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Hard-Wired Belief in Immortality May Be the Root of Core Religious Beliefs

Vasilisa

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Boston University Study Examines the Development of Children’s Prelife Reasoning
Evidence suggests our hard-wired belief in immortality may be the root of core religious beliefs
January 27th, 2014
By Barbara Moran

Excerpt:
Most people, regardless of race, religion or culture, believe they are immortal. That is, people believe that part of themselves–some indelible core, soul or essence–will transcend the body’s death and live forever. But what is this essence? Why do we believe it survives? And why is this belief so unshakable?

A new Boston University study led by postdoctoral fellow Natalie Emmons and published in the January 16, 2014 online edition of Child Development sheds light on these profound questions by examining children’s ideas about “prelife,” the time before conception. By interviewing 283 children from two distinct cultures in Ecuador, Emmons’s research suggests that our bias toward immortality is a part of human intuition that naturally emerges early in life. And the part of us that is eternal, we believe, is not our skills or ability to reason, but rather our hopes, desires and emotions. We are, in fact, what we feel.

Emmons’ study fits into a growing body of work examining the cognitive roots of religion. Although religion is a dominant force across cultures, science has made little headway in examining whether religious belief–such as the human tendency to believe in a creator–may actually be hard-wired into our brains.

“This work shows that it’s possible for science to study religious belief,” said Deborah Kelemen, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Boston University and co-author of the paper. “At the same time, it helps us understand some universal aspects of human cognition and the structure of the mind.”

Most studies on immortality or “eternalist” beliefs have focused on people’s views of the afterlife. Studies have found that both children and adults believe that bodily needs, such as hunger and thirst, end when people die, but mental capacities, such as thinking or feeling sad, continue in some form. But these afterlife studies leave one critical question unanswered: where do these beliefs come from? Researchers have long suspected that people develop ideas about the afterlife through cultural exposure, like television or movies, or through religious instruction. But perhaps, thought Emmons, these ideas of immortality actually emerge from our intuition. Just as children learn to talk without formal instruction, maybe they also intuit that part of their mind could exist apart from their body.

Emmons tackled this question by focusing on “prelife,” the period before conception, since few cultures have beliefs or views on the subject. “By focusing on prelife, we could see if culture causes these beliefs to appear, or if they appear spontaneously,” said Emmons.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Paul Bloom, a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale who was not involved with the study. “One persistent belief is that children learn these ideas through school or church. That’s what makes the prelife research so cool. It’s a very clever way to get at children’s beliefs on a topic where they aren’t given answers ahead of time.”

Emmons interviewed children from an indigenous Shuar village in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. She chose the group because they have no cultural prelife beliefs, and she suspected that indigenous children, who have regular exposure to birth and death through hunting and farming, would have a more rational, biologically-based view of the time before they were conceived. For comparison, she also interviewed children from an urban area near Quito, Ecuador. Most of the urban children were Roman Catholic, a religion that teaches that life begins only at conception. If cultural influences were paramount, reasoned Emmons, both urban and indigenous children should reject the idea of life before birth.

Emmons showed the children drawings of a baby, a young woman, and the same woman while pregnant, then asked a series of questions about the child’s abilities, thoughts and emotions during each period: as babies, in the womb, and before conception.

The results were surprising. Both groups gave remarkably similar answers, despite their radically different cultures. The children reasoned that their bodies didn’t exist before birth, and that they didn’t have the ability to think or remember. However, both groups also said that their emotions and desires existed before they were born. For example, while children generally reported that they didn’t have eyes and couldn’t see things before birth, they often reported being happy that they would soon meet their mother, or sad that they were apart from their family.

“They didn’t even realize they were contradicting themselves,” said Emmons. “Even kids who had biological knowledge about reproduction still seemed to think that they had existed in some sort of eternal form. And that form really seemed to be about emotions and desires.”uldn’t see things before birth, they often reported being happy that they would soon meet their mother, or sad that they were apart from their family.

“They didn’t even realize they were contradicting themselves,” said Emmons. “Even kids who had biological knowledge about reproduction still seemed to think that they had existed in some sort of eternal form. And that form really seemed to be about emotions and desires.”

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Typh0n

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I find the idea of personal immortality appealing.
 

Cellmold

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This is really interesting although not as surprising as people might think.

Humans are inherently irrational and emotional creatures, just to different degrees, it's only fitting that our emotions, (which serve as the stimulus to drive all of our pursuits), is also the cause of that attachment to existence and concepts of existence after death.
 

Flâneuse

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I read an excellent book a few years ago called "The 'God' Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God" by Matthew Alper. It's about the theory that we evolved to believe in God and personal immortality because it was advantageous to our survival to not be consumed by existential dread. One of my favorite things about it is that it's so objective, not abrasive and condescending like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens can be.

www.godpart.com/

From the website:
"I suggest that we evolved such an adaptation in order to help our species to cope with the otherwise debilitating anxiety that came with our unique awareness of inevitable death. Here lies the origin of humankind's spiritual function, an evolutionary adaptation—a coping mechanism—that compels our species to believe that though our physical bodies will one day perish, our "spirits" or "souls" will persist for all eternity."
 

cafe

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Consciousness just doesn't seem like it should be purely meat based.
 

Qre:us

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Not surprising. Confirmation, indeed.

As I said previously, in the thread about religious belief and spirituality:

The only universal contemplation older than the concept of "god" is around death and dying. Understanding the inevitable finality of death, of our existence, but not believing it, refusing to believe it. We sought immortality. Thus, god was born.

When we understood the abstract concept of time, seeing "ourselves into the future", and took it to its logical conclusion, we came upon the finality of death. Then, fear took hold. Our solution: god.
 

INTP

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Religions are so much more than just the idea of afterlife. Those ideas come from evolution and the connection that those ideas offer to our surroundings through our intuition(which has been really important back in the days). For example the idea of some demon who might appear from anywhere, but habits certain areas is a good way to keep your eyes open for lions or snakes and make the seemingly impossible possible. While if people would had been so concrete in their beliefs they might had made false assumptions about something that could had gotten them killed. Also religious ideas has binded people together in a clan. Belief for example(which some people still have) that eating your enemies brains will offer you the strength of that person, will increase belief in yourself and your own abilities and thus make you a better warrior. Strong belief that your witch doctor can heal you gives really strong placebo effect, which can be as powerful medication as todays scientific method with some illnesses. etc etc
 
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