Why do people believe in God? Researchers reveal the ‘cognitive and social adaptations’ behind religion
- Certain ‘cognitive and social adaptations’ can fuel our belief in God and religion
- For example, researchers cite ‘cognitive decoupling,’ which involves people assigning anthropomorphic qualities to things they cannot see in front of them
- Religious activities also make our brains feel good, encouraging repetition
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The quick and easy answer to why people are religious is that God – in whichever form you believe he/she/they take(s) – is real and people believe because they communicate with it and perceive evidence of its involvement in the world.
Only 16 percent of people worldwide are not religious.
But this still equates to approximately 1.2 billion individuals who find it difficult to reconcile the ideas of religion with what they know about the world.
Why people believe is a question that has plagued great thinkers for many centuries – Karl Marx, for example, called religion the ‘opium of the people,’ while Sigmund Freud felt that god was an illusion and worshippers were reverting to the childhood needs of security and forgiveness.
However, a more recent psychological explanation is the idea that our evolution has created a ‘god-shaped hole’ or has given us a metaphorical ‘god engine’ which can drive us to believe in a deity.
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Why people believe is a question that has plagued great thinkers for many centuries. A more recent psychological explanation is the idea that our evolution has created a ‘god-shaped hole’ or has given us a metaphorical ‘god engine’ which can drive us to believe in a deity
WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD?
Greater thinkers have been pondering why people believe in god for centuries.
One popular theory cites ‘cognitive and social adaptations’ as the reasoning behind peoples’ belief in god.
For example, ‘cognitive decoupling,’ or the common phenomenon of attaching behaviors or actions to someone who isn’t in front of us could explain why people are religious.
It is a small leap from being able to imagine the mind of someone we know to imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, human-like mind – especially if we have religious texts which tell of their past actions.
Religious activities make our brains feel good, encouraging us to repeat them.
In addition, household norms tend to encourage people to be religious.
Essentially this hypothesis is that religion is a by-product of a number of cognitive and social adaptations which have been extremely important in human development.
We are social creatures who interact and communicate with each other in a co-operative and supportive way.
In doing so we inevitably have stronger attachments to some individuals more than others.
British psychologist John Bowlby demonstrated this influence of attachments on children’s emotional and social development, and showed how these can suffer when they are threatened through separation or abuse.
We continue to rely on these attachments in later life, when falling in love and making friends, and can even form strong attachments to non-human animals and inanimate objects.
It is easy to see that these strong attachments could transfer to religious deities and their messengers.
Our relationships depend on being able to predict how others will behave across situations and time.
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But the things that we form attachments to don’t necessarily need to be in front of us to predict their actions. We can imagine what they would do or say.
This ability – known as cognitive decoupling – originates in childhood through pretend play.
One explanation for why people are religious suggests that it’s a by-product of a number of cognitive and social adaptations which have been extremely important in human development
It is a small leap from being able to imagine the mind of someone we know to imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, human-like mind – especially if we have religious texts which tell of their past actions.
Another key adaptation that may help religious belief derives from our ability to to anthropomorphise objects.
Have you ever seen the outline of a person only to realise that it is actually a coat hung on the door?
This capacity to attribute human forms and behaviours to non-human things shows we also readily endow non-human entities, such as gods, with the same qualities that we possess and, as such, make it easier to connect with them.
In addition to these psychological aspects, the ritual behaviour seen in collective worship makes us enjoy and want to repeat the experience.
ARE WE HEADING FOR A GODLESS FUTURE?
Graham Lawton, author of the new book ‘How to be Human,’ suggests that as our lives become more stable, society could become ‘godless’ as our need for religion fades away.
When children encounter religion, Mr Lawson argues they find the explanations it offers intuitively appealing and believable – making them born believers – but this instinct is drummed out of them by education.
The author claimed the reason people continue to be believe it because ‘they haven’t thought that hard about it’.
However, although the future will be increasingly secular, humans will never totally lose the god instinct.
As long as existential uncertainty exists Mr Lawton claims religion will not disappear completely – even though he believes some of the things in the bible are ‘just crazy’.
People cling onto moral guidance and existential comfort and they don’t let go of them easily, he said.
His comments are based on the cognitive theory of religion which states that belief is a by-product of our cognitive equipment.
Our brain is primed to see meaning everywhere, which helps us make sense of random events.
Children like the idea that there is order and design in the world and it is actually useful as it allows them to reason about possible threats that we cannot see, for example a predator lurking in a nearby bush.
According to Mr Lawton, although this is an evolutionary advantage, it also facilitates the build-up of delusional belief and a ‘feeling of rightness’.
‘To be an actual atheist and reject all religious ideas is not humanly possible – we’ll still fill that hole with something’, said Mr Lawton.
As long as existential uncertainty exists, Mr Lawton claims religion will not disappear completely.
Dancing, singing and achieving trance-like states were prominent in many ancestral societies and are still exhibited by some today – including the Sentinelese people, and Australian aborigines.
As well as acts of social unity, even more formal rituals also alter brain chemistry.
They increase levels of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin in the brain – chemicals that make us feel good, want to do things again and provide a closeness to others.
These cognitive adaptations are facilitated by educational and household norms which don’t tend to dispute religious ideas.
While we are encouraged to challenge other ideas presented to us early in childhood that may not have a strong evidence base – such as Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy – this is not the case with religion.
These challenges are often discouraged in religious teachings and sometimes regarded as sinful.
Regardless of your point of view, the impact of religion and religious thinking on human functioning and evolution is a captivating intellectual debate that shows no sign of ending.
Of course, one might argue that god creates everything outlined above but then this leads us onto another, bigger question: what is the evidence for god?
Nick Perham, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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