Are we hard-wired to be religious?

[Sunstone]

In fact if you can bring up such an article that makes the overt or even implicit claim that our brains are predisposed to religious thinking, I am rather curious to see how "religiosity" is quantified as a measure.

Which half dozen books do you want to read first?

Maybe you should try Scott Atran's book In Gods we Trust, for starters.

 

[Paroxys]

Which half dozen books do you want to read first?

Maybe you should try Scott Atran's book In Gods we Trust, for starters.

Haha, But I don't exactly have the time to read through an entire 400 page book and contribute to continuous meaningful debate now do I?

I did however, skim through some of his articles that seemed pertinent. And his central thesis seems to me that, correct me if I am wrong, that religion develops naturally and inevitably as a result a number of factors. Which is something I'm inclined to agree with.

The question now becomes, if religion developed necessarily or inevitably, is that the same as saying humans are pre-disposed to religious thought? Perhaps. But that's another matter altogether.

My question to you is that if humans had a predisposition toward "X". However that predisposition manifested itself as religion. Is that the same as saying humankind is predisposed to religion?

Truth be told I was anticipating some Neuroscience articles, which I would've probably found more compelling, as neuroscience, albeit still incipient, is more quantifiable and contains more readily testable hypotheses than do many of the social sciences in general (I say this, in spite of the fact that I am a social scientist, haha).

 

[ManTimeForgot]

The person my post was addressed to.

The specifics were not important, like whether it's literally a "gene".

Not really my point either. Whether or not humans have something going for them or not has literally nothing to do with whether or not the universe (let alone reality) was created. If there is some creator being, then exactly how are we supposed to second guess a mind that is capable of producing... well us?

We routinely fail to contemplate other humans who have a score of IQ on us; what makes us so qualified to try and guess the motives (even assuming such being can have motives ascribed in a proper sense of the term) of something which may very well have a million points of IQ on us?

We are arguing from a position of nearly infinite ignorance. We have no other sentient species to compare to (let alone other us's) that we might try to figure out what something created or uncreated looks like. Maybe "God" wants us all to believe there is a "God?" Maybe "God" likes wheat toast. Both of those statements are as likely to be true as any other statement made about an entity of which we have precisely zero knowledge.


"Abrahamic God" well... that "God" is so riddled with contradictions that I don't even really give it credence. They do have an answer for that. "God" wants us to believe because "He" wants us to be with "Him." *shrug* I still can't get around the fact that some super advanced alien being actually has gender and sexuality as we understand it.

MTF

 

[work in progress]

The thing is we can come up with alternative explanations that don't suggest a "predilection toward religion" that are also legitimate with the data at hand. Hence it may not be a big leap to get to predilection to religion, but its not a big leap to get to another conclusion as well. In this case, one equally legitimate theory is that the observed differences are the result of a religious upbringing, as opposed to a predilection to religion.

Religious upbringing certainly will skew the odds of what a person believes later in life, and that's how we have such a strong geographic distribution of religions noted in another thread; but if it was all about what we are taught as children, why would many continue to follow religious dogma and teachings without giving it much thought, while others become skeptics sometime as they get older and start calling everything into question? This is where the differences between people who start relying more on reasoning and those who just go by intuition and their feelings about certain beliefs, start to become apparent.

The article you cite is an interesting one certainly. It's main premise (correct me if I'm wrong, as I skimmed through it), is that children are more teleological than adults are.

It would be more correct to say that teleology is the only way we can make sense of things around us early in life, but as we get older, we are more likely to consider that events do not necessarily have anything to do with us personally. We may have the ability to use analytical skills to rule out a teleological explanation of why it's raining or why is the Sun shining (or maybe not), but when a subject is put under pressure, as in that Kelemen study, even the most learned adult subjects will show signs of "promiscuous teleology" when they don't have as much time to reason towards an answer. A separate study by Bruce Hood, discussed near the end of Supersense indicates that aging subjects showing signs of dementia, start going back to teleological thinking, as their reasoning abilities begin to fade.

1. Can we say that teleological implies religious? Certainly a correlation can be established between the two, but correlation does not mean causation.
2. Even if we concede some form of causal relation between teleological, the OP's thesis specifies a certain direction. Namely that, can we say that predilection toward religiousness manifests itself as a predilection to teleological explanation? This direction has to be specifically this way since if the predilection to teleological explanation manifests as religious, then one could make the argument that religion is only a means of expressing teleological explanation. That if provided another alternative, easier means of teleological manifestation, then that would be the principal form of expression.

First, you've got to define "religious", since I am thinking about the simplest, unsophisticated religious beliefs like creation myths. So, if children are prone to seeing a purpose for everything in nature as touched on in this article: Why Are Rocks Pointy?

When we don’t give them answers, children generate their own explanations and from their perspective, everything is the way it is for some purpose. Rocks are pointy to stop animals sitting on them. Trees have leaves to provide shade.
​

How big of a leap is that to explaining entire worlds, heavens, people, plants and animals, with teleological explanations that someone made them?

3. There are probably more, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

In fact, this teleological explanation article you provide actually provides evidence to support my thesis: "that humans are pre-disposed to avoiding unpleasantness."

Not exactly, but that might be a strong motivation to hold on to a weak concept that is lacking supporting evidence. For example, even years after I started thinking I was an atheist, I still believed there were souls, and stories of NDE's, such as Raymond Moody's bestseller "Life After Life" sounded like good evidence to support some sort of belief in immortality.

Thinking back, when I started reading stuff about delusions from sleep paralysis, or the dark tunnel, banging noises etc. at the start of an NDE experience being correlated with oxygen deprivation to the brain, I didn't want to accept it! It took a little time to get past a wave of the hand rejection of this new information, and that would fit a theory that popular beliefs like souls and heaven are motivated by avoiding unpleasant concepts like death.

Speaking of death, I heard an interesting insight from comedian- Jimmy Dore's weekly radio show that goes something like "if we all lived to be 10,000 years, there would be no religion! Or maybe when we got to be 9,000 or so, we might start thinking 'maybe I should start going back to church in a few centuries." No doubt most of what religious belief and practice is about is mostly trying to avoid the eventuality of death.

 

[charles brough]

We as humans are hard-wired for belief and faith. We all experience it, even if it isn't religious in nature. Its just part of being human and there is nothing we can do about it.

It is a powerful tool for controlling the masses. Even more so when the controller is a believer as well, as it authenticates the idea.

In effect, you are saying that we have a "religious instinct." Why? How did it evolve in us? If not, are you saying God put it there when "He Created us?"

No, there is a real reason why have always had religions and it is not because of being an instinct. Through millions of years, we evolved in small hunting-gathering groups. We have as a result an innate need to live in small groups in order to feel secure and to have a sense of community. We developed common world-view ideologies ("religions") some 40,000 years ago that served the function of enabling us to expand the size of our groups. As these ideological systems became better, they enabled us to organize into huge groups, finally into nations and then into groups of them we can call "societies." This is all shown in detail in "The Last Civilization."

So "religion" is not instinctive but our small-group social-instinct nature is. If you have never been taught that in your social science courses, it is because it is offensive to the faithful to be told their "religion" is only here to serve a social evolutionary function and that it can only do that until it divides so much its usefulness is shattered. Then it is always replaced by a more advanced one. In other words, "religions" have a life cycle!

 

[Penumbra]

Not really my point either. Whether or not humans have something going for them or not has literally nothing to do with whether or not the universe (let alone reality) was created. If there is some creator being, then exactly how are we supposed to second guess a mind that is capable of producing... well us?

We routinely fail to contemplate other humans who have a score of IQ on us; what makes us so qualified to try and guess the motives (even assuming such being can have motives ascribed in a proper sense of the term) of something which may very well have a million points of IQ on us?

We are arguing from a position of nearly infinite ignorance. We have no other sentient species to compare to (let alone other us's) that we might try to figure out what something created or uncreated looks like. Maybe "God" wants us all to believe there is a "God?" Maybe "God" likes wheat toast. Both of those statements are as likely to be true as any other statement made about an entity of which we have precisely zero knowledge.


"Abrahamic God" well... that "God" is so riddled with contradictions that I don't even really give it credence. They do have an answer for that. "God" wants us to believe because "He" wants us to be with "Him." *shrug* I still can't get around the fact that some super advanced alien being actually has gender and sexuality as we understand it.

MTF

I don't believe in any gods.

I just find it interesting that someone who believes in a god would also believe that some people are hardwired for religion or spirituality more than others. It's a perfectly acceptable question to ask, then, why they think that's the case.

 

[Paroxys]

Religious upbringing certainly will skew the odds of what a person believes later in life, and that's how we have such a strong geographic distribution of religions noted in another thread; but if it was all about what we are taught as children, why would many continue to follow religious dogma and teachings without giving it much thought, while others become skeptics sometime as they get older and start calling everything into question? This is where the differences between people who start relying more on reasoning and those who just go by intuition and their feelings about certain beliefs, start to become apparent.

In the context of this thread, I'm not really sure what the purpose of this block of text is. It doesn't really address the main point I brought up, namely that there are other legitimate and supportable alternatives that explain the observed data just as well (or so one could at the very least argue) as a "predilection to religion." Or to use an analogy. One sees a giant crater in the ground. One concludes that something very very large must've fallen. Another equally legitimate theory is that something small fell very very fast. Without additional evidence, who's to say which theory is correct?

I will concede your point of clarification.

First, you've got to define "religious", since I am thinking about the simplest, unsophisticated religious beliefs like creation myths. So, if children are prone to seeing a purpose for everything in nature as touched on in this article: Why Are Rocks Pointy?

When we don’t give them answers, children generate their own explanations and from their perspective, everything is the way it is for some purpose. Rocks are pointy to stop animals sitting on them. Trees have leaves to provide shade.
​

How big of a leap is that to explaining entire worlds, heavens, people, plants and animals, with teleological explanations that someone made them?

Another way of putting the questions I put forth is, does this necessarily point to a predisposition to religion? Or is it a predisposition toward something else entirely that manifests itself as religion. That is, consider that when people are thirsty, they drink water. Does this mean that people are predisposed to drinking water? Or perhaps it is that people are predisposed to living which manifests itself as drinking water.

The operative phrase in the article you cite is "when we don't give them answers." Hence, if this condition isn't satisfied, then children rely on teleological explanation. To me, this implies that children (and people) are people are predisposed to find answers (not necessarily correct answers, but just answers) and it just happens to be that teleological explanation often is the simplest and easiest answer. In fact, I would argue that this predisposition to find answers is a manifestation of a predisposition to avoid unpleasantness.

To me, I suppose a predisposition is the most general sort of quality that can be said about a particular being. Or to put it another way, rather than saying we are predisposed to eating, sleeping, and avoiding danger, I would argue that we are predisposed to living which manifests itself in us eating, sleeping, and avoiding danger.

Not exactly, but that might be a strong motivation to hold on to a weak concept that is lacking supporting evidence. For example, even years after I started thinking I was an atheist, I still believed there were souls, and stories of NDE's, such as Raymond Moody's bestseller "Life After Life" sounded like good evidence to support some sort of belief in immortality.

Thinking back, when I started reading stuff about delusions from sleep paralysis, or the dark tunnel, banging noises etc. at the start of an NDE experience being correlated with oxygen deprivation to the brain, I didn't want to accept it! It took a little time to get past a wave of the hand rejection of this new information, and that would fit a theory that popular beliefs like souls and heaven are motivated by avoiding unpleasant concepts like death.

Speaking of death, I heard an interesting insight from comedian- Jimmy Dore's weekly radio show that goes something like "if we all lived to be 10,000 years, there would be no religion! Or maybe when we got to be 9,000 or so, we might start thinking 'maybe I should start going back to church in a few centuries." No doubt most of what religious belief and practice is about is mostly trying to avoid the eventuality of death.

I never said it was definitive evidence, but one could make a plausible and legitimate argument to support my particular, or possibly a number of alternative hypotheses, with the data at hand. Unfortunately this is what makes social science (at least in general) oftentimes much less definitive as we have no practical (and/or ethical) way to isolate variables and design experiments to put various theories in direct competition.