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Belief in a god or gods is a central feature in the lives of billions, and a topic of perennial interest within psychology. However, research over the last half decade has achieved a new level of understanding regarding both the ultimate and proximate causes of belief in God. Ultimate causes—the evolutionary influences on a trait —shed light on the adaptive value of belief in God and the reasons why a tendency towards this belief exist in humans. Proximate causes - the immediate influences on the expression of a trait – explain variation and changes in belief. We review this research, and discuss remaining barriers to a fuller understanding of belief in God.
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418754491
Current Directions in Psychological
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PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
At one point in the prehistory of our species, no one
believed in a god. Today, an estimated 80% of humans
are theists (P. Zuckerman, 2007). Why did the belief in
gods become so broadly and powerfully held? Religion
has fascinated psychologists since James (1902), but a
recent body of research has sharply focused on the
reasons people believe in gods—defined here as
“supernatural beings believed to have created or [to]
govern all reality, intervene in human affairs, and
enforce or support human morality” (Botero etal., 2014,
p. 16784). Here, we separate these reasons along Mayr’s
(1961) ultimate versus proximate categorization of
causal explanations. Ultimate explanations focus on
why a behavior evolved—its functional origins as an
adaptation or evolutionary by-product. Proximate expla-
nations focus on the immediate factors influencing how
and when a behavior is performed. For example, the
proximate explanation for a bird undertaking its yearly
migration is the experience of changing daily hours of
sunlight, but the ultimate explanation is that because
of the scarce winter food supply, better survival and
reproductive opportunities were afforded to those who
migrated to warmer climates.
Ultimate and proximate causes thus provide comple-
mentary—rather than competing—explanations for a
behavior. Although not without critics (see Vromen, 2017,
for a discussion), the ultimate-proximate distinction has
proved useful for preventing confusion about different
types of causation (Scott-Phillips, Dickins, & West, 2011).
For example, a question posed at one level of explanation
cannot be answered at another level of explanation. An
ultimate question about why cooperation exists requires
an explanation for the evolution of cooperation, such as
that it provides a selective advantage by increasing the
fitness of one’s kin. It cannot be answered with a proxi-
mate explanation for cooperation, such as concerns for
praise and blame (Scott-Phillips etal., 2011). This ultimate-
proximate distinction thus provides a useful organizing
framework for recent research on the belief in God.
Ultimate Reasons for the Cognitive
Features Making Belief in God Intuitive
Features of the human mind have arisen as evolved
adaptations to environmental challenges throughout our
prehistory. However, many authors have argued that
these cognitive adaptations have, as a by-product, made
humans prone to the conception of supernatural agents
(Norenzayan etal., 2016). An early, oft-cited example
of such a cognitive adaptation is our hypersensitivity to
754491CDPXXX10.1177/0963721418754491Mercier et al.Belief in God
research-article2018
Corresponding Author:
Azim F. Shariff, University of California, Irvine, Department of
Psychology and Social Behavior, 4558 Social and Behavioral Sciences
Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697
E-mail: azim.shariff@uci.edu
Belief in God: Why People Believe,
and Why They Don’t
Brett Mercier1, Stephanie R. Kramer2, and Azim F. Shariff1
1Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, and 2Department of Psychology,
University of Oregon
Abstract
Belief in a god or gods is a central feature in the lives of billions of people and a topic of perennial interest within
psychology. However, research over the past half decade has achieved a new level of understanding regarding both
the ultimate and proximate causes of belief in God. Ultimate causes—the evolutionary influences on a trait—shed light
on the adaptive value of belief in God and the reasons why a tendency toward this belief exists in humans. Proximate
causes—the immediate influences on the expression of a trait—explain variation and changes in belief. We review this
research and discuss remaining barriers to a fuller understanding of belief in God.
Keywords
belief, God, evolution, religion
2 Mercier et al.
cues of humanlike agency (Guthrie, 1993). Because failing
to notice potentially dangerous agents in our ancestral envi-
ronment was costlier than making false alarms, our agency-
detection system evolved to be tilted toward overperception.
But the by-product of being adaptively tuned to overper-
ceive agency is that humans are biased toward perceiving
agents—such as gods—behind natural phenomena.
Alongside this hypersensitive agency-detection
device, theorists have described biases for overperceiv-
ing human-relevant purposes behind events and
objects—adaptive because of the necessity of decipher-
ing intentionality and the usefulness of understanding
tools but leading in turn to a tendency to make attribu-
tions of divine purpose (Kelemen, 2004). In addition,
because of the importance of understanding mental
states, humans evolved separate systems for thinking
about social stimuli and physical, nonsocial objects
(Bloom, 2007). Although this was adaptive for our
social cognition, a by-product was that it made it easy
for humans to imagine the existence of disembodied
supernatural agents that nonetheless had an active
mental existence (Forstmann & Burgmer, 2015).
These by-products of innately occurring cognitive
features provided the psychological raw materials from
which supernatural beliefs were culturally shaped into
shared God beliefs (Gervais, Willard, Norenzayan, &
Henrich, 2011). Unlike the gods of most modern reli-
gions, the supernatural agents that early societies
believed in tended to be nonmoralistic, with limited
powers and knowledge (Roes & Raymond, 2003). To
explain the transition, cultural evolutionary theorists
have argued that, in a process roughly analogous to
genetic evolution, selective pressures made certain cul-
tural beliefs more likely to survive and spread than
others. As human group sizes increased, it became dif-
ficult to track which members were cooperative con-
tributors and which were defecting free riders, straining
the mechanisms maintaining group cohesion. Beliefs
in omniscient supernatural watchers capable of doling
out punishments and rewards helped solve this problem
by deterring free riding, giving groups adopting these
beliefs an advantage over other groups (Norenzayan
etal., 2016; though see the commentaries to that article
for criticisms and alternative perspectives). In a recent
cross-cultural study demonstrating this religiously
inspired prosociality, researchers found that the more
individuals believed their gods were punitive and
knowledgeable about humans, the more money these
individuals shared with anonymous coreligionists in an
economic game (Purzycki etal., 2016). In another study,
subtle reminders of God made people more charitable,
but only when these reminders were of God’s punitive
aspects (Yilmaz & Bahçekapili, 2016).
Thus, increased cooperation made groups who
believed in watchful, moralizing gods more likely to
survive and spread their beliefs, making these beliefs
more common. Analysis of historical societies has found
that these beliefs were especially likely to spread where
the need for cooperation was high, such as in societies
with rights to movable property, high political complex-
ity, or resource scarcity (Botero etal., 2014).
Proximate Reasons for Who Believes
and When
While ultimate explanations tell us why specific cogni-
tive biases evolved, proximate explanations show how
and when these biases contribute to belief in God.
Understanding these cognitive, motivational, and
social factors that influence belief helps explain the
great variation in religiosity among our species—not
just across countries (84% of people in the Philippines
report being certain about God’s existence, compared
with 4% in Japan; Smith, 2012) but across time—which
can in turn inform long-standing debates about
secularization.
Cognitive factors
One method of examining the proximate cognitive fac-
tors influencing belief in God is to compare individuals
who differ on cognitive factors, such as the tendency
to rely on evolved cognitive intuitions. People with an
analytical thinking style—that is, people more likely to
override their intuitions in decision making—are less
likely to be believers (Pennycook, Ross, Koehler, &
Fugelsang, 2016). In addition to overriding intuitions,
the extent to which people experience these intu-
itions in the first place also plays a role. Because
attributing mental states to unseen agents facilitates
belief in God, people who less easily perceive and
understand the mental states of others (such as indi-
viduals on the autism spectrum and men relative to
women) show lower levels of belief (Norenzayan,
Gervais, & Trzesniewski, 2012).
Though still controversial, convergent research sug-
gests that more intelligent individuals are less likely to
believe in God (Kanazawa, 2010; Lynn, Harvey, & Nyborg,
2009). Although partially explained by its overlap with
analytic thinking, the relationship between belief in God
and intelligence also has compelling motivation-based
explanations. For example, M. Zuckerman, Silberman,
and Hall (2013) argue that more intelligent individuals
may have less need for the psychological benefits that
religion provides (such as a sense that the world is
controllable; see below) because they can more ably
generate these benefits themselves. Intelligent people
are also more likely to be nonconformists and thus feel
more comfortable deviating from the (typically) reli-
gious majority.
Belief in God 3
Motivational reasons
In addition to studying the factors that make people
more or less cognitively receptive to belief in God,
research has also examined the factors that motivate
(or demotivate) people to believe. For instance,
Sedikides and Gebauer (2010) present a meta-analysis
showing that high self-enhancers—people with a strong
desire to see themselves positively—have higher levels
of intrinsic religiosity, especially in societies that place
greater value on religion. They argue that elements of
religion—such as a believed association with God—
create feelings of positive self-regard, motivating high
self-enhancers to adopt stronger religious beliefs. How-
ever, more research is needed to confirm this causal
direction.
Other research has used experiments to provide a
causal test of motivational factors influencing belief.
Epley and colleagues show not only that chronically
lonely people are less likely to believe in God but also
that randomly assigning people to situations that
increase loneliness (such as informing people that they
will probably be alone later in life) increases reports
of belief (Epley, Akalis, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2008).
Compensatory-control theory posits that people
strive to believe their world is predictable and control-
lable (Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008).
On the basis of this theory, Kay and colleagues (2008)
argue that belief in God is motivated by a need for
perceived control, which they demonstrated by showing
that experimentally threatening people’s sense of con-
trol can increase belief in God. Experimentally increas-
ing mortality salience has also been shown to increase
belief (Vail, Arndt, & Abdollahi, 2012), which may
explain why religiosity tends to increase when people
get older, become terminally ill, or experience a natural
disaster (Bentzen, 2013; Jong, 2013). The ability of the
belief in God—and religion more generally—to palliate
the effect of negative life events has been offered as
one explanation for religiosity’s association with greater
well-being (Whitehead & Bergeman, 2011).
Together, these cognitive and motivational factors
help explain where and when belief in God has
declined around the world. For example, some research-
ers have argued that the declines in belief over the 20th
century can be explained by the corresponding
increases in IQ over this same period (Lynn etal.,
2009). Likewise, religiosity has tended to decline when
strong and predictable political systems dampen the
uncertainty and adversity in a society. The religiosity
of the United States, which is aberrantly high among
rich countries, has been attributed to the sense of eco-
nomic insecurity caused by its (relatively) laissez faire
economic policies (Norris & Inglehart, 2004).
Social factors
Finally—but critically—declines in belief are acceler-
ated by feedback loops with changing cultural norms.
In religious societies, people are socialized to believe
in God through communities that value and encourage
belief (Sherkat, 2003). This socialization, particularly
the religious behaviors of one’s community, appears to
be one of the strongest determinants of belief. Accord-
ing to Henrich (2009), humans evolved to be acutely
sensitive to credibility-enhancing displays in their ten-
dency to adopt beliefs. For example, claims that blue
mushrooms are not poisonous are more credible when
the claimant eats the mushrooms (Henrich, 2009). Con-
sistent with this theory, research has shown that the
more frequently children observe others not just pro-
fessing belief in God but engaging in religious credibility-
enhancing displays (such as volunteering for religious
organizations), the more likely these children are to
believe in God as adults (Lanman & Buhrmester, 2017).
Thus, once triggered, generational declines in belief in
God might gain momentum through a positive feedback
effect. Children of each generation are raised witness-
ing fewer displays of religious commitment than the
last, making them less likely to believe in God and less
likely to expose their own children to displays of com-
mitment (Willard & Cingl, 2017; see Fig. 1).
Limitations With the Literature
Though the past 5 years have seen remarkable progress
in the psychology underlying belief in God, a more
complete understanding of the phenomenon has been
hampered by significant limitations in interpreting what
is by far the primary source of data about beliefs in
God: self-reports.
The first issue derives from a Western and Abrahamic
bias in the psychology of religion. Efforts to conduct
research outside the monotheistic, Judeo-Christian reli-
gious traditions in North America and Europe are limited
not just by inconvenience and political restrictions (e.g.,
in China and several Muslim-majority countries) but also
by conceptual differences in the meaning of belief. That
is, methods of measuring belief in God that assume a
traditional Western conception of God may not be
appropriate for understanding the beliefs of people with
different conceptions of God (Höllinger & Eder, 2016).
These cultural variations in the meaning of belief are
rarely assessed (for a notable exception, see Bluemke,
Jong, Grevenstein, Mikloušic´, & Halberstadt, 2016). How
similar is an American Christian’s belief in a personal
God to the Vedic theistic beliefs in India or to ancestor
worship in China? Although someone from each country
may answer affirmatively to straightforward questions
4
Evolved Cognitive Biases
Cultural Evolution
Hypersensitive agency detection: Over-
perception of agency leads to the perception
that God is causing natural events.
Promiscuous teleology: Overperception of
purpose leads to attributions of divine purpose
in the world.
Mind–body dualism: Perceiving minds as
separate from bodies makes it easy to
conceive of disembodied supernatural
agents.
Belief in punitive, monitoring gods provided
a survival advantage by increasing in-group
cooperation, making these beliefs more
common.
These beliefs were most likely to spread
when cooperation was important, such as in
societies with few resources, rights to
movable property, and high political
complexity.
Belief
in
God
Social
Motivational
Cognitive
Socialization (+): People are more likely to believe in
God when this belief is valued and encouraged by their
community.
Credibility-enhancing displays (+): Witnessing credible
displays of religious commitment increases the likelihood
of believing in God.
Loneliness (+): When lonely, people are more likely to
perceive agents, including God.
Mortality salience (+): Belief increases when death is salient.
Self-enhancement (+): In places where religion is
valued, a desire to see oneself positively motivates belief
in God.
Control (): Belief in a controlling God increases in
uncontrollable situations, allowing people to regain a
sense of control.
Analytical thinking style (): Analytical thinkers are less
likely to be influenced by the cognitive intuitions
contributing to belief in God.
Mentalizing (+): People more capable of mind reading
are more likely to perceive the existence of God.
Intelligence (): People with higher intelligence are
less likely to believe in God.
Proximate Factors
Ultimate Factors
Fig. 1. An overview of ultimate and proximate factors contributing to belief in God. On the right-hand side of the figure, a plus sign denotes that the factor increases the likeli-
hood of belief, whereas a minus sign denotes that the factor decreases the likelihood of belief.
Belief in God 5
about belief in “God” (if only to conform to Western
surveyors’ expectations), it remains unclear whether
these homogenous responses disguise psychologically
important differences.
Even in Western contexts, the continued evolution
of religion has led to widening conceptions of God,
which may not cleanly correspond to traditional beliefs.
For example, 30% of Europeans, including many self-
described “atheists,” report believing in a “spirit God or
vital life force” (Bréchon, 2007, p. 469). Should this
quasideism be defined as belief in God? Clearly, tradi-
tional methods are not fully capturing the scope and
meaning of belief in these contexts.
The other major challenge to the integrity of self-
report-based research on belief in God is that reports
may reflect self-presentation concerns as much as genu-
ine belief. Around the world, people show considerable
prejudice against nonbelievers (Gervais etal., 2017),
and majorities consider belief necessary for morality
(Pew Research Center, 2014). Thus, people may be
inclined to present themselves as more religious than
they truly are. Evidence of exaggeration in church
attendance supports this concern—as evidenced by
discrepancies between direct self-reports and head
counts (Hadaway, Marler, & Chaves, 1993) or time-use
diaries (Brenner, 2011). And though it is harder to con-
firm the veracity of people’s internal beliefs than their
behavior, research supports the idea that people are
indeed overreporting their belief in God. Survey tech-
niques that decrease socially desirable responding, such
as responding anonymously online rather than directly
to a live surveyor (Cox, Jones, & Navarro-Rivera, 2014)
or using the unmatched-count technique (Gervais &
Najle, 2018), suggest that rates of belief may be sub-
stantially lower than traditional methods have assumed.
The potential invalidity of self-reported belief calls
into question the interpretation of many findings within
the social scientific literature on religion. Consider
research that finds relationships between God beliefs
and any construct that might be misreported because
of social pressure (e.g., happiness, health, prosociality).
Any correlation between belief in God and (for exam-
ple) happiness may be the result not of a genuine
relationship between the two but of a third variable:
individual differences in people’s tendency to overre-
port levels of both. Furthermore, experimental studies—
including those discussed above—that show changes
in self-reported belief in God could very well be reveal-
ing changes in people’s willingness to admit their belief
rather than changes in belief itself.
These methodological questions should weigh heav-
ily on the field. The past 5 years have seen an expanding
body of research on belief in God; researchers should
devote some of the next 5 to tackling these critical chal-
lenges. Until we do, we will not fully understand the
extent, nature, or future of how belief in God factors
into our psychology and society.
Recommended Reading
Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K.,
McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016).
(See References). An in-depth review of the cultural evo-
lution of religion plus an assortment of commentaries that
discuss additional and alternative perspectives.
Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). (See References). A review
of the causes and consequences of secularization around
the world.
Sedikides, C. (2010). Why does religiosity persist? Personality
and Social Psychology Review, 14, 3–6. The introduction
to the 2010 Personality and Social Psychology Review spe-
cial issue on religion, which provides a summary and
overview of the approaches contained within the issue.
Zuckerman, M., Silberman, J., & Hall, J. A. (2013). (See
References). A meta-analysis, comprehensive review,
and theoretical discussion of the research examining the
relationship between intelligence and religiosity.
Action Editor
Randall W. Engle served as action editor for this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest
with respect to the authorship or the publication of this
article.
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... Each aspect is organized and measured by derivative indicators, with results as shown in Table 2. Belief in God is a major feature in the lives of billions of people and is a topic that always attracts attention. Several factors can influence beliefs, such as, cognitive, motivational, and social factors (Mercier et al. 2018). People who have high self-enhancers are people with a strong desire to see themselves positively have a higher level of intrinsic religiosity, especially in societies that value religion more. ...
... People who have high self-enhancers are people with a strong desire to see themselves positively have a higher level of intrinsic religiosity, especially in societies that value religion more. They argue that religious elements such as belief in a relationship with God create positive feelings of self-worth, motivating people with high self-enhancers to adopt stronger religious beliefs (Sedikides and Gebauer 2010;Mercier et al. 2018). As Proverbs 3: 5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding". ...
... This decline in confidence is accelerated by feedback as cultural norms change. In a religious society, people are socialized to believe in God through a community that values and encourages faith (Mercier et al. 2018). Belief in God is motivated by a perceived need for control, which they demonstrate by showing that experimentally threatening one's sense of control can increase belief in God (Kay et al. 2008;Mercier et al. 2018). ...
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Papua, Indonesia, is a region of cultural and religious diversity. However, in facing social challenges, the development of youth character has become a critical issue. The Research and Development Centre for Religion, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, conducted a survey of secondary schools. In 2021, the high school student index in Papua Province was below the national average. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship and level of correlation between religiosity and integrity among youth in Papua. We employed Christian biblical figures as models to illustrate their methods of developing and maintaining moral and ethical attributes. The method used is a quantitative approach with descriptive and correlational techniques. The findings indicate a significant positive correlation (0.629) between the religious dimension and the integrity dimension. This demonstrates a strong relationship between these two dimensions. The conclusion of this study essentially implies that there is a beneficial and strong relationship between religious discipline and integrity. This suggests that the two dimensions work together to shape and develop the personality of the younger generation.
... First, strong religious beliefs are thought to blunt anxiety by addressing key existential questions during rough times, whether that be during health crises or other destabilizing life events (Inzlicht et al., 2011;Maynard et al., 2001). Second, strong religious beliefs are thought to provide encouragement and selfesteem, especially when people are feeling lonely or isolated, by making people feel connected to a supreme being and a strong community (Mercier et al., 2018). However, the current work highlights that beyond serving as an emotional balm, religious beliefs might also serve as a practical motivational resource that help people navigate concrete, day-to-day challenges and goals in their life Landau et al., 2018). ...
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To confront difficult decisions, religious believers commonly seek guidance from sacred sources of knowledge, such as an all-knowing God. We predicted that engaging in this practice may be related to decision satisfaction. Specifically, across 3 studies (N= 2,474; two pre-registered), and three countries (U.S., Sweden, Canada), we explored whether religious believers who report consulting God during decisions experienced greater decision and life satisfaction, particularly when they also held a belief in God’s omniscience. Religious people who consulted God during decisions reported increased life satisfaction initially (Study 1a), and over time (Study 1b). Further, consistent with the proposed mechanism, when consulting God for guidance, participants who perceived God as especially omniscient (but not omnipotent or predictable) experienced greater decision satisfaction for past decisions (Study 2), anticipated future decisions (Study 2), and immediately following a decision (Study 3). Findings suggest that religious believers may benefit from seeking guidance from an omniscient God.
... First, it allowed us to test theory-driven predictions about the differences between locales and religions. More generally, it heeds the frequent, justified calls among psychologists of religion to expand on the often narrow focus on North American Christians, avoid treating religion as a monolith, and be more sensitive to between-religion and even between-denomination differences (Mercier et al., 2018;Norenzayan, 2016;Saroglou & Cohen, 2013). See Table 1 for sample sizes and demographics by study and population. ...
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Most humans believe in a god or gods, a belief that may promote prosociality toward coreligionists. A critical question is whether such enhanced prosociality is primarily parochial and confined to the religious ingroup or whether it extends to members of religious outgroups. To address this question, we conducted field and online experiments with Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish adults in the Middle East, Fiji, and the United States (N = 4,753). Participants were given the opportunity to share money with anonymous strangers from different ethno-religious groups. We manipulated whether they were asked to think about their god before making their choice. Thinking about God increased giving by 11% (4.17% of the total stake), an increase that was extended equally to ingroup and outgroup members. This suggests that belief in a god or gods may facilitate intergroup cooperation, particularly in economic transactions, even in contexts with heightened intergroup tension.
... Las creencias sobre la existencia de uno o varios dioses ha sido un tema perdurable en la discusión de las sociedades debido a la variabilidad de posturas (que no sólo versan en decir si existen o no; también en quién o quiénes son y cómo se manifiestan), lo que representa un reto para la investigación en psicología con respecto a obtener evidencia contundente sobre sus distintos impactos en las conductas y los tratos interpersonales, evitando caer en interpretaciones sesgadas y en procesos de deseabilidad social de los propios investigadores (Mercier, Kramer, & Shariff, 2018). ...
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La psicología moral ha tenido avances científicos de suma relevancia para la psicología en general y ciencias afines. Se comparte un documento en español de los principales conocimientos existentes hasta la fecha (desde el punto de vista del autor) en torno al estudio psicológico de la moralidad.
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Recent research documents that thinking about God encourages intergroup prosociality among believers. An open question is whether such increased prosociality is dampened by intergroup conflict. We conducted preregistered field experiments with two ethno-religious populations in Fiji: indigenous Christian iTaukei ( N = 324) and Hindu Indo-Fijians ( N = 280). In each study, we manipulated (between-person) whether participants thought about intergroup conflict before completing a dictator game in which we manipulated (within-person) whether participants thought about God’s preferences when allocating real money to an outgroup member. Although participants who reflected on intergroup conflict gave less money away to outgroup members, thinking about God led to significant and comparable increases in intergroup prosociality regardless of whether participants thought about conflict. Results challenge widely-held assumptions about the role of religious belief in intergroup conflict and raise questions about mechanisms that are often theorized to explain the spread of religious beliefs themselves.
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A growing number of Indonesian young people, both on campuses and social media, are identifying as agnostics. However, many do so without fully understanding what agnosticism means, often seeing it as an anti-mainstream alternative to atheism. This trend presents a challenge for educators, particularly in Christian schools and universities, who must engage with these students effectively. In the Indonesian context, this issue is further complicated by Pancasila, which upholds belief in God as national ideology. This essay uses recent literature to introduce the basic tenets of agnosticism, identify types of agnosticism, and offer educators practical strategies – from theology, philosophy, and psychology – to foster deeper understanding of this issue in schools.
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Over the last decade, we have witnessed a resurgence of research on religious cognitions and mental health, including, most notably, perceptions of divine control. Although prior work on divine control tends to assume a loving or benevolent image of God, this is only one potential representation. Using nationwide data from the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey (n = 999), we test whether the mental health benefits of perceived divine control vary according to various images of God (authoritative, benevolent, critical, and distant) and educational attainment. Results suggest that individuals with a college degree tend to report worse mental health if they also exhibit high levels of divine control beliefs and authoritative or critical God images. For those without a college degree, mental health was optimal when perceived divine control beliefs were low and their images of God were either authoritative or critical. For those with a college degree, the best mental health profiles were observed among those who reported high levels of divine control and a benevolent God image. By exploring the intersection of perceived divine control and God imagery, we may gain greater insight into novel processes related to religious cognitions and mental health.
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Humans behave more prosocially toward ingroup (vs. outgroup) members. This preregistered research examined the influence of God concepts and memories of past behavior on prosociality toward outgroups. In Study 1 (n = 573), participants recalled their past kind or mean behavior (between-subjects) directed toward an outgroup. Subsequently, they completed a questionnaire assessing their views of God. Our dependent measure was the number of lottery entries given to another outgroup member. Participants who recalled their kind (vs. mean) behavior perceived God as more benevolent, which in turn predicted more generous allocation to the outgroup (vs. ingroup). Study 2 (n = 281) examined the causal relation by manipulating God concepts (benevolent vs. punitive). We found that not only recalling kind behaviors but perceiving God as benevolent increased outgroup generosity. The current research extends work on morality, religion, and intergroup relations by showing that benevolent God concepts and memories of past kind behaviors jointly increase outgroup generosity.
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Strong reciprocity (SR) has recently been subject to heated debate. In this debate, the “West camp” (West et al. in Evol Hum Behav 32(4):231–262, 2011), which is critical of the case for SR, and the “Laland camp” (Laland et al. in Science, 334(6062):1512–1516, 2011, Biol Philos 28(5):719–745, 2013), which is sympathetic to the case of SR, seem to take diametrically opposed positions. The West camp criticizes advocates of SR for conflating proximate and ultimate causation. SR is said to be a proximate mechanism that is put forward by its advocates as an ultimate explanation of human cooperation. The West camp thus accuses advocates of SR for not heeding Mayr’s original distinction between ultimate and proximate causation. The Laland camp praises advocates of SR for revising Mayr’s distinction. Advocates of SR are said to replace Mayr’s uni-directional view on the relation between ultimate and proximate causes by the bi-directional one of reciprocal causation. The paper argues that both the West camp and the Laland camp misrepresent what advocates of SR are up to. The West camp is right that SR is a proximate cause of human cooperation. But rather than putting forward SR as an ultimate explanation, as the West camp argues, advocates of SR believe that SR itself is in need of ultimate explanation. Advocates of SR tend to take gene-culture co-evolutionary theory as the correct meta-theoretical framework for advancing ultimate explanations of SR. Appearances notwithstanding, gene-culture coevolutionary theory does not imply Laland et al.’s notion of reciprocal causation. “Reciprocal causation” suggests that proximate and ultimate causes interact simultaneously, while advocates of SR assume that they interact sequentially. I end by arguing that the best way to understand the debate is by disambiguating Mayr’s ultimate-proximate distinction. I propose to reserve “ultimate” and “proximate” for different sorts of explanations, and to use other terms for distinguishing different kinds of causes and different parts of the total causal chain producing behavior.
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Despite claims about the universality of religious belief, whether religiosity scales have the same meaning when administered inter-subjectively–or translated and applied cross-culturally–is currently unknown. Using the recent “Supernatural Belief Scale” (SBS), we present a primer on how to verify the strong assumptions of measurement invariance required in research on religion. A comparison of two independent samples, Croatians and New Zealanders, showed that, despite a sophisticated psychometric model, measurement invariance could be demonstrated for the SBS except for two noninvariant intercepts. We present a new approach for inspecting measurement invariance across self- and peer-reports as two dependent samples. Although supernatural beliefs may be hard to observe in others, the measurement model was fully invariant for Croatians and their nominated peers. The results not only establish, for the first time, a valid measure of religious supernatural belief across two groups of different language and culture, but also demonstrate a general invariance test for distinguishable dyad members nested within the same targets. More effort needs to be made to design and validate cross-culturally applicable measures of religiosity.
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Individual differences in the mere willingness to think analytically has been shown to predict religious disbelief. Recently, however, it has been argued that analytic thinkers are not actually less religious; rather, the putative association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking (an order effect). In light of this possibility, we report four studies in which a negative correlation between religious belief and performance on analytic thinking measures is found when religious belief is measured in a separate session. We also performed a meta-analysis on all previously published studies on the topic along with our four new studies (N = 15,078, k = 31), focusing specifically on the association between performance on the Cognitive Reflection Test (the most widely used individual difference measure of analytic thinking) and religious belief. This meta-analysis revealed an overall negative correlation (r) of -.18, 95% CI [-.21, -.16]. Although this correlation is modest, self-identified atheists (N = 133) scored 18.7% higher than religiously affiliated individuals (N = 597) on a composite measure of analytic thinking administered across our four new studies (d = .72). Our results indicate that the association between analytic thinking and religious disbelief is not caused by a simple order effect. There is good evidence that atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers.
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Cross-cultural comparative surveys have become an important tool to investigate social attitudes across different countries. However, this methodology is confronted with a number of challenges. One of the core problems is the functional equivalence of the concepts and indicators used. In this article, we study this problem in regard to the investigation of religiousness in three prominent surveys, the World Value Survey, the International Social Survey Programme, and the Religion Monitor. Our contribution starts with the fundamental question of the intercultural meaning of single items that are commonly used for the measurement of religiosity. From the comparison of the linguistic formulation of these items in different languages and across the three surveys, we obtain evidence of whether the concept of religiousness has the same meaning in different countries and to what extent the results depend on the formulation of the item. Subsequently, we use confirmatory factor analysis to test whether two religiousness scales derived from the International Social Survey Programme are structurally equivalent across countries. In the final step, we proceed to a substantive analysis, comparing religiousness scales from the three surveys in order to examine to what extent scales that claim to measure the same construct in fact produce similar results when applied to different countries. Our findings suggest that the paradigm of “asking the same questions” is difficult to apply and problematical with respect to some core indicators of individual religiousness and that questionnaires that are based on the Western concept of religion will lead to biased results when applied to worldwide cross-cultural comparison.
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This Handbook showcases research and thinking in the sociology of religion. The contributors, all active writers and researchers in the area, provide original chapters focusing on select aspects of their own engagement with the field. Aimed at students and scholars who want to know more about the sociology of religion, this handbook also provides a resource for sociologists in general by integrating broader questions of sociology (e.g. demography, ethnicity, life course, inequality, political sociology) into the analysis of religion. Broadly inclusive of traditional research topics (modernity, secularization, politics) as well as newer interests (feminism, spirituality, faith based community action), this handbook illustrates the validity of diverse theoretical perspectives and research designs to understanding the multi-layered nature of religion as a sociological phenomenon.
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Mounting evidence supports long-standing claims that religions can extend cooperative networks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 . However, religious prosociality may have a strongly parochial component 5 . Moreover, aspects of religion may promote or exacerbate conflict with those outside a given religious group, promoting regional violence 10 , intergroup conflict 11 and tacit prejudice against non-believers 12 ,13 . Anti-atheist prejudice—a growing concern in increasingly secular societies 14 —affects employment, elections, family life and broader social inclusion 12 ,13 . Preliminary work in the United States suggests that anti-atheist prejudice stems, in part, from deeply rooted intuitions about religion’s putatively necessary role in morality. However, the cross-cultural prevalence and magnitude—as well as intracultural demographic stability—of such intuitions, as manifested in intuitive associations of immorality with atheists, remain unclear. Here, we quantify moral distrust of atheists by applying well-tested measures in a large global sample (N = 3,256; 13 diverse countries). Consistent with cultural evolutionary theories of religion and morality, people in most—but not all— of these countries viewed extreme moral violations as representative of atheists. Notably, anti-atheist prejudice was even evident among atheist participants around the world. The results contrast with recent polls that do not find self-reported moral prejudice against atheists in highly secular countries 15 , and imply that the recent rise in secularism in Western countries has not overwritten intuitive anti-atheist prejudice. Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religion’s powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among non-believers in secular societies.
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One crucible for theories of religion is their ability to predict and explain the patterns of belief and disbelief. Yet, religious nonbelief is often heavily stigmatized, potentially leading many atheists to refrain from outing themselves even in anonymous polls. We used the unmatched count technique and Bayesian estimation to indirectly estimate atheist prevalence in two nationally representative samples of 2,000 U.S. adults apiece. Widely cited telephone polls (e.g., Gallup, Pew) suggest U.S. atheist prevalence of only 3–11%. In contrast, our most credible indirect estimate is 26% (albeit with considerable estimate and method uncertainty). Our data and model predict that atheist prevalence exceeds 11% with greater than .99 probability and exceeds 20% with roughly .8 probability. Prevalence estimates of 11% were even less credible than estimates of 40%, and all intermediate estimates were more credible. Some popular theoretical approaches to religious cognition may require heavy revision to accommodate actual levels of religious disbelief.
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Several theoretical approaches have been proposed to explain variation in religiosity, including versions of secularization hypotheses, evolved cognitive biases, and cultural transmission. In this paper we test several theories that aim to explain variation in religiosity and compare them in a representative sample collected in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (N = 2022). These two countries represent a natural experiment in religiosity; despite their high level of historical, institutional and cultural similarity, their populations differ markedly in the rate of religious belief. We examine the predictive power of cognitive biases (anthropomorphism, dualism, teleology, mentalizing, and analytic thinking); institutional insecurity; and exposure to credibility displays of belief in childhood on various factors of religious belief. We find that individual differences in cognitive biases predicted 8% of the variance belief in God, but predicted 21% of the variance in paranormal beliefs and almost no variance in religious participation. Perceived institutional insecurity explains little variance in any of these variables, but cultural transmission, measured as exposure to Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs) and church attendance in childhood, predicted 17% of the variance in belief in God and 30% of religious participation, and mediated 70% of the difference between these two countries in belief in God and 80% of the difference in religious practice. These findings suggest cognitive biases may explain the existence of belief in the supernatural generally, but cultural transmission through credible belief displays is a more plausible explanation for why people adopt and maintain a specific set of religious beliefs and practices.
Article
One of the central aims of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is to explain why supernatural agent beliefs are so widespread. A related but distinct aim is to explain why some individuals hold supernatural agent beliefs but others do not. Here, we aim to provide an initial test of the power of exposure to what Henrich calls “credibility-enhancing displays” (or “CREDs”) in determining whether or not an individual holds explicit supernatural agent beliefs. We present evidence from two studies of Americans suggesting that exposure to CREDs, as measured by a scale we developed and validated, predicts current theism vs. non-theism, certainty of God's existence/non-existence, and religiosity while controlling for overall religious socialization. These results are among the first to empirically support the theorized significance of CREDs for the acquisition of supernatural agent beliefs.