I want to believe: Why even the smartest among us fall for the illusion of purpose [Review of The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life by Jesse Bering]

Full text

I
Want
to
Believe
WHY
EVEN
THE
SMARTEST
AMONG
Us
FALL FOR
THE
ILLUSION
OF
PURPOSE
Book
Under
Review
On
The Beliif
Instinct:
The
Psychology
if
Souls,
Destiny,
and
the
Meaning
of
Life
by Jesse Bering. W W
Norton
and
Company, 2011. 252 pp. $26.95 cloth.
JOHN
A.
JOHNSON
Have you ever
done
something
you did
not
really
want
to
do
because
some-
one
expected
you to
do
it?
Of
course you have. Unless you are a psychopath,
it
is
almost impossible
not
to care
what
others expect from you.
There
is
a
good
reason for this.
Our
ancestors survived by considering
what
they
expected from
one
another, enabling
them
to
work
together
cooperatively.
We
have
inherited
this
tendency
to care
about
and
be
responsive to each
other's expectations.
Psychologists have
come
to
refer to
our
evolved capacity to ascertain
the
feelings, intentions, and expectations
of
other
people
as
"Theory
of
Mind"
(ToM).
For
the
most part, possessing an active
ToM
is
beneficial
to
us.
If
we correctly discern
how
people
feel
about
us,
what
they
want
from
us,
and
how
they
intend
to act toward us,
we
can prepare to
cooperate
with
them
.
1
But
the central thesis
of
Jesse Bering's The Beliif Instinct
is
that
the
activity
of
our
ToM
is
so incessant that it often overextends itself, perceiving
mental qualities
in
places
where
minds
do
not
even exist.
Bering's thesis
is
not
novel.
He
follows a
long
line
of
evolutionary
thinkers
who
have proposed that
the
propensity to
mind
read
is
so strong
that we occasionally misapply it to
nonhuman
contexts.
For
example,
Konrad
Lorenz suggested that
our
predisposition to read emotional states from
human
facial features
is
often misapplied to
other
animals, causing
us
to perceive,
for example, camels
as
haughty
and disdainful (because a camel holds its
nose
higher
than its half-closed eyes)
and
eagles
as
proud
and
determined
(because
of
the
prominent
bony
arches over its eyes and narrow,
downturned
mouth).
2
He
also said that we read
human
qualities
and
intentions
into
inanimate things, such
as
"majestic" mountains, "cheerful, babbling" brooks,
and
"gloomy, evil" houses. Were
he
alive today, Lorenz
would
no
doubt
describe
our
tendency
to ascribe personality traits
to
vending
machines,
computers,
and
cars.3
Similarly,
Bering
proposes that
our
evolved propensity to
mind
read
is
often mistakenly displaced
on
the cosmos
as
a whole.
The
misapplica-
tion
of
this otherwise adaptive tendency results in a
number
of
interesting
JOHN
A.
JOHNSON
15

consequences,
not
the least
of
which
is
the
belief
that
God
or
some
kind
of
Higher
Intelligence has
intentions toward
us
and
expects things from us.
Bering
calls this
belief
an instinct because
it
is
an
automatic application
of
our
inborn
tendency
to
mind
read. Believing
that
God
has expectations for
us, a
purpose
for us, has an immediate, compelling
quality-just
like perceiving
bold
determination
in
the face
of
an
eagle. This
is
true
even for those
of
us
(including
Bering
and
myself)
who
should
know
better.
In
this regard,
we
are
all
chumps
for believing in the illusion
of
purpose.
We
want
to
believe.
Unlike
the
strident
tone
of
recent
books
by the
new
atheists, The
Beliif
Instinct possesses a
gentle,
humorous,
and playful tenor.
Bering
is
the
first
to
admit
that
he
himself
is
subject
to
the very
same illusion
he
attempts
to
dispel:
"I,
for
one,
don't
handle suffering very well;
having
a
low-grade
fever
and
a sore throat
is
enough
to
have
me
privately asking
God
why
He's
being
so
unspeakably
cruel
to
me"
(200).
More
than once,
Bering
shares examples
of
his
own
overactive
ToM.
After his
mother
died,
he
caught
himself
interpreting
the
jingling
of
wind
chimes
as
a reassuring
commu-
nication
from her. A dead raven
on
the living
room
floor
of
his newly purchased
house
felt like
an
omen
that
gave
him
second
thoughts
about
the purchase.
Bering
muses, ''I've never
understood
why
so
many
skeptics are
intent
on
demonstrating
their
immunity
to
irrational
or
quasi-religious
thought"
(Beliif
Instinct, 199).
I
found
Bering's description
of
the naturalness
of
overextending
ToM
to
the
universe
and
his
willingness
to
share his
own
tendencies
in
that
direction
to
be reassuring
and
endearing,
because for
most
of
my life I have
been
an atheist
who
freely admits to occasional irrational
and
quasi-religious
thinking.
Coincidentally
(or
not
coincidentally?), I received the invitation
to
review The
Beliif
Instinct
just
after I
had
begun
to
read Wayne Dyer's
book,
The Power
if
Intention. Dyer, following
the
sha-
manic anthropologist Carlos Castaneda,
contends
that
there
is
an intelligent, creative,
omnipresent
force
in
the
universe,
which
many call God
but
he
calls
Source
or
Intent.
Dyer
writes
that
Intent
is
what
actually brings everything
into
existence,
so
we
need
to
pay
attention
to
our
connection
to
Intent.
Only
when
we
align
our
personal will
with
this larger force, Intent, according
to
Dyer, will
we
experience
a fulfilling life.
Alternating
between
reading The
Beliif
Instinct
and
The Power
of
Intention felt like
being
the
rope
in
a tug-of-war. Jesse
Bering
was laying
out
arguments for, describing research studies
about,
and
providing examples
of
the illusory nature
of
perceiving
intent
emanating
from a
Higher
Intel-
ligence.
And
Wayne
Dyer
was
doing
the same
thing
to
support
the
existence
of
Intent, although,
admittedly,
the
research
he
referenced was sparser and less rigorous
than
the
studies described by
Bering.
If
I
had
to
choose
between
them,
based
on
evidence, I
would
go
with
Bering,
hands
down.
But
a
part
of
me
wants
to
hold
out
for the possibility that there
is
something
like
the
mysterious,
magical
Intent
described by Wayne Dyer. I imagine
that
if
I spoke
with
Jesse
Bering
about
this, he
would
pat
me
on
the back
and
say,
"That's,
okay-you
are perfectly
normal.
The
best minds
of
all
time
have overextended
their
ToM. I
do
it myself.
Don't
be
too
hard
on
yourself."
And
then
he
might
gently
remind
me
of
the extensive evidence
in
his
book
demonstrating
that
belief
in
purpose
emanating
from a
Higher
Intelligence
is
probably
just
a cognitive bias.
First,
Bering
provides
many
examples
of
how
humans
easily overextend
ToM
to
places
where
everyone
would
agree that it does
not
belong.
The
anthropomorphic
and
physiognomic
attribu-
tion
of
human
qualities
to
nonhuman
animals
and
inanimate things
comes
to
us
spontaneously
16
MIND
AND
HUMAN
NATURE

and
effortlessly.
Konrad
Lorenz' observations fall
into
this category.
Another
example desc
ribed
in
Bering's first chapter
is
the
famous experimental study
conducted
by
Heider
a
nd
SimmeL
Without
prompting
, people in this study described the a
nimated
motion
of
geometric
figures
in
terms
of
human
intentions.
Next,
Bering
documents
the widespread
tendency
to believe that all
order
in
nature
is
the
result
of
intelligent design. According to Bering, we are natural creationists.
Even
Bering
's
favorite
philosopher,
the
staunch atheist Sartre, wrote, " I
don't
see myself
as
so
much
dust that has appeared
in
the
world,
but
as
a
being
that was expected, prefigured, called forth. In short,
as
a
being
that
could, it seems,
com
e only from a creator"
(Beliif
Instinct, 47). Even Charles
Darwin
wrote,
"I
feel
compelled
to
look
to a First Cause having an
int
elligent
mind
in
some degree analogous to
that
of
men;
and
I deserve to
be
called a
Theist"
(Beliif
Instinct, 39).
Bering
furthermore
argues
that
theistic
thinking
in
atheists
is
a natural
tendency
and
not
just
a result
of
influence from a theistic culture.
He
cites
as
support
a case study by William
Jam
es
of
a
deaf-mute
who
was never
indoctrinated
into
a religious
worldview
but
who,
as
an adult, was able to
communicate
memories
of
creationist
think-
ing
when
he
was a child.
Bering
also cites the classic research
of
developmental psychologist
Jean
Piaget,
who
demonstrated that
young
children spontaneously assume that every natural
object
on
the
planet was created for
human
us
e.
Modern
developmental researcher
Deborah
Kelemen
confumed
Piaget's suggestion that
belief
in
purpose
is
an instinct: She
found
that
children-regardless
of
the
religiosity
of
their
parents-assume
that every natural object has a purpose.
Bering
also explores
what
he sees
as
a logical consequence
of
believing that we were designed
for a purpose, namely, that
we
will spontaneously
interpret
purely natural events
as
signs and
com-
munications
about
our
purpose.
We
are particularly likely to personalize
unexpected
and
unusual
events
as
signs
of
the
purpose
int
e
nded
for us.
Bering
insightfully observes that we see
no
need
to
explain people's normal,
expected
behavior,
but
that unusual behavior sets
off
a "frenzied search
for
the
[person's] intentions" (Be
liif
Instinct, 80).
The
same seems
true
for natural events.
We
don't
ask
about
reasons for
normal
events
in
nature,
but
assume that natural catastrophes
and
surprising
coincidences represent messages
intended
to instruct
and
guide
us
about
our
purpose. Carl
Jung
coined
the
term
synchronicity to describe coincidental events that are
not
causally
connected
but
are
perceived to
be
personally meaningful.
I
must
confess a lifelong attraction to synchronicities.
My
sc
ientific training tells
me
that syn-
chronicities are
just
statistical accidents, but, like Fox Mulder, I
want
to believe. Ascribing personal
meaning
to natural events
is
not
a matter
of
being
stupid.
In
2007, the
John
Templeton
Foundation
awarded
£1.87
million to the University
of
Oxford
to sponsor a
Cognition,
Religion,
and
Theol-
ogy Project
(CRT
Project),
which
included an international
meeting
of
highly intelligent scholars
who
gathered
"to
review every aspect
of
the
question
of
whether
the
divine can
be
known
through
nature"
(Beliif
Instinct, 107).
Reading
intent
into
nature
is
almost irresistible, regardless
of
intelligence
and education. Interestingly,
the
only
people
who
seem completely
immune
to this
tendency
are
autistic individuals. Because they lack
ToM,
even religious autistics see
God
as
only
an
impersonal,
"faceless force
in
the
universe that
is
directly responsible for the organization
of
cosmic
structure"
(Beliif
Instin
ct,
85).
And
those
with
Asperger's syndrome
cannot
comprehend
the
concept
of
a
"mean-
ingful coincidence."
JOHN
A.
JOHNSON
17

Another
belief
that
Bering
claims can be explained by
our
overactive
ToM
is
the
convlctlOn
that we
continue
to exist after
we
die.
He
explains: "Because we have never consciously
experienced
a lack
of
consciousness,
we
cannot
imagine
what
it will feel like to
be
dead" (Beliif Instinc
t,
113).
This
lack
of
experience
with
nonexistence lea
ds
us
to conclude that
our
mind
must
be
immortal,
continuing
to exist after we die.
Bering
does
not
see
belief
in
an afterlife
as
wishful
thinking
in
the face
of
anxiety,
as
suggested by Terror
Management
Theory, because
belief
in
immortality
does
not
correlate
with
death anxiety
.4
Again,
he
presents an array
of
evidence
in
support
of
his position,
from
the
rare disorder
Cotard's
synd
rome,
in
which
people believe they are already dead
but
are psy-
chologically immortal, to a study
in
which
a third
of
responses from people
who
professed disbelief
in
existence after death indicated that the thoughts
and
feelings
of
a dead
person
could
continue.
One
of
the
most
difficult challenges to those
who
believe
in
a kind,
benevolent
God
is
the
question
of
why
bad things
happen
to
good,
innocent
people.
Chapter
5, titled
"When
God
Throws
People
Off
Bridges," brilliantly points
out
that the question
of
why
bad things
happen
to
good
people
could
never arise unless we presuppose a fair universe constructed
by
a kindly, intelligent
Mind.
The
chapter opens
with
the
recounting
of
a tragedy that
occurred
in
1845,
when
a
crowd
of
people gathered
on
a
bridg
e to watch
the
antics
of
Nelson
the
Clown
floating
down
the
River
Bure
in
a
bathtub
.
The
bridge collapsed
und
er
the
weight
of
the
crowd,
and
around
one
hundred
people, including sixty children,
met
a watery death.
When
a tragedy such
as
the
Bure
bridge
collapse
occurs,
people
understand
how
the event happens, that
is,
what
causes
the
event.
The
Bure
bridge
was simply
not
strong
enough
to
hold
so many people.
But
knowing
how
something
bad
happens
is
not
enough
for many
peopl
e-
they also
want
to
know
why bad things
happen
as
well.
Why
did
my child have to
join
the
crowd
on
the bridge at that particular time, while
my
neighbor's child
did
not?
From
a purely naturalistic
point
of
view, such a
why
question
is
meaningless, pointless.
But
our
ToM
assumes an
intention
behind
every event and
cannot
stand
to
think
that tragic events
happen
without
good
reason.
When
asked to reflect
on
major
turning
points
in
their lives, two-thirds
of
the
atheists
in
the study provided at least
one
answer
of
the sort
"everything
happens for a reason."
If
an
overactive
ToM
results
in
so many errors
of
thinking
(attributing mental qualities to
inanimate things, believing we are created for a purpose, perceiving cryptic
communications
of
our
purpose
in
natural events, assuming that
our
minds survive death,
and
thinking
there
is
a reason
why
bad things
happen
to
good
people), we
might
legitimately ask
how
such an
error-prone
mental
mechanism
could
have possibly evolved.
Bering
explains
the
persistence
of
delusional
thinking
in
terms
of
a familiar adage from evolutionary psychology:
It
does
not
matter
that
our
overextended
ToM
leads
us
to
believe things that are untrue, illogical,
or
unrealistic,
as
long
as
the
hyperactive
ToM
helped
our
ancestors to pass
on
their genes.
Bering
proposes a hypothesis
about
how
even an
overextended
ToM
might
have benefited
our
ancestors (and
might
still benefit some
of
us
today).
Recall
that
in
everyday social life,
ToM
allows us to consider
what
others
expect
from us. Because
other
people are vital to
our
survival and well-being,
we
take their expectations
into
account,
regu-
lating
our
behavior
in
order
to get along with them.
Bering
suggests that having the sense that a
"God
[or a ghost
or
spirit]
is
always watching [and has
a]
deep
knowing
of
[our] hearts
and
souls"
(Beliif Instinct, 194) provides additional help
in
regulating
our
impulses, especially
when
no
one
is
watching
us.
18
MIND
AND
HUMAN
NATURE

This
leads
Bering
to
conclude
that
God
is
"an
adaptive illusion"
(Beliif
Instinct, 201).
But
is
the
notion
of
preexisting, divine purpose
in
fact an illusion? Wayne
Dyer
has
written
thirty books
since his first best seller, Your Erroneous Zones,
which
sold an estimated thirty-five million copies.
Dr. Dyer's publisher describes The Power
if
Intention
as
"his all-time best-selling
book"
(Hay House).
He
has appeared
many
times
on
PBS, presenting his message
about
Intention
to an audience that
seemed eager to receive it.
Could
so
many
people
be so wrong?
Of
course, sheer
numbers
of
believers
do
not
make a
belief
correct.
Google
the
phrase "billion
flies" for a
further
explanation.
It
seems that referring to flies
is
a
common
response to questions
about
God
's purpose.
When
we
would
like to
think
that
we
were created for a
unique
purpose
,
Ber-
ing
slyly asks
if
the
same
might
be
true
for,
say,
a horsefly. Wittingly
or
not, his observations
about
horseflies extends
Mark
Twain's
short
treatise
on
the
purpose
of
flies. 5 Whereas Twain
wonders
what
the
collective
purpose
of
flies
as
a species
might
be, given
the
problems they cause for us,
Bering
takes the question
one
step further, asking
why
any living individual
might
have a
unique
destiny:
To see
how
fantastically
odd
this highJy focused degree
of
teleo-functional reasoning
actually
is,
imagine yourself
on
a nice sunny farm.
Now
have a glance
around
at the
landscape. See that horsefly over there, the
one
hovering
about
the
rump
of
that
Ara-
bian mare?
Good.
Now
compare
its
unique
purpose
in
life to,
say,
that
other
horsefly
over there,
the
one
behind
the
barn,
waltzing
around
the
pond
algae.
And
don't
forget
about
the
hundreds
of
larvae
pupating
under
that
damp
log-each
of
which
also needs
you
to
assign it a special,
unique
purpose
in
life. It's hard
enough
to
come
up
with a
teleo-functional
purpose
for horseflies
as
a whole, such
as
saying that horseflies exist to
annoy equestrians
or
to
make
the
rear ends
of
equines shiver in anticipation
of
being
stung. Just
as
American
poet
Ogden
Nash
famously
penned,
"God
in
His
wisdom
made
the
fly
/
And
then
forgot to tell
us
why."
But
to suggest that each individual horsefly
is
here for a special,
unique
reason-one
different from that
of
every
other
horsefly that
has ever lived
or
will
live-by
using
our
theory
of
mind
to reflect
on
God's intentions
in
crafting each its
own
destiny, may get
us
institutionalized.
(Beliif
Instinc
t,
61)
And
so,
with
gentle
humor,
Bering
helps
us
to see that believing that each
of
us was created
for a special
purpose
is
just
as
ridiculous
as
believing that each horsefly was created for a special
purpose.
But
why
not
allow
us
this illusion,
if
it makes us feel good?
Bering
ends his
book
by
explaining
why
this illusion
might
be
worth
giving up.
Even
though
thinking
that you have a special
purpose
might
make you feel good, there
is
also a downside
of
believing that
God
is
always
thinking
about
you
and waiting for you at
the
end
of
your
life. According
to
Bering,
we
already have
enough
hell
in
our
life from the
normal
use
of
Theory
of
Mind,
the
hell
of
worrying
about
what
other
people
think
of
us
.
This
worry
is
exacerbated by
the
knowledge that
what
each person observes
about
us
and
how
he
or
she
judges
us will be shared
through
gossip
with
other
people. Shame
and
embarrassment are ever-present possibilities.
Why
do
we
need
an
imaginary
God
judging
us every
moment
as
well, threatening to dispense infinitely
more
painful
punishment
than the distress that
other
human
beings already cause
us?
Ceasing to believe
in
such an omniscient,
omnipotent
judge
JOHN
A.JOHNSON
19

Marega Palser,
Hor
se
Flies
, 2008.
Photo-etching.
Courtesy
of
the artist.
would
eliminate unneces
sa
ry fear and free up the significant
tim
e that
we
c
urr
ently waste trying to
please a
nonexistent
entity.
Would
it
not
be
better
to use this precious
tim
e to si
mp
ly
erUoy,
as
best
we can, the
moments
that we can share w
ith
other
people?
Bering
recognizes that fear
of
an omniscient
judge
who
might
condenm
us
to an
eternity
in
hell
might
have served a useful regulatory function
in
the past.
But
tod
ay,
he
argues, an omniscient
observer
is
no
longer
necessary, given social-tracking technologies such
as
"Social Security
number
s,
th
e Internet,
hidden
cameras, caller ID, fingerprints, voice rec
ognition
software, 'lie detectors
,'
facial
expression,
DNA,
a
nd
handwriting
analysis"
(B
eliif
Instin
ct,
202). So perhaps
th
e suffering that is
generated by fear
of
God
's
judgm
e
nt
is
unnecessary.
And
Bering
barely
mentions
the
mu
ch
mor
e
serio us kinds
of
suffering caused by people
who
believe they are fulfilling
the
will
of
God: child
abuse,
wit
ch burnings, inquisitions,
terror
ism, and wars.
20
MIND
AND
HUMAN
NATURE

These
may
be
good
arguments for resisting
our
natural
tendency
to
believe in
God-given
purpose. Yet religious
people
are usually quick
to
point
out
that
such
beliefs
do
not
necessarily lead
to
fear, hatred,
and
strife,
and
that
human
beings can
be
fearful, angry,
and
cruel
with
or
without
God
beliefs.
They
point
to
the
positive consequences
of
believing
that
everything happens for a
purpose, from
overcoming
addictions
in
twelve-step programs
to
weathering
tragedies.
Bering
himself
notes
how
the illusion
of
purpose
can
be
comforting.
The
problem,
Bering
seems
to
be
claiming,
is
that
the
negative fallout
from
belief
in
purpose
outweighs the social benefits
of
moral
regulation
and
the psychological
comfort
gained from feeling
that
our
lives are meaningful.
But
he
offers this
claim
only
as
a suggestion, perhaps wisely
so.
Trying
to
quantity
the
harm
and
benefits from
belief
in
purpose
to
see
which
outweighs the
other
is
probably an impossible task.
Bering
not
only
falls
short
on
demonstrating
that
belief
in
purpose
has
more
negative
than
positive consequences;
he
also doesn't give
us
concrete
suggestions
on
how
to
transcend
our
instinc-
tive
belief
in
purpose. In fact,
he
says
that
it
is
"more
than
a little foolhardy
to
think
that
human
nature
can
ever
be
'cured'
of
God
by scientific reason
...
permanently
removing
Him
from
our
heads-would
require a
neurosurgeon,
not
a science
teacher"
(Beliif
Instinct, 200).
The
best we can
do
is
"distance ourselves
from
an adaptive system that was designed, ultimately,
to
keep
us
hobbled
in
fear"
(Beliif
Instinct, 201). Because
Bering
gives
us
no
specific
technique
for distancing ourselves
from
our
overactive
ToM,
I
wonder:
Might
there
not
be
a
third
way,
neither
allowing
our
ToM
to
run
rampant,
nor
fighting against it at every point?
Can
we
perhaps allow ourselves the illusion
of
purpose,
but
in ways that
bring
satisfaction
without
fear
and
strife?
Tru
e,
we
would
be
harboring
an illusion,
and
that
might
not
sit well
with
scientists
who
value
truth.
6 Yet, even
though
I
am
a
scientist, I willingly suspend disbelief
when
it
suits me, for example,
when
I absorb myself
in
a novel
or
movie
or
when
I
join
my
pagan friends
in
an
Imbolc
ritual. Perhaps
the
question
is
not
how
to
distance ourselves from
the
illusion
of
purpose,
but
how
to
suspend disbelief
and
embrace the
illusion
of
purpose
in
ways
that
are
more
beneficial
than
harmful.
NOTES
1.
ToM
also allows us to evade, manipulate, placate,
or
otherwise
not
cooperate,
if
noncooperation
better
advances
our
interests.
Whether
we
cooperate
or
not,
successfully advancing
our
interests requires
an
accurate
ToM.
If
too
many
members
of
a
group
fail to
cooperate
too
often
,
however
, the
group
will
br
eak
down
,
hurt-
ing
all
members
of
the
group
who
are
depending
on
one
another.
That
is
why
people
are
more
than likely
to
take
others'
expectations seriously.
2. Lorenz, Studies,
155-58.
3.
Windhager
et
al., "Face
to
Face."
4. I
found
Bering's
quick
dismissal
of
Terror
Management
Theory
(TMT)
puzzling for four reasons. First,
when
I read his
(undocumented)
claim
that
death
anxiety and
belief
in an afterlife are uncorrelated, I did a
quick
Google
search
on
those keywords,
and
the
first article I
found
reported
a small
but
statistically signifi-
cant
correlation (.24)
between
death anxiety
and
afterlife beliefs
(Berman
and
Hays,
"Death
Anxiety
,
Belief
in
Mterlife").
Additional
studies I located
with
Google
showed
mixed
results:
some
found a correlation,
some
did
not
.
Second
,
it
occurred
to
me
that
the
ability
of
belief
in
an
afterlife
to
reduce
death anxiety may well
differ across believers.
As
a result, a sample
of
believers
would
show
a range
of
degrees
of
death anxiety.
The
JOHN
A.
JOHNSON
21

distribution
of
death anxiety
among
believers may
not
always differ significandy from the distribution for
non-
believers, resulting
in
no
correlation
between
belief and death anxiety. A third reason
why
TMT
should
not
be
so
quickly dismissed
is
that the
TMT
research program has
produced
an extensive literature (198
articles-see
Burk
e,
Martens, and
Faucher
,
"Two
Decades
of
Terror
Management
Theory")
describing studies that
support
the mortality salience hypothe
sis.
This hypothesis suggests that reminders
of
our
own
mortality trigger anxiety
about
our
personal annihilation, and this anxiety encourages a range
of
coping
mechanisms, including belief
in an afterlife. Finally,
TMT
and
ToM
need
not
be
seen
as
competing
exp
lanations for belief in an afterlife
(see Landau
et
al.,
"Compatibility
of
Terror
Management
Theory").
An
overactive
ToM
may initially incline
people toward afterlife beli
efS,
but
the e
motional
reassurance
people
get from these beliefs may co
ntribute
to
their formation and maintenance.
Bering
himself devotes
much
of
his
book
to describing the ways that
ToM
illusions make
us
feel better.
5.
Twain, "
Thoughts
of
God
,"
19
.
6.
While
I reject
the
strong, social constructivist claim that scientific theories reflect reality
no
better than
any
other
worldview, I
think
that
sc
ientists should keep
in
mind
that all
human
thought
systems-
including
scientific models-are symbolic,
in
com
pl
ete representations
of
reality rather than
complete
mappings
of
reality
itself.
As
such,
all
human
thought
systems can
be
regarded
as
imaginative works
of
art,
none
of
them
literally
true
(see
Ruiz,
Ruiz,
and Mills, Fifth Agreement).
BffiLlOGRAPHY
Berman
, Alan
L.
, and James E. Hays.
"Relation
between
Death
Anxiety,
Belief
in
Afterlife, and Locus
of
Control."
Journal
if
Consulting and Clinical Psychology 41 (1973): 318.
Burke,
Brian
L.,
Andy
Martens, and
Erik
H . Faucher.
"Two
Decades
of
Terror
Management
Theory:
A Meta-
Analysis
of
Mortality Salience Research." Per
so
nality and Social Psychology Review 14 (2010):
155-95.
Dyer, Wayne. The Power
of
Intention: Learning
to
Co-
create
Your World Your Way. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2004.
H
ay
House.
"Product
Details:
The
Power
of
Intention
-Gift Edition."
http:/
/www.hayhouse.com/details.
php?ref
=89&
id
=50
71
(accessed July 5, 2011).
Landau,
Mark
j.
, Sheldon
Solomon
,
Tom
Pyszczynski, and
Jeff
Greenberg. "
On
the
Compatibility
of
Terror
Management
Theory
and Perspectives
on
Human
Evolution." Evolutionary Psychology 5 (2007): 476-519.
Lorenz, Konrad. Studies in
Animal
and
Human
Beha
vior:
Volume II. Translated by
Robert
Martin. Cambridge:
Harvard
Univ
ersity Press, 1971.
Ruiz
,
don
Miguel,
don
Jose
Ruiz,
and
Janet
Mills. The Fifth Agreement . San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen, 2010.
Twain, Mark.
"Thoughts
of
God.
" In The Devil
's
Ra
ce
-
Track:
Mark Twain:, ((Great
Dark"
Writings,
ed
ited by
John
Sutton
Tuckey, 19-22. Berkeley:
Univ
ersity
of
California
Pr
ess, 2005.
Windhag
er Sonja,
Dennis
E. Slice, Katrin Schaefer, Elisabeth Oberzaucher, Truls
Thorstensen,
and Karl
Cranuner.
"Face
to Face:
The
Perce
ption
of
Automotive Designs."
Human
Nature 19
(December
2008): 331-46.
22
MIND
AND
HUMAN
NATURE