Is Atheism Unnatural?
By Julia Vitullo-Martin – Special Contributor
 |
|
Justin Barrett |
Why do human beings believe in God? This question has engrossed thinkers for centuries. Why are beliefs about supernatural agents and ritual practices derived from those beliefs found in all human societies, across disparate times and far-ranging cultures?
University of Oxford psychologist Justin Barrett has a simple answer to this complex question: Because of the way our minds are designed.
Indeed, belief in some kind of god is nearly inevitable, argues Barrett, given the configuration of human minds, whose mental tools work below our consciousness, producing beliefs without our being fully aware of the process. Far from being “blank slates” at birth, as several classical philosophers argued, human brains are structured to be highly sensitive to the idea of agency—the possibility that some force is causing effects. In other words, belief in the supernatural is a natural and predictable product of human development.
Or so goes the theory. But how to test this empirically? A three-year, $3.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Oxford’s Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology and its Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology has moved the analysis forward by introducing a range of quantitative research methodologies as well as by attracting new scholars to the field of cognitive science of religion.
“The cognitive psychology domain asks how our mind is configured,” says Michael Murray, the Templeton Foundation's vice president for philosophy and theology. “What mental tools do we have to make religious belief so common? But this project also asks a different set of questions with a different set of scholars: How did our minds come to be so configured? These scholars are looking for the trajectories of evolution, for how things got to be the way they are.”
Justin Barrett, senior researcher at Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, is fully aware of the methodological difficulties of the enterprise, given that minds leave no fossils. Worse, our minds are structured to remember certain concepts but not others—making memory a treacherous device.
The project’s study of how children think has helped forge new territory on the naturalness of “god concepts.” Both American and British children see aspects of the natural world—plants and animals, for example—as possessing “functional design” with someone causing that design. In other words, my horse is beautiful and loves me because someone caused my horse to be like this, rather than a creature who is ugly and hates me. The child’s conceptual bias to look for agency behind the natural world may structure human thought into adulthood—thus one explanation for why many human beings are religious.
In other words, says Barrett, “We have increasing evidence that religious beliefs and practices are a natural product of the way that human minds work, that far from being some oddity or cultural add-on or something that has to be indoctrinated into people, religious beliefs are part of human nature in a really important respect. Left to our own devices, we have a tendency to believe in some kind of god, and to entertain the possibility that there’s something beyond us, that the transcendent exists.”
This, of course, says nothing about whether these widely held ideas are in fact true. Indeed, the New Atheists have been quick to argue that Barrett’s analysis of children as “intuitive theists” who assume the world was created with a purpose promotes a “reductionist explanation of religion”—one bolstering the view that God does not exist.
Barrett thinks his analysis does no such thing. He has just finished a book manuscript, entitled Born Believers, laying out the full range of data showing that young children have a tendency to understand and think about gods—a creator god in particular—and that it might take particular, aggressive cultural conditions for children to deviate from that path.
As it happens, Barrett will be able to test that hypothesis in his next project, Is Religion Natural? The Chinese Challenge. The research will be undertaken in China, whose society and culture is highly likely to challenge Barrett’s ideas. Barrett may well be correct that religious and spiritual thought, feelings, and actions are part of “largely invariable human nature,” but China has not only been officially secular since World War II—it also has a long history of dominant non-religious philosophies.
Are spiritual, religious, and transcendent ideas natural to human beings? Justin Barrett’s scholarly journey to China may well settle the issue once and for all.
What does JTF do?
The John Templeton Foundation’s 2010 Capabilities Report has just been released. The report is an overview of the Foundation’s grantmaking and activities, showcasing signature programs and initiatives that exemplify the philanthropy’s ideals and priorities.
“We wanted to feature examples of the Foundation's grantmaking in an easy to read and understandable format, and I think we have succeeded,” said Pamela Thompson, vice president for communications.
The 2010 Capabilities Report can be seen in PDF form here, and printed copies can be ordered by writing to communications@templeton.org. For more detailed information about the Foundation’s activities, visit www.templeton.org.
Talking about ‘American Grace’
 |
| Video |
The Foundation recently hosted a Templeton Book Forum event featuring political scientists Robert Putnam of Harvard and David Campbell of Notre Dame, who talked about their widely-praised new book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. Based on the most up-to-date, comprehensive social science research available, the book explores the connection between American religion and social capital. Video excerpts from the conversation, which was moderated by Pulitzer-prize winning author Jon Meacham, are now available on the Foundation’s YouTube channel.
Chinese Youth Discover Laws of Life
 |
| Video |
Chinese schoolgirl Li Yue lost more than her left leg in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake–the eleven-year-old also lost her dream of becoming a dancer, and, in turn, her innocence. Before that spring afternoon, Li, by her own admission, had no idea how fragile life was. A permanent disability forced the young girl to enter in what she today describes as “a period of deep contemplation.” Now a Beijing seventh grader, Li writes that she was buoyed by “a strong desire to persist and endure,” true grit that propelled her to the stage of the 2008 Paralympics, where she performed a “hand ballet” to Ravel’s Bolero.
“During that triumphal moment, I realized that through all my despair I could still maintain hope, that I had not become worthless but could still possess my own dreams, and that I could still bring pleasure to others,” she writes. And that, Li says, is what gave her renewed purpose in life, and, in both joy and sorrow, a determination to keep her heart “calm and easy.”
Li Yue wrote about her experiences as an entry in Junior Achievement China’s Laws of Life Essay Contest, supported by a $1.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Sir John Templeton taught that our existence was governed by eternal ethical and spiritual principles that he called Laws of Life. He passionately believed young people should be encouraged to study the Laws of Life for the sake of improving their character and finding noble purpose in life. “During the 2010-11 school year, one million Laws of Life essays will be written in China, making it the biggest such program in the world,” says Kent Hill, vice president for character development at the Foundation.
