Trust

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  A smile, more so than any other emotional expression, pops out and draws your eye. That’s a good thing, too, because a smile can mean so many different things. Why, for instance, is your new coworker suddenly smiling at you? Is she being sincere or smug? Friendly or self-absorbed? Caring or just polite? Considering that Paul Ekman, the world’s leading scientist of human facial expressions, estimates that humans regularly use some fifty different types of smiles, the ambiguity of any given smile becomes more understandable. Plus, the differences between different types of smiles—a friendly smile, an enjoyment smile, a domineering smile, even a fake smile—can be subtle. Whereas scientists like Ekman use deliberate and formal reasoning to detect those subtle differences—most often with the aid of slow-motion video capture—without specialized training, all you have are your gut feelings to figure out what your coworker’s smile really means. Yet those gut feelings can be a powerful source of intuition and wisdom if you know how best to access them. Eye contact, it turns out, is crucial. New scientific evidence suggests that if you don’t make direct eye contact with your coworker, you’re at a distinct disadvantage in trying to figure out what she really feels or means. Eye contact is the key that unlocks the wisdom of your intuitions because when you meet your smiling coworker’s gaze, her smile triggers activity within your own brain circuitry that allows you to simulate—within your own brain, face, and body—the emotions you see emanating from hers. You now know, through this rapid and nonconscious simulation, more about what it feels like to have smiled like that. Access to this embodied feeling, this information springing up from within you, makes you wiser. You become more accurate, for instance, at discerning what her unexpected smile means. You’re more attuned, less gullible. You intuitively grasp her intentions. She wasn’t being friendly after all, she was gloating. She wasn’t looking to connect, but was instead self-satisfied. You don’t need to be a cynic to recognize that not all smiles are sincere bids for connection. Some smiles may even be flashed to exploit or control you. Just as you rely on your senses to discern nutritious from rotting food, so, too, can you rely on your senses to help you separate the honest from dishonest invitations for connection. Once you have made eye contact, your conclusions about your co-worker’s smile, conscious or not, inform your gut and your next move. Without eye contact, it is much easier to experience misunderstandings, crushed hearts, and exploitation as you over- or under-interpret the friendliness of other people’s smiles. You can also miss countless opportunities for life-giving connection. Eye contact helps you better detect the sincere affiliative gestures within a sea of merely polite or decidedly manipulative smiles that bid for your attention. Love, then, is not blind.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Prior to playing this trust game, using a double-blind research design, participants received either oxytocin or an inert placebo by nasal spray. The effect of this single intranasal blast of oxytocin on the outcome of the trust game was dramatic: The number of investors who trusted their entire allotment to their trustee more than doubled. Interestingly, related research using this same trust game showed that the mere act of being entrusted with another person’s money raises the trustee’s naturally occurring levels of oxytocin, and that the greater the trustee’s oxytocin rise, the more of his recent windfall he sacrificed back to the investor. The neuropeptide oxytocin, then, steers the actions of both the investor and the trustee, shaping both trust and reciprocity. These findings suggest that through synchronous oxytocin surges, trust and cooperation can quickly become mutual. Since the original study on oxytocin and the trust game was published in Nature in 2005, variations on it have abounded. We now know, for instance, that oxytocin doesn’t simply make people more trusting with money, it also makes them far more trusting—a whopping 44 percent more trusting—with confidential information about themselves. Interestingly, the simple act of sharing an important secret from your life with someone you just met increases your naturally circulating levels of oxytocin, which in turn raises your confidence that you can trust that person to guard your privacy. Thankfully, we also know that oxytocin does not induce trust indiscriminately, making people gullible and therefore open to exploitation. The effects of oxytocin on trust turn out to be quite sensitive to interpersonal cues, like those subtle signs that tip you off that another may be the gambling type or irresponsible in other ways. Rest assured, then, if oxytocin spray were to be aerated through your workplace ventilation system, you’d still maintain your shrewd attunement to subtle signs that suggest whether someone is worthy of your trust or not.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  7 Anselm is still using the verb credere in its original sense: it is an affair of the “heart,” the center of the human being, rather than a purely notional act and, as for Augustine, inseparable from love. Because the word “belief” has changed its meaning since Anselm’s day, it is misleading to translate, as is often done, credo ut intellgam as: “I believe in order that I may understand.” This gives the impression that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one’s mind to accept blindly a host of incomprehensible doctrines. Anselm is saying something quite different: religious truth made no sense without practically expressed commitment. Perhaps a better translation is “I involve myself in order that I may understand.” Anselm was trying to shake off his lethargy in prayer by engaging all his faculties, and was certain that “unless I so involve myself, I shall not understand.” So to spark his reader’s interest, he invites him to consider what has been called the “ontological proof” for the existence of God. In the second chapter of the Proslogion, he asks God to help him to understand “that you exist” in the way that he has been taught. 8 Denys would not have approved of such a project, because God could not be said to “exist” in any way that human beings could understand. But Anselm was trying to express a similar insight in the new fashionably metaphysical terminology, in a way that would excite an eleventh-century reader. He defined God as “that thing than which nothing more perfect can be thought [aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit].” 9 He was asking his readers to think of the greatest thing that they could imagine or conceive—but then go on to reflect that God was even greater and more perfect than that. God must transcend any “thing” that the human mind could envisage. As a Platonist, it was natural for Anselm to think that the very nature (ontos) of God contains within it the necessity for God’s existence. “Lord my God,” he prays, “you so truly are, that it is not possible to think of you as not existing.” 10 Since thought was something that happened to the thinker, an idea in the mind was an intimate encounter with the Known, so in an intellectual world still dominated by Platonism, this was a perfectly acceptable argument. Anselm had no doubt that God existed, so he was not trying to convince a skeptic.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Dear mother,’ the knight replied, ‘I will die unless I find the answer to one question. What is it that women desire most? If you could tell me the solution, I will forever be in your debt.’ ‘Give me your word then. Take my hand and swear. If I provide you with the answer, then you must do whatever I require of you. Anything within your power. If you agree, then I will tell you the secret before nightfall.’ ‘I plight to you my oath as a knight,’ he said. ‘Then I am sure that your life is safe. Trust me. I have no doubt at all that the queen will agree with me about this. The proudest of all the great ladies, with all their jewels and fine headgear, will not dare to contradict me.’ Then she whispered some words into his ear. ‘Come now,’ she added, more loudly. ‘Be happy. Be confident. Let’s travel on to the court without delay.’ When they arrived at the palace, the knight attended the queen as he had promised her. He announced that he had an answer to the burning question. You can imagine the excitement among all the women. The wives, the paramours, the maids, the widows, all came to the court. The queen was there, too, ready to give judgement before the assembly. Everyone was waiting to hear what he would say. The queen called for silence, and then ordered the knight to come forward. ‘Tell us now, gentle knight,’ she asked him, ‘what is your answer? What do women desire most?’ The knight did not hang his head, like a beast in its stall. He stepped forward and, before them all, responded to her in a ringing voice. ‘My liege, my lady, women desire to have sovereignty over their husbands and over their lovers. They wish to dominate them. Kill me if you wish. But that is the truth. I stand here before you. Do with me as you will.’ There was a general murmur of approval. Not a wife or widow or virgin disagreed with what he said. They all concurred that he had won his life. As soon as this was clear, the old crone came forward. ‘Justice!’ she called. ‘Justice, sovereign queen! Before the court disperses, listen to my plea. I was the one who taught this answer to the knight. I made him swear an oath that, in return, he would grant me any wish that lay within his power. I vow to you that I am telling the truth. Now that I have saved his life, the time has come.’ She turned to face him. ‘Now, sir knight, I ask that you marry me without delay. I wish to be your wife.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  38 On another occasion, when Jesus took three of his disciples up a high mountain, the gospels show him being “anointed” as a prophet. He was “transfigured” before them, his face and garments shining like the sun; the disciples saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah while a heavenly voice, quoting the same hymn, declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor.” 39 Yet did not Jesus constantly insist that his followers acknowledge his divine status—almost as a condition of discipleship? 40 In the gospels we continually hear him berating his disciples for their lack of “faith” and praising the “faith” of gentiles, who seem to understand him better than his fellow Jews. Those who beg him for healing are required to have “faith” before he can work a miracle, and some pray: “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” 41 We do not find this preoccupation with “belief” in the other major traditions. Why did Jesus set such store by it? The simple answer is that he did not. The word translated as “faith” in the New Testament is the Greek pistis (verbal form: pisteuo) , which means “trust; loyalty; engagement; commitment.” 42 Jesus was not asking people to “believe” in his divinity, because he was making no such claim. He was asking for commitment. He wanted disciples who would engage with his mission, give all they had to the poor, feed the hungry, refuse to be hampered by family ties, abandon their pride, lay aside their self-importance and sense of entitlement, live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and trust in the God who was their father. They must spread the good news of the Kingdom to everyone in Israel—even the prostitutes and tax collectors—and live compassionate lives, not confining their benevolence to the respectable and conventionally virtuous. Such pistis could move mountains and unleash unsuspected human potential. 43 When the New Testament was translated from Greek into Latin by Saint Jerome (c. 342–420), pistis became fides (“loyalty”). Fides had no verbal form, so for pisteuo Jerome used the Latin verb credo , a word that derived from cor do , “I give my heart.” He did not think of using opinor (“I hold an opinion”). When the Bible was translated into English, credo and pisteuo became “I believe” in the King James version (1611). But the word “belief” has since changed its meaning. In Middle English, bileven meant “to prize; to value; to hold dear.” It was related to the German belieben (“to love”), liebe (“beloved”), and the Latin libido . So “belief” originally meant “loyalty to a person to whom one is bound in promise or duty.” 44 When Chaucer’s knight begged his patron to “accepte my bileve,” he meant “accept my fealty, my loyalty.”

• From The Case for God (2009)

  38 The important thing was not the solution to a problem but the path that people traveled in search of it. To philosophize was not to bludgeon your opponent into accepting your point of view but to do battle with yourself. At the end of his unsettling conversation with Socrates, Laches had a “conversion” (metanoia), literally a “turning around.” 39 This did not mean that he had accepted a new doctrinal truth; on the contrary, he had discovered that, like Socrates himself, he knew nothing at all. Socrates had made him realize that the value system by which he had lived was without foundation; as a result, in order to go forward authentically, his new self must be based on doubt (aporia) rather than certainty. The type of wisdom that Socrates offered was not gained by acquiring items of knowledge but by learning to be in a different way. In our society, rational discussion is often aggressive, since participants are not usually battling with themselves but are doing their best to demonstrate the invalidity of their opponent’s viewpoint. This was the kind of debate that was going on in the Athenian assemblies, and Socrates did not like it. 40 He told the ambitious young aristocrat Meno that if he was one of the “clever and disputatious debaters” currently in vogue, he would simply state his case and challenge Meno to refute it. But this was not appropriate in a discussion between people who “are friends, as you and I are, and want to discuss with each other.” In true dialogue the interlocutors “must answer in a manner more gentle and more proper to discussion.” 41 In a Socratic dialogue, therefore, the “winner” did not try force an unwilling opponent to accept his point of view. It was a joint effort. You expressed yourself clearly as a gift to your partner, whose beautifully expressed argument would, in turn, touch you at a profound level. In the dialogues recorded by Plato, the conversation halts, digresses to another subject, and returns to the original idea in a way that prevents it from becoming dogmatic. It was essential that at each stage of the debate, Socrates and his interlocutors maintain a disciplined, openhearted accord. Because the Socratic dialogue was experienced as an initiation (myesis), Plato used the language of the Mysteries to describe its effect on people. Socrates once said that, like his mother, he was a midwife whose task was to help his interlocutor engender a new self. 42 Like any good initiation, a successful dialogue should lead to ekstasis: by learning to inhabit each other’s point of view, the conversationalists were taken beyond themselves. Anybody who entered into dialogue with Socrates had to be willing to change; he had to have faith (pistis) that Socrates would guide him through the initial vertigo of aporia in such a way that he found pleasure in it.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Socrates was a living summons to the paramount duty of stringent self-examination. He described himself as a gadfly, perpetually stinging people into awareness, forcing them to wake up to themselves, question their every opinion, and attend to their spiritual progress.38 The important thing was not the solution to a problem but the path that people traveled in search of it. To philosophize was not to bludgeon your opponent into accepting your point of view but to do battle with yourself. At the end of his unsettling conversation with Socrates, Laches had a “conversion” (metanoia), literally a “turning around.”39 This did not mean that he had accepted a new doctrinal truth; on the contrary, he had discovered that, like Socrates himself, he knew nothing at all. Socrates had made him realize that the value system by which he had lived was without foundation; as a result, in order to go forward authentically, his new self must be based on doubt (aporia) rather than certainty. The type of wisdom that Socrates offered was not gained by acquiring items of knowledge but by learning to be in a different way. In our society, rational discussion is often aggressive, since participants are not usually battling with themselves but are doing their best to demonstrate the invalidity of their opponent’s viewpoint. This was the kind of debate that was going on in the Athenian assemblies, and Socrates did not like it.40 He told the ambitious young aristocrat Meno that if he was one of the “clever and disputatious debaters” currently in vogue, he would simply state his case and challenge Meno to refute it. But this was not appropriate in a discussion between people who “are friends, as you and I are, and want to discuss with each other.” In true dialogue the interlocutors “must answer in a manner more gentle and more proper to discussion.”41 In a Socratic dialogue, therefore, the “winner” did not try force an unwilling opponent to accept his point of view. It was a joint effort. You expressed yourself clearly as a gift to your partner, whose beautifully expressed argument would, in turn, touch you at a profound level. In the dialogues recorded by Plato, the conversation halts, digresses to another subject, and returns to the original idea in a way that prevents it from becoming dogmatic. It was essential that at each stage of the debate, Socrates and his interlocutors maintain a disciplined, openhearted accord.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  37 Mark thought he received his commission at his baptism, like the ancient kings of Israel, who had been “adopted” by Yahweh at their coronation. He even quotes the ancient coronation psalm. 38 On another occasion, when Jesus took three of his disciples up a high mountain, the gospels show him being “anointed” as a prophet. He was “transfigured” before them, his face and garments shining like the sun; the disciples saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah while a heavenly voice, quoting the same hymn, declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor.” 39 Yet did not Jesus constantly insist that his followers acknowledge his divine status—almost as a condition of discipleship? 40 In the gospels we continually hear him berating his disciples for their lack of “faith” and praising the “faith” of gentiles, who seem to understand him better than his fellow Jews. Those who beg him for healing are required to have “faith” before he can work a miracle, and some pray: “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” 41 We do not find this preoccupation with “belief” in the other major traditions. Why did Jesus set such store by it? The simple answer is that he did not. The word translated as “faith” in the New Testament is the Greek pistis (verbal form: pisteuo), which means “trust; loyalty; engagement; commitment.” 42 Jesus was not asking people to “believe” in his divinity, because he was making no such claim. He was asking for commitment. He wanted disciples who would engage with his mission, give all they had to the poor, feed the hungry, refuse to be hampered by family ties, abandon their pride, lay aside their self-importance and sense of entitlement, live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and trust in the God who was their father. They must spread the good news of the Kingdom to everyone in Israel—even the prostitutes and tax collectors—and live compassionate lives, not confining their benevolence to the respectable and conventionally virtuous. Such pistis could move mountains and unleash unsuspected human potential. 43 When the New Testament was translated from Greek into Latin by Saint Jerome (c. 342–420), pistis became fides (“loyalty”). Fides had no verbal form, so for pisteuo Jerome used the Latin verb credo, a word that derived from cor do, “I give my heart.” He did not think of using opinor (“I hold an opinion”). When the Bible was translated into English, credo and pisteuo became “I believe” in the King James version (1611). But the word “belief” has since changed its meaning. In Middle English, bileven meant “to prize; to value; to hold dear.” It was related to the German belieben (“to love”), liebe (“beloved”), and the Latin libido.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In the Mishnah, the rabbis amassed thousands of new rulings that regulated the lives of Jews down to the smallest detail to help them become aware of the Shekhinah’s continued presence in their midst. They had no interest in “beliefs” but focused on practical behavior. If all Jews were to live as if they were priests serving the Holy of Holies, how should they deal with gentiles? How could each household observe the purity laws? What was the role of women in the home that was now a temple? The rabbis would never have been able to persuade the people to accept this formidable body of law had it not yielded a satisfying spirituality. The Mishnah did not cling nervously to the Hebrew Bible, but held proudly aloof and rarely quoted the old scriptures. It felt no need to discuss its relation to the Sinai tradition, but loftily assumed that its competence was beyond question. The rabbis continued to love and revere the older scriptures, but knew that the world they represented had gone forever; like the Christians, they took from them what they needed and respectfully laid the rest to one side. Religion must be allowed to move forward freely and could not be constrained by misplaced loyalty to the past. Divine revelation, they decided, had come in two forms: a written Torah and an ongoing Oral Torah that evolved from one generation to another. Both were sacred, both came from God, but the rabbis valued the Oral Torah more than any written scripture because this living tradition reflected the fluctuations of human thought and kept the Word responsive to change. Undue reliance on a written text could encourage inflexibility and backward-looking timidity. 67 The insights of all Jews—past, present, and to come—had been anticipated symbolically in the Sinai revelation, so when they developed the Oral Torah together in their discussions in the House of Studies, the rabbis felt as though they were standing beside Moses on the mountaintop, and were participating in a never-ending conversation with the great sages of the past and with their God. They were the recipients of God’s word just as surely as were the ancient prophets and patriarchs. 68 The two Talmuds moved even more firmly away from the Bible. The Jerusalem Talmud, compiled during the fifth century, and the more authoritative Babylonian Talmud (known as the Bavli) a century later, were commentaries on the Mishnah, not the Bible. Like the New Testament, the Bavli was regarded as the completion of the Hebrew Bible, a new revelation for a changed world. 69 As Christians would always read the Hebrew Bible from the perspective of the New Testament, Jews would study it only in conjunction with the Bavli, which completely transformed it. The author-editors felt free to reverse the Mishnah’s legislation, play one rabbi off against another, and point out serious gaps in their arguments.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “You want to stay with me for a while?” I heard him ask me. His look, unshifting on me for moments—asking—softens into one of the familiar expressions. It reveals him at last. “Sure,” I said. We walked across the street, along that green park—the flowers bright and alive—past the many afternoon people sitting on benches. We stand looking out toward the beach. The crowds on the sand are thinning. Across the bridge from the beach to the streets, they come with their towels bundled, fleeing from the lifting nightfog. They seem to gather on the beach for some kind of huddled protection, and when groups begin to leave, when that sense of mutual protection begins to diminish—as if this were a summons, the others leave too. A few will linger on, as the breeze from the ocean rises. The sun is frozen-white, spreading its light desperately before expiring into the ocean. Now the roaring waves will try to claim the sand throughout the night... “Why did you begin to walk away from me on the beach?” he asked me. I was about to say: “You didnt look like a score.”... Instead, I said: “You dont look like you belong on that beach.” He was silent, looking into his hands, studying them. “Let me explain something,” he says. “I guess—” he went on uneasily “—I guess maybe youve noticed me on the beach. I mean, I must stand out because I come there so often—and leave, come back. It’s just that—Well, in a way, it’s all—it’s all new to me.” Still studying his hands, he said quickly: “Im married, I have a kid—a little boy.” This is a familiar story. Many tell you this for whatever purpose. Hustling, it emphasizes your masculinity for a score. For the others—even, sometimes, the very effeminate—this may be a symbolic subterfuge to emphasize the quandary of being in that world.... With this man, though, Im convinced beyond any doubt that what hes just told me is true.... I notice an untanned circle about his finger from which he has probably just removed a ring.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Yet did not Jesus constantly insist that his followers acknowledge his divine status—almost as a condition of discipleship? 40 In the gospels we continually hear him berating his disciples for their lack of “faith” and praising the “faith” of gentiles, who seem to understand him better than his fellow Jews. Those who beg him for healing are required to have “faith” before he can work a miracle, and some pray: “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.”41 We do not find this preoccupation with “belief” in the other major traditions. Why did Jesus set such store by it? The simple answer is that he did not. The word translated as “faith” in the New Testament is the Greek pistis (verbal form: pisteuo), which means “trust; loyalty; engagement; commitment.”42 Jesus was not asking people to “believe” in his divinity, because he was making no such claim. He was asking for commitment. He wanted disciples who would engage with his mission, give all they had to the poor, feed the hungry, refuse to be hampered by family ties, abandon their pride, lay aside their self-importance and sense of entitlement, live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and trust in the God who was their father. They must spread the good news of the Kingdom to everyone in Israel—even the prostitutes and tax collectors—and live compassionate lives, not confining their benevolence to the respectable and conventionally virtuous. Such pistis could move mountains and unleash unsuspected human potential.43

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The priest took the coin from his purse straight away, and gave it to him; the canon pocketed it, thanked him, and went on his way. Three days later he promptly returned the money, much to the surprise and delight of the priest. ‘Well, really,’ the priest said to him, ‘I don’t mind lending you money, good sir, if you repay it so readily. You are true to your word. That is clear enough. How can I refuse you anything in the future?’ ‘What? You never thought I would trick you, did you? Please. Honesty is my middle name. I will always keep my word, to the day I die. God forbid that I should ever lie to you or deceive you. It just won’t happen. Believe me when I say that I have always paid my debts. I have never let anyone down. There is not a false bone in my body.’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘Since you have been so good to me, I will let you in on a little secret. You have been kind to me, and I will be kind in return. I am willing to teach you, if you are willing to learn, the secrets of my work as an alchemist. If you watch carefully, I can assure you that you will see a wonder.’ ‘Is that right?’ the priest replied. ‘Go ahead, for God’s sake.’ ‘I will do it if you wish. For no other cause but to please you.’ ‘Of course.’ Do you see how this villain lured his prey? He granted the priest a favour the priest had not asked for. That kind of favour bodes no good. I will prove that to you in a moment. And so this false canon, this root of iniquity, took great pleasure in betraying good Christian people. The devil planted wickedness in his heart. God give us the grace to withstand his wiles! The poor priest had no idea, of course. He never saw the trap being laid for him. Oh silly innocent man! You will soon be blinded by avarice. Unfortunate priest, you have lost your way. All unawares, you are falling into the clutches of a fox who will trick you and deceive you. Let me hurry on now to the conclusion - and to your confusion. I will display your folly and stupidity. And I will reveal, as far as I am able, the wickedness of the man who led you forward.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  But those who did not have the time, talent, or inclination for this type of spirituality could make themselves conscious of God in the smallest details of daily life. Al-Ghazzali developed a spirituality that would enable every single Muslim to become aware of the interior dimension of Muslim law. They should deliberately call to mind the divine presence when they performed such ordinary actions as eating, washing, preparing for bed, praying, almsgiving, and greeting one another. They must guard their ears from slander and obscenity, their tongues from lies; they must refrain from cursing or sneering at others. Their hands must not harm another creature; their hearts must remain free of envy, anger, hypocrisy, and pride.25 This vigilance— similar to that practiced by Stoics, Epicureans, Buddhists, and Jains—would bridge the gap between outward observance and interior commitment; it would transform the smallest action of daily life into a ritual that made God present in the lives of ordinary men and women, even if they could not prove this rationally. It has been said that al-Ghazzali was the most important Muslim since the Prophet Muhammad. After al-Ghazzali, one great philosopher after another—Yahya Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240), Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207–73), Mir Dimad (d. 1631), and his pupil Mulla Sadra (1571–1640)—insisted that theology must be fused with spirituality. The philosopher had a sacred duty to be as intellectually rigorous as Aristotle and as mystical as a Sufi; reason was indispensable for science, medicine, and mathematics, but a reality that transcended the senses could be approached only by more intuitive modes of thought. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Sufism ceased to be a fringe movement and remained the dominant Islamic mode until the nineteenth century. Ordinary laypeople practiced Sufi exercises, and these disciplines helped them to get beyond simplistically anthropomorphic ideas of God and experience the divine as a transcendent presence within.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  I’m attuned to you, sympathetic to your input, and responding to all the subtle cues that reveal how effectively we’re communicating. From my perspective, your smiles, nods, and other gestures of your own positivity and attunement don’t just exist “out there” in you. When we meet each other’s gaze, they also come to exist, in a very real way, inside me. Within milliseconds my brain and body begin to buzz with your enthusiasm and appreciation, and your attunement to me. The more this happens, the more I come to feel the same way as you, both enthused and appreciative, responsive and sympathetic. Soon enough these feelings surface on my face and emanate through my voice and gestures. As our eyes continue to meet, a parallel simulation process flows forth within you, as the dynamics unfolding within your brain and body begin to pattern mine. A back-and-forth reverberation stretches out between us. Increasingly, with each passing micro-moment, you and I come to feel the same way . We’re in sync, attuned. Positivity resonance has established a connection between us, as your and my brain activity and biochemistry increasingly become one and the same. A positivity-infused interweaving of our hearts and minds emerges, a momentary state scientists have called intersubjectivity . You can think of this as a miniature version of what Star Trek ’s infamous Dr. Spock called a mind meld . Yet both expressions, in my view, are too focused on the mind, too heartless. For it’s vital, too, that the emotional tone of our momentary meld, our interweaving, is warm, open, trusting, and full of genuine care and concern for each other. Some would call what is happening between us rapport. Yet the more I understand the science behind positivity resonance, the more I think this description misleads. Rapport sounds optional, superfluous. Something you’d be just as healthy with or without. Given the vital role that positivity resonance plays in our survival, such states warrant elevation. That’s why I call them love , our supreme emotion. Micro-moments like these are those essential nutrients of which most of us in modern life aren’t getting enough. So what’s a smile for? Traditional views hold that smiles have evolved to reveal the inner state of the person who smiles. Indeed, when you call a smile a facial expression, you unwittingly subscribe to this view—that certain facial movements universally express a person’s otherwise unseen emotions. An opposing view shifts the spotlight onto the recipient of a smile and argues that smiles evolved not because they provided a readout of the positive emotion that the smiling person feels, but rather because they evoked a positive emotion in the person who meets the smiling person’s gaze. More recently scientists have taken this alternative view a step further, arguing that smiles have evolved to give us an implicit understanding—or gut sense—of the smiling person’s true motives.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  More generally, oxytocin has been cast as a lead character in the mammalian calm-and-connect response, a distinct cascade of brain and body responses best contrasted to the far more familiar fight-or-flight response. Let’s face it, meeting new people can be a little scary at times. Think back to what it was like for you on your first day at a new school or in a new job. You’re suddenly thrown in with people you’d never heard of before. Even if a new person seems friendly, it’s hard to know his true motives. Will he help you? Or will he instead take advantage of you in one way or another? Human greed, after all, runs rampant and can yield all manner of exploitation. Oxytocin appears both to calm fears that might steer you away from interacting with strangers and also to sharpen your skills for connection. As I’ve mentioned, though, oxytocin is far from blind. It indeed heightens your attunement to cues that signal whether others are sincere or not. Through eye contact and close attention to all manner of smiles—and the embodied simulations such visual intake triggers—your gut instincts about whom to trust and whom not to trust become more reliable. Rather than avoid all new people out of fear and suspicion, oxytocin helps you pick up on cues that signal another person’s goodwill and guides you to approach them with your own. Because all people need social connections, not just to reproduce, but to survive and thrive in this world, oxytocin has been dubbed “the great facilitator of life.” It, too, can jump the gap between people such that someone else’s oxytocin flow can trigger your own. A biochemical synchrony can then emerge that supports mutual engagement, care, and responsiveness. The clearest evidence that oxytocin rises and falls in synchrony between people comes from studies of infants and their parents. When an infant and a parent—either mom or dad—interact, sometimes they are truly captivated by each other, and other times not. When an infant and parent do click, their coordinated motions and emotions show lots of mutual positive engagement. Picture moms or dads showering their baby with kisses, tickling their baby’s tiny fingers and toes, smiling at their baby, and speaking to him or her in that high-pitched, singsong tone that scientists call motherese. These parents are superattentive. As they tickle and coo they’re also closely tracking their baby’s face for signs that their delight is mutual. In step with their parent’s affectionate antics, these attentive babies babble, coo, smile, and giggle. Positivity resonates back and forth between them. Micro-moments of love blossom.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Sometimes people new to LKM are suspicious of the intent of the practice. It can seem naïve, or like magical thinking. They wonder, “Do people really believe that simply thinking these wishes instantly erases all troubles? Doesn’t this whole enterprise hinge on the metaphysical? If so, why should I waste my time with it?” From the perspective of emotions science, LKM is not the least bit supernatural. I can assure you, based on solid empirical evidence, that whatever positive feelings you generate in LKM are likely to imbue the rest of your day with more positivity as well. This greater positivity can show up as more openness in your posture, breathing, and body comportment, and on your face, openness that can be readily spotted by those with whom you interact or cross paths. Since nonverbal gestures are contagious, your openness also allows others to become more open and relaxed. Meeting each other with openness like this increases the odds that the two of you will come into sync. LKM also shows up in the sense you make of each new circumstance that you encounter. You’re more likely to see things in a good light, give the benefit of the doubt, and be optimistic about the future and others’ potential. Your intonation becomes more upbeat and inviting. Well after you practice LKM, your verbal and nonverbal behavior may remain changed such that others feel a greater sense of safety in your presence, more likely to open up and connect. The pathways through which LKM seeds subsequent moments of positivity resonance are wholly physical. There is no need to invoke magical thinking or the metaphysical to explain its downstream effects. Another way to ward off insincerity or any seeming naïveté when practicing LKM is to balance the practice with equanimity, the wisdom of the big picture. When you step back and take in the big picture in a balanced way, it’s easier to see that all people are alike in the ways that matter most. All have wishes, feelings, and yearnings—to feel secure and happy, and to experience ease as their day unfolds. From this vantage point, you can gently remind yourself how interconnected you are with everyone else who walks this earth: how your and each person’s separate pursuits of safety, happiness, and ease are in actuality intertwined and interdependent.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  These findings suggest that through synchronous oxytocin surges, trust and cooperation can quickly become mutual. Since the original study on oxytocin and the trust game was published in Nature in 2005, variations on it have abounded. We now know, for instance, that oxytocin doesn’t simply make people more trusting with money, it also makes them far more trusting—a whopping 44 percent more trusting—with confidential information about themselves. Interestingly, the simple act of sharing an important secret from your life with someone you just met increases your naturally circulating levels of oxytocin, which in turn raises your confidence that you can trust that person to guard your privacy. Thankfully, we also know that oxytocin does not induce trust indiscriminately, making people gullible and therefore open to exploitation. The effects of oxytocin on trust turn out to be quite sensitive to interpersonal cues, like those subtle signs that tip you off that another may be the gambling type or irresponsible in other ways. Rest assured, then, if oxytocin spray were to be aerated through your workplace ventilation system, you’d still maintain your shrewd attunement to subtle signs that suggest whether someone is worthy of your trust or not. Researchers have since moved on to examine the effects of oxytocin on people’s sensitivities to the subtle social cues that signal whether or not trust is warranted. From this work, I can tell you that, under the influence of oxytocin, you attend more to people’s eyes and become specifically more attuned to their smiles, especially subtle ones. Perhaps because of the closer attention you pay to peoples’ smiles and eyes, you become a better judge of their feelings and view people on the whole as more attractive and trustworthy. You also become particularly sensitized to environmental cues linked to positive social connections—for instance, to words like love and kissing. Researchers who have combined the use of oxytocin nasal spray (versus placebo) with brain imaging have also learned that oxytocin modulates the activity of your amygdala, the subcortical structure deep within your brain linked to emotional processing. Specifically, under the influence of a single blast of oxytocin nasal spray, the parts of your amygdala that tune in to threats are muted, whereas the parts that tune in to positive social opportunities are amplified. Reflecting these negativity-dampening effects, a single shot of oxytocin can also help you glide through stressful social situations, like giving an impromptu speech or discussing a conflict-ridden topic with your spouse. If you were to face these difficulties under the influence of oxytocin, studies suggest, you’d have less cortisol, the so-called stress hormone, coursing through you, and you’d behave more positively, both verbally, by disclosing your feelings, and nonverbally, by making more eye contact and friendly gestures. Related research shows that behaving kindly in these ways also raises your naturally occurring levels of oxytocin, which in turn curbs stress-induced rises in heart rate and blood pressure, reduces feelings of depression, and increases your pain thresholds.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  When the young Zwingli had contracted the plague that wiped out 25 percent of the population of Zurich, he knew there was nothing he could do to save himself. “Do as you will for I lack nothing,” he prayed. “I am your vessel to be restored or destroyed.” 32 The young Calvin had felt so in thrall to the institutional Church that he was both unwilling and unable to break free, and it had taken what seemed a divine initiative to shift him: “At last God turned my course in a different direction by the hidden bridle of his providence … by a sudden conversion to docility, he tamed a mind too stubborn for its years.” 33 When Luther spoke of the faith that could justify men and women he did not, of course, mean “belief” in our modern sense but an act of total trust in the absolute power of God. “Faith,” he explained in one of his sermons, “does not require information, knowledge and certainty, but a free surrender and joyful bet on his unfelt, untried and unknown goodness.” 34 Luther had no time for the “false theologian,” who “looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things that have actually happened.” 35 Far from giving a clear vision, faith brought “a sort of darkness that can see nothing.” 36 Alienated from the natural theology of Scotus and Ockham, he did not imagine for one moment that the investigation of the cosmos or natural reasoning could bring us true knowledge of God. It was not only pointless but could even be dangerous to try to prove God’s existence, because too much speculation about God’s inconceivable might in governing the universe could cause human beings to fall into a state of abject despair and terror. 37 But despite its religious motivation, this deliberate desacralization of the cosmos was a secularizing idea that would encourage scientists to approach the world independently of the divine. 38 Luther’s reliance on “scripture alone” would lead to a theology that was more dependent than hitherto on the word. The success of the reformers was due in large part to the invention of the printing press, which not only helped to propagate the new ideas but also changed people’s relationship to the text. The word would now replace the image and the icon in people’s thinking, and this would make theology more verbose. 39 Ritual was also downgraded; ritual acts of piety designed, so the reformers assumed, to acquire merit, were at best futile and at worst blasphemous. 40 Lutheran churches maintained many of the customary vestments, paintings, altarpieces, and ceremonies; organ music and hymns survived, and the German Reformation would inspire a new tradition of church music that would reach its apogee in the work of J. S. Bach (1685–1750). It would give a transcendent dimension to the often prosaic words of the vernacular.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  As too great a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong to my character at that time, I confess, against myself, that I perhaps too readily closed with a proposal which my candor and ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not enough to contradict the intention of one to whom I had now thoroughly abandoned the direction of all my steps. For Mrs. Cole had, I do not know how unless by one of those unaccountable invincible sympathies that, nevertheless, from the strongest links, especially of female friendship, won and got entire possession of me. On her side, she pretended that a strict resemblance, she fancied she saw in me, to an only daughter whom she had lost at my age, was the first motive of her taking to me so affectionately as she did. It might be so: there exist a slender motives of attachment, that, gathering force from habit and liking, have proved often more solid and durable than those founded on much stronger reasons; but this I know, that though I had no other acquaintance with her, than seeing her at my lodgings, when I lived with Mr. H..., where she had made errands to sell me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated herself so far into my confidence, that I threw myself blindly into her hands, and came, at length, to regard, love, and obey her implicitly; and, to do her justice, I never experienced at her hands other than a sincerity of tenderness, and care for my interest, hardly heard of in those of her profession. We parted that night, after having settled a perfect unreserved agreement; and the next morning Mrs. Cole came, and took me with her to her house for the first time. Here, at the first sight of things, I found every thing breathe an air of decency, modesty and order.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Doubt reveals the imperfection of the thinker, because when we doubt we become acutely aware that something is missing. But the experience of imperfection presupposes a prior notion of perfection, because it is a relative term, comprehensible only in terms of its absolute. It was impossible that a finite being could by its own efforts conceive the idea of perfection, so it must follow “that it had been placed in me by a Nature which was really more perfect than mine could be, and which even had within itself all the perfections of which I could form any idea—that is to say, to put it in a word, which was God.” 16 How else could we know that we doubted and desired—that we lacked something and were not, therefore, perfect—if we did not have within ourselves an innate idea that enabled us to recognize the defects of our own nature? Most medieval theologians had rejected Anselm’s ontological proof because, despite its apophatic dynamic, he had called God a “thing” (aliquid ) that must “exist.” But now Descartes claimed that God was a “clear and distinct” idea in the human mind and was entirely happy to apply the word “existence” to God. Where Thomas had said that God was not a “sort of thing,” Descartes found no difficulty in calling God a being, albeit the “first and a sovereign Being.” 17 Like Anselm, he saw existence as one of the perfections. “For it is not within my power to think of God without existence (that is of a supremely perfect Being devoid of a supreme perfection) though it is in my power to imagine a horse either with wings or without wings.” 18 This truth was as clear as—if not clearer than—Pythagoras’s theorem of the right-angled triangle. “Consequently it is at least as certain that God, who is a Being so perfect, is, or exists, as any demonstration of geometry can possibly be.” 19 God was absolutely necessary to Descartes’ philosophy and his science, because without God he had no confidence in the reality of the external world. 20 Because we could not trust our senses, the existence of material things was “very dubious and uncertain.” But a perfect being was truth itself and would not allow us to remain in error on such a fundamental matter: On the sole ground that God is not a deceiver and that consequently He has not permitted any falsity to exist in my opinion which He has not likewise given me the faculty of correcting, I may assuredly hope to conclude that I have within me the means of arriving at the truth even here.