John Lennon was a dreamer. But he was not the only one.
In his famous song, Imagine, Lennon was not alone in being convinced institutional religions – and nations – are the key causes of war and impediments to universal peace.
But was Lennon’s refrain accurate? Evolutionary psychologists, including at the University of B.C., have probed just these questions through innovative experiments with subjects from Canada to Africa, Europe to South Asia.
They are concluding Lennon may have been half right – that humans can build fair and peaceful societies in which there is “no religion,” or at least in which spirituality shifts to a more private realm.
But UBC’s Ara Norenzayan and a team of researchers are finding the path to peace and cooperation definitely does not lie in imagining “there’s no countries.” Instead, they place high value on stable national governments that citizens can actually trust.
In his new book, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Princeton University Press), Norenzayan describes how Western Europe and Scandinavia have created strong and fair societies – in which the vast majority are not actively involved in religion.
As an evolutionary psychologist, Norenzayan believes most Scandinavians and Western Europeans, and to a lesser extent Canadians, have shifted out of their historical faith in powerful, interventionist “Big Gods” to a newer reliance on judges, police and public bodies.
Indeed, Norenzayan maintains organized religion remains most powerful in weak and fear-filled countries, such as Pakistan and the “failed states” of Africa.
In societies of old, Norenzayan writes in Big Gods, religion served as the key “social glue” that bound people together, often in a clannish way. It’s the role religion continues to play in Norenzayan’s troubled native country of Lebanon.
But now, in well-functioning secular countries, Norenzayan says the ties formed by religion are being replaced by public institutions that encourage collaboration and provide social services.
“It turns out that some of the most cooperative, trusting and well-to-do societies on earth, such as those in Western Europe and Scandinavia, are also the least religious in the world and the most reliant on government,” says Norenzayan.
Norenzayan is not alone in this theory. In Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge University Press), Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart also conclude religiosity declines when people feel “existentially secure,” with access to unemployment insurance, retirement support and universal medical care.
“Cross-cultural comparisons show that societies with more economic equality – that is, with a more egalitarian redistribution of wealth – are less religious, even after a host of other economic and demographic factors, such as gross domestic product, are accounted for,” Norenzayan says.
“Religion, essentially, is a Third World phenomenon.”
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/04/26/religion-declines-in-well-run-trusting-societies/
In his famous song, Imagine, Lennon was not alone in being convinced institutional religions – and nations – are the key causes of war and impediments to universal peace.
But was Lennon’s refrain accurate? Evolutionary psychologists, including at the University of B.C., have probed just these questions through innovative experiments with subjects from Canada to Africa, Europe to South Asia.
They are concluding Lennon may have been half right – that humans can build fair and peaceful societies in which there is “no religion,” or at least in which spirituality shifts to a more private realm.
But UBC’s Ara Norenzayan and a team of researchers are finding the path to peace and cooperation definitely does not lie in imagining “there’s no countries.” Instead, they place high value on stable national governments that citizens can actually trust.
In his new book, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Princeton University Press), Norenzayan describes how Western Europe and Scandinavia have created strong and fair societies – in which the vast majority are not actively involved in religion.
As an evolutionary psychologist, Norenzayan believes most Scandinavians and Western Europeans, and to a lesser extent Canadians, have shifted out of their historical faith in powerful, interventionist “Big Gods” to a newer reliance on judges, police and public bodies.
Indeed, Norenzayan maintains organized religion remains most powerful in weak and fear-filled countries, such as Pakistan and the “failed states” of Africa.
In societies of old, Norenzayan writes in Big Gods, religion served as the key “social glue” that bound people together, often in a clannish way. It’s the role religion continues to play in Norenzayan’s troubled native country of Lebanon.
But now, in well-functioning secular countries, Norenzayan says the ties formed by religion are being replaced by public institutions that encourage collaboration and provide social services.
“It turns out that some of the most cooperative, trusting and well-to-do societies on earth, such as those in Western Europe and Scandinavia, are also the least religious in the world and the most reliant on government,” says Norenzayan.
Norenzayan is not alone in this theory. In Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge University Press), Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart also conclude religiosity declines when people feel “existentially secure,” with access to unemployment insurance, retirement support and universal medical care.
“Cross-cultural comparisons show that societies with more economic equality – that is, with a more egalitarian redistribution of wealth – are less religious, even after a host of other economic and demographic factors, such as gross domestic product, are accounted for,” Norenzayan says.
“Religion, essentially, is a Third World phenomenon.”
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/04/26/religion-declines-in-well-run-trusting-societies/
