Preface

One of the characteristics that distinguishes Homo sapiens—that is, us humans—from other animals is our capacity for religious faith. By religious faith, I mean belief in the existence of a being, or beings, beyond the perceptible world, who watch over our lives and have the power to intervene in them. We see no evidence of religious faith in animals.

The effects and consequences of this seemingly simple phenomenon are so numerous and significant that they invite us to examine the characteristics of the human brain and ask what it is about our brains that makes this distinctive trait possible—and why these characteristics emerged and persisted over the course of evolution.

Is religious faith made possible by a single unique feature of the human brain, or is it the product of several different features? Is the capacity for faith itself an essential adaptation, without which individual or collective human life would have been impaired? Or is this capacity merely a by-product of several other traits—traits that were necessary for individual survival or for the competitive advantage of Homo sapiens over other animals and human groups, but that also happened to provide the conditions in which religious faith could arise?

The formation of religious faith is not the only distinctive human characteristic; its persistence is remarkable as well. Whatever animals may come to believe, new experiences can change those beliefs. If a chimpanzee learns that pressing a button produces food, and food subsequently stops appearing—or pressing the button begins to deliver an electric shock instead—the chimpanzee quickly learns that the button is no longer associated with food.

Humans, however, do not abandon their faith so easily. Empirical evidence and logical arguments may alter many of their beliefs, yet they tend to have far less effect on religious faith.

Do the same characteristics that allow religious faith to form and develop also help preserve it? Or are other features of the human brain responsible for its persistence? And is the persistence of religious faith itself an essential and vital characteristic of the Homo sapiens brain? Or is it, too, a by-product of one or more other traits that have been important to the survival of our species?

Over the past several thousand years, has our tenacity in preserving faith contributed to individual and collective survival and to our advantage over other animals and human groups—or has it been a weakness of Homo sapiens? And today, under the conditions of modern human civilization, does this tenacity remain an adaptive advantage for individuals and human groups—or has the opposite become true?

The idea for this book first came to me several years ago, after reading Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. In that book, Harari proposes that religion played a positive role throughout history by enabling humans to form larger and more cohesive groups, thereby increasing their collective power. Although this theory seems plausible, Harari did not explore the question much further.

I therefore decided to bring together findings from psychologists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, and behavioral scientists—some produced specifically to investigate the mechanisms underlying the formation of religious faith, and others indirectly relevant to the subject—in an attempt to explain how faith develops in Homo sapiens. My aim is to show how features of our brains, cognition, and psychology contribute to the emergence, reinforcement, and persistence of faith, and how these processes have affected the life of our species, both in the past and today.

N. Fakhr
Winter 2022