Scientists: belief in God comes from human insecurity
Scientists: belief in God comes from human insecurity

Video: Scientists: belief in God comes from human insecurity

Video: Scientists: belief in God comes from human insecurity
Video: Why It's So Hard for Scientists to Believe in God? | Francis Collins | Big Think 2024, November
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One of the most heated debates in human history has been revived by American scientists. According to the new theory, religiosity is an innate property of a person. Scientists do not confirm or abolish the existence of God, but they believe that faith is the path of least resistance.

“Our brains can easily create a whole world of imaginary beings - spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the more difficult it is to resist this temptation,” writes the sensational article published in The New Scientist, Michael Brooks.

According to one of the widespread hypotheses, religion emerged as a result of natural selection: believers are better adapted to life and, accordingly, more often pass on their genes to descendants. Shared beliefs helped our ancestors live in close-knit groups, hunt together, gather fruits and take care of children, and thus increased their competitiveness, writes Inopressa.

As previously reported, from a medical point of view, faith in God has a positive effect on the state of the body, although religious beliefs are still the subject of heated philosophical and sociological discussions. According to American researchers, regular visits to religious institutions - at least once a week - reduce the risk of death by about 20%.

However, some scholars argue, belief in an afterlife and other unfounded beliefs hardly helps to survive and continue the race in the harsh reality. Anthropologist Scott Etren of the University of Michigan and his associates put forward an alternative version: religion is an organic side effect of human thinking.

According to the scientist, we are talking about a "tragedy of rationality": a person realizes what troubles are possible, including his own death. And when innate mechanisms suggest to us a solution to this painful problem - religious beliefs, we grab hold of this "key to our dungeon." That is why, in difficult times, people turn to religion en masse.

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