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David Ludden Ph.D.

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Why Do People Believe in God?

The evolution of religious belief.
Posted Aug 21, 2018 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

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Why do people believe in God? For most people in the world, the answer seems obvious: Because it’s self-
evident that God exists. From the point of view of the believer, the really puzzling question is how anyone could
not believe.

And yet, as University of California at Irvine psychologist Brett Mercier and his colleagues point out in a recent
article, there was once a time in the prehistory of our species when nobody believed in a god of any sort. Our
evolutionary ancestors were all atheists, but somewhere along the way they found religion. So we’re back to our
original question: Why do people believe in God?

As is common practice in evolutionary science, Mercier and his colleagues distinguish between ultimate and
proximate causes. An ultimate cause explains how a behavior evolved in the first place, while a proximate
cause outlines the conditions in which that evolved behavior will be performed. Consider, for example, birds
flying south for the winter. The ultimate cause of bird migration is the increase in survival and reproduction
experienced by those who seasonally moved to warmer climates where food was plentiful. In contrast, the
proximate cause is the decrease in daylight hours, serving as a trigger that it’s time to head south.

Religious belief of some sort is a nearly universal feature of humanity, so there’s quite likely some ultimate
evolutionary cause that explains it. At the same time, not all people are religious, and furthermore the forms of
belief among the religious range widely, so we need to understand the proximate causes for this variation. In
their article, Mercier and colleagues outline several ultimate and proximate causes for religious belief.

Fully modern humans arrived on the scene about a quarter million years ago, and until quite recently they all
lived hunter-gatherer lifestyles. In these primitive societies, the men hunted, fished, or scavenged for meat,
while the women gathered fruits, roots, and vegetables. They lived in small groups of around 100 to 150 people
because this was the largest population that the surrounding terrain could support.

Still, these groups were considerably larger than the societies of primate species, which tend to number in the
few dozen range. Furthermore, humans are far more capable of cooperation than other primates, enabled by
certain evolved cognitive mechanisms. Chief among these is a sense of agency. As tool users, humans quickly
developed an understanding that they can intentionally cause things to happen. The nut cracked open because
I smashed it with a rock. The apple fell because I shook the tree.

Humans then apply this sense of agency to interpreting social interactions. That is to say, we not only believe
we have agency, we also believe others have agency as well. Thus, we judge the actions of others depending
on whether we deem them to be intentional or not. We can easily forgive the person who accidentally steps on
our foot, but we really need an explanation and an apology if someone purposely treads on our toes.

In fact, we’re rather hypersensitive about other people’s agency, inferring intention where none existed. For
example, when someone cuts us off in traffic, we generally assume they did it on purpose—that is, knowing full
well how dangerously they’re driving—rather than supposing they looked but just didn’t see us. We’re quick to
assume that people act purposefully and discount the extent to which people’s behaviors are shaped by their
current circumstances and limitations. US

Because of hypersensitive agency detection, we also have a tendency to infer intentionality in natural processes
or inanimate objects. Beliefs in water sprites and woodland spirits, specters and spooks, ghosts and demons,
are ancient and observed in every culture around the world. Because the natural world is complex and acts in
mysterious ways, we detect agency all around us.

By the way, if you think that you—an intelligent human being living in modern society—are free of such
superstitious nonsense, you need to ask yourself: Have you ever begged your car to start on a cold winter
morning? Or have you ever complained that your computer has a mind of its own because it doesn’t behave the
way you want it to? We tend to automatically detect agency in inanimate objects whenever the situation is
unpredictable and out of our control.

This kind of animistic thinking—that is, the belief that supernatural agency inhabits the world and can influence
events—is a universal human trait. Such thinking is common in children, and as adults our animistic thinking is
shaped by the norms of our culture. Animistic beliefs are also common in hunter-gatherer societies, but what
they don’t have is organized religion.

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Some 15,000 years ago, humans gradually began adopting agriculture. At first, humans domesticated a few
animals and tended gardens to supplement their hunting and gathering, but eventually, all but a few societies
around the world shifted solely to farming and herding. Agriculture can support many more people per acre of
land compared with hunting and gathering, but this came with a cost.

As long as our group sizes were small, we had the psychological mechanisms to deal effectively with the
members of our community. If you live day in and day out with the same 150 people, you get to know them really
well. But if your numbers are in the thousands or tens of thousands, most of the people you interact with on a
daily basis are strangers. Thus was life in the first cities that arose thanks to the food surpluses that agriculture
yielded.

At this point, we see cultural evolution taking place. Human existence depends on cooperation. When we live in
small groups, cheaters are punished by other members, and they quickly learn that they have to get along. But
in anonymous societies, it’s easy to take advantage of others, as there’s no way for the rest of the group to
punish those who take advantage of the system. The solution was to invent ever-watchful gods who’ll punish
cheaters for us. Thus, organized religion grew hand-in-hand with the rise of the city-state.

Fast forward a dozen millennia, and here we are living in a technologically advanced society driven by science
that tells us the world moves according to the laws of physics and not the whims of spirits or deities.
Nevertheless, religious belief in one or more gods that watch over our actions and judge us accordingly is quite
common. At the same time, religious belief has dropped precipitously over the last century, and here we need to
look at its proximate causes.
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Mercier and colleagues divide the proximate causes of religious belief into three types: cognitive, motivational,
and societal. One cognitive factor is an analytical thinking style. People who tend to act according to reason
rather than intuition are also less likely to believe in God. Perhaps relatedly, we also see a tendency for people
who are higher in intelligence to hold agnostic or atheistic beliefs. In contrast, people who are high in what’s
commonly called “emotional intelligence”—that is, the ability to easily discern the emotions and motives of
others—also tend to be more religious. Of course, it’s exactly this ability to read others’ minds that led to the rise
of religious belief in the first place, hundreds of thousands of years ago on the African savanna.

There are also motivational reasons for religious belief. People who are socially isolated tend to have more
religious faith, perhaps allowing them to feel they’re not truly alone. Likewise, people facing death are more
likely to express faith in God and an afterlife. The old saying that there are no atheists on the battlefield is no
doubt true to a large extent. Furthermore, faith in God increases when situations become uncontrollable, as in
the case of natural disasters. Believing that God has a plan helps people regain some sense of control, or at
least of acceptance.

Another motivational factor is self-enhancement. If you live in a society where religion is prized, it’s in your best
interest to say you believe, whether you truly do or not. I’m sure there are plenty of doubters in the pews at
Sunday services, though none will admit it. (I was one of those for most of my teenage years.) And it’s not
uncommon to hear stories of priests or pastors who’ve lost their faith but continue to preach because it’s the
only way they can make a living.

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RP 2.410.000 RP 18.200.000 RP 936.000

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RP 18.200.000 RP 3.696.000 RP 8.125.000

Finally, there are societal factors that influence the degree of religious belief within societies. As a general rule,
religious belief is considerably lower in developed countries compared with the underdeveloped world. For
instance, Japan has one of the highest standards of living in the world, but only 4 percent of its population
claims to be religious. Traditionally, Japan was a Buddhist country, and religion played an important role in the
daily lives of the Japanese until after World War II. A similar trend has occurred in Western Europe, which many
social scientists now characterize as “post-Christian.”

The United States, with its high standard of living and high religiosity, is the glaring exception. However, as
Mercier and his colleagues point out, Japan and Western European have universal health care and extensive
social safety nets, as opposed to the U.S. The Japanese and the Europeans know their governments will come
to their aid in their hour of need. But the laissez-faire attitudes of American society make people’s futures less
certain and the belief in a benevolent God more attractive.
Although many people in industrialized societies have abandoned traditional organized religion, many of them
still confess to some sort of spiritual belief, such as a life-force or divine spirit that pervades nature and US
humanity. As societies become affluent and egalitarian, perhaps people perceive less need for a benevolent
God to keep watch over us. Organized religion may no longer be needed in such societies, but it’s still human
nature to perceive agency in the complexity and unpredictability of the world, even when there is none.

References

Mercier, B., Kramer, S. R., and Shariff, A. F. (2018). Belief in god: Why people believe, and why they don’t. Current Directions in
Psychological Science. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1177/0963721418754491

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About the Author

David Ludden, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Online: Facebook

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