Could our beliefs be a psychological fluke? Welcome to Critical Thinking Scan, where we look at how you can think about any faith-challenging message and arrive at a biblical, logical conclusion yourself. I’m Patricia Engler and today, let’s examine the popular claim that belief in God results from a cognitive bias, or faulty thinking pattern, called the hyperactive agency detection device (or HADD).
That’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s how researchers describe the way humans and even some animals often interpret effects as being caused by some intentional agent, like another creature. For instance, if a deer hears a bush rustle, it may attribute the noise to a predator, even if it was just the wind. Similarly, if we hear a creak in the house at night, we might automatically suspect there’s a burglar.
And the idea is, this tendency to suspect intentional beings at work gave our ancestors an evolutionary advantage, because they could better avoid predators, and this eventually led to the rise of religions. For example, if people heard a thunderclap, they might attribute it to angry deities. So, one implication is, supernatural beliefs evolved because of this cognitive bias, and therefore, belief in God is false.
But remember, a quick way to spot faulty logic is to ask, “Is this message true or false because. . .
” And here, it’s clear that a message isn’t necessarily false just because we might have a psychological reason to believe it. Saying so would be a type of flawed logic called the Psychogenic Fallacy, since the question of whether we have a psychological basis to believe something is irrelevant to whether that belief is true. So instead of falsely claiming that the HADD hypothesis disproves belief in God, skeptics may simply state that it suggests belief in God is unwarranted, because there’s a natural explanation for it.
Well, is this claim true? Let’s think about it. Check #1 of critical thinking is check Scripture, and besides the fact that evolutionary explanations are incompatible with God’s Word, Romans 1:20 says that God’s invisible attributes are plainly seen in the things that He’s created, so that there’s no excuse for denying Him.
In other words, attributing the intricacies of nature to a Creator isn’t so much a psychological fluke as common sense, to the point that not only is belief in God warranted, disbelief in God is unwarranted. So, the Bible answers this type of claim right off the bat. How about Check #2, check the challenge?
Does the fact that skeptics can THINK of a naturalistic way to explain belief in God really challenge a biblical worldview? Not unless that explanation were true. (More on that in a minute.
) Besides, Scripture is clear that humans don’t often want to believe in God, so we’d expect people to try explaining Him away. Of course, the fact that a belief is expected doesn’t make it false – in this case, just predictable within a biblical worldview. Next is Check 3, check the source, and this message clearly comes from sources with an evolutionary worldview, which will colour how they’re thinking.
For Check 4, we can check the definitions of “religious beliefs” to think about what kind of beliefs the HADD hypothesis supposedly promotes. For instance, agent detection might well help explain how some superstitions got started, like the ancient Greek idea that thunderbolts are a weapon of Zeus. Such superstitions are quite different from a worldview based on historically verifiable events like the Old Testament’s fulfilled prophecies or the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we have good external reasons to believe quite apart from a hyperactive agency detection device.
How about check 5, check for propaganda? A possible psychological explanation for supernatural beliefs might sound persuasive because it comes from smart scientists, or simply because it exists. But no explanation is true or even good just because it exists.
And even within a naturalistic worldview, there’s no way to show this explanation is conclusively TRUE because it’s an assumption about the past, which brings us to check 6, check for interpretations. The FACT is that humans may attribute things to intentional agents; the INTERPRETATION based on evolutionary assumptions is that religions are therefore a psychological fluke. But with a biblical worldview, we CAN conclusively know this explanation is FALSE because it conflicts with God’s Word, and God cannot lie.
That’s all we have time for today, but for more on how to think critically about any faith-challenging messages, you can access my other CT Scan videos packed with tactics, tips and tools that helped me as a Christian student at secular university. Thank you for watching! Hey – It’s Patricia here.
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