitz & Angel 2020).
However, the topic of credition has only developed into an interdisciplinary field of research in the last decades. At The Structure of Credition conference of 2015 , which was organised at the University of Graz, neurologist Rüdiger J. Seitz postulated that credition is a brain function that plays a key role in the development of our beliefs. This means, among other things, that creditions cannot be switched off. It is therefore not possible to "not believe". This view was first published in 2016 (Angel & Seitz 2016).
The articles mentioned can also be found on this website → publications: Basic Research.
We often (but often unconsciously) have certain ideas in the back of our minds that influence our communication. Knowing these is a prerequisite for being able to recognise them when they occur. You can then deal with your own ideas - often referred to as basic beliefs - and, if necessary, work on changing them.
If you have access to the thought patterns that are at the back of your mind, you can also talk about them with others. To do this, it is helpful to refer to models. For example, if you often have the impression in conversations that the other person is pressurising you to do something, you can communicate this well using the so-called communication square ("four-ear model"). It makes communication easier if the other person also recognises the model.
Credition research has developed two models. One is called the neural credition model. It describes processes in the brain that are effective when we develop beliefs. The other is the credition communication model. It can be used in conversations. No neuroscientific knowledge is required to apply it. However, it does make communication easier if everyone involved in a conversation is familiar with the model.
Yes, the neural credition model helps to understand what is going on inside us as we form our beliefs and how this affects our actions. It can also help us understand that creditions can cause clinical disorders that lead to abnormal beliefs.
You can refer to the credition communication model if you have a lot to do with communication in your job and want to analyse and better understand your own and others' communication behaviour.
No. Creditions are biological processes. They occur very frequently and play a role in all types of belief (see [3] to [9]). Even if creditions have nothing to do with religion, their occurrence in connection with religious belief is particularly striking (see [10] to [15]).
Creditions are involved when religious beliefs arises. They have an influence on whether religious belief grows, declines or is completely lost. However, the word religious can be misleading.
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This section is automatically translated using AI and has not yet been fully reviewed. There are translation issues because the German terminology does not fully match the English one.
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Religious semantics is confusing.
(1) There are two SUBSTANTIVES that must be clearly distinguished from each other: Religion and religiosity.
Then there is the ADJECTIVE religious. It is bipolar because it can refer to both nouns. And it is a linking adjective that refers to the relationship of religion and religiosity. When you use the adjective religious, you should therefore express the fact that it both about religion as well as religiosity. Unfortunately, this distinction is not usually made in our culture.
(2) In general as well as in scientific usage, the adjective religious is rather "amputated" because it usually refers exclusively to religion . This mutilation has a negative effect because the religious semantics are now one-sided and wrongly weighted. Overall, the importance of religiosity is undervalued in our culture. However, this neglect can be downright dangerous, for example when we are talking about religious extremism and a religion is meant.
(3) Then there are other nouns such as esotericism, atheism, theism, mysticism, spirituality or piety as well as associated adjectives such as pious, mystical, spiritual, atheistic, agnostic, esoteric, holistic and others. Philosophy and psychology of religion are concerned with the meaning of such expressions. They analyse, for example, what is meant by phrases such as "spiritual, but not religious" or "religious, but not spiritual" and what experiences are meant by them.
(4) Religion(s) is about cultural systems. Religiosity is about persons or individuals. If the characterisation religious is applied to individuals, then it is about the "expression of religiosity". For example, you can analyse which religious behaviour goes hand in hand with the expression of religiosity .
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This section is automatically translated with AI. Here again, we have an unsoluble translation problem. In German there is only one term “Religiosität”, while in English there are two terms: "religiosity” and “religiousness”.
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In psychology, religiosity refers to a personality trait. In the course of a person's life, the individual expression of their religiosity can change profoundly, for example because their approach to religion(s) changes or they adopt the beliefs of religions in new ways. In terms of developmental psychology and across the entire lifespan, many internal and external factors can play a role in the development of individual or collective religiosity . However, the word "religiosity" is rarely used in our culture. It is most commonly used in science, for example in religious psychology, theology or religious education.
But now comes something really crazy:
There are countless theoretical proposals for defining religion. However, there are hardly any attempts to theoretically clarify what one might understand by religiosity. The lack of theoretical interest in this area is all the more surprising given the large number of empirical studies on the topic. In addition, there is a whole range of suggestions regarding which aspects of religiosity should be considered. Empirical studies and discussions in the literature focus, for example, on how central the world of religion is for individuals, which possible dimensions play a role in the expression of religiosity, or which characteristics are associated with religiosity: e.g. aggressiveness, anxiety or neuroticism. The lack of clarity of the concept of religiosity and the need to clarify it theoretically have since been the focus of numerous publications.
The question of what exactly is meant by religiosity was the central theme of the Regensburg Symposia (1998-2006). It was dissatisfaction with the vagueness and suppression of the concept of religiosity that ultimately led to the creation of the Credition Research Project. However, conceptual ambiguity and the lack of interest in developing theories of religiosity make it difficult to adequately grasp the role of creditions in shaping religiosity. Understanding credition requires a shift away from a fixation on religion and a focus on the phenomenon of religiosity: The path to an understanding of credition leads from religion to religiosity and only then to credition: From Religion to Religiosity to the Processes of Believing. But the reverse is also true: Without knowledge of the existence and effects of creditions, it will be difficult to understand religious experiences and the subjective expression of individual religiosity. But how can religiosity be defined?
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This section is automatically translated with AI. Here again, we have an unsoluble translation problem. In German there is only one term “Religiosität”, while in English there are two terms: "religiosity” and “religiousness”.
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If one tries to define religiosity, one moves on relatively unsecured terrain. One proposal is to understand religiosity as an extended homeostasis system that gives people support and stability despite all distress or uncertainty (Angel 2006, 69-91).
How does this view come about?
The starting point is a biological-bodily principle known as homeostasis . This keeps the organism in a balanced equilibrium and is essential for living beings. The biological homeostasis system enables the body to cope with changes such as temperature differences.
In a similar way, religiosity can also be understood as a balance system that extends beyond purely physical challenges. Religiosity as an extended balance system is able to react to mental-spiritual challenges, for example when previous answers to finding meaning or previous ideas about transcendence are shaken. The search for inner balance can be successful and lead to a more mature religious faith. However, the balancing of shattering experiences can also fail and individual religiosity can develop in a gloomy way or even become pathological.
Message to go: Religiosity can be understood as an extended balance system that extends beyond biological circumstances and can encompass transcendent experiences.
Terminology: The biological balance system can be described as homeostasis I. Religiosity as an extended and more comprehensive balancing ability can be described as homeostasis II .
Religiosity and credition : The concept of understanding religiosity as a kind of "balance system" was a decisive impulse for the beginning of credition research(Angel 2022).
Note:
This section is automatically translated with AI. Here again, we have an unsoluble translation problem. In German there is only one term “Religiosität”, while in English there are two terms: "religiosity” and “religiousness”.
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Creditions play a central role in shaping human religiosity. They influence the way in which individuals relate to a religion and this has an impact on how they characterise their religiosity . The individual manifestations of religiosity (e.g. cosmopolitan, narrow-minded, patriarchal, reconciliatory, fundamentalist, etc.) can vary widely. This can even be the case when people refer to the same religion. However, the individual manifestations of religiosity can also be close to each other, even if people refer to different religions.
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This section is automatically translated with AI. It does not match with the English terminology and requires a revision.
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Religious semantics is confusing. If we make a clear distinction between religion and religiosity, we can recognise this: Religious belief can always arise when someone develops their own individual religiosity with reference to a religion (including its current social or political context).
People can be sensitive to religions in different ways. They can also deal with religions in different ways when developing their religiosity. For example, they can adopt all of the guidelines, but they can also reject individual components of religions. Creditions have an influence on whether and how this happens. Creditions therefore contribute to the fact that even within the same religion (or denomination) there are different forms of individual religiosity . If you want to understand why there are such big differences in religious behaviour within one and the same religion , it is helpful to understand creditions.
The same applies if you want to know why there are similarities in religious behaviour across the boundaries of religions . Here too, creditions are one of the decisive factors. Knowledge of creditions can therefore help to reduce the tension between religions and to deal constructively with their differences.