Items of Interest June 27, 2011 Issue

Religion is native to humans, according to new study

Richard Allen Greene

“Religious belief is human nature, huge new study claims” Courtesy CNN. May 12, 2011.

Religion comes naturally, even instinctively, to human beings, a massive new study of cultures all around the world suggests.

“We tend to see purpose in the world,” Oxford University professor Roger Trigg said Thursday. “We see agency. We think that something is there even if you can’t see it. . . . All this tends to build up to a religious way of thinking.”

Trigg is co-director of the three-year Oxford-based project, which incorporated more than 40 different studies by dozens of researchers looking at countries from China to Poland, and the United States to Micronesia.

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