Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study

**Uthman** · 05-14-2011

Humans are naturally predisposed to believe in gods and life after death, according to a major three-year international study.

Led by two academics at Oxford University, the £1.9 million study found that human thought processes were “rooted” to religious concepts.

But people living in cities in highly developed countries were less likely to hold religious beliefs than those living a more rural way of life, the researchers found.

The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.

It set out to establish whether belief in divine beings and an afterlife were ideas simply learned from society or integral to human nature.

One of the studies, from Oxford, concluded that children below the age of five found it easier to believe in some “superhuman” properties than to understand human limitations.

Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a closed box. Three-year-olds believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers were not omniscient.

Separate research from China suggested that people across different cultures instinctively believed that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lived on after death.

The co-director of the project, Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford, said the research showed that religion was “not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf”.

“We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies,” he said.

“This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”

Dr Justin Barrett, from the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, who directed the project, said faith may persist in diverse cultures across the world because people who share the bonds of religion “might be more likely to cooperate as societies”.

“Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.”

Source

**جوري** · 05-14-2011

very true...
not the first study of its kind but certainly quite interesting!

**aadil77** · 05-14-2011

it don't take £2m to work that out, just a bit of common sense

**Ramadhan** · 05-14-2011

Originally Posted by aadil77

it don't take £2m to work that out, just a bit of common sense

Are you saying die hard atheists have no common sense?

This study only conform what Allah has told us through Rasulullah SAW that we were imprinted with the knowledge of God (swt) before we were born, and only our upbringing and environment that change it.

**-Elle-** · 05-14-2011

Jazak'Allah kher, does anyone have any more articles (maybe more detailed) about similar studies?

**Zafran** · 05-14-2011

salaam

Fitrah (Inate goodness)

peace

**جوري** · 05-14-2011

Originally Posted by houda~

Jazak'Allah kher, does anyone have any more articles (maybe more detailed) about similar studies?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/reli...ic-claims.html

not sure it is more detailed but it is a similar study involving children...

**Perseveranze** · 05-14-2011

1.9m to confirm common sense lol

**CosmicPathos** · 05-15-2011

lol Trumble will now jump in and say "exactly, belief in God/gods was easy to accept for primitive man or even animal-man in order make sense of his emergence out of no-where through evolution but it does not mean such belief is right. It is perhaps only a sub-conscious adaptation to the haunting reality of existence and we atheists have overcome that, sort of new evolution."

we can read your mind, which is not hidden anymore unlike those in sand *referring to the ostrich pic you posted earlier*

**Ramadhan** · 05-15-2011

Originally Posted by mad_scientist

"exactly, belief in God/gods was easy to accept for primitive man or even animal-man in order make sense of his emergence out of no-where through evolution but it does not mean such belief is right. It is perhaps only a sub-conscious adaptation to the haunting reality of existence and we atheists have overcome that, sort of new evolution."

Lol!
It sounds very trumble-ish though it could have easily been from him!

**Trumble** · 05-15-2011

Originally Posted by mad_scientist

we can read your mind

If you could, you would know that my mind is just as 'rooted' to religious concepts as that of anyone else here! They just happen to be different ones from yours, and do not involve that of God. Actually, I'm not all surprised by the results of the study. The only difference is in the degree of sophistication and realization of those concepts, which is an 'evolutionary' process - but one of history and culture, not of natural selection.

Note, incidently, that despite the thread title, the article refers not to "belief in God' but to 'belief in divine beings and an afterlife" and "supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life". Hence it's findings would be just as applicable to Vikings or ancient Egyptians as for modern muslims or Christians.

**IAmZamzam** · 05-27-2011

Last time I checked history and culture didn't make people NATURALLY PREDISPOSED to things.

**Trumble** · 05-28-2011

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

Last time I checked history and culture didn't make people NATURALLY PREDISPOSED to things.

May I suggest you 'check' your understanding of my last? AS I SAID the research suggests a natural predisposition to RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS, not to a monotheistic God exclusively as the thread title implies (i.e. such concepts include pantheistic and polytheistic beliefs, and indeed those of religions such as Buddhism and Daoism). It is WHAT THOSE CONCEPTS ARE that is the result of different histories and cultures. Hence your religious beliefs are not the same as those of an Ancient Egyptian, although you both - it is suggested - were/are naturally predisposed to have religious beliefs of some sort.

**IAmZamzam** · 05-31-2011

Can you really do no better than to try so weakly to divert the issue from your ludicrous and desperate claim that culture and history can change people's inherent predispositions from birth to the absence of some specific trait of the predisposition I never even claimed was there?

**selsebil** · 05-31-2011

Assalaam Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh,

Scholar Bediuzzaman Said Nursi RA says:

" Without any shadow of a doubt, man cannot live without religion, aimlessly. He cannot. Even the most irreligious person is compelled to take refuge in religion. For the only point of support for impotent man in the face of the innumerable disasters and the external and internal enemies that plague him, and the only point from which he may seek help and assistance in the face of the innumerable needs with which he is afflicted, and his desires that stretch to eternity, despite his utter want and poverty, is in recognizing the Maker of the world, in faith, and in believing and affirming the hereafter. There is no help for awakened mankind apart from this.
If the jewel of true religion is not present in the shell of the heart, material, moral, and spiritual calamities of untold magnitude will break loose over humanity and man will become the most unhappy, the most wretched, of animals."

http://www.lightofquran.info/damascus.htm

**Trumble** · 06-02-2011

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

Can you really do no better than to try so weakly to divert the issue from your ludicrous and desperate claim that culture and history can change people's inherent predispositions from birth to the absence of some specific trait of the predisposition I never even claimed was there?

My 'claim' is quite clear, and far from from being 'ludicrous and desperate' is both straightforward and, I would have thought, quite uncontroversial. It's just a pity you can't peer over the top of your vastly over-inflated ego long enough to admit you have made a straightforward comprehension mistake as a result of not reading carefully enough. We all do it occasionally, nothing to be ashamed of.

I have NOWHERE claimed that culture and and history are either responsible for, or can change people's inherent dispositions. I 'claimed' what to my mind is obvious, as illustrated by the example I gave, that the particular religious concepts in which any such natural predisposition is manifested are shaped by culture and history. How else would you possibly explain the huge diversity in religious views?

Read more carefully next time and you won't make a fool of yourself.

**GuestFellow** · 06-02-2011

Salaam,

£1.9 million study? That is too expensive.

**Ramadhan** · 06-03-2011

Originally Posted by Guestfellow

Salaam, £1.9 million study? That is too expensive.

Researchers also have home mortgages to pay, you know. It's better to lavish funds on science, research and studies, than on frivolous expenses, like MPs holiday benefits

**Dagman** · 06-05-2011

Actually this doesn't prove anything like you guys are trying to make out to do.

A proclivity to believe in God does not in any way mean that there is a God. There's a clear distinction that must be made there.

Religion has existed for millenia, long before Islam or Christianity or even Judaism existed. Why? Well there are many reasons and they have evolved with time, but essentially it comes down to humans needing to give our existence meaning.