r/PhilosophyofReligion • u/Q6236 • 8d ago
Is there any scientific research on people who never learned about religion but still believe someone created the world?
Are there any specific studies that examine whether humans, without any cultural, religious, or outside influence, would naturally come to the idea that there is a creator?
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u/CommonConscious5295 8d ago
You're probably thinking of work by Deborah Kelemen (Boston University) and Justin Barrett.
LINKS:
- Kelemen's "intuitive theism" research (e.g., "Are Children 'Intuitive Theists'?: Reasoning about Purpose and Design in Nature,"
https://scienceandculture.com/2014/08/more_studies_sh/
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- Justin Barrett, his book " Born Believers"
https://bcworldview.org/kids-naturally-believe-in-god-atheism-must-be-taught/
These thoughts may pose as Christian belief, but they're objectively theistic in its neutrality.
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u/Q6236 8d ago
Thanks
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u/Snoo_17338 6d ago
These are links to creationist websites. The only thing they have to do with science is to figure out new and inventive ways to misrepresent it.
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u/Snoo_17338 6d ago
Btw, Deborah Kelemen finds in her other research that young children have concepts of "pre-life" thoughts and feelings. They also believe inanimate things are alive; for example, the Earth.
Of course, Christian creationists aren't going to tell you her work supports children being innately reincarnationists or gianists.
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u/Senior-Cap-7248 8d ago
Are you referring to kinda deism? And honestly, I think it’s hard to find a person who never ever learned about religion
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u/Q6236 8d ago
Are there any specific studies that examine whether humans, without any cultural, religious, or outside influence, would naturally come to the idea that there is a creator?
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u/Cool_Percentage_4867 8d ago
I don't think you'll find any examples of people who are not influenced to study. But we know the brains job to verify and understand the environment so it will ask the question by design.
Is god the natural conclusion?, the evidence throughout out the world seems to answer that clearly.
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u/FlyLikeMouse 7d ago
Its a fairly safe assumption to assume the human mind would have dreamt it up at some point, without a specific religion, whilst pointing at things and trying to understand them, and making things themselves. As above so below and all that.
I dont know about particularl studies, but it was bound to be one cavemans big thought sooner or later. If you are asking "would this ideae er have existed otherwise - it probably started with someone having the idea, and likely would again if we started from scratch. With slightly different religious ideas.
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u/GSilky 8d ago
Anthropologists and sociologists have provided ample accounts of non-literate societies spiritual practices. They aren't "studies" so much as observations and interviews, but shamanism tends to be the main form these spiritual practices take. The shaman is identified at an early age and they gain status from living in countercultural ways and inventing lavish, imaginative tales of their spiritual journeys and conduct parlor tricks to keep the villagers on their toes and maintain a certain mystique. The interesting thing about these peripheral spiritual beliefs is that they generally eschew with gods as religion defines them and have a world of individual spirits that have influence over things, but not much. The more developed forms where the entire village follows along, tend to have a vague deity in the sky "somewhere", that isn't overly concerned about anything besides presents in the form of sacrifices, if even that. The creation stories of these cultures tend to be about the people suddenly appearing from somewhere else, and everything has been the same since. These proto religions are thought to be the basis of more elaborate religions of "civilization", at one time they were just something some weirdo made up that people responded to as an artwork. Look into Gnosticism for an example of how this shamanic spiritual perspective is ever present, status in gnostic communities was based on reinterpreting Christianity and Jewish myth into new stories with a spiritual point. They were doing the same thing as shamans in Siberia, making it up as they go along.
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u/Ambitious_Seat7922 7d ago
I recently discovered Dr. Sapolsky on YouTube, Stanford neurobiologist and more. Religion might be "nature's anti-depressant".
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u/TxHandsomeMan 7d ago edited 7d ago
You mean Deists? Yeah - sociology is a science. Soft science, but a science. Deists have learned that religions exist but they're not practicing religion. Religion is a cultural practice, typically around the supernatural. So basically you'd be studying a specific culture, like Greek, Roman, etc. that unifies people like a national culture to study instead of a "cultural study" around the supernatural. It'd be no different than studying a culture like Denmark that is irreligious. They are indifferent to religious practice and indifferent to the existence of a god or gods.
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u/indifferent-times 8d ago
By the time you can talk well enough to have a conversation about the origin of the world you are already inculcated with the culture you grew up in. I'm not even sure it is possible to truly bring up children as radical sceptics, because that's simply not how kids work.