Guilt & Shame

G

Grantywanty

Registered Senior Member
Which religions are guilt based?
Which are shame based?
Are there differences in the kinds of guilt & shame?
If we do a breakdown of religions around these two psychological phenomena what does it look like?
 
Christianity.
Christ died for you. Believe in him and live forever, or burn in hell for all eternity.
Also, we are all sinners, we must repent, God knows what we do so we must be good in God's eyes.
 
I have actually heard of this concept by my mother, who is Lutheran, a denomination of Christianity. She was sitting in the kitchen with my dad, talking about a sermon the pastor had given one day that focused on guilt and shame. I was making lunch so I listened and stirred my soup. Unfortunately, I don't recall how or why people separate the two feelings... I will get back to you on that, unless someone else nails it.
 
I suppose you could recognize your culpability without being shameful of your actions.
Maybe you could separate the two by whether or not you regret your actions, or are simply contrite?
 
Exactly, you can be guilty in a murder case, but you might not be ashamed of doing so. So guilt is what the society thinks of the person and shame is what the person thinks of himself. Sort of, no?
 
Avatar said:
So guilt is what the society thinks of the person and shame is what the person thinks of himself. Sort of, no?
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You get into a car accident that was not your fault.
Your child dies.
You feel guilty - though it was not your fault.

Guilt deals with culpability (perhaps contrition) and shame deals with regret, I would think.
How does this apply to religion(s), however?
 
Oh, ok. You got in more correctly.
How does this apply to religion(s), however?
Yes, I wonder about the same thing.
 
I suppose in karmic religions, one could say that everything you do has an effect on your surroundings, and though regret helps nothing, being mindful of your impact on yourself, others and the world around you is necessary to live a virtuous life...
That would be a guilt based philosophy - without shame.

Whereas the way some people interpret Christianity, they would say that if you sin you do not appreciate the sacrifice Jesus made for you.
Using shame to make followers abide?
 
one_raven said:
Can you really separate guilt and shame?

Please elaborate.
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There are fuzzy boundaries but...

Guilt - tends to be about acts (or not acting). you feel bad about masturbating on Tuesday night after seeing a movie. You expressed anger at your Mom. You didn't help the old lady across the street cause you were in a hurry.

Shame - tends to be about what you ARE: that you ARE sexual in general, that you think you are ugly, that you lose control, etc.
 
one_raven said:
By the way, I think they all (at least most) are based on fear.
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Let me give you an idea of what I am looking for:

Catholicism could be said to create/encourage guilt around sexual acts, around not doing what your parents want......

Buddhism: could C/E shame around loss of control, inability to hide emotions

and so on.
 
Avatar said:
Exactly, you can be guilty in a murder case, but you might not be ashamed of doing so. So guilt is what the society thinks of the person and shame is what the person thinks of himself. Sort of, no?
Click to expand...

You can see my distinction above, but I'll take another shot at it here.

Guilt - bad feelings about specific actions or lack of actions taken, generally on specific occasions.

Shame - bad feelings about what you essentially think you are and are afraid others will notice.

(it gets tricky because if you are too sexual - in a certain religious perspective - you will probably perform certain acts and feel guilty about them.)

But let's try not to get too bogged down on the distinction.

There's a Boolean set here with both in it.

How do each of the religions contribute to these feelings?
What are similarities and differences between the ways religions contribute to these feelings?
 
one_raven said:
How does this apply to religion(s), however?
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Religions tend to make rules about a wide variety of actions? If you break these rules you often feel guilty?

Relgions tend to raise certain potential qualities to virtues? lacking these qualites one often feels shame?
 
If you were shipwrecked on a desert island with just one other survivor and limited supplies of food and water for survival . . .
if you murdered the other survivor to extend your own prospects for continued survival and eventual rescue, and no one else would ever know, you might feel GUILTY about it. Guilt is something you feel about yourself.
You would not feel SHAME because you would incur no loss of face. Your rescuers would never know the truth. Shame involves concern over what other people might think about you.
You can "shame" someone into doing something. You cannot "guilt" someone into doing something; at least, not in quite the same way.
 
Perhaps if I simply do this:
I think the protestant religions, especially in Europe, tend to cause more shame/guilt (to be dealt with here on out as one thing) around the work ethic than Catholicism. I think Protestants also are expected to control their emotions to a greater degree and G/S can arise when someone has trouble doing this. Catholicism has more G/S (from now on GS) related to sex and family connections.

Buddism GS: seems to me to be related to not expressing emotions strongly, especially anger, aggression. If you look beyond actual behavior this includes facial expression, body language, tone of voice etc. I think there is also GS around individuality, behaviors that make one stand out from the crowd. These are allowed in certain circumstances by some MASTERS by frowned upon for others.

Islam: strong sexual GS with a great deal of the focus on the purity and ritualized covering of the female body. Emotions can be exressive - as long as the ideas driving these emotions are within traditional lines.

In fact I might go so far as to say that we could have a spectrum for the intensity of allowed emotional expression without GS moving Buddhism Protestantism Catholicism Islam.

Pagan/indigenous religions tend (tend) to have less GS around sex, for example. I would say they tend towards have less GS around work ethic also. Emotional expression also tends to have less GS.

This was a quick sloppy look at some religions around Work ethic, sex adn emotional expression.

That's the kind of thing I meant.
 
Grantywanty said:
Buddism GS: seems to me to be related to not expressing emotions strongly, especially anger, aggression. If you look beyond actual behavior this includes facial expression, body language, tone of voice etc. I think there is also GS around individuality, behaviors that make one stand out from the crowd.
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Is this representative of Buddhism, though, or just generally a trait of Asian culture?

Pagan/indigenous religions tend (tend) to have less GS around sex, for example. I would say they tend towards have less GS around work ethic also. Emotional expression also tends to have less GS.
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The Stoics and Epicurians (sp?) were Pagans. and classic Greek thought places a high value on sexual and emotional control.

Good post - I'm just nitpicking a few things.
 
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