Credition

No. Creditions are biological processes. They have nothing to do with religion, although their occurrence in connection with religious belief is particularly striking (see [10] to [14]). However, they play a role in all types of belief. That is why they occur very frequently overall.

Creditions are involved when religious belief arises. They have an influence on whether religious belief grows, declines or is completely lost. However, the word religious can be misleading.

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 bipolarbecause it can refer to both nouns. And it is a connecting 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 and wrongly weighted. This can even be dangerous, for example when talking about religious extremism and referring to a religion.

(3) Religion(s) are about cultural systems. Religiosity is about persons or individuals. If the characterisation religious is applied to individuals, then it is about the "manifestation of religiosity". For example, you can analyse which religious behaviour goes hand in hand with the expression of religiosity .

In psychology, this refers to a personality trait. However, this is not stable. People's individual religiosity can change profoundly over the course of their lives. The surrounding culture plays a role in this. Different religions can also provide different impulses that have an impact on the development of individual or collective religiosity .

But now comes something really crazy: there are a myriad of theoretical proposals on how to define religion . However, there are hardly any attempts to theoretically clarify what we mean by religiosity . This is why the word "religiosity" is often used in the general language of our culture as well as in science, theology or religious education, without any precise idea of what is meant by it.

As long as everyone does this, it is hardly noticeable. In reality, however, such linguistic behaviour is really blatant. However, there is no need to resign oneself to this nebulous indifference. We can certainly try to gain a better theoretical understanding of human religiosity . Even if we are still on relatively uncertain ground for the time being, a hypothetical question can be posed: Could it be that religiosity is something like an extended homeostasis system (homeostasis II) that helps to keep human life in balance? Just as the biological homeostasis system(homeostasis I) is able to compensate for changes (such as temperature differences), the homeostasis system II can react to challenges or changes that shake our previous sense of meaning or our previous idea of transcendence.

Religiosity as an extended hypostasis system: The proposal to understand religiosity as a kind of "balance system" that gives people support and stability despite all distress or uncertainty (Angel 2006, 69-91) was a decisive impulse for the beginning of credition research(Angel 2022).

Attempts at definition are still on relatively uncertain ground for the time being. One suggestion is to understand religiosity as an extended homeostasis system that gives people support and stability despite all distress or uncertainty (Angel 2006, 69-91).

Just as the biological homeostasis system(homeostasis I) is able to compensate for changes (such as temperature differences), religiosity would then be understood as an extended homeostasis system (homeostasis II) would be able to react to challenges or changes that shake previous answers to finding meaning or previous ideas about transcendence.

Understanding religiosity in this sense as a kind of "balance system" was a decisive impulse for the beginning of credition research(Angel 2022).

Yes, traditions 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.

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 deal with religions in different ways. They can adopt or reject all or individual components of religions. Creditions have an influence on whether and how this happens. They contribute to the fact that even within the same religion there are different forms of individual religiosity. If you want to understand why there are similarities in religious behaviour across the boundaries of religions and you want to reduce the tension between religions, it is helpful to understand creditions. The same applies if you want to know why there are such big differences in religious behaviour within one and the same religion . Here too, creditions are one of the decisive factors. If you want to contribute to dealing constructively with these differences or to resolve them, knowledge of creditions is a great advantage,