Religion isn't all bad. Here's how we can learn from its rituals.
The fact that religion exists shows it has evolutionary benefits. Why not learn from them?
Religion got where it is today in society in part because its leaders have leveraged our societal fear through the idea of an afterlife. But at the same time, religion couldn't still exist if it didn't have evolutionary benefits of some kind.
As a science-minded person, I want to look everywhere for solid ideas on how to improve one’s life and the world more broadly. That means also considering what religion have to offer, with an emphasis on the rejection of supernatural claims made by those faiths.
One person who has investigated what religions could offer humans of all stripes is David DeSteno, a psychology professor at Northeastern University College of Science.
One thing highlighted by DeSteno, who says he focuses on understanding the science behind religious practices and how they can benefit our lives, is meditation.
“My lab has found, for example, that having people practice Buddhist meditation for a short time makes them kinder. After only eight weeks of study with a Buddhist lama, 50 percent of those who we randomly assigned to meditate daily spontaneously helped a stranger in pain. Only 16 percent of those who didn’t meditate did the same,” DeSteno wrote. “Compassion wasn’t limited to strangers, though; it also applied to enemies. Another study showed that after three weeks of meditation, most people refrained from seeking revenge on someone who insulted them, unlike most of those who did not meditate.”
DeSteno also argues that another element of many religious practices, gratitude, is likewise beneficial.
“Christians often say grace before a meal; Jews give thanks to God with the Modeh Ani prayer every day upon awakening. When we studied the act of giving thanks, even in a secular context, we found it made people more virtuous,” he wrote. “In a study where people could get more money by lying about the results of a coin flip, the majority (53 percent) cheated. But that figure dropped dramatically for people who we first asked to count their blessings. Of these, only 27 percent chose to lie. We’ve also found that when feeling gratitude to a person, to fate, or to God, people become more helpful, more generous, and even more patient.”
The benefits from religious rituals can even be linked to something as small as the way worshipers move.
“We see synchrony in almost every religion the world over: Buddhists and Hindus often chant together in prayer; Christians and Muslims regularly kneel and stand in unison during worship; Jews often sway, or shuckle, when reciting prayers together. These actions belie a deep purpose: creating connection,” DeSteno wrote before describing a study in which pairs of strangers sat across a table from one another, put on headphones, and then tapped a sensor on the table in front of them each time they heard a tone. “For some of these pairs, the sequence of tones matched, meaning they’d be tapping their hands in unison. For others, they were random, meaning hand movements wouldn’t be synchronized. Afterward, we created a situation where one member of each pair got stuck doing a long and difficult task. Not only did those who had been moving their hands in unison report feeling more connection with and compassion for their partner who was now toiling away, 50 percent of them decided to lend the partner a hand—a big increase over the 18 percent who decided to help without having just moved in sync.”
I don’t believe religions tell us the truth about where we came from or where we’re going, but it would be irresponsible to throw the baby out with the bathwater if there are valuable practices we can salvage from these traditions. And the success religions have had at spreading across humanity tells us that they’ve found ways to evolutionary benefit believers, so why ignore that?
Stay Reasonable!
David G. McAfee
