Could a hidden bias toward religion exist amongst atheists?

A latest study led by Dr Will Gervais, Reader in Psychology at Brunel University London, suggests that even committed atheists in a few of the world’s most secular societies may intuitively favour religion over atheism. 

The findings, published within the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, challenge assumptions in regards to the relationship between rationality and disbelief, in addition to the notion that the trendy world is steadily progressing into an “atheist age”.

The research tested the thought of what philosopher Daniel Dennett has called “belief in belief” – the impression that religious belief is an excellent thing for society, even when one doesn’t hold such beliefs personally.

Dr Gervais and his colleagues examined this idea amongst around 3,800 participants from eight countries with low levels of religiosity: Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

Participants were asked to judge scenarios based on a phenomenon often called the “Knobe effect”, which has been utilized by experimental philosophers to evaluate moral judgement and perceived intentionality.

In one classic version of this task, an organization CEO implements a policy that enhances profits while harming the environment. Even when the CEO declares indifference to environmental outcomes, most individuals still interpret the harm as intentional. However, if the identical policy leads to environmental profit, individuals are far less prone to see the end result as intentional. This asymmetry reveals an intuitive bias: individuals are more inclined to see harmful outcomes as deliberate.

In the study, participants read a scenario where a journalist publishes a story that sells well, leading either to more atheism or more religious faith in society. Participants were then asked whether the journalist intentionally caused this religious shift. The results showed that participants were about 40% more prone to say the journalist intentionally created more atheists than to say the journalist intentionally created more believers. 

This bias held true across most countries surveyed and was evident even amongst atheists. According to Dr Gervais, “Our participants intuitively viewed creating more atheists as similarly intentionally caused – a spiritual somewhat than environmental pollution, perhaps.”

The study points to a persistent intuition that religious belief is an ethical or social good, and that diminishing it requires deliberate interference.

Dr Gervais situates these findings inside a broader historical and cultural framework.

“Over cultural evolutionary time, the association between religious belief and moral goodness has change into deeply culturally ingrained,” he explains. While formal religious practice and belief have declined in several countries, these moral associations may proceed to shape individual intuitions.

His recent book, Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species, explores how a species as deeply religious as Homo sapiens could produce growing numbers of atheists. The book argues that religion has played an important role in human cooperation and societal development, fostering moral norms and collective identity. 

This long-standing influence, the study suggests, leaves cultural traces whilst institutional religion wanes.

“Because religions have exerted tremendous influence on our societies for millennia, it will be genuinely surprising if some latent religious trace didn’t culturally linger as overt expressions of religion decline,” writes Dr Gervais. “Our newest results are consistent with this possibility.”

The researchers argue that these findings complicate the concept humanity is entering a latest, secular era.

“Belief could also be wavering in lots of countries,” writes Dr Gervais, “but belief in belief persists, complicating any conclusion that we’ve truly entered an ‘atheist age’.”

The study indicates that intuitive support for religion could also be more deeply rooted in human psychology and culture than previously assumed, even amongst those that consciously reject religious faith. 

While it doesn’t claim that atheists secretly consider in God, it does suggest that religious belief continues to be seen – on some level – as useful, and that this perception is difficult to completely disentangle from modern secular identities.