![]() That basic equipment includes a memory system that appears to be exceptionally good at remembering the kinds of stories found in many religious texts. “What we’re showing is that our basic cognitive equipment biases us toward certain kinds of thinking and leads to thinking about a pre-life, an afterlife, gods, invisible beings that are doing things - themes common to most of the world’s religions,” says Barrett. In his work, he finds that children as young as age 3 naturally attribute supernatural abilities and immortality to “God,” even if they’ve never been taught about God, and they tell elaborate stories about their lives before they were born, what Barrett calls “pre-life.” People also have a bias for believing in the supernatural, says Barrett. This finding suggests that people are primed to see signs and patterns in the world around them, the researchers conclude. 5898) by Jennifer Whitson, PhD, and Adam Galinsky, PhD, found that people were more likely to see patterns in a random display of dots if the researchers first primed them to feel that the participants had no control. If you ask children why a group of rocks are pointy, for example, they say something like, “It’s so that animals won’t sit on them and break them.” If you ask them why rivers exist, they say it’s so we can go fishing.Īdults also tend to search for meaning, particularly during times of uncertainty, research suggests. Young children, for example, tend to believe that even trivial aspects of the natural world were created with purpose, according to a series of studies by Boston University psychologist Deborah Keleman, PhD. “It’s really your basic, garden-variety cognitions that provide the impetus for religious beliefs,” he says.Ī common thread to those cognitions is that they lead us to see the world as a place with an intentional design, created by someone or something. There’s no one cognitive tendency that undergirds all our religious beliefs, says Barrett. “If we’re on the right track with this byproduct idea - and the findings are really getting strong - it’s hard to then build the case that religion is a pathology,” says psychologist Justin Barrett, PhD, director of the cognition, religion and theology project in the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University. Religion has survived, they surmise, because it helped us form increasingly larger social groups, held together by common beliefs. They’re finding that religion may, in fact, be a byproduct of the way our brains work, growing from cognitive tendencies to seek order from chaos, to anthropomorphize our environment and to believe the world around us was created for our use. Researchers who study the psychology and neuroscience of religion are helping to explain why such beliefs are so enduring. It exists in every culture, with more than 85 percent of the world’s population embracing some sort of religious belief. Religion has survived and thrived for more than 100,000 years. Of course, psychologists’ doubts - and those of countless others throughout history - haven’t curtailed religion’s powerful hold on humans. What I learned is sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.Harking back to Sigmund Freud, some psychologists have characterized religious beliefs as pathological, seeing religion as a malignant social force that encourages irrational thoughts and ritualistic behaviors. I figured it was best to listen to the guys who knew better. “I guess that's because the record company didn't believe in the song. "At first, I didn't think much of ‘Maggie May," Stewart told The Wall Street Journal in 2015. Radio, however, started to favor playing “Maggie May,” and before long, it not only topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic but, indeed, transformed Stewart – then still best known as the frontman for the Faces – onto a superstar in his own right. ![]() If you’re wondering why we’ve referenced both “Maggie May” and “Reason to Believe,” the Tim Hardin cover that Stewart recorded, well, that’s because – believe it or not – it was actually the latter song that was the A-side of this single. Written by Stewart, the song was – per a 2007 interview with its composer in Q Magazine –“more or less a true story about the first woman I had sex with, at the 1961 Beaulieu Jazz Festival.” No, he clarified, her name was not Maggie May: he admitted to swiping that name / title from an old Liverpudlian song about a prostitute, which can’t exactly be a great point of reference to discover if you’re the actual inspiration for the song. Aye, it was a pretty good few weeks for “Maggie May,” and it wasn’t half bad for Rod Stewart, either! 46 years ago this month, Rod Stewart began a five-week reign atop the Billboard Hot 100…and a week later he kicked off a five-week reign atop the UK Singles chart with the same song.
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