Humans 'Predisposed' to Believe in Gods and the Afterlife

[rug]

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2011) — A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.

The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures. The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind.

The researchers point out that the project was not setting out to prove the existence of god or otherwise, but sought to find out whether concepts such as gods and an afterlife appear to be entirely taught or basic expressions of human nature.

'The Cognition, Religion and Theology Project' led by Dr Justin Barrett, from the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University, drew on research from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. They directed an international body of researchers conducting studies in 20 different countries that represented both traditionally religious and atheist societies.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

[PoliticAverse]

1. I have disposed of those beliefs... n/t

[wtmusic]

2. Waste of money. nt

[Taverner]

3. Not sure if you could call it predisposition

Our minds cannot comprehend death, that is for sure. Not sure if animals can - but we humans clearly can't. Thus, the fixation on an afterlife.

Now as per God - it is telling of our species that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were so CONVINCED, so utterly sure that just telling people "everything needs a creator!" would spark some fire in us Atheist's brains so that we go "Oh yeah, there HAS to be a god, given that logic!"

Again, our species cannot comprehend the idea that there is no purpose, and that we are not the conscious product of some "other."

I understand the inherent nihilism of life: there is no meaning, so stop worrying. But so many Theists just can't live a world where there is no purpose. They can't live in a world that wasn't created just for them. Well, they have it backwards - we were created for the world, not vice versa. But I digress.

To me, I have never been happier, freer, more alive then when I finally realized, once and for all, there is no god. No man watching upstairs, no ultimate test, no heaven or hell, no angels, no devils, no ghosts, demons or d'jinn. There is me - and for me, that's enough.

[digonswine]

6. We are lucky mud.

[lumpy]

8. Yes, I found true freedom when I realized there in no answer and

I shucked the man made gods. The only beliefs left for me are those I instincted believed as a very young child. That is that I am alive forever.

[lumpy]

9. Wanted to add. When I think about my death and my children,

it's funny, I think how much I will miss them.

[Taverner]

10. Well "forever" will be a subjective concept

For your entire life, which is "forever" in terms of your mind, you will be alive

[Odin2005]

4. IMO it's more like we are predisposed to give mental states to inanimate objects.

Have you ever joked that some malfunctioning device "has a mind of it's own" or "doesn't like you"? We are so hard-wired to think in terms of mental states and intentionality that we accidentally impose such things on inanimate objects.

[Taverner]

7. If I had a dollar for every time I tried to "punish" a door for hitting me in the leg...

I'd be a rich man, but still with lots of welts

[struggle4progress]

21. +

[lumpy]

5. I have not disposed of the desire for afterlife, it is the last vestige

of my religiosity. And if afterlife doesn't exist, what the hell; and I will tell you being a member of those who are soon facing the ultimate exit, I am looking forward to it. As my Mother said "I don't recall being me before birth so how can I miss me?" Peace

[eShirl]

11. no kidding

otherwise how would most people in so many widely separate cultures, places and times believe such things

[damntexdem]

12. Likely a survival trait.

Of course that says nothing about the accuracy of the contents of any of the beliefs, including of those who reject god beliefs.

So this will be a religious football here, as so many places.

And that will ignore the interesting questions about humanity.

[ladjf]

13. This predisposition may prove to be the fatal flaw for humans.

No species can survive using only a system of agreed upon notions as their guide to living. nt

[okasha]

15. As far as we know, humans are the only ones who do this

and there is no human society that does not do it, which indicates that it has some survival value--stopping members of the group from killing each other, for example. Some of those agreed-upon notions are religious; some are political; some are epistomological.

[Silent3]

17. Or it's an until-now not-too-harmful side effect of something else...

...that has survival value. Evolved traits aren't necessarily pure benefits. A new trait need only confer a temporary relative advantage compared to not having that trait, even when that trait might carry some negative baggage, so long as, in the initial environment in which the trait develops, the pros outweigh the cons.

I suspect the basic evolved traits behind theistic and afterlife beliefs are agency, theory of mind and social hierarchy. (This is just speculation, upon which the previous point does not depend, just in case you're tempted to pounce on this speculation, shouting "You can't prove that!", as if doing so would somehow bolster the case for religion and afterlife beliefs themselves being advantageous traits.)

[okasha]

19. You've overthought my remarks.

I was simply saying that every society functions on the basis of "agreed-upon notions"--that's what makes it a society. In the United States, our basic "agreed-upon notion" is the Constitution. From time to time, we've added a few more "agreed-upon notions" to the original ones for the benefit of society. Attempts to limit these "agreed-upon notions" or violate them usually result in social and individual harm.

[skepticscott]

22. Well, yes and no

A healthy society is one in which cultural boundaries are constantly tested and, in some cases, breached, and this is not necessarily harmful in the long run, though it is often disruptive in the short term. It used to be an "agreed-upon" notion that slavery was a perfectly natural and good thing, but we have largely managed to toss that cultural meme to the scrap heap. The acceptance of gay marriage has long been considered outside of cultural norms in most societies, but it is slowly being incorporated.

A society which is too insular, too resistant to change or outside influence, is certainly not one that I would care to live in.

[Adsos Letter]

14. Ecclesiastes 3:11

"He has also set eternity in the human heart..."

Seems like the ancients were aware of it.

[Jim__]

16. "... both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind."

I'd really like to see some more details on that conclusion.

[rug]

18. Me too, but I think it goes something like this.

Atheism has meaning only in the context of theism.

If humans are predisposed to think of an afterlife and gods, the default thesis is theism. The antithesis of theism is therefore atheism.

Since animals live in a natural existential state they have no concept of either theism or atheism.

I suspect their conclusion is that atheism, as a concept, follows theism as a concept.

[okasha]

20. That looks about right.

I do wonder about certain non-human species, though. Elephants, for example, seem to have a clear idea of an individual's identity after that individual's death. Dolphins appear to recognize and value other sapient life. Chimpanzees have been observed performing actions that look very like the beginnings of ritual.

If humans have a "predisposition" to a certain trait, i.e., it's genetic/instinctive, then it seems to me that it's possible that at least other mammalian species may also carry the trait in some form.

[skepticscott]

26. Possible, but not necessary

If such a trait is part of humans' genetic makeup, it may have arisen after the evolutionary split between humans and their closest ape relatives, in which case it would not be present in chimps. That's not to say that such a thing couldn't evolve independently among species with a burgeoning intelligence. We'd just need a big black monolith to help it along.

[Jim__]

23. The language makes me curious.

They counterpose theology rather than theism to atheism. I can't find any more info on this decision though. The best explanation I can find sounds like it's more of a compromise than an actual agreement (source):

But do such explanations for religion mean we that shouldn’t be religious (as the New Atheists have suggested)? That we should? Twelve philosophers from across the world over three years weighed in on these sorts of questions, both working separately, and coming together in Oxford for intensive conferences, and other discussions. They agreed that new empirical research is demonstrating that impulses to religion are part of the most basic ways the human mind works. Religion has always been a basic feature of human life and is always likely to be. Atheism is as sophisticated a response to this fact as any theology. Which is right cannot be settled by empirical discovery, but religion cannot be dismissed as the private preoccupation of a few. Religious responses to the world, right or wrong, are part of what it is to be human.

[rug]

24. Maybe they are using the word in the sense of a study of a theos.

If they posit that there is an instinct for a concept of god, then it's natural for humans to study that notion, theology, as opposed to simply living that belief, i.e,. theism.

[okasha]

25. That sounds to me as if they're using both terms

to refer to systems of thought/study rather than positions for or against the existence of god(s).

[dmallind]

30. Largely agree, but we must be careful not to confuse defaults.

Of course the human brain has an inherent tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate forces and objects - partly to make sense of the inexplicable via stories and partly because we are generally not very comfortable with answering "buggered if I know" to metaphysical questions. The universal incidence of myths and fairy stories and religion are all we need to see that.

But that's how a self-aware sentience deals with lack of data. It's itself a conditioned response to an inability to understand and process phenomena, reinforced through social interaction and shared stories. Societies develop these myths through a collective and self-reinforced willingness to accept known stories in the place of unknown facts.

That's a societal default, not an individual one. There is a reason societies differ so widely in the myths they create (until they meet and influence esch other), from the Aboriginal dream-time to Chinese ancestor-spirits. It's because people looking at a turtle and a snake started telling each other stories about how they came to look like that until the myths coalesced and became a collectively agreed upon format within each group. It's because people who saw their compatriots die started comforting each other with stories that minimized the loss based on shared norms - from the constant brawling and feasting that seemed good to the Scandinavians to the serene wisdom that seemed good to the Chinese. These stories, including those of gods, were honed by society. Almost all societies will naturally invent super-human beings that we might call gods for obvious reasons. When you work for years to fortify your first compound agaist attack, and manage to get walls a few yards high and a few dozen yards wide, then you look into the distance and see the Andes or the Alps or the Himalayas that are miles high and hundreds of miles wide, how powerful would you imagine the things that "built" them would be? Same for your paltry campfire againts the sun or a volcano, and so on.

An individual though does not by default understand and believe these stories from birth. It must be conditioned to do so by repetition and acceptance by others. Nobody is born with a belief in anything, including gods. We are however born with brains conditioned to seek answers and accept those given to us by those inside our social group, especially when we hear them often and from all other group members. Therefore the default at birth is the lack of specific beliefs, but the willingness to accept what we are told by those around us, coupled with a dislike of unanswered questions.

But yes atheism certainly follows theism as a concept - in fact is entirely dependent on it. But what we use the term atheism to describe is the basic nature of a mind that has not yet been filled up with stories of gods as well as one that has come to say "prove these stories are true or I don't believe them". In a society with no gods, whose stories were merely those about ancestors or extinct giants for example, the word "atheism" or even the concept of not believing in gods would be completely unknown and unnecessary. But they would still be what WE call atheist.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

27. I saw this in the Pagan Group the other day...

and this is what I wrote at that time:

I saw a show on one of the science channels a while back...
A researcher (I think he was at U. of Guelph) was doing a study in which he put people into a room with no sound, light, etc.,
basically it was sensory deprivation. He then used a helmet with an electromagnet attached at a set location and angle to
induce a magnetic field in the area of the brain he was interested in.

What they found was that many of the people would begin to have some dreams (visions, dreams, not sure of a good way to actually describe it)
that could be compared to near death and out of body experiences. In essence the magnet could induce a sense of interacting with 'God'. It is hardwired in our brains. (I wonder if that is why zombies want to eat brains.)

To me this all makes sense. The Val-father, a being so great and beyond what we could ever comprehend, is dreaming. Our universe and the other universes are all part of the dream. As people in the dream, we are a part of the Val-father and that relation gives us a sense of
him/her even though we could never completely comprehend it. A cell in your toe has the DNA of the entire person that is you but is only a small part that could never comprehend you.


I think I'm rambling now - my fingers can't type what I'm thinking very well...

I was a bit rambling then but I'm not sure I could do better now.
I have also thought about the zombie thing and think I am right, this is part of why zombies want to eat brains...that and they are very tasty :evilgrin:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=262x2592

[tortoise1956]

28. I think the answer is simple

Humans are very curious animals. We always want to know the answer to everything. However, there are some things that appear to be unknowable. (A lot less now than in the past, mostly due to scientific advances)

I believe that our belief in some sort of supreme force derives from that thirst for knowledge. If we don't have the answer, we find something that provides a valid answer. At the beginning, we invented gods who were little more than humans with extraordinary capabilities - the Greek pantheon, Mitra, Hinduism, the various Pagan entities.

Then came Judaism, which worshiped an infinite being - no boundaries, no limitations - for all practical purposes, an unknowable deity. I can understand how that would be a persuasive belief system. After all, how can one truly worship a being with the same character flaws that you possess?

The irony is that modern science is actually strengthening some of the aspects that the Big 3 (Judaism Christianity, and Islam) were built on. I use the Big Bang theory as an example. It seems to make sense that the entire known universe came into being as the result of what is referred to as the big bang. There is compelling evidence to support that. What isn't at all clear, at least for now, is where the energy released by the big bang came from. If you posit that it suddenly sprang into existence, how did that happen? You can either believe that a miracle occurred and all energy became real all by itself, or you can believe that a miracle occurred and some force created the energy. Either one is just as plausible, or implausible. Pick your miracle...

Me, I'm a firm believer in agnostic theism, with tinges of strict agnosticism. I don't hold with organized religions that teach that they are the only true path, because I find it impossible to believe that an infinitely powerful being would limit the message about salvation to such a narrow scope. Besides, that aspect of religion is so indicative of human nature that it seems obvious it's a human invention. I do, however, hold that there is a prime mover of some kind. It seems more logical than to believe the miracle of energy being created from nothingness all by itself. however, we will never be able to comprehend a truly infinite being, because we are bounded by the finite world we live in. I think that is why atheism is an attractive belief system for some people - if all existence is completely random, then there is no need to try to understand something beyond our powers of comprehension.

So there you are. Fire away...

[Deep13]

29. I agree. Why else would billions of people consistently accept...

...as reality an idea that not only has no basis in fact, but has proved to be as destructive as it has been? It's a programming error (or it would be if it had been done by an actual programmer) wired into our brains.

[Humanist_Activist]

31. I think its more generalized than that, human beings are predisposed to pattern...

recognition even when no pattern exists, and to assign personal agency to seemingly random events out of ignorance. Noting as sophisticated as religion or belief in gods, but given time, these tendencies do allow for the development of a variety of superstitions and beliefs, including gods and religions.

[trotsky]

32. And if you look at human history, we're also clearly predisposed to...

violence, war, tribalism, racism, and sexism.

[laconicsax]

33. (aka religion) n/t

[LAGC]

34. I like to think all of those can be overcome.

As can religion.

I don't buy that peoples' minds can't be changed on the subject.

[trotsky]

35. We've made great strides fighting all of them.

I am hopeful for the future.

[rug]

36. Lolz

[trotsky]

37. Thankfully you & your religious brethren can't burn me at the stake.

I'd say that's progress.

[rug]

38. If someone has threatened to burn you at the stake, you must report it io the police.

[trotsky]

40. Too bad all the victims of your church couldn't do that at the time.

But today they can. I think that's progress.

[rug]

41. If you want to equate yourself to martyrs of the past, I won't stop you.

Rather silly, though.

[trotsky]

42. Of course I did no such thing, which does make it silly for you to say that. n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

39. Sigmund Freud figured this out a long time ago.

He said we all want a sky-daddy to protect us from the random evils of the world, so we are psychologically disposed to imagine a protective sky-daddy or god for our mental security.

He also wrote a paper called "Religious Faith as an Expression of Neurosis".

This is not new.