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Belief in God: Why People Believe, and Why They Don’t

Year 2022, Volume: 22 Issue: 2, 1009 - 1020, 30.12.2022

Translator: Osman Zahid Çifçi

https://doi.org/10.33420/marife.1152879

Abstract

Belief in a god or gods is a central feature in the lives of billions of people and a topic of perennial interest within psychology. However, research over the past half decade has achieved a new level of understanding regarding both the ultimate and proximate causes of belief in God. Ultimate causes—the evolutionary influences on a trait—shed light on the adaptive value of belief in God and the reasons why a tendency toward this belief exists in humans. Proximate causes—the immediate influences on the expression of a trait—explain variation and changes in belief. We review this research and discuss remaining barriers to a fuller understanding of belief in God.

Keywords

Belief God Evolution Religion

References

  • Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding. Origins of Religiousness: The Role of Natural Disasters . SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, 18 Şubat 2013. Social Science Research Network, papers.ssrn.com. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2221859
  • Bloom, Paul. “Religion Is Natural”. Developmental Science 10/1 (Ocak 2007), 147-151. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00577.x
  • Bluemke, Matthias vd. “Measuring Cross-Cultural Supernatural Beliefs with Self- and Peer-Reports”. PLOS ONE 11/10 (19 Ekim 2016), e0164291. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164291
  • Botero, Carlos A. vd. “The Ecology of Religious Beliefs”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111/47 (25 Kasım 2014), 16784. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408701111
  • Bréchon, Pierre. “Cross-National Comparisons of Individual Religiosity”. The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion . ed. J. A. Beckford. 463-489. London: SAGE, 2007.
  • Brenner, Philip S. “Identity Importance and the Overreporting of Religious Service Attendance: Multiple Imputation of Religious Attendance Using the American Time Use Study and the General Social Survey”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50/1 (2011), 103-115. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41307052
  • Cox, Daniel - Jones, Robert P. I Know What You Did Last Sunday: Measuring Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported Religious Behavior, Belief, and Identity. Washington: Public Religion Research Institute, 2014.
  • Epley, Nicholas vd. “Creating Social Connection Through Inferential Reproduction: Loneliness and Perceived Agency in Gadgets, Gods, and Greyhounds”. Psychological Science 19/2 (ubat 2008), 114-120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02056.x
  • Forstmann, Matthias - Burgmer, Pascal. “Adults Are Intuitive Mind-Body Dualists”. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General 144/1 (Şubat 2015), 222-235. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000045
  • Gervais, Will M. vd. “The Cultural Transmission of Faith Why Innate Intuitions Are Necessary, but Insufficient, to Explain Religious Belief”. Religion 41/3 (01 Eylül 2011), 389-410. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.604510
  • Gervais, Will M. vd. “Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists”. Nature Human Behaviour 1/8 (07 Ağustos 2017), 0151. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0151
  • Gervais, Will M. - Najle, Maxine B. “How Many Atheists Are There?” Social Psychological and Personality Science 9/1 (01 Ocak 2018), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617707015
  • Guthrie, Stewart Elliott. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion . Oxford University Press, 1995.
  • Hadaway, C. Kirk vd. “What the Polls Don’t Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance”. American Sociological Review 58/6 (1993), 741-752. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095948
  • Henrich, Joseph. “The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and Their Implications for Cultural Evolution”. Evolution and Human Behavior 30/4 (01 Temmuz 2009), 244-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
  • Höllinger, Franz - Eder, Anja. “Functional Equivalence and Validity of Religiousness Indicators in Cross-Cultural Comparative Surveys”. Methodological Innovations 9 (01 Ocak 2016), 2059799115622756. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799115622756
  • James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience\u202f: A Study In Human Nature . New York: Penguin Books, 1902.
  • Jong, Jonathan. “On Faith and the Fear of Fatality: A Review of Recent Research on Deities and Death”. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion 1/2 (20 Mart 2014), 193-214. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.v1i2.193
  • Kanazawa, Satoshi. “Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent”. Social Psychology Quarterly 73/1 (01 Mart 2010), 33-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272510361602
  • Kay, Aaron C. vd. “God and the Government: Testing a Compensatory Control Mechanism for the Support of External Systems”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95/1 (Temmuz 2008), 18-35. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.18
  • Kelemen, Deborah. “Are Children ‘Intuitive Theists ’?: Reasoning About Purpose and Design in Nature”. Psychological Science 15/5 (01 Mayıs 2004), 295-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00672.x
  • Lanman, Jonathan A. - Buhrmester, Michael D. “Religious actions speak louder than words: exposure to credibility-enhancing displays predicts theism”. Religion, Brain & Behavior 7/1 (02 Ocak 2017), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2015.1117011
  • Lynn, Richard John vd. “Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations”. Intelligence 37 (2009), 11-15.
  • Mayr, Ernst. “Cause and Effect in Biology”. Science 134/3489 (1961), 1501-1506. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1707986
  • Norenzayan, Ara vd. “Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God”. PloS One 7/5 (2012), e36880. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036880
  • Norenzayan, Ara vd. “The cultural evolution of prosocial religions”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39 (2016), e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
  • Norris, Pippa - Inglehart, Ronald. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791017
  • Pennycook, Gordon vd. “Atheists and Agnostics Are More Reflective than Religious Believers: Four Empirical Studies and a Meta-Analysis”. PloS One 11/4 (2016), e0153039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153039
  • Pew Research Center. Worldwide, Many See Belief in God as Essential to Morality. Pew Research Center, 13 Mart 2014.
  • Purzycki, B. G. vd. The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior . ed. null, 2009.
  • Roes, Frans L - Raymond, Michel. “Belief in moralizing gods”. Evolution and Human Behavior 24/2 (01 Mart 2003), 126-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4
  • Scott-Phillips, Thomas C. vd. “Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate–Proximate Distinction in the Human Behavioral Sciences”. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6/1 (01 Ocak 2011), 38-47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610393528
  • Sedikides, Constantine - Gebauer, Jochen E. “Religiosity as Self-Enhancement: A Meta-Analysis of the Relation between Socially Desirable Responding and Religiosity”. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 14/1 (Şubat 2010), 17-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309351002
  • Sherkat, D. E. “Religious Socialization: Sources of Influence and Influences of Agency”. Handbook of Sociology of Religion . ed. Michele Dillon. 151-163. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  • Smith, Tom"W. Beliefs"about"God"across"Time"and"Countries . NORC/University"of"Chicago, 2012. http://gss.norc.org/Documents/reports/cross-nationalreports/ Godissp.pdf
  • Vail, Kenneth E. vd. “Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38/10 (01 Ekim 2012), 1288-1300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212449361
  • Vromen, Jack. “Ultimate and proximate explanations of strong reciprocity”. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 39/3 (23 Ağustos 2017), 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-017-0151-4
  • Whitehead, Brenda R. - Bergeman, Cindy S. “Coping with Daily Stress: Differential Role of Spiritual Experience on Daily Positive and Negative Affect”. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 67/4 (Temmuz 2012), 456-459. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbr136
  • Willard, Aiyana K. - Cingl, Lubomír. “Testing theories of secularization and religious belief in the Czech Republic and Slovakia”. Evolution and Human Behavior 38/5 (01 Eylül 2017), 604-615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.01.002
  • Yilmaz, Onurcan - Bahçekapili, Hasan G. “Supernatural and secular monitors promote human cooperation only if they remind of punishment”. Evolution and Human Behavior 37/1 (2016), 79-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.09.005
  • Zuckerman, Miron vd. “The Relation between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations”. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 17/4 (Kasım 2013), 325-354. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313497266
  • Zuckerman, Phil. “Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns”. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism . ed. Michael Martin . 47-66. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521842700.004

Tanrı İnancı: İnsanlar Neden İnanır Neden İnanmaz?

Year 2022, Volume: 22 Issue: 2, 1009 - 1020, 30.12.2022

Translator: Osman Zahid Çifçi

https://doi.org/10.33420/marife.1152879

Abstract

Bir tanrıya veya tanrılara duyulan inanç, milyarlarca insan yaşamının temel bir bileşeni ve psikolojinin sürekli ilgilendiği bir konudur. Bununla birlikte son beş yıl içinde yapılan araştırmalar, Tanrı inancının hem uzak hem de yakın nedenleri hakkında yeni bir anlayış ortaya koyacak seviyeye ulaşmıştır. Bir özellik üzerindeki evrimsel etkiler olarak tanımlanan uzak nedenler, Tanrı inancının uyum değerine ve insanlarda bu inanca yönelik bir eğilim olmasının nedenlerine ışık tutar. Bir özelliğin ifadesi üzerindeki doğrudan etkiler olarak tanımlanan yakın nedenler ise inançtaki çeşitliliği ve değişiklikleri açıklar. Çalışmada, bu araştırmayı ele alıyor ve Tanrı inancının tam olarak anlaşılmasının önündeki engelleri tartışıyoruz.

Keywords

İnanç Tanrı Evrim Din

References

  • Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding. Origins of Religiousness: The Role of Natural Disasters . SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, 18 Şubat 2013. Social Science Research Network, papers.ssrn.com. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2221859
  • Bloom, Paul. “Religion Is Natural”. Developmental Science 10/1 (Ocak 2007), 147-151. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00577.x
  • Bluemke, Matthias vd. “Measuring Cross-Cultural Supernatural Beliefs with Self- and Peer-Reports”. PLOS ONE 11/10 (19 Ekim 2016), e0164291. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164291
  • Botero, Carlos A. vd. “The Ecology of Religious Beliefs”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111/47 (25 Kasım 2014), 16784. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408701111
  • Bréchon, Pierre. “Cross-National Comparisons of Individual Religiosity”. The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion . ed. J. A. Beckford. 463-489. London: SAGE, 2007.
  • Brenner, Philip S. “Identity Importance and the Overreporting of Religious Service Attendance: Multiple Imputation of Religious Attendance Using the American Time Use Study and the General Social Survey”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50/1 (2011), 103-115. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41307052
  • Cox, Daniel - Jones, Robert P. I Know What You Did Last Sunday: Measuring Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported Religious Behavior, Belief, and Identity. Washington: Public Religion Research Institute, 2014.
  • Epley, Nicholas vd. “Creating Social Connection Through Inferential Reproduction: Loneliness and Perceived Agency in Gadgets, Gods, and Greyhounds”. Psychological Science 19/2 (ubat 2008), 114-120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02056.x
  • Forstmann, Matthias - Burgmer, Pascal. “Adults Are Intuitive Mind-Body Dualists”. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General 144/1 (Şubat 2015), 222-235. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000045
  • Gervais, Will M. vd. “The Cultural Transmission of Faith Why Innate Intuitions Are Necessary, but Insufficient, to Explain Religious Belief”. Religion 41/3 (01 Eylül 2011), 389-410. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.604510
  • Gervais, Will M. vd. “Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists”. Nature Human Behaviour 1/8 (07 Ağustos 2017), 0151. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0151
  • Gervais, Will M. - Najle, Maxine B. “How Many Atheists Are There?” Social Psychological and Personality Science 9/1 (01 Ocak 2018), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617707015
  • Guthrie, Stewart Elliott. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion . Oxford University Press, 1995.
  • Hadaway, C. Kirk vd. “What the Polls Don’t Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance”. American Sociological Review 58/6 (1993), 741-752. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095948
  • Henrich, Joseph. “The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and Their Implications for Cultural Evolution”. Evolution and Human Behavior 30/4 (01 Temmuz 2009), 244-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
  • Höllinger, Franz - Eder, Anja. “Functional Equivalence and Validity of Religiousness Indicators in Cross-Cultural Comparative Surveys”. Methodological Innovations 9 (01 Ocak 2016), 2059799115622756. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799115622756
  • James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience\u202f: A Study In Human Nature . New York: Penguin Books, 1902.
  • Jong, Jonathan. “On Faith and the Fear of Fatality: A Review of Recent Research on Deities and Death”. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion 1/2 (20 Mart 2014), 193-214. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.v1i2.193
  • Kanazawa, Satoshi. “Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent”. Social Psychology Quarterly 73/1 (01 Mart 2010), 33-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272510361602
  • Kay, Aaron C. vd. “God and the Government: Testing a Compensatory Control Mechanism for the Support of External Systems”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95/1 (Temmuz 2008), 18-35. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.18
  • Kelemen, Deborah. “Are Children ‘Intuitive Theists ’?: Reasoning About Purpose and Design in Nature”. Psychological Science 15/5 (01 Mayıs 2004), 295-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00672.x
  • Lanman, Jonathan A. - Buhrmester, Michael D. “Religious actions speak louder than words: exposure to credibility-enhancing displays predicts theism”. Religion, Brain & Behavior 7/1 (02 Ocak 2017), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2015.1117011
  • Lynn, Richard John vd. “Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations”. Intelligence 37 (2009), 11-15.
  • Mayr, Ernst. “Cause and Effect in Biology”. Science 134/3489 (1961), 1501-1506. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1707986
  • Norenzayan, Ara vd. “Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God”. PloS One 7/5 (2012), e36880. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036880
  • Norenzayan, Ara vd. “The cultural evolution of prosocial religions”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39 (2016), e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
  • Norris, Pippa - Inglehart, Ronald. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791017
  • Pennycook, Gordon vd. “Atheists and Agnostics Are More Reflective than Religious Believers: Four Empirical Studies and a Meta-Analysis”. PloS One 11/4 (2016), e0153039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153039
  • Pew Research Center. Worldwide, Many See Belief in God as Essential to Morality. Pew Research Center, 13 Mart 2014.
  • Purzycki, B. G. vd. The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior . ed. null, 2009.
  • Roes, Frans L - Raymond, Michel. “Belief in moralizing gods”. Evolution and Human Behavior 24/2 (01 Mart 2003), 126-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4
  • Scott-Phillips, Thomas C. vd. “Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate–Proximate Distinction in the Human Behavioral Sciences”. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6/1 (01 Ocak 2011), 38-47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610393528
  • Sedikides, Constantine - Gebauer, Jochen E. “Religiosity as Self-Enhancement: A Meta-Analysis of the Relation between Socially Desirable Responding and Religiosity”. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 14/1 (Şubat 2010), 17-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309351002
  • Sherkat, D. E. “Religious Socialization: Sources of Influence and Influences of Agency”. Handbook of Sociology of Religion . ed. Michele Dillon. 151-163. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  • Smith, Tom"W. Beliefs"about"God"across"Time"and"Countries . NORC/University"of"Chicago, 2012. http://gss.norc.org/Documents/reports/cross-nationalreports/ Godissp.pdf
  • Vail, Kenneth E. vd. “Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38/10 (01 Ekim 2012), 1288-1300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212449361
  • Vromen, Jack. “Ultimate and proximate explanations of strong reciprocity”. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 39/3 (23 Ağustos 2017), 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-017-0151-4
  • Whitehead, Brenda R. - Bergeman, Cindy S. “Coping with Daily Stress: Differential Role of Spiritual Experience on Daily Positive and Negative Affect”. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 67/4 (Temmuz 2012), 456-459. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbr136
  • Willard, Aiyana K. - Cingl, Lubomír. “Testing theories of secularization and religious belief in the Czech Republic and Slovakia”. Evolution and Human Behavior 38/5 (01 Eylül 2017), 604-615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.01.002
  • Yilmaz, Onurcan - Bahçekapili, Hasan G. “Supernatural and secular monitors promote human cooperation only if they remind of punishment”. Evolution and Human Behavior 37/1 (2016), 79-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.09.005
  • Zuckerman, Miron vd. “The Relation between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations”. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 17/4 (Kasım 2013), 325-354. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313497266
  • Zuckerman, Phil. “Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns”. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism . ed. Michael Martin . 47-66. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521842700.004
There are 42 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language Turkish
Subjects Religious Studies
Journal Section Translation
Translators

Osman Zahid Çifçi

Publication Date December 30, 2022
Acceptance Date November 1, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022Volume: 22 Issue: 2

Cite

ISNAD , trans.Çifçi, Osman Zahid. “Tanrı İnancı: İnsanlar Neden İnanır Neden İnanmaz?”. Marife Dini Araştırmalar Dergisi 22/2 (December 2022), 1009-1020. https://doi.org/10.33420/marife.1152879.
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