Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom believes that all religions throughout the world have a single, common basis in a single reality, a universal constant in every person's experience: the human brain.
by Katie Falloon
excerpted from the Yale Daily News
"What I’m interested in is the other story — what all religions have in common," he said. "These universals of religion come from aspects of peoples’ brains that everybody shared and that emerged early in development."
From documenting our propensity to believe in teleological (purpose-based) explanations for natural phenomena to the widely held belief that humans possess a soul, a myriad of psychological studies — conducted both here at Yale and at peer universities — now suggest that our brains may be hard-wired to believe in religion.
"The universal themes of religion are not learned," Bloom said. "They emerge as accidental by-products of our mental systems."
Bloom, who has studied the development of morality in children in the context of religion, believes that there are three foundations for religion: creationism, animism — the belief that all sorts of things are intentional and alive — and common-sense dualism — or the belief that a divide exists between the mind and body.
People are creationists by nature, so they look for design in the natural world, Bloom explained. In fact, Deb Kelemen, associate professor of psychology at Boston University, has recently found evidence that among children aged 6 to 10, many believe things in nature exist for a purpose and were created by an intentional designer.
People are also by nature animists. Animism, Bloom explained, is not a bad trait to have from the perspective of natural selection. If, for instance, an animal were to hear a rustling in the bushes, it would be in the animal’s best interests to assume the noise was caused by a living entity and to act accordingly. Failure to do so could result in death.
And, in that sense, we are not so very different from animals.
"People see clouds moving or a pattern of light or basically any non-random structure as the product or action of a divine creature," Bloom said, "It’s not hard to see how animism could lead to religious belief." ...
"Religion offers meaning. It says you can live forever," Bloom said.
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