Oxford Asks: Can Science Explain Why Folks Believe in God?

In his 2006 book, Breaking the Spell, Tufts University professor Daniel Dennett argues that society must begin studying religion from a multi-disciplinary, scientific standpoint.  Not to do so, Dennett believes, is foolhardy, given how pervasive religion is and, in his view, how dangerous it is.

Now a grant from the John Templeton Foundation will allow just such research to begin at Oxford University.  Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre has received £1.9 million to study, basically, why people believe in God.  As the Times article states:

Researchers … will use the cognitive science disciplines to develop ‘a scientific approach to why we believe in God and other issues around the nature and origin of religious belief.’  The cognitive sciences, or the science of mind and intelligence, combine disciplines such as evolutionary biology, neuroscience, linguistics and computer sciences to examine human behaviour.

As Dennett’s book points out, modern researchers have theorized that belief in the supernatural may have been an evolutionary facet of human development, as proto-religions helped bond communities together and thereby strengthen them.  This theory would help explain why virtually every human society across the globe and throughout recorded history has had some manner of religion within its framework.

The Oxford researchers are apparently looking to go further, postulating that belief in God is in fact a part of our very nature.  If indeed religious tendencies are an inborn part of the human condition, more detailed and intriguing questions can be explored regarding religious violence and other manifestations of belief within cultures.

To many believers, of course, the entire question is rather moot.  For them, people believe in God because, well, “there is one.”  This is a viewpoint which the Oxford study will apparently not attempt to prove or disprove.  Perhaps a couple million pounds didn’t seem quite enough to tackle that.


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