May 22, 2025 07:29 PM
Did humans evolve to prefer religion? Research shows many atheists intuitively favour faith
https://theconversation.com/did-humans-e...ith-256391
EXCERPTS: Many atheists consider themselves to be highly rational people who rate evidence and analytical thinking above religion, superstition and intuition. They might even argue that atheism is the most rational worldview.
But that doesn’t make them immune to having intuitive beliefs themselves. Science suggests the link between rationality and atheism is far weaker than is often assumed.
A study my colleagues and I conducted, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even avowed atheists in some of the most secular countries on Earth might intuitively prefer religion to atheism. We argue this new evidence challenges simplistic notions of global religious decline and the beginning of an “atheist age”.
In his 2007 book, Breaking the Spell, the philosopher Daniel Dennett speculated that, although atheists lack belief in god(s), many of them may retain what he dubbed “belief in belief”. This is the impression that religious belief is a good thing, and the world would be better off with more of it.
But is this true? Our research investigated belief in belief among around 3,800 people in eight of the world’s least religious countries: Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. To test for belief in belief, we turned to the “Knobe effect”, a task honed by experimental philosophers for evaluating judgements of morality and intent.
[...] Because religions have exerted tremendous influence on our societies for millennia, it would be genuinely surprising if some latent religious trace didn’t culturally linger as overt expressions of faith decline. Our newest results are consistent with this possibility.
Belief may be wavering in many countries, but belief in belief persists, complicating any conclusion that we’ve truly entered an “atheist age”... (MORE - details)
https://theconversation.com/did-humans-e...ith-256391
EXCERPTS: Many atheists consider themselves to be highly rational people who rate evidence and analytical thinking above religion, superstition and intuition. They might even argue that atheism is the most rational worldview.
But that doesn’t make them immune to having intuitive beliefs themselves. Science suggests the link between rationality and atheism is far weaker than is often assumed.
A study my colleagues and I conducted, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even avowed atheists in some of the most secular countries on Earth might intuitively prefer religion to atheism. We argue this new evidence challenges simplistic notions of global religious decline and the beginning of an “atheist age”.
In his 2007 book, Breaking the Spell, the philosopher Daniel Dennett speculated that, although atheists lack belief in god(s), many of them may retain what he dubbed “belief in belief”. This is the impression that religious belief is a good thing, and the world would be better off with more of it.
But is this true? Our research investigated belief in belief among around 3,800 people in eight of the world’s least religious countries: Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. To test for belief in belief, we turned to the “Knobe effect”, a task honed by experimental philosophers for evaluating judgements of morality and intent.
[...] Because religions have exerted tremendous influence on our societies for millennia, it would be genuinely surprising if some latent religious trace didn’t culturally linger as overt expressions of faith decline. Our newest results are consistent with this possibility.
Belief may be wavering in many countries, but belief in belief persists, complicating any conclusion that we’ve truly entered an “atheist age”... (MORE - details)
