Is religious faith an emotion? That's not me being a smug empiricist, I'm actually curious. I've talked to enough theists and read enough apologia to understand that a lot of folks have a strong sense of the numinous that doesn't really go away, but I know very little about its actual phenomenology.
Here's what one person (Janos Honkonen) commented in that discussion, which I thought was a pretty awesome description:
...Okay, hmm. Imagine a situation where you started seeing a new color. It would be damn difficult to describe how it looks and why the heck you feel that seeing that color made things shine just a bit brighter and more beautiful, and somehow that gave you certain kind of serenity that somehow makes you be a bit less if a dick you'd probably be without it, maybe. Some other people would see that color and make a huge amount of noise and nui
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.