You can argue as much as you like about whether there is a God in the world and which religion is more correct. However, the fact remains: throughout the history of mankind, people have recognized certain forms of divine essence. What prompted them to do this from a psychological point of view?
Psychologists believe that fear of death plays an important role here. Recently, experts from the University of Otago in New Zealand decided to conduct an experiment in which both believers and atheists took part. All of them were asked to think about their future death and write about it. The study involved 265 people. All of them were asked to write what they thought about their death.
After people completed the assignment, psychologists tried to find out how the respondents' religious views had changed. It turned out that believers, having written an essay on death, became even more convinced of the existence of higher powers. Atheists, on the other hand, declared their disbelief.
However, tests on the subconscious showed a very different picture. During testing, the researchers asked the subjects to respond to statements such as "God exists" or "God does not exist." By the speed of their reaction, they determined whether a person believed in the Divine Providence in his soul. In fact, many "unbelievers", although they declared atheism, subconsciously still admitted the existence of God.
Experts explain this paradox by the fact that a person is haunted by the fear of death from birth. The religious worldview promotes life after death. That is, believing in God means giving yourself a chance to escape from nothingness.
By the way, scientists from Harvard found out that among religious people there are more of those who, when making various decisions, rely on their intuition, and not on pragmatic calculation. This proves once again that we have faith in God at the level of instincts.
Intuition or Logic?
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The American religious scholar Amitai Shenhav also suggested that the presence or absence of religious faith is determined by fundamental differences in the way of thinking. The scientist believes that the belief of many people in God stems from the impossibility of finding a logical explanation for some phenomena. And as a result, they are blamed on Divine intervention.
Shenhav and his colleagues decided to test how human intuition affects the power of faith. To this end, they conducted a series of experiments.
In the first step, 882 American adults were asked if they believed in God. Subjects were then presented with a test of three simple math problems. The conditions of the problems were constructed in such a way that when trying to solve them, incorrect answers intuitively suggested themselves. And only after thinking it was possible to give the correct answer.
It turned out that among those who correctly solved all three problems, believers are one and a half times less than atheists. Moreover, the test result did not depend on the level of education of the subjects.
Further, 373 participants in the experiment needed to recall situations when either intuition or logical thinking helped them make the right decision. Again, those who relied more on intuition tended to believe in God, as opposed to people who preferred logical reasoning.
Science instead of religion
However, today we live in a world of logic. The need to manipulate complex technologies that are developing more and more every year makes us more pragmatic, scientists say.
Anna-Kaisa Newheiser of Yale University and her colleagues discovered a curious phenomenon. They found that non-religious individuals develop their own form of faith in situations of fear or stress. But not in God, but … in science!
The researchers used two groups of rowers for the experiment, which were not very religious. Some were told that they were going to participate in the regatta, while others were told that they were just going to practice. After that, the volunteers were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements: "We can rationally accept only what is scientifically provable", "All the problems that humanity faces are solvable by science", "The scientific method is the only reliable path to knowledge."
Athletes from the first group, naturally, more worried about the upcoming competitions, expressed faith in science about 15% more often than their comrades from the second group.
The next experiment involved teachers and students from two major British universities, also not distinguished by religiosity. Some were asked to think about their own death, others - to recall a situation when they experienced severe toothache. Then the people were offered the same statements as in the previous case. The result is exactly the same.
According to experts, if religious faith is based on intuition, spiritual experience, as well as trust in the scriptures, then science is based on analytical thinking, and its methods are the rational study of the subject and careful weighing of evidence.
“In stressful situations, people are likely to resort to those forms of worldview and beliefs that are most significant to them,” says Anna-Kaisa Newheiser. Her colleague, psychologist Bastian Rutiens of the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), also believes that science, like religion, helps people find support in our unpredictable world.
Faith - the path to immortality?
By the way, recently a group of American experts led by Daniel Abram-som from Northwestern University of Illinois and Richard Weiner from the University of Arizona, after analyzing statistics for the past hundred years, came to the conclusion that today the number of believers in developed countries is decreasing. but atheists, on the contrary, is growing. For example, in the Netherlands and the United States, about 40% of citizens call themselves unbelievers. And in the Czech Republic about 60% are atheists. These people tend to believe in scientific and technological progress, and not in Divine grace.
It is possible that in the future we will finally lose faith in God, Abram and Weiner believe. Although it is possible that religiosity will take on other forms, since a person simply needs to admit the presence of supernatural forces - this helps him to deny the finiteness of his own existence and hope for immortality …
Technologies have already been invented that make it possible to digitize brain and neural waves. Over time, these informational matrices containing the human personality can be stored on the hard disk of a computer. So after biological death we will be able to exist at least in electronic form.
Ida SHAKHOVSKAYA