The principal cause of an individual’s religion is the inheriting of identity from parents and local culture1 and most conversions are to another religion that is active locally2. Religion is primarily a result of where you are raised. But what other secular, sociological and psychological factors cause religion to prosper? What about new religious movements and spiritualities that are exotic, superstitious, anti-intellectual and counter-cultural? They all share in common a certain irrational and illogical character. What causes such beliefs? There have been many studies on these topics, and here the examination covers both arbitrary exterior circumstances and internal neuronal causes. Sociologists warn us that fixation on “the” cause of religion hampers research3. There are many causes of religion and superstition because the word “religion” covers such a variety of beliefs and practices, from dry academic ideas through to rituals and cultural behaviours. Of all the causes examined here it is easy to see that one of the least motivating factors is a conscientious deliberation over what claims are true4,5. Guy Harrison states with disdain that “a typical home purchase is given far more thoughtful analysis than the selection of a god to worship“6.

1. Arbitrarily Inherited

#belief #causes_of_religion #mass_belief #parenting #religion

“In most countries on Earth, most people are religious. But why? The main reason is that children assume the religion of their parents7 and they are unlikely to ever switch8, or, if they do convert, it will be to become a member of a different religion that is also popular where they live9. In “Social Psychology“ by David Myers (1999)10 the word “religion” enters the index from the chapters on “conformity” and “indoctrination”11. Other researchers have found that “fewer than 1% [of Americans] convert to an entirely new religion“12 and in some places children are not exposed to non-belief until college13 and it is easy to imagine that in the current-day Middle East and in historical times, the only comments ever heard about non-believers are intensely negative. In this sense, most people’s religion is arbitrary and it is clear that most religious people did not choose their religion, nor have they seriously compared religions to ascertain which one(s) were most likely to be true. Most people confuse their heritage for their religion.”

“Why Are There So Many Religious People? Parents, Local Culture and Inertia” by Vexen Crabtree (2016)

Functionalism

#brazil #china #christianity #hong_kong #korea,_south

Individuals will often adopt a religious position for social reasons. Associating with a group of like-minded folk feels good, and can engender a feeling of empowerment and worth14. Examples of this abound, and include the sectarian strife in Northern Ireland, the embrace of alternative religions by teenagers, the embrace of Eastern mysticism by intellectuals and students at the turn of the twentieth century, and the reaction against Western materialism through the embrace of anti-commercialist religions. Religion thus serves a functional purpose quite separate from its actual religious content. Many people adhere to a religious life because it helps combat loneliness, helps them stay off of alcohol, helps them oppress sexual urges, or helps them cope with anxiety or depression15.

Pascal Boyer in “Religion Explained“ (2001)16 listed many of the commonly theorized explanations for the success of religion, and, most of the list consisted of items that described functional roles of religion such as “religion holds society together” and “religion allays anxiety and makes for a comfortable world”17. But what the functional influences lack is a genuine appraisal of the pros or cons of the theological dogmas of the religion in terms of their truth or falsity. I.e., functional elements of religion can remain fully operational even if the underlying belief system contains serious flaws.

Some people join religions because “a cohesive, supportive church plays a central role [in] providing social network[s]”18. Many times it is not even structure that appeals – the very fact of joining a group can be uplifting19. In analysing the growth of evangelical Christianity from 1940 in South Korea, for example, the sociologist D. Martin notes that the basis for the spectacular growth is partially the same as in South America and Asia in general; ‘success can be attributed to a combination of vibrant Pentecostal worship … and personal support’ and ‘the chief pastor/executive combines many secular roles, as, indeed he does in Brazil. He is a social worker and employment exchange official, a kind of store manager and a broker, an educator and a fixer”. I.e., such motivated people attract flocks of followers for their general function in society.20

The same purely pragmatic approach to religion can be found amongst Cantonese coverts to Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) in Hong Kong. Caroline Plüss studied this and in 1999 reported the following:

“Chinese residents in Hong Kong joined this church despite [a] negative perception of the church … because [it] offered potential recruits help with learning English by, for example, operating a tutorial college. It also helped Chinese converts gain financial support for studying in the universities it operates in the United States.”

“Migration and the Globalization of Religion” by Caroline Plüss (2011)21

Religion attracts some people because of the usefulness of the organization and not because of the underlying truth of the religion. Religious leaders know this and their hope is, of course, that some people caught in this way will develop a genuine interest at some later date.

2.2. Religion as Activism, Reactionism and Rejectionism

Religions are often associated with particular stances on particular subjects. From the late nineteenth century a few generations of women seeking equality and empowerment found that some alternative religions were strongly appealing for their stance on gender equality; such religions naturally became magnets for feminists and activists. The membership of Greenpeace is, likewise, notably skewed away from traditional patriarchal religions and towards pagan ones. “Among the Airo-Pai, a small group of Amazonian people on the borders of Peru, Ecuador and Columbia, [Christian evangelicalism and Pentecostalism] has served to prevent alcoholism and drug abuse” because it is embraced as a statement of abstinence rather than strictly for its religious ideas22.

By far the major example of religion-as-activism was the Protestant reformation that swept away Catholicism in much of Europe. The masses were utterly despondent with the immoral, power-abusing, money-centered activities of the Roman Catholic Church, and they were aided by early governments who could no longer stand seeing such huge volumes of religious taxes being sent to Rome. Although there were also theological concerns, the mass of the movement was clearly socio-political in nature; the appeal of Protestantism was mostly its social-activist function and not the specific theology of Martin Luther, its founder.

Some sociologists explain religion – especially new religion, as a form of reactionism against the modern world. So, religious argumentation appeals because it helps justify a rejection of features of the modern world. Main (2002) describes one set of such reactions as “romanticism”, where intuition, imagination and holistic-sounding ideas are espoused in opposition to the cold sciences and practicalities of life23.

2.3. Political Power Struggles and Identity Reinforcement: Why are People Religious?

#causes_of_religion #politics #psychology #religion #sectarianism

Religion is often used as a collective political and racial identity regardless of whether people agree with the actual tenets of a religion24. To be a proper member of an ethnic group in many cases means adopting a certain religion. Or the opposite – some people join a symbolic opposition religion to signal rebellion and dissatisfaction with their own community 25. Studies have found that many people join a religion not because they agree with its theological arguments, but because religion endows “people with an enhanced sense of solidarity to advance collective, often political intentions“26. Migration is often a trigger for adopting a religion. This works in two ways, together called “cultural transition and defence” by sociologist Steve Bruce27: (1) Once removed from a community that they come to miss, some adopt a religion common in that community as a way of boosting their identification with it, regardless of whether they have started believing in the tenets of the faith. (2) When faced with immigration, some take up more extreme forms of what they perceive to be the ‘proper’ religion of their own culture.

2.4. Moralizing: Being Religious in Order to Be a Good Person

#atheism #buddhism #theism #USA

This section is taken from “Do We Need Religion to Have Good Morals?: 1.3. Is Religion Required to Be a Good Person?” by Vexen Crabtree (2014).

Religions almost universally emphasize the moral duty of the individual. “God knows all” as the Qur’an and Bible repeat: examples in the Christian Bible include Job 28:24, 37:16; 1 John 3:19-20; and very frequently in the Qur’an: the first chapter (after the introduction) iterates God’s omniscience ten times, for example Sura 2:29, 77, 85, 115 and 137. We all answer to God eventually. Buddhism and Hinduism likewise teach that we pay the consequences of this life throughout our next. So many people come to think of religions as being a bastion of moral thinking, because, religions tend to dramatize and exaggerate the rewards and punishments of good and bad behaviour. Don’t forget that when Psalms 14:1 says “the fool saith in his heart that there is no God”, the word it uses in Hebrew also means immoral people: immoral people say ‘there is no god’. This emphasis is strong amongst laypeople: despite their record against human rights on an institutional and national level, locally popular religions are often seen as a force for good and there is a general belief that religion supports morality28. A 2002 poll in the USA, an unusually religious country for its state of development, found that on average 44.5% of the adults believed that “It is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values”29. This included both church-goers and laypeople. 65% of regular churchgoers believed it, thinking therefore that the vast majority of the members of “wrong” religions therefore could not be moral people. This ridiculous belief is still held by 25.7% of those who never attend church. Although it is hard to believe that this level of ignorance can exist in the rest of the world, the underlying belief was more popular in pre-modern times throughout the world. Academics have also toed this line; Talcott Parsons in 1966 said the same thing, merely using bigger words. After saying that what makes moral rules valid is a ‘legitimation system’, he adds that ‘a legitimation system is always related to, and meaningfully dependent on, a grounding in ordered relations to ultimate reality. That is, its grounding is always in some sense religious. […] The process of secularization, then, undermines the system of legitimation by which a society’s rules seem to be grounded in ultimate reality.’30

Bryan Wilson is an insightful and respected sociologist of religion. Even he, in 1982, warned of mass breakdown in morality in the West if the religious underpinnings of moral propriety were forgotten.

“As Wilson (1982: 52) concludes, ‘Unless the basic virtues are serviced, unless men are given a sense of psychic reassurance that transcends the confines of the social system, we may see a time when, for one reason or another, the system itself fails to work…’ […] Wilson (1982: 86) describes how secularization resulted in the breakdown of morality in Western societies: ‘When in the West, religion waned, when the rationalistic forces inherent in Puritanism acquired autonomy of their religious origins, so the sense of moral propriety also waned – albeit somewhat later, as a cultural lag. Following the decline of religion [… and the resultant] process of moral breakdown [… we should have] genuine concern about the role of morality in contemporary culture’ (Wilson 1982: 87)”

“Religion in Sociological Perspective” by Bryan Wilson (1982)31
Being discussed in “Key Thinkers in the Sociology of Religion“
Richard K. Fenn (2009) [Book Review]32

After Parsons in 1966 and Wilson in 1982, Karen Armstrong repeats the same story in “A Short History of Myth: Volume 1-4“ (2005)33, arguing that myth is essential for good ethics and meaningful living. How do all of these thinkers rationalize the fact that many god-believers, myth-believers and suchlike, appear to commit the same atrocities and immoralities as unbelievers? From the Dark Ages presided over by Christianity, to the spectre of Islamist brutality against (for example) women and gays in Islamic countries, it seems that religious morals are hardly a panacea. Karen Armstrong dismisses these problems with the odd concept that they are caused by “failed myths”34. An element of double-think appears to be in place: if religious people do good, it is because they are religious, whereas if they do wrong, it is because they are fallible human beings. Such circular logic ought to be challenged wherever it is heard.

So there are numbers of people who, if they want to be good or, wants to be seen as good, will gravitate towards religion simply because they think it is what required. These people, who have come to actively choosing to be a better person, will find that their efforts are rewarded whether or not they choose to do it within a religious framework.

There is plenty of evidence that religion is not required. Parson in 1966 and Wilson in 1982 both warned of systematic collapse in morality if secularisation continued. It not only continued, but has accelerated. There has been no mass failure. Crime is down, wars are shorter, violence is down. It happens that people can also adopt non-religious and secular philosophies in order to promote good moralizing. Secular movements such as the British Humanist Association and IHEU (International Humanist and Ethical Union) are devoted to encouraging moral behavior, moral thinking, overall conscientiousness and rationality. The main difference between these and religious groups who do the same, is that the religious groups often teach that they are the only valid source of morals.

If I am threatened into behaving in a good manner then I am at best amoral, because I am not acting with free will. If you believe that a supreme god is going to punish you (in hell) or deny you life (annihilation) if you misbehave, it is like being permanently threatened into behaving well. In addition, if you believe there is some great reward for behaving well, then your motives for good behavior are more selfish. An atheist who does not believe in heaven and hell is potentially more moral, for (s)he acts without these added factors. Most atheists who do not believe in divine judgement, and most theists who do, both act morally. Some of both groups act consistently immorally. The claim that belief in God is essential or aids moral behavior is wrong, and any amusing theistic claim that they have “better” morals, despite acting under a reward and punishment system, is deeply questionable. Who is more moral? Those who act for the sake of goodness itself, or those who do good acts under the belief that failure to do so results in hell?

In conclusion, the simplicity and drama of religious stick-and-carrot approaches to morality often make religions appealing, and, to be seen as good in society – or to try to reform themselves – many people find themselves attracted to a religion. Unfortunately, all of this psychology functions just as well no matter if the tenets of the religion are actually true, or not.

2.5. Culture and Myth

#buddhism #hinduism

It is only in modern literate times that myth and religion have become individual areas of study: they were previously and universally tied up with human culture. So, agricultural communities had agricultural religions as part of that culture. A 1915 study of ancient Mesopotamian religion found that it was apparent that although many cultures shared beliefs and myths, “striking differences remain to be accounted for. Human experiences varied in localities because all sections of humanity were not confronted in ancient times by the same problems in their everyday lives”35. Agricultural people had gods that waxed and waned, lived and died, with the seasons. Native hunting tribes had gods and rituals that would secure them luck in the hunt36. Those gods are clearly products of the people’s environment, and the personal stories and dramas told about them are products of the imagination in an attempt to explain facets of the natural environment. In retrospect it is hard to tell what elements of ancient cultures were actually believed, what was known to be mythical, and what was therefore religious (i.e., thought to be true but basically mythological). In “A Short History of Myth: Volume 1-4“ by Karen Armstrong (2005)33 we see this confusion as a central theme37. It continues today: Buddhism and Hinduism are very hard to separate out into culture and religion and no-one knows whether “Jew” means the religious, dietary-observing Synagogue-attending type, or the atheist secular type. For that reason, there are many sociologists who deny that Hinduism is a distinct religion, although in recent decades, Hindu nationalists have been building a much clearer and more forceful definition of Hindutva (‘Hindu-ness’).

In general, it must be acknowledged that a lot of what we call religion is in fact a mixture of semi-believed mythology and cultural practices; a ’cause’ of religion is therefore our want of simple categorisation.

2.6. An Example: Carib witchcraft

#christianity #islam

Anthony Laying (2010) has studied the prevalence of superstitions and witchcraft-accusations in certain cultures in this case, the Caribs. The general idea, held by “many tribal and peasant communities all over the world” is that witches are responsible for many social maladies from disease to failed crops, and they are simply evil and sneaky. Often so-called witches are murdered, tortured, expelled or at least shunned; the Dark Ages of Christian history and the heresy-accusations of Islam today both follow(ed) the same psychology. The features of witchcraft highlight the functionalism of religion in wider ways. “Believing that there are witches inclined to harm others with their malevolent power can have numerous social and psychological consequences for a community” says Prof. Laying. Witness how many of the effects serve to reinforce people’s already-existing beliefs and to maintain social structure even when the religious dogmas suffer from counter-evidence:

Maintaining mental health (gaining sympathy and compensation for low status, displacing antagonism and jealousy, achieving a sense of control). Victims of witchcraft, often persons who otherwise attract little attention, receive intense sympathetic concern from their neighbours. Those accused of using witchcraft are frequently very unpopular and, therefore, are ideal scapegoats. Blaming misfortune on gods, demons, or bad luck gives the believer very little sense of control; witches, being here among the living, may be identified and dealt with.
Providing Explanations (explaining death, illness, misfortune, and why magical cures sometimes fail). Where witchcraft is presumed, bad luck, accident, or infection are not considered satisfactory explanations. When misfortune is especially persistent, witchcraft is readily assumed to be the cause. When magical cures fail, witchcraft may be blamed for the failure, thus preserving faith in such good magic.
Encouraging proper conduct (reinforcing and clarifying correct behaviour and providing negative role models to discourage bad behaviour). Nonconformists are the most likely to be accused of practicing witchcraft; their strange behaviour provides ‘evidence’ of their evil nature. […]
Encouraging generosity and sharing (ensuring an equitable distribution of material resources). In egalitarian societies and communities plagued by persistent poverty, individuals and households adapt by sharing with others. Those who refuse [can be accused of being a witch, or conversely might attract the attention of a jealous witch].
Conserving tradition (defending the social order and community cohesion). Those who openly challenge accepted norms are especially likely to be accused of witchcraft. […]
Providing entertainment (creating drama and stimulating imagination). Dramatic folktales about witches and gossip concerning an unpopular neighbour suspected of inflicting illness or bad luck on a household are listened to with great interest, especially by children. Consequently, lessons to be learned from these accounts fall on fertile ground and help perpetuate the beliefs.
Coping with rapid social change (attempting to reinstate social order). Under conditions of rapid cultural change and prolonged stress, witchcraft accusations may increase dramatically. Tolerance for deviant behaviour decreases under these conditions, inviting witch hunts and creating incentive to abide by traditional cultural norms. […]

One hears less about witches once a certain level of economic development has been achieved, but when hard times return, accusations of witchcraft may become common again. For example, there has been a resurgence of this belief in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. […]

Some of the methods used subconsciously by believers to defend their beliefs are typical. When traditional remedies fail (or in modern monotheistic religions, when prayer fails) it is often said that lack-of-genuine-belief is the cause. The ironic solution to failure of traditional solutions is therefore is to believe more strongly!

Biological Psychology

3.1. Misapplied Cognitive Functions

Many psychologists, scientists and researchers have come to the conclusion that religion is a by-product of otherwise-normal processes in the brain. A theory of religion developed by Stark and Bainbridge (1987) “is both cognitive in nature and fundamentally atheistic”, being rooted in the idea that the information-processing and language-producing functions of our brain are not perfect as they evolved for practical purposes only, and when they are applied to theoretical issues they result in faulty conclusions and perceptions. Lawrence Krauss38 notes that “we are hardwired to think that everything that happens to us is significant and meaningful”39. Certain types of stimulus are misunderstood and some of these processes cause us to hold religious beliefs.40

Pascal Boyer throughout “Religion Explained“ (2001)16 argues that a panoply of psychological factors explains religion, explains why religion is successful and why we are inclined to believe in it and find religious arguments plausible, and also explains why it does not appeal universally, and explains why it is partially persistent even in the face of science41.

Other human behaviours also result from misapplied cognitive functions. Our enjoyment of music is the result of a side-effect of our complicated auditory systems in the brain and a lot of other behaviours are of a similar ilk: an over-stimulation or a misuse of a built-in system. Figurative art is another area Boyer uses as an example of our embrace of artificial stimulation of parts of our brain (object and face recognition, etc). These parts of the brain would normally have a purely practical function. According to Boyer religion isn’t a case of ‘neuronal dysfunction’ as I say, but more like a case of misdirected, overstimulated, or inappropriately applied cognitive functions42.

Scott Atran (2002) and Justin Barrett (discussed in the next section) offer “a compatible evolutionary argument about why humans tend to imagine supernatural beings that have feelings, thoughts, and desires. […] in an environment where we were both hunters and hunted”40, centering on the way we attribute conscious intent to events. Prof. Richard Dawkins summarizes some more of the contributors towards the biological psychology of religion:

“The ethnologist Robert Hinde, in Why Gods Persist, and the anthropologists Pascal Boyer, in Religion Explained, and Scott Atran, in In Gods We Trust, have independently promoted the general idea of religion as a by-product of normal psychological dispositions. […] The psychologist Paul Bloom, another advocate of the ‘religion is a by-product’ view, points out that children have a natural tendency towards a dualistic theory of mind. Religion, for him, is a by-product of such instinctive dualism. We humans, he suggest, and especially children, are natural born dualists. […] Other by-product explanations of religion have been proposed by Hinde, Shermer, Boyer, Atran, Bloom, Dennett, Keleman and others.”

“The God Delusion“ by Prof. Richard Dawkins (2006)43

3.2. Hyperactive Agent Detection Device (HADD)

#causes_of_religion #pareidolia #psychology #religion #thinking_errors

“We are biologically programmed to detect signs of predators (and prey) wherever they may be. This often means being distracted on occasions where slight movements or patterns make us think something (‘an agent’) is there watching us – possibly even hunting us! “It is far more advantageous to over-detect agency than to under-detect it“44. Hence, the hyperactive agent detection device (HADD). As a highly social species, we are always looking in the shadows for signs of plots, for possible indirect effects of “behind the scenes” actors who are organizing against us – or who are potential allies. Certain circumstances (dim lighting!) heighten our instincts to watch out for secret danger. The evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins says that “we are biologically programmed to impute intentions to entities whose behaviour matters to us“45 and unfortunately, this now includes inanimate forces from “the weather, to waves and currents, to falling rocks“45. Psychologist Justin Barrett originally conceived of HADD and says it is “fundamental to understanding concepts of gods and spirits“44. We Humans excel at abstract thinking and telling imaginative stories to fledge out our feelings. Hence, there are local tribal spirits, sky gods, evil and wild spirits, ghosts in certain buildings, and when most of them are no longer found to exist there is always the eternal creator-God who never really does anything but secretly influences subtle events in the world, seemingly in a manner that makes it an expert at stimulating our HADD while not being detected by any other means. Even in the modern world the attribution of natural events to ‘magical’ and ‘spiritual’ causes is an easier way to understand the world than to study it critically.”

“Hyperactive Agent Detection Device (the Psychology of Religion and Superstition)” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)

3.3. Neuronal Dysfunction

There is much evidence in history that the more profound religious insights occur alongside mental dysfunction. The psychologist William James, in his survey of religious experience, comments that there are a massive proportion of prominent religious people in history that have shown signs of now-recognized long-term neurological complaints.

“Religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. […] They have led a discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They have […] been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. Often […] these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence.”

“The Varieties of Religious Experience“ by William James (1902) [Book Review]46

The average believer does not suffer from such severe cataclysms, however, and merely believes in the irrational results of others‘ experiences that have become codified as part of a religion. In normal believers, it may be a long-term background dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex that leads to illogical beliefs:

“People with greater paranormal beliefs showed lower levels of executive function. Particularly, they had less impulse control and greater disorganization, independent of age, sex, or level of education. In contrast, people with greater moral attitudes showed greater executive functioning in all areas measured (motivation, impulse control, empathy, planning, and organization). These findings support studies suggesting that superstitious thinking involves some degree of dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex, even in the general population, while moral attitudes involve better prefrontal functioning. […] People with religious beliefs showed a minute increase in both empathy and impulse control, characteristics encouraged by most orthodox religions.”

M. Spinella and O. Wain, Skeptical Inquirer (2006)47

It is not only chronic neurological dysfunction that can cause religious and supernatural beliefs. Some of the founding experiences can be based on single neurological events such as isolated strokes or seizures. Many types of fit do not involve the motor area of the brain, so do not result in obvious, physical signs of fitting. They can be purely sensory in nature, involving sights, sounds and feelings that range from subtle through to overwhelming.

“Partial seizures can […] cause clonic movement of part of a limb [, … or] may trigger an abnormal sensation, or aura, such as an odd smell or sparkling lights. Most bizarre are the partial seizures that elicit more well-formed auras such as déjá vu (the feeling that something has happened before) or hallucinations.”

“Neuroscience“ by Bear, Connors and Paradiso (1996)48

William James is not alone in being convinced that St. Paul was converted to Christianity by a vision that was the result of a seizure. Other neurological complaints such as schizoid events can also be recurrent and form part of a person’s normal life experience; many such people never develop complete schizophrenia but sit half way on the spectrum between normality and delusion.

“It is best to see ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘normality’ as two overlapping distributions, not two distinct states. Given this view, it may be that we have already found many of the key biological mechanisms […]. Many of the most creative and spiritual individuals show certain apparently schizotaxic traits – unusual patterns of thought and behaviour, unorthodox beliefs, a tendency to have visions and hear voices. Where this does not become disorganizing, and where it can be expressed in a socially accepted form such as art or religion, this kind of thing is usually seen as one of humanity’s great psychological assets, rather than as an impairment.”

“Emotions and Mind” by Toates, Mackintosh and Nettle (2004)49

A final note from William James’ psychological exploration of religion is that mystical and religious experiences can support any religion50. It depends on culture and phenotype of the person. It can cause, or support, any form of a religion including asceticism, gnosticism, theism and such experiences can also cause insanity, genius or works of art. It would be truly enlightening if we could perform some neurological tests on some of the great religious figures in history.

For more on this topic, see “The False and Conflicting Experiences of Mankind: How Other Peoples’ Experience Contradict Our Own Beliefs” by Vexen Crabtree (2008):

3.4. Hallucinations, Fasting and Sensory Deprivation

#bah?’?_faith #buddhism #christianity #epistemology #experience #god #psychology #religion #subjectivism #taoism #thinking_errors

Hallucinations caused by eye problems can result in surprisingly specific visions of grotesque faces with large eyes and teeth, blood running upwards, and costumed figures51 as our brain tries to interpret errant inputs52. But most hallucinations start in the brain and most of them are subtle and not just a matter of visual phenomenon. Disease, neurochemical imbalances, fasting, exhaustion, sleep and sensory deprivation53,54, chanting, practices of austerity and ritualistic behaviour can all induce hallucinations and other strange states of mind55. They can also be triggered artificially by doctors. The range of experiences produced is varied, from mundane events such as smelling something to out of body experiences. Experimenters can consistently generate deeply meaningful religious experiences which would be utterly convincing if participants didn’t know it was being generated artificially. People interpret these episodes in terms of their local culture – Western Christians don’t receive Buddhist enlightenment and witness their previous lives, for example, whilst Eastern Daoists don’t receive images of the Virgin Mary56. For those who know no neurology it is easy to see how supernatural beliefs can result from such episodes.

A wide variety of religious customs and beliefs across the world are clearly the result of misunderstood biology55. Native American tribes considered fasting being the way for receiving guidance from the Great Spirit. Moses fasted for forty days on Sinai while “talking to God” – the result was the 10 Commandments (Exodus 34:28), Elijah fasted forty days as he journeyed to Horeb, where, in a cave, he experiences a range of effects (1 Kings 19:8-15) and Bahá’u’lláh, (of the Bahá’í Faith) received revelations after spending months in a black underground prison. Jesus also fasted 40 days and as a result, experienced a battle with Satan in a series of visions (Matthew 4:1-11). As a species, we have been artificially inducing mystical experiences for as long as there are records of our behaviour, although nowadays we have a much better understanding of the underlying neurology and how it effects our consciousness.

For more, see Hallucinations, Sensory Deprivation and Fasting: The Physiological Causes of Religious and Mystical Experiences. Its menu:

People Have False Experiences
Hallucinations
Artificially Inducing Mystical Experiences of God
Fasting, Sensory Deprivation and Religion
The Subconscious

#psychology #thinking_errors

4.1. Hidden Inner Causes

#beliefs #pseudoscience #psychology #thinking_errors

Not many people would say that subconscious cognitive processes are responsible for their beliefs and actions. We construct rational-sounding reasons to back up the beliefs we have, and we simply don’t – and frequently can’t – get any insight into our true inner workings. Sociologists have found that people deny subconscious causes of their actions or beliefs. The formidable thinker Paul Kurtz explains that people frequently let themselves blindly believe certain things:

“I surely do not wish to suggest that conscious deception is the primary explanation for all or even most paranormal beliefs. Rather, it is self-deception that accounts for so much credulity. There is a powerful willingness in all too many people to believe in the unbelievable in spite of a lack of evidence or even evidence to the contrary. This propensity was due in part to what I have called the transcendental temptation, the tendency to resort to magical thinking, the attribution of occult causes for natural phenomena. The best antidote for this, I submit, is critical thinking.”

Paul Kurtz in Skeptical Inquirer (2006)57

People often do not know how strong subconscious misdirection is and it often feels very awkward when one attempts to deconstruct one’s own thought processes. It may be that such psychological investigation is best done by outside sociologists. William James, the psychologist of religion famous for his work at the turn of the twentieth century, examines the difficulty of such self-examination through a metaphor based on drunkenness:

“Knowledge about a thing is not the thing in itself. You remember what Al-Ghazzali told us in the Lecture on Mysticism – that to understand the cause of drunkenness, as a physician understands them, is not to be drunk. A science might come to understand everything about the causes and elements of religion, and might even decide which elements were qualified, by their general harmony with other branches of knowledge, to be considered true: and yet the best man at this science might be the man who found it hardest to be personally devout.”

“The Varieties of Religious Experience“ by William James (1902) [Book Review]58

In “Errors in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths“ (2008) I write about the subconscious causes of our behaviour and thought:

“We all suffer from systematic thinking errors59,60 which fall into three main types: (1) internal cognitive errors; (2) errors of emotion 61, perception and memory; and (3) social errors that result from the way we communicate ideas and the effects of traditions and dogmas. Some of the most common errors are the misperception of random events as evidence that backs up our beliefs, the habitual overlooking of contradictory data, our expectations and current beliefs actively changing our memories and our perceptions and using assumptions to fill-in unknown information. These occur naturally and subconsciously even when we are trying to be truthful and honest. Many of these errors arise because our brains are highly efficient (rather than accurate) and we are applying evolutionarily developed cognitive rules of thumb to the complexities of life62,63. We will fly into defensive and heated arguments at the mere suggestion that our memory is faulty, and yet memory is infamously unreliable and prone to subconscious inventions. They say “few things are more dangerous to critical thinking than to take perception and memory at face value“64. We were never meant to be the cool, rational and logical computers that we pretend to be. Unfortunately, and we find it hard to admit this to ourselves, many of our beliefs are held because they’re comforting or simple65. In an overwhelming world, simplicity lets us get a grip. Human thinking errors can lead individuals, or whole communities, to come to explain types of events and experiences in fantastical ways. Before we can guard comprehensively against such cumulative errors, we need to learn the ways in which our brains can misguide us – lack of knowledge of these sources of confusion lead many astray66.

Learning to think skeptically and carefully and to recognize that our very experiences and perceptions can be coloured by societal and subconscious factors should help us to maintain impartiality. Beliefs should not be taken lightly, and evidence should be cross-checked. This especially applies to “common-sense” facts that we learn from others by word of mouth and to traditional knowledge. Above all, however, our most important tool is knowing what types of cognitive errors we, as a species, are prone to making.”

“Errors in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths“
Vexen Crabtree (2008)

Keeping the power of the subconscious in our minds, let us look at the causes of religion in particular, aside from the causes of general error.

4.2. Childhood Fantasies

Two of William James lectures on religion from 1901-02 were devoted to tracing the psychology of ‘conversion’ into a religion. He introduces Dr Starbuck:

“Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child’s small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity. […] In his recent work on the Psychology of Religion, Professor Starbuck of California [says] “Theology takes the adolescent tendencies and builds upon them; it sees that the essential thing in adolescent growth is bringing the person out of childhood into the new life of maturity and personal insight.”

“The Varieties of Religious Experience“
William James (1902) [Book Review]67

This compares well with the notes of many psychologists on god and religion, including Sigmund Freud: that religious feelings, and adult ideas about religion, are actually childhood fantasies in disguise. Luhrmann describes it in terms of “recreating a childhood world”, in order to re-enchant adulthood68. This is not directly what Dr Starbuck and William James were implying, but it is true that many aspects of religion are drawn-out ideas of childhood such as the idea of an ever-present all-loving parent, the feeling of guilt when no-one is looking, the lack of death, etc. In the Christian Bible, in the first letter of St Paul to Corinth, Paul says “when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11). Although this may be the conscious and intellectualized testimony, religion is largely the subconscious survival of childhood fantasy into adulthood. Childish seeming ideas may have been tidied away into the closet, but from the dark corners of the mind they continue to exert much pressure on the religious mind. Giving childish ideas adult terminology no longer hides the route of wishful thinking from psychologists.

4.3. The Fear of Death and Desire for the Afterlife

#afterlife #causes_of_religion #christianity #death #heaven #hell #islam #karma #reincarnation #religion

“Many people believe that one of the greatest appeals of religion is that it provides reassurance against the spectre of death28,69. The very thought of the permanent cessation of our consciousness can be terrifying, confusing and difficult to accept. Any theory that posits our ultimate survival can have a lot of appeal. This isn’t a new revelation; Roman philosopher Lucretius (99-55BCE) famously said “fear was the first thing on Earth to make gods“70 and the 19th century anthropologist Bronishaw Malinowski argued that religion gives us a sense of power over death71. At the turn of the century William James, devoted to the study of comparative religion and psychology, says that “the ancient saying that the first maker of the Gods was fear receives voluminous corroboration from every age of religious history“72. Later the astute Albert Einstein wrote “with primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions – fear of… death“73. Biologist E. O. Wilson studies the neurobiological basis of human behaviour, and states that the “foremost” religious drive is the one that “hunger[s] for a permanent existence”74. Aside from theory, modern sociological and psychological research has supported this position. A review of studies by Soenke et al. (2013) found that “one variable showing particular importance in protecting individuals from anxiety about death is the belief in an afterlife” which was bolstered by “active commitment and practice” of their religion. The stronger the belief, the less the anxiety about death.

”

“Religion and the Fear of Death” by Vexen Crabtree (2016)

And,

“The idea of avoiding death through some kind of belief in the afterlife is one of the most powerful driving forces behind religious belief 75. For many people, (1) the personal desire to survive death and (2) the personal desire for social justice both conspire to make belief in the afterlife feel right. Some historians say that belief in an afterlife is one of the universal traits of primitive Human culture that led to the founding of our religions76, and it continues to fuel the appeal of faith even today, in the 21st century. Actual beliefs have differed from culture to culture, based mostly on geographic location. Historically many cultures believed that all dead folk (good and bad) go to a single underworld, but Christianity and Islam developed their ideas of heaven and hell into a very black-and-white moralistic affair. Now, many people say their fear of hell is one of the reasons they follow their religion77. Most spiritual experiences throughout the rest of the world rest on the idea of continual reincarnation rather than on heaven. The concept of an ultimate scheme which redresses the moral imbalances of the world is common to religion both in the West and in the East. God, or Karma, works to make sure that good people are rewarded, and bad people taught a lesson. It teaches us that we have a powerful social instinct towards justice, and when we don’t find it in this life, it is very soothing for us to believe that it is found in the next78. There is no actual evidence for any kind of afterlife79 and in many countries where scientific knowledge is high, belief in the afterlife has heavily declined.”

“Causes of Belief in the Afterlife and Differences Across Religions and Cultures” by Vexen Crabtree (2015)

4.4. Myths and Ritual: Leftovers from a Pre-Literate Humanity 80

#causes_of_religion #emotions #myths #new_age #paganism #psychology #religion

“Human beings have a natural tendency to enjoy myths, stories, epic tales, supernatural wonder and other fascinating elements from the worlds of our imaginations. Karen Armstrong writes that “Human beings have always been mythmakers”81. We love creating, and telling these stories. Over time they are altered, embellished, made more amazing and told with greater confidence 82. Every culture has a central creation myth83. Such epic stories are exciting, they give life meaning, and feed our egos by making us think we’re the concern of the creator of billions of galaxies. For some people it goes further; the stories become the basis for ceremonial retellings, ritualistic behaviour and strict dogmatic beliefs. And they find themselves compelling other people to adhere to the same principles in order to respect the great story.

Classic sociologists such as Weber and Geertz taught us that religions allow people to deal with existential anxieties “about how to understand the natural and social environment” by developing world-view cosmologies; modern sociologists have not found reason to disagree84. Although modern science and knowledge have eroded most of the influence of religion in many countries, mythic answers are simpler and make it easier to understand the universe (and are easier to tell) than the dry and complicated evidence-based stories that come from science.

“Myths can be debased and uprooted. All that happens is that modern myths and rituals replace the traditional ones, for myths and archetypes are an inherent part of the human psyche. Human beings appear to need a religious underpinning both to their personal and to their social lives. At the personal level, human beings need a mythology within which to frame their identities and the meaning of their lives.”

“The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach“ by Moojan Momen (1999) [Book Review]85

As traditional Abrahamic religions are fading away in the modern world, a suite of new movements have arisen to (partially) take their place including the New Age and Pagan religions. New stories are replacing old ones.”

“Religion as the Result of Human Mythmaking” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)

Life Experiences

5.1. Simple Dogmatic Answers in a Complex World

#beliefs #causes_of_religion #new_religious_movements #psychology #religion

“Simple faith-based answers to fundamental questions are very appealing, because the world is very complicated 86,87. Human knowledge is broken up into so many deep specialities that it is no longer possible for anyone to attain an accurate overall picture of reality88. Least of all is it possible to grasp what it all means for us personally. Psychologist Carl Jung wrote that “man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe“89 and many say it provides them a sense of meaning and destiny 90,91,92. The same psychological factor can be explained from a cynical point of view: “the contemporary persistence of religion indicates an inability or refusal on the part of many people to take on board the implications of science and rationality“93. This would appear to be a factor both amongst science-denying American Christian fundamentalism, and in Western New Religious Movements epitomized by the New Age which embraces a wide range of zany, and very unlikely, beliefs about reality. Unfortunately, and we find it hard to admit this to ourselves, many of our beliefs are held because they’re comforting and simple 65.”

“Simple Answers in a Complex World: What Causes Religion?” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)

5.2. The Anthropic Coincidences 94

#creationism #philosophy #religion #science #the_universe

“The phrase ‘anthropic coincidences‘ refers to the theory that the Universe is so delicately fine-tuned for life that it must have been designed with that purpose in mind, by an intelligent creator-god95. The main argument is that if you fiddle with the universal constants of physics (such as the strengths of the weak and strong nuclear forces) and change their values even by a little bit, then the Universe would be completely unsuitable for life as we know it. Therefore, God created the Universe for life, and in particular, created it for mankind here on Earth. Some scientists subscribe to this idea, and use it to justify (and promote) belief in God96. But there are a number of convincing logical and evidential arguments against this idea.”

“The Anthropic Coincidences: Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?” by Vexen Crabtree (2015)

My Experiences of God are Illusions, Derived from Malfunctioning Psychological Processes examines many of the psychological factors that lead people to ‘experience’ the presence of various Gods, and the summary conclusion lists the main points:

The psychological wish for an ever-present loving parent looking over us, combined with our ability for abstract ideas to become the basis for our emotions, especially love, form the concept of God as a subconscious parent-substitute and ideal carer. The childhood memory of our seemingly all-knowing and all-capable parents, whom we continuously miss in adult life, causes some people to desire a parental god to exist.
Pride and ego incline us toward god-belief: It is more prideful to think that the creator of the billions of galaxies cares deeply about oneself, and it is a function of the ego that we want such an all-powerful eternal being to be watching and judging us. The opposite: That no-one is watching, and no-one keeps measure of our actions, is cold in comparison, so that some peoples’ ego’s and pride wish for there to be a god. See: Homocentricity or Anthropocentrism: Why Do Religions Think Humanity Is Central to God and Creation?.
As we can see from the different ways people experience the same event, peoples’ expectations influence their reality. Examples of this include, as discussed, sleep apnea: Experienced by some as UFO abductions, and others as attempted demon possession. Of all the experiences and messages given by God, many contradict each other. From this mess of contradictory experiences, combined with the lack of any logical reason why gods would exist, I conclude that there is no God. There are human beings, our wishes, our projections and our experiences led by our own abstractions and expectations, but there is no objective, real God external to the self. See: The False and Conflicting Experiences of Mankind: How Other Peoples’ Experience Contradict Our Own Beliefs.
That we can stimulate parts of the brain and induce mystical and spiritual experiences in people means that such experiences are explained by the neurological sciences whether or not there is actually a ‘spiritual realm’. See: Souls do not Exist: Evidence from Science & Philosophy Against Mind-Body Dualism.
Hallucinations are easily interpreted in religious terms, and, the religious instinct towards fasting and sensory deprivation are both sought after as routes towards gaining ‘divine’ or ‘spiritual’ messages – when in reality, it is the starved brain misfiring. See: Hallucinations, Sensory Deprivation and Fasting: The Physiological Causes of Religious and Mystical Experiences: 2. Hallucinations.
The burden of proof remains firmly with the spiritualists: Experience of these types of mystical events is not proof of the reality of them, therefore different (logical or experimental) proof needs to be found. Until such proof arrives, it is not sensible to believe in god.

For the full page, see: “Experiences of God are Illusions, Derived from Malfunctioning Psychological Processes” by Vexen Crabtree (2002).

5.4. The Stars and the Sun, Resurrection and Rebirth97

#causes_of_religion #religion #sun_worship

That religion is ultimately all based on worship of the sun, and of the stars and other visible stellar bodies (such as Mercury, Venus and Mars), has been a very common observation. The sun has obvious life-giving properties; its waning during autumn and winter gives rise to natural decay, loss of vegetation and eventually, to human difficulties in obtaining food. But the powers of darkness are eventually defeated, and the sun’s power starts to rise on the winter equinox. The celebration of the solstices, equinoxes and seasons has often been done via the apotheosis of natural forces: in the history of mankind, more gods are attributed to the cycles of nature than from any other source.

“Prodicus of Ceos [5th century BCE), also one of the most famous sophists, advanced the idea that the conceptions of the gods were originally associated with those things which were of use to humanity: sun and moon, rivers and springs, the products of the earth and the elements; therefore bread was identified with Demeter, wine with Dionysus, water with Poseidon, fire with Hephaestus. As a special instance he mentioned the worship of the Nile by the Egyptians.”

“Atheism in Pagan Antiquity” by Anders Björn Drachmann (1922)98

“… as late as the days of the French Revolution, Dupuis, in a voluminous work, tried to trace the whole of ancient religion and mythology back to astronomy.”

“Atheism in Pagan Antiquity” by Anders Björn Drachmann (1922)99

In the Northern Hemisphere, the spring equinox occurs when the length of the day increases until it is equal with the length of the night, which occurs on the 21st of March each year100. The sun, growing in power, finally overtakes darkness, and its rebirth is celebrated. This was an especially important event for early human civilisations that relied upon agriculture. This is why so many ancient religions and cultures celebrate renewal and rebirth at and after the spring equinox, and is why Easter is tied up with the ideas of fertility and growth, hence, the symbols of the egg and the rabbit. Ancient pagans anthropomorphized the forces of nature, and told stories to explain why the sun was resurgent. Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris and many other Greek and Roman cults incorporated the death and rebirth of their gods at this time, with the principal dying-and-resurrection god returning to Earth for the sake of humankind101. When Christianity arose, Christians also told stories of Jesus dying and resurrecting at Easter, and since the very first centuries of Christianity, Christian apologists have had to defend themselves against accusations that the whole Jesus story was a retelling of pagan myths but without understanding of the underlying solar symbolism101.

5.5. Desperate Times: Religious Experiments Including Conversion, Superstitions and Lucky Charms

#burkina_faso #hong_kong #islam #kenya #psychology #scientology #thinking_errors

“The regression fallacy occurs when people extract too much meaning from chance events under specific circumstances. Disease and fortune come and go: because of the law of regression when things are at their worst they are likely to simply get better on their own no matter what we do. But when things are bad, some will “try” all manner of superstitious, meaningless and misguided practices – including all kinds of alternative therapies. Social psychologist David Myers agrees: “when things reach a low point… whatever we try – going to a psychotherapist, starting a new diet-exercise plan, reading a self-help book – is more likely to be followed by improvement than by further deterioration“102. Because we rarely employ controls and statistical analysis in our personal lives, it seems that any attempted solution, from the zany to the insane, has actually worked. This is the cause of untold numbers of superstitions, magical practices, religious beliefs and pseudoscience, and can sometimes lead large numbers of people astray, especially when stories and anecdotes are published by the press.103,104,105,106

This is why many cults, religions and pseudo-therapeutic fads prey on the weak, depressed, down-and-outs and those who have recently experienced catastrophe. Such people are more likely to try new religions107.

The solution is to be more cognizant of Human thinking errors. Cause and effect must be analyzed statistically, carefully, and by (social) scientists who know how to discount confounding factors. Simply put: do not assume that some action or event causes a change in the frequency of another event without investigating it properly; no matter how much it goes against common-sense to deny the correlation, cognitive thinking errors such as the regression fallacy can easily lead us to false conclusions based on limited data.”

“Statistical Regression: Causes of Strange Beliefs and Pseudoscience” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)

Other desperate measures are connected with the frailty of being human. Among the Mossi people of Burkina Faso, for example, “barrenness among non-Muslim women may be treated by the divinatory diagnosis that the would-be children are refusing to be born except as Muslims. The obvious remedy is conversion to Islam”. This abuse is effective – people during desperate times are open to wilder influences. The same author who described the Mossi above provides a similar cultural illustration of this in action:

“Among the Giriama of Kenya, to take another example, people falling ill are diagnosed as having been possessed by Muslim spirits for which the cure is, once again, conversion to Islam.”

Translatabiliity in Islam and in Christianity in Africa by Lamin Sanneh (2002)108

It might seem ridiculous to outsiders and educated people in modern countries that this can truly result in conversion, but, in the West, many convert to Scientology on the basis of its pseudoscientific Dianetics practices, many converted to EST, and take up Edward Bach´s flower remedies, all kinds of New Age healing methods, aromatherapy and a large number of highly suspicious and ineffective “cures” because they think they might work. In Hong Kong, anthropologist Daniel Métraux documents how 10 members of a family all converted to Soka Gakkai on the basis that when the wife converted, the husband recovered from a serious illness109. Did they stop to think: why join this religion? Given that thousands of different religious movements claim thousands of healing events, why should we trust that this one in particular embodies otherworldly truth? The answer is that conversions are based on interpersonal relationships and social factors, rather than on a serious attempt to understand the world.

#belarus #buddhism #estonia #hinduism #human_development #religion #russia #vietnam

National under-development, low national average intelligence and poor social stability are all correlated with high rates of religious belief. In other words – as a country gets richer, better educated and more stable, religion declines. The more well developed the country is the less religious it is. For our purposes here, we need to also consider education to be of note. Mass education is one of forces that works to undermine religious thinking. The correlation between low intelligence and religion is discussed elsewhere on this page. Social stability relies on the arms of government such as police, justice and infrastructure management to be in good functional order. Corruption, poverty and poor governance affect an entire countries health – including mental health.

Chart data footnote: 111

In countries with a per-capita GDP equal to or below $2,000, the average religiosity rate is 95%. For rich countries, with per-capita incomes higher than $25,000, the rate is half as much – 47%. A few countries do not fit this trend, but, there are clear historical reasons for this. All four lower-income countries with low religiosity rates (Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Vietnam) were all subject to long-lasting restrictions against religion112.

Dr Nigel Barber has analysed many of the same sets of statistics as I have, and his published works are somewhat more methodical than mine and show the same results. He writes that “the question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence” (2011).

Likewise, researchers Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman have approached this from an evolutionary and a sociological stance and both argue that belief in God is correlated with the level of difficulty of life in general – that “in countries where food is plentiful, health care is universal and housing is accessible, people believe less in God than in those countries where their lives are insecure”113. Sociologist of religion Professor Roderick Main writes that “where the technology and resources to mitigate major sufferings such as poverty and sickness exist, it is understandable that, for some, the appeal of religious consolations should diminish”114

The link is between development and our understanding of the world. In other words, the more mysterious and hard to control the world is, the more strongly religion suits people’s demands115 for an ultimate victory over life. This future may take the form of a perfect afterlife (and maybe punishment for wrongdoers), or it may take the form of absolute dissolution where all the trials of life can be seen to have been steps towards annihilation – the former one being a typically “Western” solution adopted by Abrahamic religions whereas the latter is “Eastern” as adopted by Hinduism and Buddhism.

5.7. The Lack of Justice in the World (the Appeal of Heaven)116

The idea of heaven is one of the most attractive features of religion. The ends to which people will go in order to foster the required spiritual brownie points to get to heaven is seemingly endless – from lives spent in prayer, meditation and repentance, to lives wasted in suicide attacks and isolation: if there is potential reward at the end, people will believe in it, and then act on those beliefs.

The following things make the concept of heaven compelling and mentally addictive:

The personal escape from death.
The attainment of a personal state of eternal happiness and bliss.
The idea that friends and family, alive and dead, have found peace and happiness in an afterlife.
The idea that all the wrongs of life are righted because good people go to heaven, and the bad people we’ve encountered are tortured in hell even if they got away with their wrongful attitudes during our own lives.

The worse one’s own life in this world, the stronger is the compulsion to believe in a better life after this one. The statistical correlation between social inequality and religion, and, social instability and religion, has been reported on thoroughly by Barber (2011). People yearn for, and then believe in, an ultimate and absolute justice that will rectify all the wrongs of this life. There is certainly a strong element of condolence in believing that those who do wrong against us will be punished for each and every deed.

“Because the distribution of wealth and power inhibits them, the resentful cannot act out of their desire for vengeance against the wealthy and the noble; as compensation, therefore, they seek to score moral victories that in the end will enable them to turn the tables on those who have previously lorded it over them. Thus, as Weber (1964: 110-11) put it, ‘suffering may take on the quality of the religiously meritorious, in view of the belief that it brings in its wake great hopes for future compensation.’ The notion that unconscious drives for salvation, motivated by suffering, take on the form of religious claims to eventual privilege, was shared by Freud, perhaps in a common debt to Nietzsche.”

“Key Thinkers in the Sociology of Religion“ by Richard K. Fenn (2009) [Book Review]117

This section is extracted from: “Theological Problems with Heaven, Paradise and Nirvana” by Vexen Crabtree (2003).

5.8. Intelligence and Suggestibility

#anti-religion #astronomy #atheism #belief #buddhism #christianity #education #god #intelligence #iq #religion #science #stupidity #taoism #theism #UK #USA

Taken from “Religion and Intelligence” by Vexen Crabtree (2007)

General intelligence is negatively correlated with strength of religious belief from national to individual average: The historical battles between religious institutions and science, such as those in physics, astronomy and biology, indicate there is something wrong with the religious approach to the study of reality. The underlying problem extends to negative effects on the individual intelligence of believers, and a related negative effect on educational achievements. Hardly any of the several-hundred Nobel Prize winning scientists have been Christians. Only 3.3% of the Members of the Royal Society in the UK and 7% the National Academy of Sciences in the USA, believe in a personal God. The more senior and learnéd the scientist, the less likely they are to believe in God. The children of highly religious parents suffer diminished IQs – averaging 7 to 10 points lower compared to their non-religious counterparts in similar socio-economic groups. As you would expect from these results, multiple studies have also shown that IQ is opposed to the strength of religious belief. 39 studies since 1927 (out of 43) have found that the more educated a person is, and the higher one’s intelligence, the less likely someone is to hold religious beliefs – “religion declines in proportion to the rise in education and personal income”118. This correlation isn’t new and was also observed in ancient Greece by Polybius (200-118BCE)119.

The effect extends beyond individual countries and is visible inter-nationally. Countries with a higher rate of belief in God have lower average intelligence. All countries with high average intelligence have low national levels of belief in God. For countries where belief in God is over 80%, the average national IQ is 83 points. For those countries where stated disbelief in God (atheism) is greater than 20%, the national average IQ is 98 points. Instead of belief in God, countries with the highest IQs adhere to Far-Eastern belief systems such as Buddhism, Taoism and Shintoism. It is not just intelligence and education that is inversely correlated with religion – it has also been found that the more you know about religion itself, the less likely you are to be religious120.

Suggestibility: In The Origins of Psychic Phenomena: Poltergeists, Incubi, Succubi, and the Unconscious Mind121 Stan Gooch examines many aspects of supernatural experience, and finds that those who experience such things score highly on suggestibility indexes, are better hypnosis subjects, and are more religious and spiritual.

6. The Causes of New Religious Movements and Alternative Spiritualities 122

#alternative_spirituality #causes_of_religion #neo-paganism #new_religious_movements #paganism #religion #secret_societies #wicca

“There has been an explosion of interest in unusual, novel, untraditional, magical, counter-cultural and Earth-centered religious movements. They have some common features123 and share a number of common pull-factors attract people to new religious movements123.

The simplistic answers they give to life questions124 often combined with an anti-science stance125,126.

Anti-consumerism and anti-materialism.127

Golden-age romanticism. Some groups promote pre-industrial or historical moral eras and attract others who think that the modern world is “lost”.128

Celtic fandoms.129

The loss of magic and fantasy in traditional religions.130,85,131

The rise of individualism132 and protections for freedom of belief means people are free to pick-and-choose which religion to embrace.

Religious groups that arise from a particular cause will attract those interested in that cause. Two of the most popular amongst NRMs are:

Environmentalism is commonly proclaimed by all kinds of pagan, Celt, pseudo-Native and New-Age groups, and they attract many people who are similarly passionate about protecting the planet.132,133,134,135,136

Feminism-friendly movements such as Paganism and Wicca attract many like-minded folk.132,137

”

“Why do People Join New Religious Movements?” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)

Conclusions

While religious beliefs are mostly the result of parental instruction and geographic incidence, there are many subconscious, psychological, sociological and neurobiological factors that cause religious and superstitious beliefs to prosper. This includes the idea of functionalism, where traditionalism and rebellion are achieved by adopting religious labels and following or rejecting typical cultural-religious behaviour. Likewise, many activists are drawn to particular religious groups on account of their association with their stance on worldly issues. Culture and religion are also mixed up, so that many times (for example in Northern Ireland) conversion is a political act; and beliefs are secondary to labels. This is also apparent in the way that the amount of Christians in countries like the UK (72%) somehow outnumber the number of actual god-believers (~50%). Religion is mostly caused by social and psychological factors and not by any examining of the evidence or logic behind the beliefs involved. This is why skeptics often find it so hard to bring their scientific knowledge to productive use in arguments with religionists.

Psychologists, sociologists, ethnographers and scientists tend to view religious beliefs as the result of mostly normal psychological systems being applied in the wrong context. A prime example is the way we get angry with cars and computers, and shout insults at them, or the way we tend to see patterns in random behaviour such as brownian motion (our ‘hyperactive agent detection device’). Historical investigators such as William James have found that outstanding religious innovators and leaders have frequently been epileptic, psychotic, suffered from strokes and various mental problems and nervous instability and that this often give them more command in areas of spirituality. Experiments on the Human brain have allowed us to discover many of the specific neuronal networks that can misfire to cause us to have ‘religious’ feelings and experiences. Childhood fantasies, including an absence of death and the seemingly all-present, ever-caring and all-knowing parental figures who give us comfort, often become the basis for religious beliefs in adults. This hidden wishful-thinking mechanism feeds our ego (that “someone” cares about everything we do) and gives us consolation from death in the idea of an afterlife. Many strange things we ‘experience’ are cultural (therefore an aspect of upbringing), and once a scientific and critical understanding of them is attained, the beauty of the natural world displaces the appeal of the supernatural. Religion, when not considered a byproduct of misapplied cognitive psychology and social factors, is self-inflicted delusion, illusion, smoke and mirrors.

Current edition: 2013 Jul 30
Last Modified: 2017 Jun 25
Second edition 2011 Jul 22
Originally published 2007 Jan 08
http://www.humanreligions.info/causes.html
Parent page: Human Religions

The Bible (NIV). The NIV is the best translation for accuracy whilst maintaining readability. Multiple authors, a compendium of multiple previously published books. I prefer to take quotes from the NIV but where I quote the Bible en masse I must quote from the KJV because it is not copyrighted, whilst the NIV is. Book Review.

Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Published by Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, NY, USA. Pro-science magazine published bimonthly.

The Economist. Published by The Economist Group, Ltd. A weekly newspaper in magazine format, famed for its accuracy, wide scope and intelligent content. See vexen.co.uk/references.html#Economist for some commentary on this source. A newspaper.

The Koran. Penguin Classics edition. Originally published 1956. Current version published by Penguin Group Ltd, London, UK. Translation by N. J. Dawood. Quotes taken from 1999 edition.

Adler, Margot
(1986) Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-worshippers, and other Pagans in America Today. Originally published 1979. Current version published by Beacon Press, Boston, USA. In “Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age“ by Joanne Pearson (2002)1 Chapter 4, p137.

Argyle, Michael
(1986) The Psychology of Happiness, 2nd edn. Published by Routledge, London, UK.

Armstrong, Karen
(2005) A Short History of Myth: Volume 1-4. 2008 Kindle edition. First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Canongate Books Ltd.

Bainbridge, William Sims
(2011) Atheism. This is chapter 17 of “The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion“ by Peter B. Clarke (2011)2. Clarke, Peter B.. Peter B. Clarke: Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion, King’s College, University of London, and currently Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
(2011) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion. Originally published 2009. Current version published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Barber, Nigel Ph.D.
(2011) article in Psychology Today (2011 Jul 14).
(2011) article in Psychology Today (2011 Jul 14).

Barnes-Svarney, Patricia
(1995, Ed.) New York Public Library Science Desk Reference. Published by The Stonesong Press Inc. and The New York Public Library, New York, USA. A paperback book.

Barrett, Clark
(1999) ‘Human cognitive adaptations to predators and prey’, doctoral dissertation (Santa Barbara: University of California). In Boyer (2001)3 ch.4 ‘Why gods and spirits?‘ section Supernatural agents and dangerous beasts p165.

Barrett, Justin L.
(1996) ‘Anthropomorphism, intentional agens, and conceptualizing God’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University). In Boyer (2001)4 ch.4 ‘Why gods and spirits?‘ section Supernatural agents and dangerous beasts p164-167.
(2000) ‘Exploring the natural foundations of religion’, Trends in Cognitive Science, 4(1), pp. 29-34. In Boyer (2001)5 ch.4 ‘Why gods and spirits?‘ section Supernatural agents and dangerous beasts p165.

Bear, Connors and Paradiso
(1996) Neuroscience. Published by Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. The Amazon link is to a newer version. Mark F. Bear Ph.D. and Barry W Connors Ph.D. are both Professors of Neuroscience at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA, and Michael A. Paradiso Ph.D., associate professor.

Bowman, Marion
(2002) Contemporary Celtic Spirituality. This is chapter 2 (pages p55-102) of “Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age“ by Joanne Pearson (2002)6 (pages p55-102). Pearson, Joanne
(2002, Ed.) Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. A paperback book.

Boyer, Pascal
(2001) Religion Explained. Published by William Heinemann, Random House Group Ltd, London, UK. A hardback book.

Bruce, Steve
(1996) Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Carroll, Robert Todd. (1945-2016). Taught philosophy at Sacramento City College from 1977 until retirement in 2007. Created The Skeptic’s Dictionary in 1994.
(2011) Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed!. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by the James Randi Educational Foundation. An e-book.

Chapman, M.
(1992) The Celts: The Construction of a Myth. Published by St Martin’s Press, New York, USA. In Bowman (2002) P61-62..

Clarke, Peter B.. Peter B. Clarke: Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion, King’s College, University of London, and currently Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
(2011) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion. Originally published 2009. Current version published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Copson, Andrew
(2017) Secularism politics, religion, and freedom. An e-book.

Crabtree, Vexen
(1999) “St Paul – History, Biblical Epistles, Gnosticism and Mithraism” (1999). Accessed 2018 Apr 28.
(2002) “Experiences of God are Illusions, Derived from Malfunctioning Psychological Processes” (2002). Accessed 2018 Apr 28.
(2008) “The False and Conflicting Experiences of Mankind: How Other Peoples’ Experience Contradict Our Own Beliefs” (2008). Accessed 2018 Apr 28.
(2014) “The Causes of Satanism” (2014). Accessed 2018 Apr 28.

Dawkins, Prof. Richard
(2006) The God Delusion. Published by Bantam Press, Transworld Publishers, Uxbridge Road, London, UK. A hardback book.

Drachmann, Anders Björn. (1860-1935) Professor of Classical Philology in the University of Copenhagen.
(1922) Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Gutenberg Project ebook. Originally published 1919 in Danish, Kjoebenhavns Universitets Festskrift. Translated by Ingeborg Andersen. An e-book.

Draper, John William. (1811-1882)
(1881) History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. 8th (Amazon Kindle digital edition) edition. Published by D. Appleston and Co, New York, USA. An e-book.

Einstein, Albert. (1879-1955)
(1954) Ideas and Opinions. Published in 1954 by Crown Publishers, New York, USA and in 1982 by Three Rivers Press. A collection of Einstein’s writings and texts. A paperback book.

Eliade, Mircea
(1987, Ed.) The Encyclopedia of Religion. Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, USA. 16 huge volumes. Eliade is editor-in-chief. Entries are alphabetical, so, no page numbers are given in references, just article titles. A hardback book.

Fenn, Richard K.
(2009) Key Thinkers in the Sociology of Religion. Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, London, UK. A look at what 11 sociologists of religion think of “the sacred”. Be warned that Fenn’s book contains one chapter on each sociologist of religion but that his own mystical and specific take on ‘the sacred’ is heavily intermingled with his commentary – see the book review for a proper description. A paperback book. Book Review.

Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter
(1999) The Jesus Mysteries. 2000 edition. Published by Thorsons, London, UK. A paperback book. Book Review.

Furlong, Monica
(2000) The C of E: The State It’s In. paperback first edition, 2000. Originally published in UK in 2000 by Stoughton. A paperback book.

Gardner, Martin. Died 2010 May 22 aged 95.
(1957) Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science. Originally published 1952 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons as “In the Name of Science“. Current version published by Dover Publications, Inc., New York, USA. A paperback book.

Gilovich, Thomas
(1991) How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. 1993 edition. Published by The Free Press, NY, USA. A paperback book.

Goldacre, Ben. MD.
(2008) Bad Science. Published by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, London, UK.

Gooch, Stan
(2007) The Origins of Psychic Phenomena: Poltergeists, Incubi, Succubi, and the Unconscious Mind. Originally published 1984 as “Creatures from Inner Space“. Current version published by Rider & Company, London, UK. My references are to the original publication. The edition linked to here is published by Inner Traditions 2007; information retrieved from Amazon UK on 2007 Dec 14. A hardback book. Book Review.

Gregory, Richard L.
(1987) The Oxford Companion to the Mind. 1987 reprint. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Harrison, Guy P.
(2008) 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Prometheus Books, New York, USA. An e-book.

Heelas, Paul
(1996) The New Age Movement: Religion, Culture and Society in the Age of Postmodernity. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, London, UK. A paperback book.

Hutton, Ronald
(1996) The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. 2001 re-issue. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

IHEU. International Humanist and Ethical Union.
(2012) Freedom of Thought. A copy can be found on iheu.org/…Freedom of Thought 2012.pdf, accessed 2013 Oct 28.

James, William. (1842-1910)
(1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience. Subtitled: “A Study in Human Nature“. 5th (1971 fifth edition) edition. Originally published 1960. From the Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh 1901-1902. Quotes also obtained from Amazon digital Kindle 2015 Xist Publishing edition. A paperback book. Book Review.

Kahneman, Daniel
(2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. Published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York, USA. A paperback book.

Kaku, Michio. Professor of theoretical physics.
(2014) The Future of the Mind. Subtitled: “The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind“. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Penguin Books Ltd, London, UK. An e-book.

Krauss, Lawrence. Lawrence Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Physics Department at Arizona State University, as well as Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative and Inaugural Director of the Origins Project.
(2012) A Universe from Nothing. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Free Press, New York, USA. An e-book.

Kressel, Neil
(2007) Bad Faith: The Danger of Religious Extremism. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Prometheus Books, New York, USA. An e-book.

Kurtz, Lester R.
(2007) Gods in the Global Village. 2nd edition. Published by Pine Forge Press, California, USA. Was previously Director of Religious Studies at Texas and holds a master’s in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Kurtz is Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas, USA.

Laying, Anthony
“Faith in the Power of Witchcraft” in Skeptical Inquirer (2010 Mar/Apr) p51-53. Laying is emeritus professor of anthropology at Elmira College. He spent a year conducting ethnographic research among the Caribs on the West Indian island of Dominica.

Little & Twiss. D. Little and S.B. Twiss
(1978) Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method. Published by Harper & Row, New York, USA. In Reeder (2011) P347..

Luhrmann, T.M.
(1994) Persuasions of the Witches’ Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. First published 1989. Published by Picador, Basingstoke, UK. In “Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age“ by Joanne Pearson (2002)7 chapter 4, p163.

Mackenzie, Donald A.
(1915) Myths of Babylonia and Assyria. Amazon Kindle digital edition produced by Sami Sieranoja, Tapio Riikonen and PG Distributed Proofreaders. An e-book.

Main, Roderick
(2002) Religion, Science and the New Age. This is chapter 5 (pages p173-224) of “Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age“ by Joanne Pearson (2002)8 (pages p173-224). Pearson, Joanne
(2002, Ed.) Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. A paperback book.

Martin, D.
(1990) Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK. This is a chapter (pages 88-89) of “Global Religious Movements in Regional Context” by John Wolffe (2002)9 (pages 88-89). Wolffe, John
(2002, Ed.) Global Religious Movements in Regional Context. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. This was a religious studies textbook in the AD317 OU course.

McConnel, James V.
(1986) Understanding Human Behavior. 5th edition. Originally published 1974. Current version published by CBS College Publishing, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, USA. A hardback book.

Métraux, Daniel
(2000) The Soka Gakkai in Southeast Asia, a chapter in Wolffe (2002)10 p267-287. This text first appeared in Global Citizens: The Soka Gakkai Buddhist Movement in the World (2000) by David Machacek and Bryan Wilson (eds), pp.404-29. Published by Oxford University Press, UK.

Momen, Moojan
(1999) The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach. Published by Oneworld Publications, Oxford, UK. A paperback book. Book Review.

Mumm, Susan
(2002) Aspirational Indians: North American indigenous religions and the New Age. This is chapter 3 of “Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age“ by Joanne Pearson (2002)11. Pearson, Joanne
(2002, Ed.) Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. A paperback book.

Myers, David
(1999) Social Psychology. 6th (‘international’) edition. Originally published 1983. Current version published by McGraw Hill. A paperback book.

Nesbitt, Eleanor. Professor of Religions and Education at the University of Warwick, UK.
(2011) The Teacher of Religion as Ethnographer. This is chapter 53 (pages 965-985) of “The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion“ by Peter B. Clarke (2011)12 (pages 965-985). Clarke, Peter B.. Peter B. Clarke: Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion, King’s College, University of London, and currently Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
(2011) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion. Originally published 2009. Current version published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Park, Robert L.
(2008) Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Princeton University Press, New Jersey, USA. An e-book.

Partridge, Christopher
(2004, Ed.) Encyclopedia of New Religions. Published by Lion Publishing, Oxford, UK. A hardback book.

Pearson, Joanne
(2002, Ed.) Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. A paperback book.

Pessi, Anne Birgitta. Academy Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
(2011) Religion and Social Problems: Individual and Institutional Responses. This is chapter 52 (pages 941-962) of “The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion“ by Peter B. Clarke (2011)13 (pages 941-962). Clarke, Peter B.. Peter B. Clarke: Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion, King’s College, University of London, and currently Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
(2011) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion. Originally published 2009. Current version published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Plüss, Caroline. Assistant Professor in the Division of Sociology School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore.
(2011) Migration and the Globalization of Religion. This is chapter 27 (pages 491-506) of “The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion“ by Peter B. Clarke (2011)14 (pages 491-506). Clarke, Peter B.. Peter B. Clarke: Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion, King’s College, University of London, and currently Professor in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
(2011) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of Religion. Originally published 2009. Current version published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. A paperback book.

Russell, Bertrand. (1872-1970)
(1957) Why I am not a Christian. Fourth Impression of 1967 edition, 1971. Published by Unwin Books.

Soenke, M, M. Landau, & J. Greenberg
(2013) article “Sacred armor: Religion’s role as a buffer against the anxieties of life and the fear of death” in the American Psychological Association handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (volume 1) p105-122. Accessed via EBSCOhost on 2016 Oct 17.

Toates, Mackintosh & Nettle
(2004) Emotions and Mind. Published by The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. A neurology textbook by Frederick Toates, Bundy Mackintosh and Daniel Nettle.

Wilson, Bryan
(1982) Religion in Sociological Perspective. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Cited in Fenn (2009) Chapter “Bryan Wilson” p136-138..
(1998) Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Published by Little, Brown and Company, London, UK. Professor Wilson is a groundbreaking sociobiologist. A hardback book.

Wolffe, John
(2002, Ed.) Global Religious Movements in Regional Context. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. This was a religious studies textbook in the AD317 OU course.

York, Michael. Principal Lecturer in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and Director of the Sophia Centre at Bath Spa University College, UK. Previously a post-doctoral reasearcher at the Academy for Cultural and Educational Studies in London.
(1995) The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-Pagan Movement. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, USA.

Footnotes

Harrison (2008). Chapters 2, 32 and 44. Added to this page on 2014 Sep 23.^^
James (1902). Digital location 2687. Added to this page on 2016 Jul 15.^^
Boyer (2001). Chapter 1 “What is the Origin?” p10-12,56-57. Added to this page on 2013 Jul 30.^^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 32 “Millions of people can’t be wrong about my religion“. Added to this page on 2014 Sep 23.^^
Kressel (2007). Chapter 5 “Vulnerable Minds and Sick Societies” digital location 2266-2270. Added to this page on 2014 Dec 31.^^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 35 “Some very smart people believe in my god” digital location 2532-2533. Added to this page on 2016 Jul 15.^^
Park (2008). Digital location 1782,283.^^
Harrison (2008). Chapters 2, 32 and 44.^^
James (1902). Digital location 2687.^^
Myers (1999) .^^
Myers (1999). P232,236,268,277-284.^^
Kressel (2007). Chapter 4 “Dangerous Books?” digital location 1555-1556.^^
Park (2008). Digital location 1782.^^
Harrison (2008) .Added to this page on 2016 Jul 12.^^
Kressel (2007). Chapter 5 “Vulnerable Minds and Sick Societies” digital location 2271-2272. Added to this page on 2014 Dec 31.^
Boyer (2001) .^^
Boyer (2001). Chapter 1 “What is the Origin?” p6-7. Added to this page on 2014 Sep 25.^
Pessi (2011). P948. citing Argyle (1986) 165-168. Added to this page on 2016 Jul 15.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 28 “My god makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself“. Added to this page on 2016 Jul 16.^
Martin (1990). P143-144.^
Plüss (2011). P500. Added to this page on 2015 Jan 14.^
Wolffe (2002). P78-79.^
Main (2002) “Religion, science and the New Age”, chapter 5 of Pearson (2002).^
Copson (2017). Chapter 7 “Hard Questions and New Conflicts” digital location 1956.^
Kurtz (2007). P17.^
Nesbitt (2011). P975.^
Bruce (1996). P165,197.^
Boyer (2001). Chapter 1 “What is the Origin?” p6-7.^^
Bainbridge (2011). P324. . I suspect that if the logical opposite question was asked – ‘Are those who don’t believe in god necessarily immoral?’ few would have put ‘yet’, so I suspect the numbers found in the 2002 survey represent people while thinking non-rationally.^
“Key Thinkers in the Sociology of Religion“ by Richard K. Fenn (2009) [Book Review]32 chapter “Talcott Parsons” p89-90. Great apologies to Talcott Parsons if this misrepresents his position; the commentary stems from R. Fenn, who is unreliable and unclear. Added to this page on 2013 Jan 30.^
Wilson (1982) .^
Fenn (2009) .^^
Armstrong (2005) .^^
Armstrong (2005). P136.^
Mackenzie (1915). Digital location 208-210,213-215. Added to this page on 2015 Feb 16.^
“Shamanism” by Vexen Crabtree (2015). Added to this page on 2015 Feb 16.^
Armstrong (2005). I.e. p15.^
Krauss (2012) .^
Krauss (2012). P121. Added to this page on 2014 Dec 31.^
Bainbridge (2011). P332-333. Added to this page on 2013 Jul 29.^
Boyer (2001). Chapter 9 “Why belief?” p342-343. Pages contain a summary of the book’s main themes. Added to this page on 2013 Jul 28.^
Boyer (2001). Chapter 3 “The kind of mind it takes” p150-151. Added to this page on 2013 Jul 29.^
Dawkins (2006). P177,179,184.^
See Boyer (2001) Chapter 4 “Why gods and spirits?” p165-166. section Supernatural agents and dangerous beasts. Boyer references two different psychologists called Barrett. In reference of elements of our psychology being based on predation: Barrett, H.C. (1999). In reference to “Hyperactive agent detection and religious concepts”: Barrett, J.L. 1996 and 2000. ^
Dawkins (2006). P183.^
James (1902). P29.^
Marcello Spinella and Omar Wain in Skeptical Inquirer (2006 Sep/Oct) Vol 30:Issue 5, p35-38. M. Spinella is an associate professor of psychology at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA. O. Wain is a graduate student in biomedical sciences at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, USA.^
Bear, Connors & Paradiso (1996). P464. Added to this page on 2007 Mar 05.^
Toates, Mackintosh & Nettle (2004). Chapter 3 “Schizophrenia” p113 by Daniel Nettle.^
James (1902). P410-411.^
BBC News (2000 Sep 11) accessed 2000 Sep 14.^
Two specific causes of such wild interpretations are the pareidolia effect (the seeing of patterns in random data) and the HADD (Hyperactive Agent Detection Device – the way we first and foremost look out for other sentient beings). For more of these, see: Errors in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths.^
McConnel (1986). P251-253.^
Gregory (1987). Entry on Isolation Experiments.^
Eliade (1987). Volume 5 entry “Fasting”.^
Kaku (2014). Chapter 9, “Altered States of Consciousness”, digital location 3270-3287.^
Skeptical Inquirer (2006 Sep/Oct) Article by Paul Kurtz.^
James (1902). P467.^
Gilovich (1991) .^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 9 “Are We Doomed to Die with Our Biases On?” p186-189.^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 1 “Believing in the Palpably Not True” p7.^
Kahneman (2011) .^
Myers (1999). P119.^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 2 “How to Lose Friends and Alienate Your Neighbors” p28.^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 9 “Are We Doomed to Die with Our Biases On?” p189.^^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 9 “Are We Doomed to Die with Our Biases On?” p188. . Author states ‘Many believe palpably untrue things because they are ignorant of such things as fundamental biological or physical processes‘.^
James (1902). P203.^
Added to this page on 2014 Sep 28. Luhrmann 1994 p19.^
Russell (1957). P74.^
Wilson (1998). Chapter “Ethics and Religion” p286.^
Momen (1999). P54. See Malinowski’s book Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays.^
James (1902). Digital location 1047.^
Einstein (1954). P36. Einstein wrote this expressly for the New York Times Magazine (1930 Nov 09) pp.1-4. The German text was published in the Berliner Tageblatt (1930 Nov 11).^
Wilson (1998). Chapter “Ethics and Religion” p286.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 26 “I want eternal life“.^
Draper (1881). Chapter 10 “Latin Christianity in Relation to Modern Civilization” p153. . His statement is very bold:”[the] belief of all nations in all parts of the world in the beginning of their civilization”.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 23 “I don’t want to go to hell” digital location 1714.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 13 “Divine justice proves my god is real“.^
Park (2008). Chapter 5 “The Silent Army: In Which We Search for an Afterlife“.^
Added to this page on 2017 Jan 12.^
Armstrong (2005). P1.^
“Human Story Telling: The Poor Accuracy of Oral Transmission” by Vexen Crabtree (2016)^
Park (2008). Digital location 462.^
Little & Twiss (1978). P54-56,70. They admit that other cultural solutions exist for such existential problems.^
Momen (1999). P296.^^
James (1902). Digital location 372.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 9 “My god created the universe“.^
Wilson (1998) .^
Momen (1999). P64.^
James (1902). Chapter “Lecture 20, Conclusions“.^
Harrison (2008). Chapter 41 “Science can’t explain everything“.^
Little & Twiss (1978). P54-56,70.^
Main (2002). P174.^
Added to this page on 2017 Jan 29.^
Park (2008). Digital location 203.^
Park (2008). Digital location 190-195,203-208.^
Added to this page on 2015 Jun 24.^
Drachmann (1922). Chapter 4.^
Drachmann (1922). Chapter 8.^
Barnes-Svarney (1995) . It is also called the March equinox or ‘first point of Aries’. The seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.^
Freke & Gandy (1999). P67-70.^
Myers (1999). P115-116.^
Gilovich (1991). P23-27,128.^
Goldacre (2008). Chapter 4 “Homeopathy” digital location 628.^
Goldacre (2008). Chapter 13 “Why Clever People Believe Stupid Things” digital location 3428.^
Carroll (2011). Chapter 1 “Believing in the Palpably Not True” p12-13.^
Armstrong (2005). P117.^
Translatabiliity in Islam and in Christianity in Africa by Lamin Sanneh. “This text first appeared in Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression, ed. Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E.A. van Beck, Dennis L. Thomson, with the assistance of Linda Hunter Adams, Merrill E. Oates, Monograph series of the David M Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University, London: James Currey, 1994, pp.23-45″. Appears as a chapter in Wolffe (2002)138 p305-323.^
Métraux (2000)^
Added to this page on 2013 Jul 26.^
Two data sets. (1) Religiosity from Gallup (2009) on gallup.com/poll/142727/…. The survey question was “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” and results are charted for those who said “yes”. 1000 adults was polled in 114 countries. (2) Human Development Index data from United Nation’s Human Development Report 2011.^
Gallup (2010 Aug 31 article “Religiosity Highest in World’s Poorest Nations“. Accessed 2015 Jan 10.^
The Economist (2009 Feb 07). Article “Evolution: Unfinished business“. Added to this page on 2015 Jan 10.^
Main (2002). P174. Added to this page on 2014 Apr 13.^
Barber (2011).^
Added to this page on 2013 Jul 27.^
Fenn (2009). Chapter “Max Weber” p80-81.^
IHEU (2012). P9.^
Drachmann (1922). Chapter 5.^
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life research results “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey” (2010 Sep 28). From a poll conducted in May and June 2010 involving 3412 American adults.^
Gooch (2007) .^
Added to this page on 2014 Sep 28.^
Pearson (2002). P3.^
Multiple sources: * Bowman (2002) P60.. * Main (2002) P177.. * Pearson (2002) P21.. * York (1995) P14.. In Main (2002)139.^
Gardner (1957) .^
Pearson (2002). Introduction p8-9.^
Multiple sources: * Bowman (2002) P60.. * Heelas (1996) P106,135-136.. * Mumm (2002) P114.. * Pearson (2002) Chapter “Introduction” p7.. * York (1995) P14.. In Main (2002) P187..^
Chapman (1992). P129.^
“Modern Druids (Neo-Druidism / Neo-Druidry)” by Vexen Crabtree (2017)^
Furlong (2000). P48.^
Partridge (2004). P295.^
Adler (1986). P22-23.^
Hutton (1996). Chapter 28.^
Pearson (2002). Chapter “Introduction” p16-17. citing Hutton (1996) p9.^
Bowman (2002). P75.^
Mumm (2002). P118.^
Pearson (2002). P21-22,36-38.^
Wolffe (2002) .^
Main (2002). P187.^
Bear et al (1996) p464. Added to this page on 2007 Mar 05.

. . .

What Causes Religion and Superstitions?

1. Arbitrarily Inherited

2.2. Religion as Activism, Reactionism and Rejectionism

2.3. Political Power Struggles and Identity Reinforcement: Why are People Religious?