Belief Under The Microscope

Humans as a species, show many traits that, whilst exhibited individually in some other species (tool-using crows, communicative dolphins, altruistic Meerkats) are not all exhibited in any other species.

But what is it, of this combination, that makes us “human”? All cultures across the world show three big ideas that come together, wired in to our brains as they develop. They are complex language, music and, of course, religion.

The origins of religion were not, until quite recently, ever given much deep consideration. Possibly because of the vaguely taboo nature of the subject. The idea that we may be evolutionarily hard-wired to have faith in divine, all-knowing beings can raise some hackles both on the side of the theists and the atheists.

This hinges on the idea that religion arises simply as a result of the way the human brain works. Children (especially younger infants) are a good way of investigating the “default settings” of the human brain, and do show a strong tendency towards believing in gods, or at least in stronger powers at work.

Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, suggests that this is because the human mind uses distinctly separate cognitive systems when considering inanimate objects (boxes, trees and the like) and things with minds – or at least, that can move under their own free will.

Show a five month old child a person moving in a stop-start way about a room, they will be content, but a box moving in the same pattern with elicit a surprised response. Even babies know that boxes cannot move around by themselves; something with a will must be behind this phenomenon.

It was this reasoning that early humans would have applied to things that they did not understand. Something must be causing rustling in the bushes, where else could it come from? Our early ancestors that thought it could be a monster and ran away. What mind is behind lightning, who is creating it? Some of the first humans probably thought it would be a good idea to be nice to something that powerful, perhaps leave some food out for it just in case it came for them.

Another key tendency is to attribute purpose or design to inanimate objects. Ask a small child why the sea exists, they reply “so the fish have somewhere to live”. It would make much more sense to think “these berries have been made for us to eat” rather then “through millions of years or trail and error adaptations we have evolved to be able to eat these berries”. In modern times, we still apply human characteristics to animals or technology (albeit in a more knowing way). Our pets have personalities and our computers only crash when they know we've nearly finished the articles we are writing.

Pre-school children, when interviewed about why things exist and where did they come from, are more likely to suggest that life and the world were created by an higher, unseen power than by humans, and incredibly unlikely to suggest any theories that would necessitate an understanding of long periods of time.

If a human can create a pot out of clay, surely a more powerful being with an endless supply of clay could create the mountains?

The concept of “common-sense dualism”, where by we except, briefly, things we know aren't true for methods of forward planning “what-if” situations and use for emphasizing with others plays a key role in our acceptance of disembodied minds.

By the age of four, over half of all children will have and an imaginary friend. These can be friendly or malignant, human or animal, but it widely regarded as being a way that young minds learn empathy and to think for people other than themselves. Evolutionarily, those who have learnt those skills will go on to be more successful in early societies.

In adults these traits can still be seen. In a non-religious setting, this can be anything from maintaining a mental relationship with a dead loved-one to creating a fantasy life, often with fictional characters or celebrities. In these cases, the desired behaviours in the character are projected from the believer. It is suggested that, in believing in gods, adults are simply projecting a series of assumed behaviours on another imaginary being. People with autism or autistic traits are less likely to believe in gods and rarely have imaginary friends in childhood as they find it harder to imagine what another would be thinking.

But these traits all have an awareness built in. People know that they aren't actually speaking with their long departed grandmother and only the very delusional truly believe that Ryan Reynolds is their boyfriend. So how do beliefs in gods avoid this rationalisation?

This is where organised and group religion comes into play. You believe what everyone else believes. No one tells you otherwise. Religion-as-an-adaptation as it were. The shared religious beliefs of a group of our ancestors would bring the tribe closer together, cooperating better in hunting and food gathering. This would thus allow the religious group to out compete the other tribes.

So religion may have started and spread as a by-product of our evolutionary success. Does this invalidate it?

Possibly, but many could argue against that. Religious beliefs are one of the things that set us far apart from the other animals. They may have given us the first moral law systems, the first large buildings, some early tribes in the Middle East have been shown to have come together for worship. They also however created wars and genocides, stalled scientific progress and caused all sorts of discrimination.

Have we out-evolved religion now? Take a look at the world, and it is pretty obviously not the case. Are we now a rational enough species to see the source of these beliefs and make the most good of what we have done so far? I'd hope so, but we do have a long way to go.


Published in Spark October 2012 (yorkspark.co.uk)