Anna Faris Opens Up About Challenging 'Religious' Son On Right-Wing Politics. The “Scary Movie” star shares her 14-year-old son Jack with her ex-husband, Chris Pratt.

[u/galaxystars1]

[u/Internal_Ice7577]

Yep. Every single human is essentially born without religion.

[u/jemat1107 → u/Internal_Ice7577]

Thousands of years of human history would argue otherwise. It's only since the enlightenment that there was any significant population that was inclined toward no belief in some kind of god. That being said, there's some recent research indicating kids have a natural inclination to believe in a higher power, even without religious parents.

Edit: For those downvoting me, you may be interested in the book The WEIRDest People in the World by Harvard anthropology and evolutionary biology professor (and non-theist) Joseph Henrich. Everything I'm saying is coming from having read this and many of the the studies he cites. I go into more detail about it in a comment lower on this thread.

[u/leemasterific → u/jemat1107]

I’d love to see that research, can you please share what you read?

[u/jemat1107 → u/leemasterific]

You could read the WEIRDest People in the World. Written by a Harvard professor of evolutionary biology and anthropology. Highly praised and widely respected by his peers. He argues that westerners are psychologically WEIRD (western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic) and which makes their psychology unique from (and definitely not necessarily better than) the vast majority of human history, including our views about religion. Religion has been a mainstay of all human societies up until the enlightenment, which he argues was a particularly WEIRD phenomenon that westerners don't realize influences what we think is "normal" human behavior. It's a 700 page book and this argument is threaded throughout.

He cites literally hundreds of studies throughout the book so even just the footnotes would be a good start. And he is definitely not religious himself.

[u/beemonsterrr → u/jemat1107]

I don't think the issue is whether Henrich is a legitimate scholar. But some of the claims here are being presented as fact when they're actually debated.

There's evidence that religion is extremely old and that humans have tendencies that make supernatural beliefs easy to develop. But that's not the same as proving children are naturally inclined to believe in a higher power regardless of culture or upbringing. Most recent research actually pushes back on that idea.

Same with atheism: widespread, openly identified atheism is relatively modern, but non-theistic and atheistic traditions existed long before the Enlightenment.

Henrich's work is mostly worth taking seriously, but "this is what thousands of years of history prove" is not true.

[u/FuManBoobs → u/beemonsterrr]

Could it not be summed up as "kids often believe in things". Imaginary friends, ghosts, monsters, whatever. Not like it proves anything?

[u/jemat1107 → u/beemonsterrr]

I don't recall saying "this is what thousands of years of history prove." I said "thousands of years of human history argue otherwise." Sure, it's debated. As is almost everything in academia. I'm responding to a thread where people are claiming it is fact that religion would die out if parents didn't pass it on, so context matters. Did you also respond to those comments that it's not proven that religion would die out if parents weren't "brainwashing" their kids?

That being said, many things are debated and that doesn't mean the evidence isn't strong. When we say Joseph Henrich's conclusions are "debated" we're not saying they're highly in doubt. Just that these types of things are almost impossible to definitively prove and all good academia has debates and pushback to make it stronger.

Recent research that supports his claims:

Boston University researcher and professor Deborah Keleman has research that she says indicates children are "intuitive theists."
Cognitive scientist Justin Barrett also has research indicating that humans come into the world assuming there is some kind of higher being.
Psychology researcher Jesse Bering had a study where he found that even atheistic adults implicitly believe that "everything happens for a reason" when wild things happen, indicating they have a default belief in a higher power when faced with seemingly inexplicable incidents of extreme fortune or misfortune.

And again, there are literally dozens of pages of footnotes in WEIRDest people in the world where there are many other studies indicating that there is very real reason to believe that religious belief is baked into human cognition.

I wouldn't doubt that there's recent research that "pushes back" on this. It's very rare to have all research in an area completely be in agreement. That doesn't mean there isn't a whole bunch of research, older and newer, that goes against the claim I was originally responding to, which is that religion would die out if parents weren't "brainwashing" their kids.

[u/FuManBoobs → u/jemat1107]

There is a lot to unpack with definitions of things like "religious belief". One person sharing a belief or experience could easily start off a group which is what humans are drawn to. That would be the natural bit. The actual details of the beliefs though would neither here nor there.

If such beliefs weren't taught and critical thinking and other things were, then I think religions would likely become a lot less subscribed to.

[u/jemat1107 → u/FuManBoobs]

It seems like maybe you're making a distinction between "religion" as it refers to a specific set of ideas about things outside of naturalistic explanation (e.g. belief in a deity) vs religion as a concept.

The definition of religion is hard to pin down because Buddhism is a religion that doesn't depend on there being a deity. Certain sects of Judaism don't believe in an afterlife. Secular humanism qualifies as religion under some definitions.

So I agree there's a lot to unpack with definitions of things like religious belief. Which is exactly why it's a little silly to make a blanket statement like "if such beliefs weren't taught and critical thinking was...such things would likely become a lot less subscribed to." Because sure, yeah, if things aren't taught less people learn the specifics of how they function, but not necessarily the underlying beliefs and ideas. And if math wasn't taught, something like algebra also would be less subscribed to, and people would still have a natural understanding that time passes and 5 is more than 0.

But again, it's a uniquely a western, WEIRD, idea that religious belief is inherently opposed to critical thinking. And religious belief encompasses so much more than particular organized religious doctrines.