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Chief Of Police "read me"

I went to a community discussion about the use of tasers by my town's police department. The Chief of Police attended that meeting and afterwards I shook his hand. We made eye contact and he had a notceable glint in his eye, along with a very pronounced grin. It was a queer experience that reminded me of encounters I have had with deeply religious people.

Often, it seems that very religious people have a unique look about them. They smile a lot, and it appears as if they are staring of into a distant space. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I wonder if it's been scientifically documented or described?

Sometimes when meeting religious folk, I get the impression that they look for these cues amongst each other, and that's what I felt with this police chief. It's almost as if he "read me" to see if I was "one of them". LOL.

I opened the paper today and there was an article about the man being appointed chief of police permanently (when I met him, he was actually an interim chief). The newspaper mentioned that he graduated from Northwest Christian College. Go figure!

Has anyone else had similar "reading"experiences, or notice the religious "glow" that I mentioned? Anyone familiar with academic literature describing these phenomena?

I have done brief searches and found some research articles using the phrase "New Religious Movements" or NRM.

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Permalink Reply by Louis on August 31, 2009 at 2:33pm

Thinking that one is god's pawn makes one act weird.

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Permalink Reply by Ross on August 31, 2009 at 3:15pm

Yeah its like a religious 'I'm better than you because I believe in an imaginary deity' glow lol.

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Permalink Reply by Secular Forces 2013 on August 31, 2009 at 11:42pm

Yep.

It's called being inculcated. You'd be surprised what you find out about in old 1950-70ish psychology text books; non xtian schools I'm guessing.

For what it's worth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICPpNr0sLzY
may not like the audio so mute it, you'll see the breakdown

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Mylko on September 1, 2009 at 12:36am

I didn't find the Youtube video helpful, but thanks for posting.

This looks promising:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion

If you find any links to old psych textbooks that you think apply, please do post them.

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Permalink Reply by Rusty Gunn. on September 1, 2009 at 12:38am

Religous people come is all shapes and colors. Some of them are really sharp and some of them are dumb as fence posts, sort of like non-theists I suppose!