Agnostic.com

2 4

Is religiosity natural or does it need indoctrination?

There are two kinds of naturalness: (-a-) maturational and (-b-) practiced naturalness.
Examples for (-a-) are walking or speaking my first language.
Examples for (-b-) are reading, hand-writing or riding a bicycle.
(-b-) takes a lot of training to achieve a higher level of competence , but then the activity is 'natural' to us.

The indoctrination hypothesis dear to many atheists claims that religions are like (-b-) and that religiosity is the result of much training, indoctrination, even 'brainwashing'. But this hypothesis is a myth, and the most convincing evidence for 'maturational naturalness' of religiosity is the historical and geographical ubiquity of religions. Whereas cultural activities like writing or mathematics were invented only a few times, there is no known culture in history without religion (in the broad sense, including forms like animism or shamanism).

If the indoctrination hypothesis was true, religions all over the world and in history would be result of a massive conspiracy: nearly all parents of all times, regions and cultures independently (!) taught their children about ghosts, souls, gods, sacred objects and holy places. This is as if all tribes in history had invented the wheel and writing and math... in the Andes and the jungle of Honduras, on the Plains of North America and the savannah of Africa, in Siberia and the outback of Australia, in the Highlands of Papua and in the Nile valley...

Why should parents of all times and places should have done that?

There is just one logical reason: religions are not like writing or reading, but they are more like languages. Children are naturally prepared to learn about the religion of their tribe just as they are born predisposed to learn the language of their tribe. Of course children have to be taught the specifics of their religion; no input, no competence. But the same is true about languages: no input, no competence.

Children are not "born theists", but the human brain is prepared to acquire all sorts of beliefs, including religious beliefs. What is needed is sufficient input and learning, but not indoctrination.

(See: Robert McCauley's book : "Why religion is natural and science is not" )

Matias 8 Nov 7
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

2 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Very good. The argument is also put forward in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind book by Yuval Noah Harari, though he talks more in terms of mythology rather than religion. It is myth, fairy tales, legends, and narrative stories (think Homer) that have also allowed us to evolve from tribes to societies as these communcation devices create culture and bind us together.

2

Very good post Matias, and I am very much in agreement. It is why religious people should rationally be treated with respect and dignity.

Muddling the issue is that what we think of as religion is a mishmash of various practices, beliefs and expressions, some of which are maturational naturalness and some practiced.

Prehistoric people didn’t set out to create religion—they didn’t have the concept. What they did was respond to the spark of conscious awareness with excitement, awe and reverence, and they expressed that through stories, rituals, etc. They were not trying to be religious—they were just living. A child of today is filled with that same excitement, awe and reverence. There are thousands of ways those emotions might be expressed, depending on culture, tradition, etc.

As children we are primed for natural religion, but we have to be taught belief in particular dogmas. I never truly believed that Jesus died to save me from my sins and that if I believed I would go to heaven. That makes no sense, but I still feel religious.

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:423378
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.