14 DAY TRIAL // An interesting new study conducted on Christians reveals the difference between those who interpret the Bible and the story it contains literally, and those who see these teachings as symbolic, and as guidelines to be followed in everyday life, but without taking everything written within seriously.
According to the new research, personality is what matters most. Scientists say that believers in the first category are more likely to process information via their senses, whereas members of the second group are more likely to rely on their intuition for gathering information from their environments.
The work was conducted by researchers at the York St. John University in the United Kingdom, who were led by the head of theology and religious studies program, Andrew Village. The researcher says that people who use their intuition are usually more familiar and comfortable with symbolic things.
Village was an ecologist specializing in studying birds of prey, before he trained in the ministry and became an Anglican priest. His new study is centered on 663 people from England who attend church services regularly. All were questioned about how they interpreted the Book of Genesis.
Around 93 percent of respondents attended service every week, and 90 percent said they prayed daily. Most of the respondents were found to prefer using senses over their intuition in analyzing their environments. This group was also more likely to hold to a literal interpretation of Genesis.
“When people think, ‘Oh, creationists are unthinking people,’ they're not. They're just using a different system,” Village argues. Details of his study were published in the December 23, 2013 issue of the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, LiveScience reports.
The new study may provide some clues as to why many people belonging to a particular religion do not seem to get along well with members of another creed. “In some ways a lot of the differences are about differences in personality and psychological preferences rather than the content” of beliefs, he explains.
“People who have a strong sense of, ‘We must decide rationally and logically,’ will go about their religion in a particular way, and people who decide more on their values will go about their religion in a particular way,” Village concludes.