Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study
Humans are naturally predisposed to believe in gods and life after death, according to a major three-year international study.
By Tim Ross, Religious Affairs Editor8:17PM BST 12 May 2011
Led by two academics at Oxford University, the £1.9 million study found that human thought processes were “rooted” to religious concepts. But people living in cities in highly developed countries were less likely to hold religious beliefs than those living a more rural way of life, the researchers found.
The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. It set out to establish whether belief in divine beings and an afterlife were ideas simply learned from society or integral to human nature.
One of the studies, from Oxford, concluded that children below the age of five found it easier to believe in some “superhuman” properties than to understand human limitations. Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a closed box. Three-year-olds believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers were not omniscient.
Separate research from China suggested that people across different cultures instinctively believed that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lived on after death. The co-director of the project, Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford, said the research showed that religion was “not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”
A publicity drive has started for the census, now just five weeks away, but the survey is being criticised for its question on religion. So is it even possible to accurately measure how religious the UK is?
According to the Gospel of Luke, it was a Roman census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where she gave birth to Jesus Christ And more than 2,000 years later, the same kind of counting exercise is being used to gauge the religious make-up of the UK.
According to the last census 10 years ago, more than two-thirds of people in Britain regarded themselves as Christian - 72% in England and Wales, and 65% in Scotland. More than 1.5 million in England and Wales, more than 3% of the population, said they were Muslim and nearly eight million ticked "no religion". There were also 390,000 self-proclaimed Jedi.
Is it a leading question?
"It fairly allows you to answer it because you can say 'no religion' but if you wanted to make it as neutral as possible, you might ask 'Which of these would you describe yourself as?' says Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov. "It does have a slight assumption, although not a strong one, but these wordings do make a difference."
But five weeks before the next census day, Sunday 27 March, some groups are questioning whether the religious numbers are at all accurate, and could ever be. They prefer to use the British Social Attitudes survey, carried out annually by the National Centre for Social Research, which paints a picture of a less-religious country, with 51% describing themselves as non-religious and 43% as Christian.
The religious question in the census was first introduced in 2001, as a voluntary option. In some other countries such as France, state questions about race, ethnicity or religion are not permitted. But in the UK, the vast majority of people answered it despite not having to, although the reappearance of the same question in the forthcoming census has prompted complaints. Question 20 in England and Wales will say: "What is your religion?" In Scotland, question 13 will ask: "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?"
The British Humanist Association (BHA) believes they are leading questions that actively encourage people to tick a religious answer, thereby inflating the numbers, especially among Christians because many people hold a weak affiliation. The BHA begins a poster campaign next week on buses and at railway stations that urges people who are non-religious to "for God's sake, say so".
If you were baptised but had not been to church since then, you might be inclined to say you were still Christian, says Naomi Phillips, the head of public affairs at the BHA. She says the actual number of secular people is probably double the number the census recorded. "Many people tick Christian but wouldn't consider themselves to be religious if you asked them otherwise. And this is used to justify maintaining faith schools and used by local authorities to make their planning decisions to allocate resources to public services. "It means more budgets go to Christian groups and the needs of non-religious groups are not taken into account."
Ms Phillips says it would be preferable not to have the question, because it's hard to get an accurate picture. "It's very difficult to measure. There are so many different things to measure - by belief, practice, whether you believe in God, whether you attend places of worship, whether you pray." The census question pre-supposes you have a religion, she says, and a two-part question like they have in Northern Ireland would be fairer, which differentiates between your faith at birth and your faith now.
The humanists are not alone in wanting the question changed. The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality (F4HS) wants it easier for those people who have a spiritual but non-religious tendency to answer the question.
More than half of Britons believe in life after death and two in five believe in angels. Some 53 per cent believe in psychic powers and the possibility of life after death, a survey reveals. One in five say they have seen a ghost or felt the presence of a spirit while two in five believe in ‘guardian angels’.
Many people believe they have seen the ghost or felt the spirit of a close friend or relative who has passed away. Two in five say they want to speak to dead relatives and one in five has visited a medium or psychic to help them do so – spending an average of £31 per visit.
Almost two in five adults believe someone in their family is gifted with psychic ability. A third of the nation describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ but only a quarter claim to be ‘religious’, according to the study carried out for the Clint Eastwood film Hereafter.
However, a third of the nation still believes in heaven and a fifth believes they will be reincarnated when they pass away. One in five British adults would also love to have a conversation with the former Princess of Wales. Albert Einstein came second in the online poll of 3,000 adults, followed by Marilyn Monroe and Freddie Mercury. Seven per cent of us want to chat to Adolf Hitler.
Penny Sartori, an expert on near-death experiences and author of the study, said people are now less worried about being ridiculed for believing in spirits. But one in five of us would still be too embarrassed to admit we had seen or felt the presence of a ghost.
Witches and fortune tellers join driving instructors in having to declare tax
Everyone curses the taxman but Romanian witches furious about having to pay up for the first time have used cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government.
Also among Romania's newest taxpayers are fortune tellers - but they probably should have seen it coming.
Superstitions are no laughing matter in Romania - the land of the medieval ruler who inspired the Dracula tale - and have been part of its culture for centuries. Romanian witches from the east and west headed to the southern plains and the Danube River yesterday to threaten the government with spells and spirits because of the tax law, which came into effect on January 1.
A dozen witches hurled the poisonous mandrake plant into the Danube to put a hex on government officials 'so evil will befall them', said a witch named Alisia. 'This law is foolish. What is there to tax, when we hardly earn anything?' she said. 'The lawmakers don't look at themselves, at how much they make, their tricks; they steal and they come to us asking us to put spells on their enemies.'
The new law is part of the government's drive to collect more revenue and crack down on tax evasion in a country in recession. In the past, the less mainstream professions of witch, astrologer and fortune teller were not listed in the Romanian labour code, as were those of embalmer, valet and driving instructor and they used their lack of registration to evade paying income tax.
But under the new law, like any self-employed person, they will pay 16 per cent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programmes. Some argue the law will be hard to enforce, as the payments to witches and astrologers usually are made in cash and relatively small at £4.50-£6.50 a consultation.
Mircea Geoana, who lost the presidential race to Mr Basescu in 2009, performed poorly during a crucial debate and his camp blamed attacks of negative energy by their opponent's aides. Geoana aide Viorel Hrebenciuc claimed there was a 'violet flame' conspiracy during the campaign, saying Mr Basescu and other aides dressed in purple on Thursdays to increase his chance of victory. They continue to be seen wearing purple clothing on important days, because the colour supposedly makes the wearer superior and wards off evil.
When he lived in Japan, Luke Higuchi said he was drugged by his family 21 years ago and later woke up in a mental hospital — all because of his faith. He shared this story on campus Saturday.
“If I acted crazy, I would stay longer, so I had to give up my faith and tell my parents that I would be a good boy at home,” he recalled.
Higuchi, founder and president of Survivors Against Forced Exit (SAFE), is one of an estimated 4,300 victims of religious persecution directed at members of the Unification Church in Japan. He told his story to students at the Human Rights and Religious Freedom conference hosted by the UW chapter of the National Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) on Saturday.
“Being aware is the first responsibility of this issue,” UWCARP president Kayeon Amaral said. “When groups are silent and issues are shut in the dark, that allows the biggest tragedy to take place.”
Amaral first became interested in raising awareness about Japanese persecution after listening to a speech Higuchi gave this past summer in New York. She worked with Chun-Mi Araki, executive secretary of the Washington chapter of the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), to organize funding for an on-campus event.
“When we heard that [Amaral and Araki] wanted to stand up for the Japanese human rights, we knew we wanted to support them right away,” said Friederike Buczyk, chair of the Washington chapter of WFWP. “Our theme this year is ‘Stand Up for Human Rights and the Dignity of Women,’ so it fit directly with this event.”
While in Washington, D.C., a few months ago, Amaral and Araki also met with Raymond Mas, deputy director of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, who shared an interest in bringing awareness of the issue to the UW. With financial support from WFWP, Amaral and Araki were able to work together to bring Higuchi and Mas to this event.
Speakers at the CARP event said that the abuse, starvation and forceful conversion faced by members of the Unification Church in Japan stemmed from familial pressure. When believers announce their faith to their families, the family then contacts ministers of other religions to “deprogram” its son or daughter and force him or her to abandon allegiance to the church, the speakers explained. They said that often the family sends its son or daughter to a mental hospital or locks him or her in a completely sealed-off apartment, with no access to the outside world and bars on the windows.
“The bars are not to keep someone from the outside [out]. They’re there to keep someone inside,” Mas said in his introductory remarks at the conference.
Families pay a large sum of money to ministers for providing this “deprogramming” service. Higuchi estimated that his parents paid his minister more than $100,000.
Persecution of members of the Unification Church began in 1966, and is allowed to continue in large part because Japanese police and civil courts are hesitant to intervene in what they regard as a family matter, according to presentations and speeches at the event.
At the event, Mas and Friederike encouraged UW students to write to their congressmen to bring attention to the issue and prompt a hearing. Mas and Higuchi are also circulating a petition to raise awareness among representatives, and Higuchi asked students to make their voices heard via social networking sites such as Facebook.
“This is not just a church-related religious issue. It’s a human rights issue,” said freshman Leon Granstrom, vice president of UWCARP. “Revolutions always start with young people, and UW can stop this issue by spreading awareness about it.”
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. [1] It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, [1] or rumors and urban legends that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes. [2]
Thomas Ady's A candle in the dark ... (1656) contains the earliest mention of hocus pocus, the origin of the word hoax. [3]
The British philologistRobert Nares (1753-1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb , which means "to cheat", [4] "to impose upon" [4] or "to befuddle often with drugged liquor". [5]Hocus is a shortening of the magicincantationhocus pocus, [5] which in turn is a contraction of the phrase Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, mentioned in Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. [3] According to the book, the Latin-like gibberish phrase was uttered by a conjuror to distract his audience from his sleight of hand. [3]
The term hoax is occasionally used in reference to urban legends and rumors, but the folkloristJan Harold Brunvand argues that most of them lack evidence of deliberate creations of falsehood and are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes, so the term should be used for only those with a probable conscious attempt to deceive. [2] As for the closely related terms practical joke and prank, Brunvand states that although there are instances they overlap, hoax tends to indicate "relatively complex and large-scale fabrications" and includes deceptions that go beyond the merely playful and "cause material loss or harm to the victim". [6]
According to Professor Lynda Walsh of the University of Nevada, Reno, some hoaxes—such as the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, labeled as a hoax by contemporary commentators—are financial in nature, and successful hoaxers—such as P. T. Barnum, whose Fiji mermaid contributed to his wealth—often acquire monetary gain or fame through their fabrications, so the distinction between hoax and fraud is not necessarily clear. [7] Alex Boese, the creator of the Museum of Hoaxes, states that the only distinction between them is the reaction of the public, because a fraud can be classified as a hoax when its method of acquiring financial gain creates a broad public impact or captures the imagination of the masses. [8]
One of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708. [9] Swift predicted the death of John Partridge, one of the leading astrologers in England at that time, in the almanac and later issued an elegy on the day Partridge was supposed to have died. Partridge's reputation was damaged as a result and his astrological almanac was not published for the next six years. [9]
It is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context, such as in the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections.
A hoax differs from a magic trick or from fiction (books, movies, theatre, radio, television, etc.) in that the audience is unaware of being deceived, whereas in watching a magician perform an illusion the audience expects to be tricked.
A hoax is often intended as a practical joke or to cause embarrassment, or to provoke social or political change by raising people's awareness of something.
A borderline case between fiction and hoax is a 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles describing a Martian invasion of earth. Many people who tuned in without hearing the introduction of the program as fiction were concerned that the invasion was real. It has been suggested that Welles knew the schedule of a popular program on another channel, and scheduled the first report of the invasion to coincide with a commercial break in the other program so that people switching channel would be tricked.
Governments sometimes spread false information to assist them with aims such as going to war; examples are the Ems telegram and the "dodgy (Iraq) dossier"; these often come under the heading of black propaganda. There is often a mixture of outright hoax and suppression and management of information to give the desired impression. In wartime and times of international tension rumours abound, some of which may be deliberate hoaxes.
Examples of politics related hoaxes:
Belgium is a country with a Flemish- and a French-speaking region. In 2006 French-speaking television channel RTBF interrupted programming with a spoof report claiming that the country had split in two and the royal family had fled.
Hoaxes vary widely in their processes of creation, propagation, and entrenchment over time. These possess frequently one or more of the following:
Hoaxes perpetrated on occasions when their initiation is considered socially appropriate, such as April Fools' Day
Apocryphal claims that originate as a hoax, gain widespread belief among members of a culture or organization, become entrenched as persons who believe it repeat it in good faith to others, and continue to command that belief after the hoax's originators have died or departed
Hoaxes that are not affirmatively propagated but rather indirectly "invited," as when persons fabricate evidence consistent with a false claim but do not advocate that claim as a conclusion, instead hoping that observers desiring to draw their own conclusions will reach an erroneous one and spread it in the belief that it is true, such as the use of disinformation in war and counterintelligence
Hoaxes formed by making minor or gradually increasing changes to a warning or other claim widely circulated for legitimate purposes
Hoaxes perpetrated by "scare tactics" appealing to the audience's subjectively rational belief that the expected cost of not believing the hoax (the cost if its assertions are true times the likelihood of their truth) outweighs the expected cost of believing the hoax (cost if false times likelihood of falsity), such as claims that a non-malicious but unfamiliar program on one's computer is malware
Some urban legends and rumors with a probable conscious attempt to deceive [2]
Computer virus hoaxes became widespread as viruses themselves began to spread. A typical hoax is an email message warning recipients of a non-existent threat, usually quoting spurious authorities such as Microsoft and IBM. In most cases the payload is an exhortation to distribute the message to everyone in the recipient's address book. Sometimes the hoax is more harmful, e.g., telling the recipient to seek a particular file (usually in a Microsoft Windowsoperating system); if the file is found, the computer is deemed to be infected unless it is deleted. In reality the file is one required by the operating system for correct functioning of the computer.
A hoax of exposure is a semi-comical or private sting operation. They usually encourage people to act foolishly or credulously by falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. A related activity is culture jamming.
The essential characteristic of a hoax is that it convey information that is, although false, at least somewhat credible. The subjective intent of hoax perpetrators varies, with the intent determining the content the perpetrator chooses and/or the content affecting the perpetrator's intent regarding whom to deceive: A person seeking to deceive the public as a whole may propagate a hoax consisting entirely of objectively credible claims, often bolstering it by including claims that are true or have a basis in fact. A person seeking to deceive only a specific person or set of persons (as by means of a practical joke) will likely select a premise that is subjectively plausible in the eyes of the victim(s), treating whether others will fall for the hoax as a secondary concern. Treated as such, the hoax's objective or intersubjective plausibility or implausibility can cut both ways: On one hand, a person may construct a hoax out of only credible information in order to prevent sympathetic outsiders from "catching on" and informing the victim in advance; on the other, he or she may include implausible information in order to heighten the victim's eventual embarrassment at having "fallen for" the hoax (along with the enjoyment observers feel when watching the victim being deceived).
Some sets of claims popularly labeled hoaxes are better categorized as allegory, fable, satire, or parody: If a person describes a situation or event with the intent to illustrate a principle but without the desire that his audience believe his assertions' literal meaning to be true, the assertions likely form an allegory or a fable. (Note that these claims may eventually develop into an apocryphal hoax or an urban legend if their literal meaning gains belief as they are passed from person to person.) If a person makes statements that have some basis in fact but are in some respects patently absurd, with the intent that the audience notice the similarity between the patent absurdities in the statements and absurdities latent in statements widely accepted in the real world, the person engages in satire. Parody does not require any basis in fact or the intent that any part of it be accepted; rather, its essence is the partial but not total imitation of the thing parodied, along with the elicitation of humor from the simultaneous occurrence of similarities and differences between the parody and its subject.
3. Hoax traditions
During certain events and at particular times of year, hoaxes are perpetrated by many people and groups. The most famous of these is April Fool's Day.
My basic thesis is that with cults, it is the belief system itself which is the primary active agent in cult mind control, and the actual controlling of mind is done by believers themselves, as they train and discipline their own minds in accordance with the tenets of their new faith or belief system. The article tries to deconstruct the nature of 'cult-type' belief systems, and to analyze how they differ from 'mainstream' belief systems.
- Mark Dunlop
This is just a summary - to read the entire manuscript, go to: The Culture of Cults.
Cults promote a belief system which is utopian/idealistic, and also dualistic and bi-polar in nature. Dualistic in that they see the world in terms of two opposite poles, such as good versus evil, the saved and the fallen, the enlightened and the ignorant, etc.
Cult belief systems are also bi-polar in psychological terms, rather like Bi-polar disorder or manic-depression. Cults promote a vision of an ideal 'new self', which members believe they can attain by following the cult teachings. Cult belief systems encourage the aspirant to identify with this imagined ideal new self, and then, from the perspective of this new self, to see their old self as comparatively inferior and flawed. It is ego-utopia or hubris for the new self, and ego-dystonia or shame for the old self.
Religious organisations and movements are free to practice their religion as they choose, subject to the laws of the land. In practice, this means that cults, in promoting their religious beliefs and gaining adherents, are free to use deception, misrepresentation, psychological coercion or any other techniques which do not leave physical traces and are difficult to prove in a court of law.
Initially using conventional marketing techniques, cults promote their particular belief systems. The trick is that through influencing a person's beliefs, it is possible to influence or indirectly control a person's mind. The actual controlling of mind is done by the person themselves, as they attempt to train and discipline their mind in accordance with the tenets of their new belief system. It is the belief system itself which is the primary active agent in cult mind control.
Cult belief systems differ from conventional belief systems in a number of subtle but significant ways, which may not be apparent to an outsider. To understand the nature of these differences is to understand the nature of a cult.
Cult belief systems are typically:
Independent and non-accountable - believers follow their own self-justifying moral codes: e.g. a Moonie may, in their own mind, justify deceptive recruiting as 'deceiving evil into goodness'.
Aspirational - they appeal to ambitious, idealistic people. The assumption that only weak, gullible people join cults is not necessarily true.
Personal and experiential - it is not possible to exercise informed free choice in advance, about whether the belief system is valid or not, or about the benefits of following the study and training opportunities offered by the group. The benefits, if any, of group involvement can only be evaluated after a suitable period of time spent with the group. How long a suitable period of time might be, depends on the individual, and cannot be determined in advance.
Hierarchical and dualistic - cult belief systems revolve around ideas about higher and lower levels of understanding. There is a hierarchy of awareness, and a path from lower to higher levels. Believers tend to divide the world into the saved and the fallen, the awakened and the deluded, etc.
Bi-polar - believers experience alternating episodes of faith and doubt, confidence and anxiety, self-righteousness and guilt, depending how well or how badly they feel they are progressing along the path.
Addictive - believers may become intoxicated with the ideals of the belief system, and feel a vicarious pride in being associated with these ideals. Cults tend to be cliquey and elitist, and believers can become dependent on the approval of the group's elite to maintain their own self-esteem. At an extreme, believers fear they will fall into hell if they leave the group.
Psychologically damaging - when established members leave or are expelled, they may develop a particular kind of cult-induced mental disorder, marked by anxiety and difficulty in making decisions. The disorder exhibits similarities to (but is not identical to) post-traumatic stress disorder, and certain types of adjustment disorders. [ICD 10, F60.6, F66.1, etc.]
Non-falsifiable - a cult belief system can never be shown to be invalid or wrong. This is partly why critics have low credibility, and why it can be difficult to warn people of the dangers of a cult.
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