Divine Intervention in Human Nature FINAL!!

Divine Intervention in Human Nature

In every culture created by humans throughout the speciesí brief history on Earth, there has been religion. Religion is the act or form by which humans indicate their acknowledgment of a higher power, which in some way has control over their destiny. Religious myths and doctrine provide explanations for events deemed unexplainable, and furnish a set of behavioral norms for society. To millions across the globe for thousands of years, these behavioral norms have acted as laws; a set of rules which maintain order and decency. But is that all that they do? An interesting observation can be made when examining the origin of the word religion. The word "religion" derives from the Latin prefix, "re," and the verb "ligio"- to tie, to bind- hence, a practice designed to tie down tightly. Are the rules of religion set in place merely to aid humans in life, or do religions restrict humans from their true nature?

Our hypothesis is that religion functions to separate humans from our natural behavior. Although this may not be the specific intent of religion, it is the consequence of the morals expressed in religious texts and teachings. Our hypothesis puts religions under the microscope, delving into the validity of their claims. Should religions exist? Does religion restrict what comes natural in humans? Or are religions just the next step in our behavioral evolution, providing great prosperity for the species now and in the future?

Relevance

Whe re do humans fit in the animal kingdom? Traditionally, we have reserved ourselves a position at the top. Humans have evolved along the same lines as apes and chimpanzees. In fact, over 98% of our DNA is the exact same as chimpanzee DNA (Rue, 1998). Why then are we so different? How have we evolved such complex systems of culture and language? Moreover, are we all that different from our simian relatives, and do we deserve our self-proclaimed advanced evolutionary status?

Humans have used many reasons and methods to make a distinction between themselves and the rest of the animal kingdom. We have grown to see other animals as savage, and in some senses impure. Therefore, we reached deep into the depths of our very human brains and emerged with all sorts of fascinating stories and theories.

Philosophers exult our ability to reason as the attribute that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (Pope, 1998). The "I think, therefore I am" philosophy kept humans sedated for awhile. Sure, that must be it. Our massive brain gives us the ability to reason and think clearly. Animal drives and actions are based on instinct. They do not have the ability to organize their thoughts clearly enough to negate these instincts. Therefore, animals can only respond to their natural instincts through action. Humans, on the other hand, can reason out possible alternatives to their instinctual behaviors and act either with or against these instincts.

Despite the obvious differences between humans and chimpanzees, some sociobiologists would assert that they are fundamentally similar. Humans and chimpanzees are both motivated by the same desires of reproduction and self-preservation. Therefore, we share common strategies and behaviors that allow us to achieve these desires. That is not to say that humans and chimpanzees are the same. However, sociobiologists would say that we are not as separate as some humans would like to believe.

In order to curb our natural tendencies, religion has introduced morals that critique these tendencies. In fact, some theologians would argue that human morality has allowed us to make a firm division between ourselves and the rest of the animal kingdom (Williams, 1998). Through strong faith and morality, humans are able to act in a righteous manner. This manner reflects an underlying function in organized religion to separate humans from their natural tendencies.

In support of the idea that religion functions to control natural human tendencies theologian, Loyal Rue, stated that "one of the principal functions of religion is to reprogram our emotions so that we will be motivated to override our default morality (natural tendencies)." This view expresses the way in which religion works to negate our evolutionarily derived instincts. Religion sees many of these instincts as essentially bad, and sets up morality as a vehicle to oppose these instincts.

Although religion puts forth many ideas that seem contradictory to sociobiologically defined propagation of human genes, some theologians say that this is not necessarily true. For example, instead of looking at chastity as a determent to reproduction, one theologian saw chastity as a way for an individual to protect themselves from disease, like AIDS (Schoener, 1998). In this way, religion has allowed for the survival of sexually monogamous individuals that pass their genes on by avoiding disease.

It is important to examine the question of whether or not religion functions to curb natural human tendencies because it allows for a greater understanding of how social forces interact with biological forces to influence human behavior. The question of Nurture vs. Nature is continuously resurfacing in scientific and social debates. It shapes how we view our relationships with each other and the natural world around us. Therefore, through the careful examination of the interaction of religion and sociobiological tendencies, we can add a piece to this terribly incomplete puzzle.

Materials & Methods

The main portion of our experimental design will be a survey. The survey is meant to investigate our question of whether or not religion separates man from his natural tendencies. The survey will investigate this question by addressing several aspects of both natural and religious living. In this way, by using the definitions of human nature found in The Moral Animal we can compare the actions and thoughts of a typically religious and non-religious person. Then we can make conclusions on the function of religious and whether or not it is an inherent part of human nature, or whether it is simply a restricting agent of natural tendencies. We will use Statview to analyze our data. We will use the many tests in Statview to compare the questions on our survey to one another to see how the answers to each question correlate to our overall ideas of what a religious and natural life should be.

The other portion of our experimental design will consist of research done concerning the various aspects of a religious lifestyle as compared with a more "natural" lifestyle. We will have to concern ourselves with many questions involved in the definition of these two different types of lifestyles. First, what is a religious lifestyle? What common threads run through all religions? Is religion necessarily tied to morals? What do these morals imply for living? As far as natural lifestyles go, we will use the theories of the evolutionary psychologists to determine what exactly is mean by a "natural" lifestyle. This will be difficult for us to surmise, as there is no culture that we know of that functions today without some religious background or influence. These theories will have to be taken as just that: theories. They are, however, all we have to go on for the determining of a "natural" lifestyle.

The most important piece of material that we have to go on for this research project is our survey. The survey is responsible for bringing us the living, breathing data of the people around us. We distributed 120 surveys to Miami students at Shriver and received 81 surveys back (49 females and 32 males). Herein follows our survey:

1. Are you male____ or female____ ?

2. How connected do you feel with the natural world?
Not very 1 2 3 4 5 very

3. What is the most important difference between humans and animals?
a) there is no difference
b) language
c) reason
d) religion
e) art

4. How high a priority is it for you to have children at some point in your life?
Not at all 1 2 3 4 5 very important

5. How many children would you like to have?
a) 0
b) 1-2
c) 3-4
d) 5-6
e) 7 or more

6. How important is sexual abstinence in your belief system?
Not at all 1 2 3 4 5 very important

7. How often is violence a necessary part of life?
Never 1 2 3 4 5 always

8. Circle the following that apply. Altruism is:
a) not important
b) important with my family
c) important with my friends
d) deserved by everybody

9. Do you consider yourself spiritual? Yes No

10. Do you affiliate with an organized religion? Yes No
If so, which one? ____________________

11. How religious are you?
Not at all 1 2 3 4 5 Very

12. How often do you attend church?
a) never
b) once a year
c) once a month
d) once a week
e) more than once a week

13. How often do you read your particular religious text?
a) never
b) once a year
c) once a month
d) once a week
e) more than once a week

Results

By taking an average of the number of children desired from each category of religious devotion (increasing from 1 to 5 on the x-axis), we received the results summarized in figure 1. Also, using regression analysis for this data, we received a p-value of .063 and an R squared value of .753.

The following graph (figure 2) shows the correlation between religious devotion (increasing from 1 to 5 on the x-axis) and the importance of sexual abstinence. We used regression analysis to obtain a p-value of .3619 and an R squared value of .277.

Figure 3 is a graph of the correlation between religious devotion (increasing from 1 to 5 on the x-axis) and attitudes about the necessity of violence. Regression analysis gave us a p-value of .274 and an R squared value of .373.

Figures 4 and 5 are graph of the attitudes of both religious and non-religious people about altruism. We compared the result of these two graphs using a paired t-test and received a p-value of .2186.

Figure 4. Graph of attitudes about altruism according to religious people





Figure 4. Graph of attitudes about altruism according to non-religious people

Figure 6 shows the relationship between religious devotion and connectedness with nature. We used a regression to obtain an R squared value of .497 and a p-value of .183.

The following graphs were obtained by analyzing our data on a male/female basis. We examined our data in the same five areas: number of children desired, importance of altruism, importance of abstinence, the necessity of violence in life and connectedness with nature. For this section of results, however, we examined the answers given by men and women, and compared them with one another.

The following graph (figure 7) shows the correlation between the answers men and women gave concerning the number of children they would like to have. We used a Spearman-rank analysis of the data and found a p-value of .0898.

The next graph (figure 8) shows the correlation between the answers men and women gave concerning their views on sexual abstinence. We used Spearman rank analysis and received a p-value of .25.

Figure 9 is a graph of the views of males and females concerning the necessity of violence. We analyzed these results using Spearman rank and received a p-value of .25.

The next graph (figure 10) compares male and female views on altruism. Through Spearman rank analysis, we received a p-value of .0833.

Our final graph (figure 11) displays male and female connectedness with nature. We analyzed these results using the Spearman rank test and received a p-value of .3953.

Discussion

Based on the results from figures 1-6, our hypothesis was not supported. Religious devotion does not appear to effect human nature. We came to this conclusion by examining questions 2, 5, 6,7,8 and 11. We chose to discard questions 3,4,9,10,12 and 13 because of time constraints. Also, had we attempted to determine a personís religious devotion based on questions 12 and 13, we may have placed our own bias into the evaluation.

Figure 1 examines the relationship between religious devotion and the number of children a person would like to have. According to the p-value of .063 and the R squared value of .735, there is not a strong correlation between religious devotion and the number of children a person would like to have. However, by examining the graph in figure 1, it appears that people who are the most religious may want to have more children (people who answered "very religious" desired an average of 4.4 children). This is in direct opposition to our hypothesis. A possible reason for this may be the value that the Christian faith places on large families.

According the p-value of .319 and the R squared value of .277 found in figure 2, there is not a strong correlation between religious devotion and the degree to which people find sexual abstinence important. This is also contrary to our hypothesis. Due to the strong taboo against sexual promiscuity found in religious texts we expected people who are more religious to value sexual abstinence highly. In some instances, we found that this was true. Those who were the most religious did highly value sexual abstinence. However, there was no correlation across the board, as we expected there would be.

Our findings were similar concerning our graph of religious devotion vs. peopleís attitudes concerning the importance of violence in everyday life. We fully expected that those who were most religious would decry violence as entirely unnecessary in life due to the pacifist messages of many religions. We saw this in direct opposition to human nature, which seems to say that violence is necessary, to some degree, for life to continue on at a competitive and successful rate. Again, the extremes in our study answered as we thought they would. As can be seen in figure 3, those who were least religious believed that violence was more necessary than those who were very religious. However, our p-value of .373 and R squared value of .274 once again prove that there was no strong correlation across the board concerning religiousness and attitudes towards violence.

Altruism is a staple of most religions. Most every major religion on Earth has some variation of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We figured that the most religious a person was, the more inclined they would be to believe that altruism was due to everybody, especially family and friends. According to our p-value of.2186, however, we found there was not a significant difference between those who are most religious and those who are least religious concerning their views on altruism. However, by looking at the extremes (5 and 1 for religious devotion) we found that people who were highly religious were more likely to say that altruism is deserved by everyone. The graphs in figures 4 and 5 also support this idea.

The final original analysis we conducted was to see if there was any correlation between the degree of a personís religious devotion, and their self-perceived connection with the natural world. Our hypothesis stated that religion served as a barrier between humans and human nature. In order to fully explore this we included the question about oneís connection with the natural world, expecting that those who were more devout would feel less connected with the natural world. As can be seen in the graph in figure 6, however, there is no correlation whatsoever. The p-value of .1836 and the R squared value of .497 further back this lack of correlation.

Due to the fact that we did not find strong correlations across the board between religious devotion and human nature, we decided to examine our results on the basis of male and female responses. Figures 7 through 11 show that there appears to be a correlation between natural human tendencies and sex. We used the Spearman rank analysis to determine if male and female responses for each question are similar. Based on the p-values of .0980, .25, .25, .083, and .395 from this test, there appears to be a significant difference between male and female responses. Therefore, whether a person is male or female seems to have a stronger affect on human tendencies than does religion.

There are many possible reasons as to why our hypothesis was not supported by our results. One such reason is that we did not survey a diverse or large enough population. All of the people that we surveyed were college students, and most were Christian. Had we been able to distribute the survey to people of varying ages, social classes, ethnicities, and religious affiliations we may have received different results. Another reason may be the design of our survey and Robert Wrightís definition of human nature. Perhaps we should reexamine this definition as well as the structure and content of our survey. Also it is very possible that religion does not have as strong an influence on human nature as we had anticipated. This idea goes back to the age-old debate of nature vs. nurture. Do biological or social factors have more influence on us as humans? Although most psychologists of the day would say that it is an even mix of the two, at first glance our results would seem to point towards nature as being the stronger influence. However, it is impossible to determine the effects of gender socialization on our subjectís based on the survey we distributed.

This project has afforded us the opportunity to delve into what is perhaps the greatest human issue of all time, people in relation to their religions. Though very little research has been done into our topic specifically, as evolutionary psychology is in its infancy, no subject has received more thought throughout human history than religion. Currently Robert Wright has the definitive work on Evolutionary Psychology. In his work The Moral Animal, Wright puts forth that all of our traits are inherited, and these traits all support our will to live on in our ancestors. It was our goal to produce a study that supported this hypothesis, by analyzing religions, which promote altruism, sexual abstinence and nonviolence. These three characteristics are the basis of how Wright envisions humans promoting their own survival.

As in many experiments of limited size, our project did little more than whet our appetites for conclusive information on the topic. More questions were raised than were answered, but that is not to say that we found nothing. With finding low correlation between religious devotion and the three aspects of human nature, at first we were convinced in some part that Wright was incorrect. But perhaps we were just too topical. Yes our results were inconclusive how we examined them, but there may be a relationship lying deeper. Perhaps the formation of a religious community adds enough security and opportunity to reproduce that it negates or surpasses the affects of sexual abstinence. Being altruistic could bring in favors of protection later, favors that may double or triple the energy used to protect the recipients of the original good deeds.

Perhaps the most intriguing result that we found was the difference in male and female responses. Although some of these differences were not statistically significant, the differences were much more pronounced than the differences in religious intensity. Many of these results support Wright's arguments on the difference between men and women. Men, who use very little energy in the child production process, see sexual promiscuity as a fine practice. Where as women who must labor intensely in birth and pregnancy would much rather have sex only with the one person they trust the most. These responses showed us that there is some credence to Wrightís theories, and lets us believe that there may be more to his ideas of human nature than be violent and have sex.

Although the results from this paper did not prove to be what we expected, this experiment can be used as a foundation for other experiments which examine the nature vs. nurture debate. An experiment which samples people from various geographical regions and various age groups could build on the information presented in this report. Also, this report illustrates the importance of examining outside factors when testing your hypothesis. The correlation between male and female responses should be analyzed in any discussion or experiment concerning human nature. Overall, our experiment is just the beginning in an extensive investigation into the interaction of religion and human nature.

Works Cited

-Cauthen, Kenneth. Theological Biology. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991.

-Glazier, Stephen D. ed. Anthropology of Religion : A Handbook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997.

-Haberman, David. Stevenson, Leslie. Ten Theories of Human Nature. New York: Oxford University press, 1998.

-Pope, Stephen. "The Evolutionary Roots of Morality in Theological Perspective." Zygon, vol. 33, no. 4 (December 1998).

-Radice, Betty. ed. Hindu Myths. New York; Penguin Books, 1975.

- Rosenberg, Donna. World Mythology. Lincolnwood Ill.: NTC Publishing Group, 1994.

-Rue, Loyal. "Sociobiology and Moral Discourse." Zygon, vol. 33, no. 4 (December 1998).

-Sanditeva [trans. By Kate Crosby]. The Bodhicaryavatara. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

-Williams, Patricia. "Evolution, Sociobiology, and the Atonement." Zygon, vol. 33, no. 4 (December 1998).

-Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal. Vintage Books, New York, 1994.

Next Article
Previous Article
Return to the Topic Menu

Here is a list of responses that have been posted to this Study...

Respond to this Submission!

IMPORTANT: For each Response, make sure the title of the response is different than previous titles shown above!

Visit the rest of the site!