why do we need religion essay

Why we need religion

Stephen asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial. is it such a leap to believe that it is grounded in truth.

It is a truth, though sadly not one universally acknowledged, that what you think of  religion largely depends on what you think is  religion. If you believe religion to be primarily a means of explaining the origins and processes of the world and of nature, you’ll measure it with a scientific yardstick and find it wanting. If you think it is a metaphysical enterprise, making propositional but untestable statements about human identity and destiny, you’ll assess it on more philosophical principles, and find it momentous or meaningless depending on whether you like your ideas falsifiable. If you think it’s a series of ethical guidelines for how to navigate the world, with little truth content in themselves, you’ll measure it on a moral scale, and find it inspiring or dispiriting, depending on which bits you’re looking at. And so on and so forth. Stephen Asma is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College in Chicago and, once upon time, a happy inhabitant of the first of these camps. Most of his early publications were “strenuously” critical of religion. He wrote enthusiastically for various sceptical and secularist publications, and even found himself listed in “Who’s who in hell,” a publication of which I was heretofore blissfully unaware. However, some challenging encounters, wider reading and deeper reflection began to change his mind. “I’m an agnostic and a citizen of a wealthy nation,” he confesses towards the end of his provocatively-entitled 2018  Why We Need Religion , “but when my own son was in the emergency room with an illness, I prayed spontaneously.” “I’m not naïve,” he goes on to say. “I don’t think it did a damn thing to heal him. But it is a response that will not go and that should not go away if it provides genuine relief for anxiety and anguish.” We have been here before. Such a non-conversion to “religion” is the cue for a toe-curlingly patronising exercise in religious non-defence. Religion may be irrational and infantile, you know, but it’s good for the children, especially the adult ones. This, however, is not the direction in which Asma heads. To be clear, he still sees religion as irrational, although his extended discussion of creationism rather suggests he’s going for the low-hanging fruit here. Rather, he now views religion—his focus is primarily on Christianity and Buddhism, but much of what he says applies more widely—as natural, beneficial, humanising, and, indeed, indispensable. The key is the body. Why We Need Religion  takes our embodied and affective nature very seriously and shows, in detail and with impressive supporting evidence, that religious commitment—beliefs, practices, rituals, etc.—help protect and manage our emotional life with unparalleled and probably irreplaceable success. Religion is, in effect, a management system for our emotional lives that helps the human organism stay healthy and well. Take grief as an example. Human grief has both elaborate cognitive and neurochemical dimensions (not, of course, disconnected things). We ruminate on moments past, futures lost, hopes dashed, memories decaying. At the same time, human—like all mammalian—grief is a form of separation distress. Mammalian brains are hardwired for the calming comfort of a caregiver’s touch, and when that is denied us, especially permanently, the brain experiences a “major reduction in opioids, oxytocin and prolactin.” Religious belief attenuates the severity of that separation, and religious practices develop, codify, and authenticate grieving customs that serve to offer a kind of emotional surrogate for loss. Both cognitively and affectively, religion helps us cope with grief. That, of course, is one of the reasons why non-religious religions like Secular Humanism so often get into the funeral business. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Asma looks at grief, forgiveness, resilience, sacrifice, joy, fear and other deep emotions besides. Time and again, he shows how religion contains “cultural structures that enshrine and celebrate some important adaptive psychological” states, drawing on evidence that would have upset his younger, more muscular secular self. Empirical studies, he writes half way through, confirm our long held assumption that “religious people try more than others to overcome their grudges.” Similarly, the evidence that education increases forgiveness and reduces violence “is somewhat thin.” The second of these is eminently believable but even I have problems believing the former. If true, there are certainly some pretty powerful counter-examples. The book differs from the “but isn’t religion helpful” genre, then, for reasons of its scientific rigour, but also on account of the author’s sensitivity and empathy. Not only does it take some courage to begin a book by confessing a change of heart (if not mind) as Asma does, but it takes more, for example, to emphasise with the religiously violent. “People who dismiss religious-fuelled rage as intrinsically evil or primitive,” he writes, “have usually never faced real enemies.” Asma is not, of course, legitimising such rage or violence; simply seeking to understand it. In prosperous western liberal democracies, like our own, it is easy to think of one’s enemy as “a misunderstood force, whom one can eventually negotiate with.” That being so, religious rage is intolerable and an obvious moral failing. “Would that such [western] circumstances were long-lived and ubiquitous,” he remarks. “But they are neither.” This is powerful, striking at the heart of what makes people like you, me and those likely to read his book feel so morally superior. All that being so, it seems to me to be a natural step to move (or at least to edge) from religion’s affective importance to its cognitive reliability; i.e. from the kind of goodness (or at least usefulness) of which Asma writes, to its truth. Now, to be clear, this move need  not be made. Just because something is (or can be) good, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. However, we should, at least, pause here. You can make a very strong argument that religion has played a positive role in human evolution, enabling individual and group survival, strength and cohesion, thereby being selected for in the evolutionary process. True, evolution selects for survival, not truth… but the two are hardly independent. Broadly speaking, an organism whose cognitive functions are capable of tracking “that which is the case” is likely to do better than one that doesn’t. Whether you are finding prey, sensing a predator, or responding otherwise to your environment, it helps if your evolved senses are trained on the truth. It strikes me that the same point can be made of the apparently ubiquitous human need for religion (or in some places now, religion-like substitutes). As Steven Pinker (of all people!) once remarked “we have colour vision because there are differences in wavelength in the world.  We have depth perception because the world actually does exist in three dimensions. By the same logic someone might be tempted to say that if we have a ‘God module’ there must be a God it’s an adaptation to.” Pinker of course is not tempted to say that. Nor, it seems, is Asma. I am. Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos "Why We Need Religion" by Stephen Asma is published by Oxford University Press

Why Do We Have Religion Anyway?

• Evolutionary Psychology
• Self-Control
• Self-Regulation
• Spirituality

The vast majority of the world’s 7 billion people practice some kind of religion, ranging from massive worldwide churches to obscure spiritual traditions and local sects. Nobody really knows how many religions there are on the planet, but whatever the number, there are at least that many theories about why we have religion at all. One idea is that, as humans evolved from small hunter-gatherer tribes into large agrarian cultures, our ancestors needed to encourage cooperation and tolerance among relative strangers. Religion then—along with the belief in a moralizing God—was a cultural adaptation to these challenges.

But that’s just one idea. There are many others—or make up your own. But they are all just theories. None has been empirically tested. A team of psychological scientists at Queen’s University, Ontario, is now offering a novel idea about the origin of religion, and what’s more they’re delivering some preliminary scientific evidence to support their reasoning. Researcher Kevin Rounding and his colleagues are arguing that the primary purpose of religious belief is to enhance the basic cognitive process of self-control, which in turn promotes any number of valuable social behaviors.

They tested this theory in four fairly simple experiments, using classic measures of self-control. In the first study, for example, they used a word game to prime some volunteers’ (but not others’) subconscious thoughts of religion. Then they asked all the volunteers (using a ruse) to drink an unsavory mix of OJ and vinegar, one ounce at a time. They were told they could stop any time, and to take as much time as they liked, and that they would be paid a small amount for each ounce of the brew that they drank.

The amount they drank was a proxy for self-discipline. The more OJ and vinegar they forced down, they greater their self-control. And as predicted, those with religion on their mind endured longer at the unpleasant task. Since society and religion ask us to tolerate many things we don’t particularly like for the common good, the scientists interpret this finding as evidence of a particular kind of self-control.

Another way to think of self-control, perhaps the most familiar, is delayed gratification—resisting immediate temptation to wait for a greater reward later on. In another experiment, the scientists again primed some of the volunteers with hidden religious words, but in this case they were told (falsely) that the experiment was concluded and that they would be paid. They were told, further, that they could either return the next day and be paid $5, or come back in a week and get $6. This is a widely used laboratory paradigm for measuring the exertion of discipline in the face of temptation, and indeed, almost twice as many of those with religion opted for more money later.

Self-control is costly, consuming a lot of mental resources. Recent research has demonstrated that our cognitive power—in the form of glucose, the brain’s fuel—is limited. The mind and brain can become fatigued, just like a muscle, and when depleted, normal self-control is impaired. The third experiment built on an understanding of this process, often called “ego depletion.” The scientists wanted to see if cognitively depleted people are “refueled” with reminders of religion, so they had only half of the volunteers perform a mentally draining task while listening to loud music. Then they primed half of these depleted volunteers, and half the controls, with religious words. So at this point, there were four groups: Depleted; depleted but religiously primed; undepleted controls; and religiously primed controls. All of these volunteers then attempted a set of geometrical puzzles, which, unknown to them, were impossible to solve. The impossible task was included to test their persistence against great difficulty—another measure of self-control.

The results were unambiguous. Among those who were mentally depleted, the ones with religion on their minds persisted longer at the impossible task—suggesting that the religious priming restored their cognitive powers—and their patience in the process. They performed basically the same as those who were never tired out in the first place. The scientists take this as strong evidence for the replenishing effect of religion on self-discipline.

The fourth and final experiment was the only one with ambiguous results. The first three studies had shown direct causal evidence of religion on self-control—and downstream effects on enduring discomfort, delaying rewards, and exerting patience. But is it possible that the religious priming might have activated something else—moral intuition, or death-related concerns? In order to rule out these possibilities, the scientists used a completely secular self-control task, one with no moral overlay: the so-called Stroop task. This is the task where one must rapidly identify the ink that words are printed in, rather than read the words. It’s very difficult, requiring mental exertion and self-control.

The scientists primed some with religious words as usual, but others were primed with moral words—virtue, righteous—and still others with words related to mortality—deadly, grave, and so forth. Then all the volunteers attempted the Stroop task on a computer, which measured accuracy and reaction time. The results, as reported in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science , showed that religiously primed volunteers had much more self-control than did controls or those primed to think about mortality. But those with religion on their minds were statistically no different than those with morality on their minds. This was an unexpected finding, and it suggests that activating an implicit moral sensibility may have some of the same effects as religion.

It’s not entirely clear what cognitive mechanism is at work in religion’s influence on self-control. One possibility is that religion makes people mindful of an ever watchful God, and thus encourages more self-monitoring. Or religious priming may activate concerns of supernatural punishment. A more secular explanation is that religious priming makes people more concerned about their reputation in the community, leading to more careful self-monitoring. Notably, almost a third of the volunteers in these studies were self-defined atheists or agnostics, suggesting that these robust effects have little or nothing to do with the suggestibility of the most devout.

Wray Herbert’s book, On Second Thought, was recently published in paperback. Excerpts from his two blogs—“We’re Only Human” and “Full Frontal Psychology”—appear regularly in Scientific American and in The Huffington Post.

I think that religion was created by people and for people. When you look at the similarities between religions, they all have a core idea of something being there after death, and in Christianity especially, there is a punishment for doing the wrong thing and a reward for doing the right thing. In other words, it’s manipulation. We’ve seen throughout history how religion has been used to control massive populations through this manipulation. It’s also used as a source of comfort, i.e. thinking that someone is in a better place after death. But I also believe that religion is for people who are unable to think for themselves. Religions tell you how to think, what to think, when to think, and what to think about. If you legitimately believe that all people must rely on a 2,000-year-old book to be a good person and lead a good life, then I honestly don’t know what to tell you.

I completely agree.

Nothing in this world was invented by man without a need. Religion should have been invented to meet a need. To understand the need we need to port ourselves 2000 years hence leaving behind our prejudices and beliefs. In that world, you will find small colonies of humans who had ‘leaders’, kings may be.

Every king made his own laws. And it was not uncommon to find a new king ruling every now and then. Law kept changing with every king. Life should have been pretty difficult.

For example, one king might say all food is common for the village. And you just can pick up anything you want and eat it. The next guy might say if you keep food in your house it is yours. And if you pick food from others house, you will be beheaded. A kid moving from one king to the other might end up getting beheaded!

So people thought of common rules and laws. That’s why all religions espouse laws of life. How to live? What rules to follow? Etc.,

It also explains why most religions call themselves way of life. You will also find Mohammed the Prophet was a ‘judge’ as his prime job. Jesus was called a traitor, obviously, he created a new law which was against Roman laws. And you used ways to tell others what religion you follow. So that they know which law you follow. For instance, people wore cross. Or a head gear, a mark in the forehead, long hair and such.

It also explains why polity and religion went together in the early days.

And God was used to add sanctity to it!

Essentially it was in place of constitutions/ laws of the land. Now that laws are driven by nations, the need for religions slowly started vanishing. They took over the place held by philosophy thus far and laid claim to God analysis. But that is social history.

Religious beliefs or some particular religion was created by people(messenger) who wish to give people better life, at that time religion played important role for bettermint but actually now a days we need same role according to new generation but not in the name of religion. We have to learn that all human being at same importance, all need love and care. Cast, religion, colour, race, country , all these things is destroying human. Instead think tanks should make better rules and regulations to follow for bettermint same as business rules, traffic rules.

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Caring for Loved Ones the Top Priority for People Worldwide

Evolutionary psychologists have focused much of their research on the human pursuit of love and sex, but a global study shows that people’s strongest motivations lie elsewhere.

Evolutionary psychologists have focused much their research on the human pursuit of love and sex, but a global study shows that people’s strongest motivations lie elsewhere.

Adapting Into the Future

Humans’ unique cognitive abilities emerged from a cycle of interactions between brain, culture, and environment, says Atsushi Iriki.

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• U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious
• Chapter 1: Importance of Religion and Religious Beliefs

Table of Contents

• Chapter 2: Religious Practices and Experiences
• Chapter 3: Views of Religious Institutions
• Chapter 4: Social and Political Attitudes
• Appendix A: Methodology
• Appendix B: Putting Findings From the Religious Landscape Study Into Context

While religion remains important in the lives of most Americans, the 2014 Religious Landscape Study finds that Americans as a whole have become somewhat less religious in recent years by certain traditional measures of religious commitment. For instance, fewer U.S. adults now say religion is very important in their lives than did so seven years ago, when Pew Research Center conducted a similarly extensive religion survey. Fewer adults also express absolutely certain belief in God, say they believe in heaven or say their religion’s sacred text is the word of God.

The change in Americans’ religious beliefs coincides with the rising share of the U.S. public that is not affiliated with any religion. The unaffiliated not only make up a growing portion of the population, they also are growing increasingly secular, at least on some key measures of religious belief. For instance, fewer religious “nones” say religion is very important to them than was the case in 2007, and fewer say they believe in God or believe in heaven or hell.

Among people who do identify with a religion, however, there has been little, if any, change on many measures of religious belief. People who are affiliated with a religious tradition are as likely now as in the recent past to say religion is very important in their lives and to believe in heaven. They also are as likely to believe in God, although the share of religiously affiliated adults who believe in God with absolute certainty has declined somewhat.

When seeking guidance on questions of right and wrong, a plurality of Americans say they rely primarily on their common sense and personal experiences. But there has been a noticeable increase in the share of religiously affiliated adults who say they turn to their religious teachings for guidance.

This chapter takes a detailed look at the religious beliefs of U.S. adults – including members of a variety of religious groups – and compares the results of the current study with the 2007 Religious Landscape Study. The chapter also examines Americans’ views on religion and salvation, religion and modernity, and religion and morality.

Importance of Religion

Three-quarters of U.S. adults say religion is at least “somewhat” important in their lives, with more than half (53%) saying it is “very” important. Approximately one-in-five say religion is “not too” (11%) or “not at all” important in their lives (11%).

Although religion remains important to many Americans, its importance has slipped modestly in the last seven years. In 2007, Americans were more likely to say religion was very important (56%) or somewhat important (26%) to them than they are today. Only 16% of respondents in 2007 said religion was not too or not at all important to them.

The decline in the share of Americans who say religion is very important in their lives is closely tied to the growth of the religiously unaffiliated, whose share of the population has risen from 16% to 23% over the past seven years. Compared with those who are religiously affiliated, religious “nones” are far less likely to describe religion as a key part of their lives; just 13% say religion is very important to them. Furthermore, the share of the “nones” who say religion is not an important part of their lives has grown considerably in recent years. Today, two-thirds of the unaffiliated (65%) say religion is not too or not at all important to them, up from 57% in 2007.

For Americans who are religiously affiliated, the importance people attach to religion varies somewhat by religious tradition. Roughly eight-in-ten or more Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%), members of historically black Protestant churches (85%), Mormons (84%) and evangelical Protestants (79%) say religion is very important in their lives. These figures have stayed about the same in recent years.

Smaller majorities of most other religious groups say religion plays a very important role in their lives. This includes 64% of Muslims, 58% of Catholics and 53% of mainline Protestants. Roughly half of Orthodox Christians (52%) also say this. Fewer Jews, Buddhists and Hindus say religion is very important to them, but most members of those groups indicate that religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.

The survey also finds that older adults are more likely than younger adults to say religion is very important in their lives, and women are more likely than men to express this view. Additionally, those with a college degree typically are less likely than those with lower levels of education to say religion is very important in their lives. And blacks are much more likely than whites or Hispanics to say religion is very important in their lives. These patterns are seen in the population as a whole and within many – though not all – religious groups.

Belief in God

Nearly nine-in-ten Americans (89%) say they believe in “God or a universal spirit,” and most of them (63% of all adults) are absolutely certain in this belief. There has been a modest decline in the share of Americans who believe in God since the Religious Landscape Study was first conducted in 2007 (from 92% to 89%), and a bigger drop in the share of Americans who say they believe in God with absolute certainty (from 71% to 63%).

Majorities of adherents of most Christian traditions say they believe in God with absolute certainty. But this conviction has declined noticeably in recent years among several Christian groups. The largest drops have been among mainline Protestants (down from 73% in 2007 to 66% today), Catholics (from 72% to 64%) and Orthodox Christians (from 71% to 61%).

Among non-Christians, the pattern is mixed. Most Muslims (84%) are absolutely certain that God exists, but far fewer Hindus (41%), Jews (37%) or Buddhists (29%) are certain there is a God or universal spirit.

As was the case in 2007, most religiously unaffiliated people continue to express some level of belief in God or a universal spirit. However, the share of religious “nones” who believe in God has dropped substantially in recent years (from 70% in 2007 to 61% today). And religious “nones” who believe in God are far less certain about this belief compared with those who identify with a religion. In fact, most religiously unaffiliated believers say they are less than absolutely certain about God’s existence.

Nearly one-in-ten U.S. adults overall (9%) now say they do not believe in God, up from 5% in 2007.

Women are much more likely than men to say they are absolutely certain about God’s existence (69% vs. 57%), and older Americans are much more likely than younger adults to say they are absolutely convinced that God exists. Two-thirds of those with less than a college degree express certainty about God’s existence, compared with 55% of college graduates. Additionally, 83% of blacks say they are absolutely certain about God’s existence, while roughly six-in-ten whites (61%) and Hispanics (59%) hold this view.

There is considerable variation in the way members of different religious groups conceive of God. For example, seven-in-ten Christians think of God as a person with whom people can have a relationship. Only about a quarter of those who belong to non-Christian faiths (26%) share this view. Among non-Christian faiths, it is more common to see God as an impersonal force.

Among the religiously unaffiliated, roughly three-in-ten (31%) say God is an impersonal force, a quarter say God is best viewed as a person and a third say God does not exist. However, among the subset of religious “nones” who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” and who also say religion is very or somewhat important in their lives, a slim majority (53%) say they believe in a personal God.

Although the share of adults who believe in God has declined modestly in recent years, among those who do believe in God, views about the nature of God are little changed since 2007. In both 2007 and 2014, roughly two-thirds of people who believe in God said they think of God as a person, while just under three-in-ten see God as an impersonal force.

Beliefs About the Afterlife

Roughly seven-in-ten Americans (72%) believe in “a heaven, where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded.”

Belief in heaven is nearly universal among Mormons (95%) and members of the historically black Protestant tradition (93%). Belief in heaven also is widely held by evangelical Protestants (88%), Catholics (85%), Orthodox Christians (81%) and mainline Protestants (80%).

The vast majority of Muslims (89%) also believe in heaven. About half of Hindus in the survey (48%) say they believe in heaven, as do 47% of Buddhists surveyed.

The only groups where significantly fewer than half say they believe in heaven are Jews (40%) and the unaffiliated (37%). While relatively few atheists or agnostics believe in heaven, a large share of those whose religion is “nothing in particular” and who also say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives do believe in heaven (72%).

The survey also finds that, overall, women are more likely than men to say they believe in heaven, and those with less than a college degree are more likely than those with a college degree to express this view. Slightly bigger shares of blacks and Hispanics than whites say they believe in heaven, and older Americans are slightly more likely than younger adults to hold this belief. In many cases, however, these demographic differences in belief in heaven are smaller within religious traditions than among the public as a whole. Among evangelical Protestants, for example, men are just as likely as women to believe in heaven, and young people are just as likely as older evangelicals to hold this belief.

Belief in “hell, where people who have lived bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished,” is less widespread than belief in heaven. About six-in-ten Americans (58%) believe in hell, little changed from 2007.

Belief in hell is most common among members of historically black Protestant churches (82%) and evangelical Protestant churches (82%). Somewhat fewer Catholics (63%), Mormons (62%), mainline Protestants (60%) and Orthodox Christians (59%) say they believe in hell.

Three-quarters of U.S. Muslims (76%) believe in hell, but belief in hell is less common among other non-Christian groups, including Buddhists (32%), Hindus (28%), Jews (22%) and the religiously unaffiliated (27%).

U.S. adults with less than a college degree are more likely than college graduates to say they believe in hell, and blacks are more likely than Hispanics and whites to believe in hell. However, there are minimal differences between men and women and between younger and older adults on this question.

Beliefs About Holy Scripture

Six-in-ten Americans (60%) view their religion’s sacred text as the word of God. This represents a slight decline from 2007, when 63% of the public held this view. Within most religious groups, there has been little movement on this question, but among the unaffiliated, there has been a modest decline in the share who view the Bible as the word of God (from 25% to 21%).

Three-quarters of Christians believe the Bible is the word of God, including about nine-in-ten evangelicals (88%), Mormons (91%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (94%). Among members of other Christian traditions, smaller majorities say the Bible is the word of God.

Although there is widespread agreement across Christian groups on this question, there is disagreement about whether the Bible can be taken “literally, word for word.” Most evangelical Protestants (55%) and members of historically black Protestant churches (59%) believe the Bible should be taken literally, but fewer Christians from other traditions espouse a literalist view of the Bible. There has been little change in recent years in the share of Christians who believe the Bible should be interpreted literally, word for word.

Most Muslims (83%) accept the Quran (also spelled Koran) as the word of God. Far fewer Jews (37%), Hindus (29%) and Buddhists (15%) say their scripture is the word of God.

The share of the unaffiliated who believe the Bible was written by men and is not the word of God has risen by 8 percentage points in recent years, from 64% in 2007 to 72% in 2014. But while most religious “nones” say the Bible was written by men, about half of those who say they have no particular religion and who also say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives believe the Bible is the word of God (51%).

As on some other traditional measures of religious belief, older adults are more likely than younger adults to say their religion’s holy text is the word of God. And those with less than a college degree also are much more likely than college graduates to say their religion’s scripture is the word of God. Additionally, more women than men and more blacks than Hispanics and whites say their religion’s holy text is the word of God. For the most part, however, differences in beliefs about the Bible are larger across religious traditions (e.g., between evangelicals and Catholics and religious “nones”) than differences between demographic groups within the same religious tradition.

Beliefs About Religion and Modernity

Respondents in the survey who are affiliated with a religion were asked to choose one of three statements that best reflects their view of how their religion should engage with modernity. A plurality of religiously affiliated Americans (46%) believe their religion should “preserve traditional beliefs and practices.” A third (34%) say their congregation or denomination should “adjust traditional beliefs and practices in light of new circumstances.” Only 14% of people who are affiliated with a religious tradition say their religion should “adopt modern beliefs and practices.”

These findings are little changed from 2007, when 44% of affiliated respondents said their religion should preserve its traditional beliefs and practices, 35% said their religion should adjust its traditional beliefs and 12% said their religion should adopt modern beliefs and practices.

The belief that their religion should preserve traditional practices is held by most Mormons (70%), Jehovah’s Witnesses (60%), evangelical Protestants (61%) and members of historically black Protestant churches (53%), as well as half of Orthodox Christians (50%).

Muslims are closely divided on whether their religion should preserve traditional beliefs and practices or adjust traditional beliefs and practices in light of new circumstances. Among other religious groups, including Jews, mainline Protestants and Catholics, the most common view is that religions should adjust traditional practices.

Paths to Eternal Life

Two-thirds of those who identify with a religious group say many religions (not just their own) can lead to eternal life, down slightly from 2007, when 70% of all religiously affiliated adults said this.

This view is held by the vast majority of mainline Protestants (80%) and Catholics (79%), as well as smaller majorities of Orthodox Christians (68%) and members of historically black Protestant churches (57%) and about half of evangelicals (52%). Fewer than half of Mormons (40%) and only about one-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (8%) believe that many religions can lead to eternal life.

Among the non-Christian religious traditions that are large enough to be analyzed, most say many religions can lead to eternal life.

Most Christians who say many religions can lead to eternal life also say non-Christian religions can lead to heaven. In fact, half of all Christians say some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life, while about four-in-ten say either that theirs is the one true faith leading to eternal life or that only Christianity can result in everlasting life. About one-in-ten Christians express no opinion or provide other views on these matters.

Two-thirds of Catholics (68%) and mainline Protestants (65%) say some non-Christian religions can lead to eternal life, as do 59% of Orthodox Christians. This view is less common among other Christian groups. Roughly four-in-ten members of historically black Protestant denominations (38%) say some non-Christian religions can lead to eternal life, as do three-in-ten evangelical Protestants and Mormons (31% each). Very few Jehovah’s Witnesses (5%) believe this.

Religion and Morality

When looking for answers to questions about right and wrong, more Americans say they turn to practical experience and common sense (45%) than to any other source of guidance. The next most common source of guidance is religious beliefs and teachings (33%), while far fewer turn to philosophy and reason (11%) or scientific information (9%).

Since the 2007 Religious Landscape Study, however, the share of U.S. adults who say they turn to practical experience has decreased by 7 percentage points (from 52% to 45%) while the share who say they look to religious teachings has increased by 4 points (from 29% to 33%). This turn to religious teachings as a source of moral guidance has occurred across many religious traditions, with the largest increases among evangelical Protestants and Catholics.

Six-in-ten or more evangelical Protestants, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses say they turn to religious teachings and beliefs for moral guidance. Members of historically black Protestant churches are more divided: 47% say they rely on religious teachings while 41% rely on practical experience. Fewer Catholics (30%), mainline Protestants (29%) and Orthodox Christians (27%) turn primarily to religion for guidance on questions of right and wrong.

Fewer religious “nones” now say they use common sense and practical experience as their main source of guidance in this area (57%) than said this in 2007 (66%). But instead of finding guidance through religious teachings, more of the “nones” are turning to scientific information; the share who say they rely on scientific information has increased from 10% to 17% in recent years. The reliance on science is most common among self-identified atheists; one-third of this group (32%) relies primarily on scientific information for guidance on questions of right and wrong.

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) say that whether something is right or wrong depends on the situation, while a third say there are clear and absolute standards for what is right or wrong. In 2007, a different question about moral absolutes found that 39% of Americans completely agreed with the statement “there are clear and absolute standards for what is right and wrong.”

While Christians overall are more likely than members of other religious groups to say there are absolute standards for right and wrong, there are large differences within Christianity. Nearly six-in-ten Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (57%) say there are clear standards for right and wrong. Evangelical Protestants are divided in their opinions, with 50% saying there are absolute standards and 48% saying it depends on the situation. Fewer Orthodox Christians (33%), mainline Protestants (32%), Catholics (30%) and members of the historically black Protestant tradition (29%) say there are clear and absolute standards of right and wrong.

Among members of non-Christian faiths, about three-quarters assert that determining right from wrong is often situational. Similarly, more than eight-in-ten atheists and agnostics express this view, as do three-quarters of those whose religion is “nothing in particular.”

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Why study religion?

Big questions.

Whether you consider yourself a religious person or not, or whether you think religion has played a positive or negative role in history, it is an incontrovertible fact that from the beginning of time, humans have engaged in activities that we now call religion, such as worship, prayer, and rituals marking important life passages. Moreover, religions have always asked fundamental questions, such as: What is the true meaning of life? What happens to us after death? How do we explain human suffering and injustices?

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The answers different religious traditions give to these important questions are many and varied and often contradictory. But the questions themselves are ones with which humans throughout time have grappled, and probably will continue to grapple with into the indefinite future. Thus, one of the first reasons to study religion is simply to deepen our understanding of others and ourselves, even as we pursue other realms of knowledge.

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We also study religion in order to learn more about how different aspects of human life—politics, science, literature, art, law, economics—have been and continue to be shaped by changing religious notions of, for example, good and evil, images of the deity and the divine, salvation and punishment, etc. By studying different religious doctrines, rituals, stories, and scriptures, we can also come to understand how different communities of believers—past and present, East and West—have used their religious traditions to shape, sustain, transform themselves.

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More than ever before, the world we live in is both multicultural and global. We no longer need to travel across the ocean to visit a Hindu temple or an Islamic mosque or to meet a Sikh or a Jain. The chances are that you can find a temple or mosque within a few miles of where you live, and it is almost certain that you will be meet someone from any and all of these religious traditions on campus or on the street. This makes it even more essential that we cultivate our ability to understand and interpret other people’s religious traditions.

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Finally, the academic study of religion is inherently multidisciplinary. This is reflected in our program here at Washington University, which draws faculty from different disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, such as history, anthropology, literature, art history, and political science. Studying religion thus provides you an opportunity to learn about a range of disciplinary approaches, and, even more importantly, the connections and linkages among them. In this way studying religion invites us all to think in a more interdisciplinary and integral way about the world and our place in it.

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5 The Purpose of Religion

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• Published: September 2005
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The purposes of the practice of a religion are to achieve the goals of salvation for oneself and others, and (if there is a God) to render due worship and obedience to God. Different religions have different understandings of salvation and God. It is rational for someone to pursue these goals by following a religious way (the practices commended by some religion, e.g., Buddhism or Christianity), in so far as they judge that it would be greatly worthwhile to achieve those goals and in so far as they judge that it is to some degree probable that they will attain them by following the way of that religion. They will judge that in so far as they judge the creed of that religion to be to some degree probable (not necessarily more probable than not). The goals of the Christian religion are better than those of Buddhism.

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Does Ethics Require Religion?

There is a spectrum of views about how religion and ethics are related—from the view that religion is the absolute bedrock of ethics to one that holds that ethics is based on humanistic assumptions justified mainly, and sometimes only, by appeals to reason. These two extremes tend to be argued in a way that offers little room for compromise or pragmatic solutions to real issues we face everyday.

The relationship between religion and ethics is about the relationship between revelation and reason. Religion is based in some measure on the idea that God (or some deity) reveals insights about life and its true meaning. These insights are collected in texts (the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc.) and presented as “revelation.” Ethics, from a strictly humanistic perspective, is based on the tenets of reason: Anything that is not rationally verifiable cannot be considered justifiable. From this perspective, ethical principles need not derive their authority from religious doctrine. Instead, these principles are upheld for their value in promoting independent and responsible individuals—people who are capable of making decisions that maximize their own well-being while respecting the well-being of others.

Even though religious and secular ethics don’t derive their authority from the same source, we still must find a way to establish common ground between them; otherwise we’re condemning ourselves to live amidst social discord and division.

I believe we can accommodate the requirements of reason and religion by developing certain qualities that we would bring to our everyday ethical discussions. Aristotle said that cultivating qualities (he called them “virtues”) like prudence, reason, accommodation, compromise, moderation, wisdom, honesty, and truthfulness, among others, would enable us all to enter the discussions and conflicts between religion and ethics—where differences exist—with a measure of moderation and agreement. When ethics and religion collide, nobody wins; when religion and ethics find room for robust discussion and agreement, we maximize the prospects for constructive choices in our society.

About the Author

James a. donahue.

James A. Donahue, Ph.D., is the president and a professor of ethics at the Graduate Theological Union.

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Do humans | need religion?

For many people across the world, religion plays an important part in their daily lives and identities. While others lead happy lives without believing in a god(s). Why do some of us feel the ‘need to believe’? 

Crunching the numbers!

Where are people least likely to think that a belief in God is key to being a good person?

• Britain 
• Germany 

In what percentage of countries across the world is it public opinion that a belief in God is key to being a good person?

• Almost nobody 
• Less than 50%
• More than 50%

Which part of the world is home to most ‘non-religious’ people?

• The Middle East and North Africa
• North America
• Asia-Pacific region
• Europe 

Which religious group has the most followers across the world?

• Non-religious people

If you’re religious, how likely are you to be part of a minority in your country?

• The situation is constantly changing.

Which religion has the youngest followers?

• Judaism 
• Christianity

What percentage of non-religious Americans believe in God?

What percentage of all people in the world identify with a particular religious group?

Which part of the world is home to most Muslims?

How can religion be defined?

• As a set of beliefs about a higher power.
• As a guiding ideal on how to be a good person.
• As a set of rules to follow in everyday life.
• All of the options. 

Do we need religion to know how to be good?

Why might humans need religious belief? Is it because we need religion to be ‘good’? Or is there some other way that makes humans behave well without a belief in god? 

Some people argue that we need religion to be moral - to give us a sense of right and wrong, and help us be ‘good’. It sets a standard for good behaviour and punishes the bad. Others would say that it is perfectly possible to be moral and happy without believing in God or gods. 

What do we mean by good? 

Dr Oliver Scott Curry, a Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropologist at the University of Oxford, explains that there’s quite a long list of things that make up what we call ‘good’. 

“Morality is all about cooperation - promoting the common good. Because there are many different types of cooperation, there are many different types of morality, including: sympathy, loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness and property rights.”

Do we need religion to behave well?

Human behaviour, both good and bad, is a product of nature and nurture.

“Millions of years evolution have equipped us with a range of social, cooperative and altruistic dispositions.,” says Dr Curry. “We’re hard-wired in our brains to be good to each other. We’re not angels but we’re not devils either.” 

"How we behave is also influenced by our environments - how we’re brought up, the people around us and what kind of culture we live in. For example, people compete for status in lots of different ways in different cultures. In some societies, people compete to eat the most hallucinogenic herbs, catch the biggest fish, kill the most enemies, write the best poem…in others, people compete by being the most generous, most brave, or most helpful.”

What is the connection between religion and morality?

There isn’t any necessary connection between religion and morality. “Morality is a lot older than religion. We’ve been moral beings for many years before we were religious. And, arguably, some religions aren’t moral at all. So, for example, some cultures have a belief in mischievous or even bad spirits. And humans have to make sacrifices and worship these bad spirits in the hope that they don’t do negative things to them e.g. ruin their crops or strike them down with a horrible illness. 

“We’re used to the idea of powerful gods in the sky looking out for us and telling us to be good. That’s the basis of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. But these are relatively recent religions in terms of the history of human development. And even today not all religions follow the standard model of one kindly god looking out for us. Buddhism, for example, does not follow that model. Humans may have always had some supernatural belief but it hasn’t always been, and doesn’t have to be, moral.”

Codes of conduct

There’s a universal common moral code that nearly all societies tap into irrespective of religion or where they are in the world (Curry, O.S., Mullins, D.A. & Whitehouse, H., 2018 ).  

“We recently conducted a large study of morals of 60 cultures around the world. We found that cooperation was key - and that cooperative behaviours formed the basis of seven universal moral rules. These are: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, respect authority, be fair and respect other people’s property".

“In some cultures, morality is wrapped up in a supernatural, mystical cloud. But this isn’t necessary for these moral rules to apply. Instead, myths and superstitions grow up around the moral code. They then become entwined with each other which is how we end up thinking religion equals morality. It may well do but we shouldn’t assume that it has to be that way” adds Dr Curry. 

Are religious countries more moral?

It’s a common assumption that a country which is very religious will also be more law-abiding, moral and respectful than one which is not. But this is not the case. 

According to the non-profit organization, Vision of Humanity, which publishes an annual Global Peace Index, the ten safest and most peaceful nations in the world are the least God-believing. While the least safe and peaceful nations are the most religious. This doesn’t mean that a lack of religious belief causes improved wellbeing or religious belief causes social problems.  But it might mean social problems – a lack of basic necessities, and institutions like the rule of law – people might turn to religion out of desperation, explains Dr Curry. And once their situation improves, they may no longer put their faith in religion. “For example, once medicine came along and hospitals were built, people were much less likely to believe in magical potions and healing spells.”

“What’s clear from the research is that secular, non-religious countries, like the UK, are not negatively affected by the absence of faith,” says Dr Curry.

Do humans need faith to make sense of their lives? 

So we’ve read that religion doesn’t necessarily make a country or culture moral or good. But what else could religion mean for humans? Does it offer a way to make sense of our lives? 

“One of the things people get most meaning from is taking part in something collective, i.e. working with other people to achieve something together. We are social animals so that’s not really surprising. Your social network is your life support system. If you asked a bee what gives its life meaning, it would likely say working together with other bees to achieve something for all of them. It’s the same for us. Commitment to a cause greater than ourselves gives our lives meaning and makes us feel good,” says Dr Curry.

We like being in groups and it can be but doesn’t have to be, religious. For example, you could enjoy being a football fan or following a band, political party, theatre group or environmental campaign. All of these have the same thing in common - they bring people together and make you feel part of something bigger than yourself. That gives a warm glow and sense of belonging. And we humans need to feel we belong. It’s a great comfort knowing others feel the same way. You can get that from religion. But you can also get it from a wide variety of other forms of association and other beliefs.  

Are there any groups you belong to that are important to you? Why do you think religion means so much to some people and groups, and not to others? 

To read a summary of Dr Curry's research into morality across the world. 

Gods and Lawyers

Dr Philippa Byrne (University of Oxford) discusses three fascinating questions: what's the difference between a religious teaching and a legal ruling? would we want religion to be a part of the law? and what happens when religion and law come into conflict?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsfMjcpz5vs

Can football be a religion? The ‘Iglesia Maradoniana’ (Church of Maradona) was set up by fans of the Argentinian footballer, Diego Maradona. The church has its own set of commandments, including the instruction that all worshippers should take ‘Diego’

Can football be a religion? The ‘Iglesia Maradoniana’ (Church of Maradona) was set up by fans of the Argentinian footballer, Diego Maradona. The church has its own set of commandments, including the instruction that all worshippers should take ‘Diego’ as their middle name.

Are we programmed to believe in a superpower?

When we’re little, we think our parents know everything. If we’re sick, they always know just what’s wrong. If we’ve done something bad, they always seem to find out. And apparently they can even see inside locked boxes... at least, that’s what most three-year-olds seem to think... 

When researchers at the University of Oxford asked three-year olds if their mum would know the contents of a locked box that she’d never seen before, they all said yes. They also believed that a supernatural being (like a god) would be able to know what was in the box. But when the researchers asked four- and five-year-olds, they weren’t so convinced about their mum’s superpowers. However, lots of them still thought that a god-type being would know what was in the locked box without ever having been near it.

So even once kids grow out of thinking that their mums are all-seeing and all-knowing, they still don’t have a problem with the idea that another being might be. Basically, they don’t seem to think there’s much that’s super about the supernatural - they find it much easier and more normal than a lot of adults to believe in things they can’t see or understand.

So does that mean that belief in a god or gods is a natural state for human beings? Or do we create our belief systems based entirely on our environment, the beliefs of those around us and the experiences of our everyday lives?

God on the brain

That’s pretty much exactly what a team of Oxford University researchers have tried to find out.

The researchers spent three years talking to thousands of adults and children in 20 different countries, looking at both religious and atheist societies. And they found that huge numbers of people across many different cultures instinctively accept the idea of gods and the supernatural and believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit keeps on existing even after death.

Roger Trigg, an Oxford professor working on the project, said that their research showed that religion “wasn’t just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We’ve gathered evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies.” He thinks this makes it unlikely that religion will ever die out, adding that “attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived, as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts.”

“Just because we find it easier to think in a particular way doesn’t mean that it’s true.”

Does our belief make God real?

But this doesn’t necessarily help us to know whether or not a god exists. Another Oxford researcher on the project, Dr Justin Barrett, said: “Just because we find it easier to think in a particular way doesn’t mean that it’s true.” So although the project has helped us to discover more about how natural belief seems to be for humans, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a god or gods actually exist – just that we seem programmed to think that they do.

In fact, some of the information the researchers found makes it seem as though believing in the supernatural is less to do with a god and more to do with us. For example, they discovered that people living in cities in more developed countries (places that have a higher standard of living, a stronger economy and better technology and trade) were less likely to have religious beliefs than people who lived in more rural areas. Dr Barrett says: “Individuals bound by religious ties might be more likely to cooperate as societies. We found that religion is less likely to thrive in cities where there is already a strong social support network.”

This suggests that faith might not just be about the thing you believe in, but also about what the thing you believe in can help you to accomplish. Often people find that when they’re united by something, even as small as a shared love of superhero comic books or banana milkshakes, it can help them get along better and work together more easily. So if the thing that unites people is as significant as belief in a god or a supernatural power, that can mean that living and working together as a society is a lot simpler because you share so many of the same values, ideas and goals. Some people would definitely find that a good motivator for belief.

So it seems like both nature and nurture have a part to play in faith and a belief in the supernatural. But does that help us get closer to the truth about whether or not a god exists? That’s for you to decide.

Going to extremes

A big concern for many people in the 21st century is that religious belief can fuel extremism and violence. If religion drives people to extreme action, should we be more critical of it? This video looks at the complex links between extremism, religion, politics and culture. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3XDN6TAHoM&list=PLcvEcrsF_9zKTvmTconI6YkUd3SVw0GDO&index=5

Inspiring art?

Across the world, religious belief has inspired great art, music, poetry and architecture. Art historians, Dr Maya Corry and Dr Katherine Cross (University of Oxford) explore what a selection of works of art can tell us about the role that religion plays in human lives.

Power 

1. rock relief, naqš-e rostam, iran, 3rd century ad.

This monumental rock carving shows two riders on horses, both trampling enemies underfoot. On closer inspection, the figure on the left turns out to be the new Persian king, Ardashir I (224-42 AD), while the right-hand figure is the god Ohrmazd. The king’s horse crushes the body of his predecessor, just as the god triumphs over an evil spirit. The central focus of the whole image is a ring passed from god to king as if bestowing the right to rule. The carving communicates that Ardashir enjoys divine favour. What could be a more powerful way for the king and his new dynasty to get their message across?

Image: © Rachel Wood Text: Katherine Cross

Storytelling 

2. franks casket (front), probably northumbria, early 8th century ad.

This whalebone box presents a bizarre contrast. On the right you see the three Wise Men bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Christ and the Virgin Mary. The left-hand scene, from a northern European myth, shows a magical blacksmith called Weland wreaking a bloody revenge. He is passing a drugged drink to his captor’s daughter, while her brother’s headless body lies at his feet. Why pair these scenes? Perhaps the contrast emphasizes the peace and order brought by Christianity. But maybe the two images are equals: the visit of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus is just another story to tell. 

Image: © Trustees of the British Museum Text: Katherine Cross

Morality 

3. parochet, northern italy (probably venice), 1676.

A parochet is a curtain that covers the Ark (chamber) which contains the holy Torah scrolls in a Jewish synagogue. It creates a physical barrier between the human realm and that of divine truth, and communicates that believers are in the presence of holy mysteries. This parochet is beautifully decorated: embroidered flowers flourish around symbols of Jewish worship. In the centre are the Ten Commandments, which God handed down to Moses on two stone tablets. These form the basis of a moral code for people to live by, providing a clear sense of right and wrong. The community who worshipped at this synagogue would have been reminded of these lessons whenever they saw their parochet. 

Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Text: Maya Corry

Life-cycle 

4. carved figure of a woman breastfeeding, west africa, 1890-1920.

This statue probably represents Odudua, an earth goddess revered by the Yoruba people of West Africa. Her face shows the marks of deliberate scarring (a sign of great beauty) and she wears fine jewellery. The statue is carved from solid ebony, and the artist depicts Odudua as a powerful, maternal figure. The Yoruba believe that she helps to guarantee fertility, safe pregnancy and the birth of a healthy child. Many religions use ceremonies and works of art to mark key moments in the life-cycle: birth, the end of childhood, marriage and death. These rituals and objects provide structure to life, create bonds within a community, and help people to make sense of transitions and feel protected.

Image: Science Museum, London Text: Maya Corry

5. Śākyamuni preaching on the Vulture Peak, embroidery, China, 8th century AD

Although Buddhism is founded on the teachings of one man, the religion’s followers believe that everybody has the potential to attain the state of Buddhahood (enlightenment). This beautiful embroidery shows Śākyamuni Buddha, a spiritual teacher, preaching to his followers. Beneath him, little men and women are kneeling. They represent the family who paid for the embroidery to be made. By doing so, and by including their portraits within it, they hoped to gain blessings that would secure them a good reincarnation, moving them closer to nirvana. The image represents a hopeful philosophy: those who lived well and according to the teachings of the Śākyamuni Buddha could look forward to reincarnation, and need not fear death.

Image: © Trustees of the British Museum Text: Maya Corry

6. Ex-voto, Italy, c. 1890

An ex-voto is a gift left at a shrine in thanks for divine attention. This one shows a man in Rome who has been hit on the head by a falling flower-pot! Luckily, the Madonna and Christ Child (who we see hovering in the sky above him) have protected him from serious harm. For centuries Catholics around the world have produced ex-votos to show their gratitude for the miraculous interventions of holy figures in their lives. Many ex-votos refer to healings from sickness or accidents. In a world that can feel dangerous and uncertain, it is comforting to believe that you can face the trials of everyday life with divine help and protection.

Image: © Wellcome Collection Text: Maya Corry

Celebrity worship

Scientology is a set of beliefs – including the belief in an alien overlord called Xenu – developed by the American science-fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard. Like in other religions, Scientologists believe that you are essentially a spiritual entity that can survive the death of your body. The Church of Scientology has been and continues to be a controversial organisation. For example, it wages a campaign against psychiatry, denouncing it as unscientific. Joining the Church of Scientology involves signing a legal contract promising not to leave the organisation for one billion years and giving large financial donations. Its most famous member is the American film star, Tom Cruise. He joined in 1990 and has since made some pretty remarkable statements. He claims, for example, that Scientology cured his dyslexia because “we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions.” Once you've joined Scientology, the Church makes it extremely difficult for you to leave. For that reason, many European governments have labelled it as a cult. Cruise himself is known to have tried to charm the governments of countries where Scientology is in legal trouble.

In the late 1990s, pop star Madonna joined the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. Kabbalah is an ancient esoteric branch of Judaism that focuses on the mystical interpretation of the Bible. The Kabbalah Centre attempts to show how these mystical teachings have a universal spiritual significance that can be applied in everyday life. For example, it suggests that the five senses only allow us to experience about 1% of reality. Imagine that! Madonna embraced this New Age version of Kabballah: “All the puzzle pieces began to fall into place,” she said in 2009. “Life no longer seemed like a series of random events. I started to see patterns in my life. I woke up.” She started wearing the signature red string bracelet - protecting against people with ‘an evil eye’ - and she adopted the Hebrew name, Esther. It also influenced her music, in particular, the album Ray of Light. Her 2012 Super Bowl Halftime Show was similarly full of esoteric symbolism: for example, the stage displayed a huge piercing eye, as well as a winged sun-disk used by ancient Egyptian mystics. Less subtly, she performed wearing a shirt saying ‘Kabbalists Do It Better’ during one of her world tours. However, some Jewish scholars accuse Madonna of distorting and commercialising Kabbalah. This is sometimes referred to as cultural appropriation i.e. taking a symbol from a different culture and using it for your own aims which, in doing so, might mean the symbol loses some of its original meaning. What do you think? 

Starring in blockbuster franchises like Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, actor Orlando Bloom felt he needed some peace and quiet in his life. For that reason, he converted to Buddhism during a ceremony at the Soka Gakkai International Centre in Britain in 2004. Soka Gakkai International is a Lay-Buddhist organisation. This means that - unlike the image some may have of Buddhists - Bloom does not live in a monastery. He is still a member of society and will hopefully make many more films!  He has told interviewers that Buddhism ultimately supplies “an unshakeable sense of self.” Because of that, Bloom confesses that “it’s been a real anchor for me.”   

The London Evening Standard recently identified pop star Zayn Malik as “the most high-profile British Muslim in the entertainment industry.” Though he’s not currently practising, he was nevertheless raised within the Islamic faith. For that reason, he says he identifies strongly with Islamic culture. Malik is very aware of how important it is to have people of different backgrounds in the public eye. This might explain why he says he takes “a great sense of pride – and responsibility – in knowing that I am the first of my kind, from my background.” By this he means that he is one of the first people of British Muslim heritage to become as famous as he is. Nevertheless, he wants people to know that there’s more to him than his religion.   

Stephen Fry identifies as a humanist. Humanism is a set of beliefs that have the human being - not God - at its centre. The human being can on their own - through reason and science - understand what the world is and what they are supposed to do in the course of their lives. When interviewed on Irish television in 2015, Fry said that he would have no respect for an “utterly evil… capricious, mean-minded… god that creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain”. Therefore, Fry says, “the moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living.” Some critics would argue that the problem of why God permits the existence of evil has been central to theology and philosophy for centuries. It even occupies its own branch of reflection called theodicy. The 17th century German philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz, for example, believed that this is the best possible world. There might still be a bit of evil in it, but God could not have created a better one. What do you think? 

Martin Luther King Jr. was not only an American civil rights activist, but also a Christian priest and academic theologian. For him, political activism was a direct continuation of his call to the Christian ministry. King’s emphasis on nonviolence in protests - inspired by Mahatma Gandhi - has its roots in Biblical instructions like turning the other cheek when wronged. For King, the Gospels also carry a deep social message. He is recorded to have said that “we must move into a sometimes hostile world armed with the revolutionary Gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful Gospel, we shall boldly challenge the status quo.” By this, King means that Christians should constantly try to improve society and make the world a better place for everyone. To him, the Gospel was revolutionary; its message had the power to fundamentally change society.   

On the cover of his debut album, Gangs, Signs & Prayer, the British rapper Stormzy takes the place of Jesus in a scene very similar to depictions of the last supper (but with more Balaclavas!). Rather than trying to make fun of religion, Stormzy is referring to his own beliefs. Indeed, he stands in a long tradition of Christian rap but is the first to achieve mainstream success with it. In November 2017, his Christian-inspired single 'Blinded By Your Grace'  rose to number one in the charts. Stormzy has expressed surprise at his recent achievements. In an interview, he said that all he can do to explain his success is point to a higher power: “If it doesn’t add up, I give it to God. Me getting that No1 on the last day doesn’t add up. I give it to God.” 

Morality can develop without religion

There’s a universal common moral code that nearly all societies tap into irrespective of religion or where they are in the world (an idea suggested by Dr K. M. Keith, 2003). 

Dr Oliver Scott Curry, a Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropologist at the University of Oxford, explains that: “We recently conducted a large study of morals of 60 cultures around the world. We found that cooperation was key - and that cooperative behaviours formed the basis of seven universal moral rules. These are: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, respect authority, be fair and respect other people’s property".

And so there isn’t any necessary connection between religion and morality. “Morality is a lot older than religion. We’ve been moral beings for many years before we were religious. And, arguably, some religions aren’t moral at all. So, for example, some cultures have a belief in mischievous or even bad spirits. And humans have to make sacrifices and worship these bad spirits in the hope that they don’t do negative things to them e.g. ruin their crops or strike them down with a horrible illness. 

Things can get complicated

Historian, Dr Philippa Byrne (University of Oxford) explains that: “The relationship between law and religion today… is often a complex one in modern societies. And there's a lot of controversy around how we protect religious beliefs but also how we protect other people from religious beliefs of others…The problem for lawyers and judges is what happens when a person's faith might be damaging another person's rights and how far we protect religion in an increasingly diverse society. For example, imagine a case with a strictly religious baker who refuses to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple… whose rights should be protected here?”

Do humans need religion?

“One of the things people get most meaning from is taking part in something collective, i.e. working with other people to achieve something together. We are social animals so that’s not really surprising. Your social network is your life support system… Commitment to a cause greater than ourselves gives our lives meaning and makes us feel good,” says anthropologist, Dr Oliver Scott Curry (University of Oxford).

You can gain these positive effects and feelings from religion. But you can also get them from a wide variety of other forms of association and other beliefs. 

Across the world, religious belief has inspired great/classic works of art, music, poetry and architecture. Beyond personal meaning, it could be argued that religion has contributed to human culture, our understanding of key concepts such as power, morality and the cycle of life, and indeed how we’ve recorded the past through the arts and other forms of storytelling. 

• Is religion a force for good?
• Legal rights for the church of the Jedi
• Why don't young people believe?
• Expelled for non-belief!
• Here are 8 creation stories - but what do you believe?
• A year of living biblically
• Gods in film and fiction

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Religious Beliefs — The Importance of a Religion to Humanity

The Importance of Religion to Humanity

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Published: Aug 16, 2019

Words: 1290 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Why is religion important? (essay)

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Why is Religion Important Essay

If we are not governed by a set of values, then our principles and idea of right and wrong are only based on opinion. The Nazis were not evil. They had a set of values that do not match many of the values that exist today. If they had kept to the religious promises they made the Vatican as they rose to power, then they would have had a hard time taking life in the way they did. My hypothesis is that religion is a human creation, but without some form of faith in more than human opinion, we are lost because only have ourselves to account to.

Human nature is bad. We are not born with a knowledge of right or wrong. That is why people turn out so differently. It is not because a person is born good or bad, but the way they are treated and the values they are taught is what makes them the person they become. Religion has sets of rules that people follow on mass. These rules are more than laws with punishments and rewards, they are based on a set of values, and those are the things that help a person grow to be well adjusted.

Imagine kids without the rule of parents. If a child was allowed to run around and do what he or she wished in an unchecked manner, then children would kill themselves by accident, become sociopaths, and become savages. There would be no way of knowing what would happen. Kids need a parental figure to give out rules and teach values, and that is what religion does for adults. It gives them a set of values and rules to live by.

We are taught what is right and wrong, and religion allows a certain unification that governments are unable to instill. The law tells us not to kill. We are not born with that knowledge. We are born to kill, which is why kids are often merciless insect (and pet) killers. We have both eyes facing front, which means we are born predators. The law tells us not to kill and not to steal. Most will never do such things, and part of that is due to religion. Religion came up with the idea that we shouldn’t kill and steal long before the law did.

The law simply tells us what to do, but religion tries to explain why we should do things. One may say that we do not do things because the law tells us not to, and that is a good enough reason for them, but it is too black and white for most people. Religion helps us shape values so we can make our own choices. For example, the law may say do not kill, but religion (the good religions) teaches us the sanctity of life, so if we had to kill a single person in order to save thousands–then religion allows us to make that choice where the law does not.

The law is the government’s way of trying to instill values, but they simply cannot do it with rules alone. The government would hope that if you follow the law, then you will see why it works and learn your values that way–but it is doing it all backwards. With peace-loving and good religions that do not condone killing, such as any religion “other than” the Arian brotherhood, Islam, and Satanism, you are taught why something is wrong so that you may then choose what you do. Good religions that do not condone killing say you can break the law because you have choices, but it first gives you the reasons and values needed to make the right decision (which usually involves following the law).

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Why Study Religion?

In their own words…

Annie Paris (Class of 2021):

As a young woman who grew up in the heart of the Bible Belt, I thought I knew what “studying” religion meant. In my head, it meant you opened up your sacred text (in my case the Bible) and talked with a group of like-minded people (in my case fellow 16-year-old girls) about what it meant. Fast forward 5 years, and I am a rising senior who is majoring in Religious Studies at Rhodes College. Studying religion is no longer synonymous to Bible study, but rather it is a way to develop my critical thinking skills and to truly learn.

Zac Gammons (Class of 2022):

There is no “set in stone” way that you study religion, which makes it fun and diverse. It doesn’t require the regurgitation of formulas and definitions, but it does require in-depth understanding. It also inspires real life skills that can be tough to teach in a classroom with other types of studies. You have to put yourself into the shoes of others and understand people different than yourself, while also being aware of your own perspective. Having to widen your understanding of the world and discuss issues and topics that can be hard to understand creates well-rounded and cultured young scholars.

Sheridan Hardy (Class of 2022):

Studying religion—and the subjective boundaries that religious practices have historically placed around the “sacred” and “profane”—can help us understand modern manifestations of those boundaries. Religion is a part of culture, so studying it is interdisciplinary, combining textual, historical, linguistic, philosophical and many other approaches in the process.

Elizabeth Lambe (Class of 2021):

Maybe this is a little biased, but I believe when it comes down to it religion is a fascinating area of study! For ages, people have depended on religion, and it is constantly evolving with the times. The academic study of religion is an ideal way to explore religious ideas from a variety of perspectives. Religion is one of the primary means for people wanting to explore the human condition of existence. Researching religion means having the chance to learn how others understand existence and our purpose.

[Quotations used with permission from the final projects submitted in Professor Sarah Rollens’ class RELS 256: Methods and Theories in Religious Studies (Spring 2020)]

While the study of religion as an academic enterprise has roots that extend back several centuries, its modern configuration and institutional embodiment are a 20th century phenomenon. This field of study has emerged with the recognition that religion is a cultural phenomenon that is marked by both diversity and transformation. The pervasiveness and power of religions throughout human history and their continuing role in shaping individuals and societies make their study within an academic context essential.

A primary objective of the study of religion is to clarify the concept and define the category. The rigorous interrogation of a basic cultural category is a central act of a critical education. On the other hand, human beings do not live through general categories, but through concrete, historical traditions embedded in particular times and places. The study of particular traditions, leaders, doctrines, rituals and artifacts draws students into complex, enduring and compelling systems of meaning that have affected millions of lives.

To study religion is to study responses, both behavioral and intellectual, to the great riddles and questions that face human beings, including death, suffering, tragedy and the nature of the self, society and universe. Religious Studies incorporates cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches and utilizes historical, ethnographic, theological/philosophical and sociological tools to interpret and explain the multifaceted complexes that are religions.

Religion is a basic element in western understanding. In the United States, in particular, religion is a foundational taxonomic concept that American culture uses to sort out and organize the complexity of human experience. The First Amendment guarantees that the United States may have more than one religion and affirms that religion is a legitimate legally protected form of difference in American society. Thus, our national ability not merely to abide, but to affirm difference - to value difference as a social benefit and a cultural good - is grounded in our constitutional commitment to religious freedom.

In the past decade, we have become increasingly aware of how religion intersects with ethnicity and nationalism to shape the identities of individuals and societies around the world. Far from being simply a private phenomenon, religion is integrally involved in configuring the world-view and ethos of major civilizations of our day. It plays a central role in determining the shape and tenor of political and cultural conflicts within and between nations. To understand, the diversity of peoples and societies around the world, as well as the conflicts within and between them, it is essential that Americans come to recognize and to understand the diverse religious roots of individual and communal identity.

These factors help to establish the place and mission of the study of religion in American higher education. Education is our society′s primary mode of socialization and acculturation. It is where our students acquire not only information and skills but also a basic sense of American culture and its endemic pluralistic structure and values. One of the things higher education must do, then, is to give students the skills to appreciate the plausibility and appeal of lives they do no and may never lead. This is more than a matter of supplying information. It is a matter of giving them the capacity to understand ways of living that are unknown, alien, and even threatening to them. Since religion is at the core of pluralism, the study of religion must play a central role in American higher education. Through its study, students acquire the attitude, skills and knowledge they will need to negotiate the increasingly pluralistic world of the 21st century.

Why study religious traditions?

The Department of Religious Studies offers an undergraduate curriculum designed to enhance awareness of diverse religious traditions among college graduates in a modern, pluralistic society. As global, national and local concerns increasingly are voice in terms of religious beliefs, values and world-views, understanding one′s own religious background and those of others has become an important factor in educating a person for the 21st century.

How will this benefit my education and career goals?

Course work in Religious Studies is designed to help students enhance their skills in analytical thought and effective communication. Such training can lay the foundation for successful graduate studies or augment professional careers in fields like communications, journalism, international relations, business, justice studies or public administration.

Does the department have a record of placing its graduates?

Students with background degrees in Religious Studies have been admitted to graduate programs in the study of religion at first-rate institutions of higher learning. Others have successfully pursued advanced studies in fields, such as medicine and law.

What will I learn?

The Department of Religious Studies offers an extensive range of courses that introduce undergraduates to a variety of religious traditions, texts, rituals, symbols and cultures. In consultation with a faculty advisor, students design a course of study that combines a core curriculum with individual interests in order to understand better the ways in which religious values, ethics and beliefs influence human thought and action in societies around the world and throughout history.

How will I fit in?

The Department of Religious Studies provides a supportive learning environment that invites undergraduates to interact socially and intellectually with a community of peers and faculty. Undergraduates are encouraged to attend departmental colloquia and become acquainted with leading scholars visiting the campus.

What are my options?

A major in Religious Studies is an appropriate choice for students wishing to focus on specific religious traditions. Others combine their interest in religion with area-centered or multidisciplinary studies. Students may also explore the role of religion in relation to topics such as the arts, politics or gender.

For more information, visit http://www.studyreligion.org/ .

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An Atheist Asks: Do We Really Need Religion To Be Happier?

Religion and well-being have an interesting relationship, to say the least. Contradictory in some ways, de facto allies in others. When the recent 2024 World Happiness Report came out, Finland came out on top as the happiest country for the seventh year in a row.

It got me thinking about this Venn diagram I find myself coming back to a lot later, where faith, happiness, and non-belief meet. Of course, I'm approaching all this with a healthy level of skepticism. Correlation does not mean causation, after all, but it is worth the consideration, at least. Let's take it as an exercise, an inquiry of sorts, or just some casual sleuthing for the sake of this essay.

There's been a noticeable sharp decline in the number of religious people in the world over the past few decades. Hell, Spain , a country that's been a bedrock of Christianity for centuries, ranked 16th in the world in the most number of atheists at 63 percent (for reference: they're 32nd in the happiness index). Finland doesn't trail too far behind at 19th, with 62 percent of citizens identifying as atheists.

A part of my thought process says that maybe this is because there's a much better acknowledgment of atheism now as a concept that transcends cultural, social, and philosophical boundaries. To put it simply: it's a movement built on non-belief in a divine being or some giant in the distant sky. Atheism today has then come to include agnostics, cultural Catholics, humanists, and the "religious nones" (defined as people who aren't affiliated with any kind of religious community). So there's that.

Of course, economic virility has something to do with it because it can say a lot about quality of life. China, Japan, and the United Kingdom all entered the top five in the happiness report and are in the top 10 in gross domestic product. Similarly, France and Germany ranked in the top 25 in the former and top 10 in the latter, as well. Meanwhile, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. And about 73 percent of its  population says that they believe in a god, Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, a  study conducted by the American think tank Pew Research Center a few years ago argued that actively religious people involved in congregations are actually, well happier, in a sense.

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Using data pulled from local surveys, these people were found not just to be happier, but more civically engaged, too. Researchers at the Pew Research Center determined that regular participation in a religious group does have links to higher levels of happiness and civic engagement. But, and this is a big but, the analysis still couldn't conclude whether actual religious affiliation is associated with a greater likelihood of such. Engagement and affiliation are different things.

The same research claimed that religion is positively associated with life satisfaction, happiness, and morale, as well. In 25 other countries with this kind of data available, religious "actives" were happier than those who had been unaffiliated with any faith group by a significant margin. They're also found to be happier than inactive religious adults in nine of these places.

But then again faith and religious engagement can be worlds apart at times. You can have faith in a god and just not be active in churches or groups. At the same time, you can engage in all the religious activities in the world and have a questionable understanding of your own faith. But I digress. That's a different conversation altogether.

The Philippines, the second-happiest country in Southeast Asia has a 79-percent Catholic base, which seems to be common knowledge at this point (the eye test and social media test prove this, I see; not always a flattering picture though). That doesn't even account for minority religious groups like Muslims, Buddhists, and more.

Funny enough, atheists and agnostics like myself aren't even factored into the census, but who am I to cry wolf, right? The Philippine Statistics Authority, nevertheless, reported in 2020 that 43,931 Filipinos didn't declare any religious affiliation or answered "none." We sadly lack the appropriate data in other respects.

This brings me to the central question in all this: is our happiness, as well as our personal and societal well-being, at risk because of irreligion? Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a definitive conclusion. So yeah, you might as well call this a whole lot of rambling if you've made it this far into the piece. All I know is that the angry know-it-all atheists of yesteryear, I feel, are too caught up in their own moral ascendency and evidence and virtue signaling to try and seek happiness in the first place.

Believers, on the other hand, tend to be just as loud and annoying about their faith systems. Believe me, I envy those with faith a little. Belief can be quite the source of strength, only as powerful as hope. And a lot of times for a lot of religious people, hope is a matter of survival and salvation. Religion gives you that even if I do think it shouldn't come at the expense of absolutism (or at times delusion). That much, you can't deny. Nor can you deny happiness as it comes.

The sensible way to look at this is to posit that joy can be had in different capacities and that it goes beyond religion and partisanship. It's not the sexiest deduction, especially in an era of trend-jacking and senseless hot takes. Incredibly unsatisfying, I know.

But perhaps that's what this pursuit of happiness is to a dirty atheist like me. While we share different values and a difference in core philosophies and interpretations, we have to celebrate the joy in other people's satisfaction, whether it's coded in belief or non-belief. I don't believe in a god, but it doesn't hurt to believe in humanity from time to time. In these small instances, I find that this is where I can be very happy.

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Department of Religious Studies

Why study religion.

Because of the complexity and importance of religious phenomena, the scholarly study of religion in the modern research university is inherently interdisciplinary. The faculty in our department are trained in an enormous variety of scholarly methods, including textual studies and literary theory, history, ethnography and other social sciences, law, philosophy and theology, archaeology, and critical cultural theory. With this breadth of training, our faculty is equipped to offer students a range of skills that are invaluable for the exploration of human history and culture.

The study of religion is also inherently multicultural. Religions move across the globe, changing over time and in new cultural contexts. They constantly interact, leading sometimes to great lessons in human cooperation, sometimes to enormous conflict, and sometimes to creative new adaptations. It is impossible to study religion without recognizing the enormous power of cultural difference, both the difference of the past from the present and also the range of cultural differences to be found in the contemporary world.

Finally, the study of religion provides an invaluable opportunity for exploring the ways in which human beings find meaning, purpose, and wonder in their lives. Religion is a key mechanism for the transmission of cultural memory and tradition, but it is also a site of profound human creativity. The study of religion offers an extraordinary window into how human beings give structure to their personal identities, their communities, and their understandings of the cosmos around them.

Students in our department receive training that equips them for an enormous variety of careers—in law, medicine, teaching, business, social service, journalism, politics, the arts, and more. We seek to foster students’ skills in critical thinking, close reading, and oral and written communication. At the same time we train our students in these concrete skills essential in a range of professions, we also want them to become well-informed citizens, with broad knowledge of the richness of human history and cultural diversity.

Do We Need Religion to Be Ethical?

While not essential, religion potentially helps people be and stay good..

Posted March 28, 2011 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Do we need religion to be ethical or to be good? Most people (including moral philosophers) would say no ... yet it can be helpful. Obviously, people can certainly maintain ethical perspectives and subscribe to ethical principles and behavior without engagement in religious or spiritual beliefs, institutions, or practices. However, there are very few secular forums that can offer the guidance, fellowship, support, models, organizational structure, and engagement that the religious institutions can offer.

Religious organizations have a wide variety of comprehensive services, programming, groups, lectures, readings, models, and so forth that can regularly impart, support, and provide corrective feedback about ethical principles and guidelines to their members. The secular community just doesn't seem to have the organizational structure to do so. There are some exceptions of course. For example, the Boy Scouts are technically a secular organization not affiliated with one particular religious tradition. They offer a clear set of ethical principles that tend to use a virtue approach to ethics (e.g., Scouts are loyal, courteous, kind, thrifty, reverent, ...). Perhaps self-help groups based on the Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) model does the same. While not affiliated with any particular religious tradition, the 12 steps of AA are spiritually focused with numerous references to God and His will. AA offers ethical principles that highlight virtues such as honesty, integrity, and responsibility. So, it appears that one doesn't have to be religious or spiritual to be ethical but it might help having the organizational structure that religion offers to encourage and reinforce ethical principles and behavior.

Religious engagement and practices encourage and support "clean living." Research has consistently found that religious people are less likely to engage in criminal behavior, marital infidelity , alcoholism , unprotected sexual activity as well as being more likely to engage in pro-social behaviors such as volunteerism and charity. Thus, those who tend to report being spiritual, religious, or both tend to behave themselves pretty well. In a nutshell, people in the church choir usually don't rob banks. Check out Harold Koenig's Handbook of Religion and Health as well as his Handbook of Religion and Mental Health for excellent reviews if interested in the scholarly support for this.

Religion and spirituality encourages ethical behavior in their sacred scripture readings, in their models or exemplars for behavior (not only well known religious figures such as saints and founding members of religious traditions but also among religious elders, pastors, teachers, and congregants).

My point really is that overall, research supports the view that spiritual and religious practices (e.g., meditation , church-sponsored social justice ministries, religious service attendance) have certain physical, mental, community health, and ethical benefits.

Of course there are many examples of religious beliefs and practices being terribly harmful to self and others and of course there are many examples of outstanding non religious and completely secular organizations and individuals who are outstanding models for ethical behavior, community engagement, and physical and mental health. So, there are exception to these general principles for sure but the overall trend suggests that religion does assist and support people in living more ethically.

So, to answer the question, "do we need religion to be ethical?" The answer appears to be no but it could be helpful under the right circumstances.

What do you think?

A postscript...

Some comments on this post and elsewhere have asked for research evidence. I've listed some of this peer-reviewed material in the references section. The review articles and books might be the best place to start if you have limited time. Otherwise, consider doing a PubMed, PsycInfo, or Google Scholar search as well.

Bormann, J. E., Gifford, A. L., Shively, M., Smith, T. L., Redwine, L., Kelly, A., Becker, S., Gershwin, M., Bone, P., and Belding, W. (2006). Effects of spiritual mantram repetition on HIV outcomes: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 29, 359-376.

Hackney, C. H., & Sanders, G. S. (2003). Religiosity and mental health: A meta-analysis of recent studies. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42, 43-55.

Hill, T. D., Ellison, C. G., Burdette, A. M., & Musick, M. A. (2007). Religious involvement in a healthy lifestyles: Evidence from the survey of Texas adults. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 34, 217-222.

Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C. O., & Prescott, C. A. (1996). Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse: A multi-measure, genetic-epidemiologic study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 322-329.

Koenig, H. G., McCullough, M. E., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Handbook of religion and health. New York: Oxford.

Leigh, J., Bowen, S., & Marlatt, G. A. (2005). Spirituality, mindfulness, and substance abuse. Addictive behavior, 30, 1335-1341.

Marks, L. (2005). Religion and bio-psycho-social health: A review of and conceptual model. Journal of Religion and Health, 44, 173-186.

Marsden, P., Karagianni, E., & Morgan, J.F. (2007). Spirituality and clinical care in eating disorders: A qualitative study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 40, 7-12.

Masters, K.S., Spielmans, G. I., & Goodson, J. T. (2006). Are there demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer? A meta-analytic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 32, 337-342.

McClain, C., Rosenfeld, B., & Breitbart, W. (2003). Effect of spiritual well-being on end-of-life despair in terminally ill cancer patients. The Lancet, 361, 1603-1607.

McCullough, M. E., Hoyt, W. T., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & Thoresen, C. E. (2000). Religious involvement and mortality: A meta-analytic review. Health Psychology 19, 211-221.

Michalak, L., Trocki, K., & Bond, J. (2007). Religion and alcohol in the U.S. national Alcohol Survey: How important is religion for abstention and drinking? Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 87, 268-280.

Miller, L., Warner, V., Wickramaratne, P., & Weissman, M. (1997). Religiosity and depression: Ten-year follow-up of depressed mothers and offspring. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 1416-1425.

Oman, D., Shapiro, S. L., Thoresen, C. E., Plante, T. G., & Flinders, T. (2008). Meditation lowers stress and supports forgiveness among college students: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of American College Health, 56, 569-578.

Pardini, D., Plante, T. G., Sherman, A., & Stump, J. E. (2000). Religious faith and spirituality in substance abuse recovery: Determining the mental health benefits. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 19, 347-354.

Plante, T. G., & Sherman, A. S. (Eds.) (2001). Faith and health: Psychological perspectives. New York: Guilford.

Plante, T. G., & Thoresen, C. E. (Eds.) (2007). Spirit, science and health: How the spiritual mind fuels physical wellness. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.

Powell, L., Shahabi, L. & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Religion and spirituality: Linkages to physical health. American Psychologist, 58, 36-52.

Seeman, T. E., Dubin, L. F., & Seeman, M. (2003). Religiosity/spirituality and health: A critical review of the evidence for biological pathways. American Psychologist, 58, 53-63.

Shreve-Neiger, A. K., & Edelstein, B. A. (2004). Religion and anxiety: A critical review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 379-397.

Siegrist, M. (1996). Church attendance, denomination, and suicide ideology. Journal of Social Psychology, 136, 559-566.

Stewart, C. (2001). The influence of spirituality on substance abuse of college students. Journal of Drug Education, 31, 343-51.

Worthington, E. L., Kurusu, T. A., McCullough, M. E., & Sandage, S. J. (1996). Empirical research on religion and psychotherapeutic processes and outcomes: A ten-year review and research prospectus. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 448-487.

Thomas Plante, Ph.D., ABPP , is a professor at Santa Clara University and an adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.

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Religion does not determine your morality

Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University

Disclosure statement

Jim Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Most religious people think their morality comes from their religion. And deeply religious people often wonder how atheists can have any morality at all.

I’m going to use Christianity as my example, not because it’s representative of religion in general, but because there’s a lot of research on Christians, and because many readers will likely be familiar with it.

Christians will often tell you that their morality comes from their religion (or from their parents’ version of it). And if you ask them about what their religion tells them about what’s right and wrong, it will likely line up with their own ideas of right and wrong.

But the causal link is not as clear as it first appears.

The Bible is complex, with many beliefs, pieces of advice and moral implications. Nobody can believe in all of it. Different branches of Christianity, and indeed every different person, take some things from it and leave others.

Many things in the Bible are unacceptable to modern Christians. Why? Because they do not sit right with contemporary moral sensibilities.

Let’s take magic as an example. Many Christians don’t believe in magic, but even the ones who do, don’t think they should kill those who use it, even though one could interpret passages in the Bible to be suggesting exactly that .

What’s going on?

In the case of the magic above, there is a moral behaviour advocated by the Bible that gets rejected by most people. Why? Because they think it’s morally wrong.

They ignore that part of the moral teachings of the Bible. Instead, they tend to accept those moral teachings of the Bible that feel right to them. This happens all the time, and a good thing too.

There’s more to a religion than what its scripture says.

When researching for my book Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movie Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe , I found that the source of morality doesn’t come as clearly from religion as most people think.

Free to interpret

Clergy interprets scripture, and cultural practices and beliefs are passed down, many of which have little or nothing to do with the Bible, like the Catholic idea of having fish instead of meat on Friday a cultural tradition never mentioned in the Bible at all.

Basically, people take or leave religious morality according to some internal moral compass they already have. They might even choose which church to go to, according to how well the teachings of that church match up with what they feel is right or wrong.

In the modern Western world, some people feel free to choose the religion that feels right to them. Why might someone convert to Christianity from Buddhism, or become a Muslim? Often it’s because the new religion speaks to them in a way that the old one didn’t.

Read more: Millennials abandon hope for religion but revere human rights

We see that people can choose religious beliefs, churches and even whole religions based on the morality that they already have. And this is the morality that atheists have too.

Right and wrong

Experimental evidence suggests that people’s opinion of what God thinks is right and wrong tracks what they believe is right and wrong, not the other way around.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley and his colleagues surveyed religious believers about their moral beliefs and the moral beliefs of God. Not surprisingly, what people thought was right and wrong matched up pretty well with what they felt God’s morality was like.

Then Epley and his fellow researchers attempted to manipulate their participants’ moral beliefs with persuasive essays. If convinced, their moral opinion should then be different from God’s, right?

Wrong. When respondents were asked again what God thought, people reported that God agreed with their new opinion!

Therefore, people didn’t come to believe that God is wrong, they just updated their opinion on what God thinks.

When you change someone’s moral beliefs, you also change their opinion on what God thinks. Yet most surveyed still clung to the illusion that they got their moral compass from what they think God believes is right and wrong.

Who defines our morals?

If people are getting their morals from their conception of God, you’d think that contemplating God’s opinion might be more like thinking about someone else’s beliefs than thinking about your own.

But this isn’t the case. The same study also found that when you think about God’s beliefs, the part of your brain active when thinking about your own beliefs is more active than the part of your brain that is active when thinking about other people’s beliefs.

In other words, when thinking about God’s beliefs, you’re (subconsciously) accessing your own beliefs.

Read more: Being a progressive Christian shouldn't be an oxymoron

So where do our morals come from, then, if not from religion? That’s a complicated question: There seem to be genetic as well as cultural components . These cultural components are influenced by religion, to be sure.

This equation happens even for atheists, who often take up the mores of their culture, which happens to have been influenced heavily by religions they don’t even ascribe to. So it’s not that religion does not effect morality, it’s just that morality also impacts religion.

Atheists don’t score differently than religious people when given moral dilemmas . Clearly, we all have morality.

Whether you’re religious or not, morality comes from the same place.

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Do we need religion? essay

Religion is a set of beliefs and practices with reference to a supernatural power that controls human beings; it gives meaning and purpose to the practitioner. It is expressed through ritual, prayer or meditation. Religion includes cultural traditions, history and personal faith. It defines your opinion about the world and your existence; there are several classifications of religion but each one has characteristics that are distinct from another, a number of well known religions in the world include: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Judaism.

Islamic religion involves worship of Allah as the only God and belief in Muhammad as their prophet. Muslims use the Quran as their holy book and they follow strict customs and religious beliefs, for instance, the manner of dressing, sanitation, morals, and rituals. Christianity involves believing in one God and his son Jesus Christ; they use the Bible as their holy book. Judaism involves practice of laws and values of the Hebrew Bible; they don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God. While Hinduism believes that their goal is to attain Moksha from the cycle of regeneration.

They have many traditions and practices. There is need for religion because it changes not only the way we live in the world but also the way others live. It also reflects the meaning of life and transforms life. When we understand the true meaning of religion, we will realize that it is all about healing peoples’ hearts, speaking for and being with the helpless, the forgotten, the poor, and the voiceless in society and in the church. We also ought to have religion in order to play our right roles in life. It further helps people improve their lives.

For instance, instead of spending more time and money on instruments of destruction and how to eliminate crime, people are taught the basic principles of life, thus encouraging a harmonious living. For example, prisoners or those people who commit crimes normally get transformed completely when they embrace a religion like Christianity. Religion is also about transforming ourselves towards the positive so that we can change the world. Religion explains mysteries that cannot be explained, misfortunes such as illness, death, etc. For instance, it enables one to seek solutions from a higher authority when no one can fathom mysteries.

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Although it may give true or false answers, it gives one a sense of comfort and strength to keep on going and to fight challenges and hardship in life. Furthermore, religion helps us to appreciate life and to practice good moral values in the society as it instills the fear of a super natural authority. There is need for religion as science is incomplete without religion; science has brought to all mankind a planet of instability and panic. Its advanced scientific civilization has brought great calamities such as wars, atomic bombs and therefore with religion, science can be used in the right way.

Scientific advances and fulfillment of physical needs do not fill certain emptiness in ones life. This brings us to the realization of a need for God. Nothing can satisfy certain spiritual needs of mankind except a supernatural being, and that calls for religion (David, 1957, p. 26). Man is made up of body, soul and spirit. The body is satisfied with good food and clothing, the soul is neither satisfied with good food nor clothing. The soul will always be discontented if it lacks spiritual peace. Religion involves having Faith in something. When one has it, he or she gets an immense source of strength, unity and connection.

Without faith, people strive for their own joy and define morality on their own terms. On the other hand, religion may not be relevant when it comes to a lot of issues. Some people believe that some religions are with God and others are without, yet they cannot easily differentiate between them. Some religions are based on ancestral practices while others on scientific and modern values. Other religious individuals believe that their religion is superior to others thus causing hateful feelings and intimidation between different religious groups as some feel more perfectly justified than others and consider others as evil.

This has lead to wars such as the Palestinian and Israeli wars which occur constantly. Another factor which has contributed to failure in religion is that some people have retreated into technology and physical comfort because they hold different views concerning religion. For example, people don’t easily marry people from different religious groups because of differences in faith which normally cause heartbreaks and do more harm than good; people should marry based on love and not religion.

Religion becomes irrelevant when we don’t understand what we really believe in, making us either to worship or practice rituals because it is a routine or because we don’t have a choice. This may consequently render people prisoners of a certain way of life, which may bring a lot of emptiness in life, lack of joy and misunderstanding. A different group of people don’t see the need for religion especially after living comfortably lives without any suffering or grief.

For some religions, their teachings and practices disallow people to inquire on some important issues on culture, science, medicine, philosophy or politics. They will draw their arguments based on some doctrinal values. Some go to an extent of denying themselves certain important nutritious foods, or medicine, while some are not allowed to embrace technology as it is regarded as evil. Some religions encourage crime and war, for example, killing in certain religions is right if you are fighting for your rights or religion.

This causes loss of life, terror and instability. In such cases, religion ceases to be relevant. Humanity needs to grow in all aspects of life either mentally, physically, socially or spiritually, to be completely rounded individuals. Therefore, there is need for religion to satisfy the spiritual part. At the same time, religion should be embraced in such a way that it does not cause dissatisfaction or interfere with the rights or the peace of another person.

David, H. (1957). Natural history of religion. United Kingdom: Stanford University Press.

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Why Does Religious Freedom Matter?

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Religious liberty and a thriving religious culture are defining attributes of the United States, characterizing the American order as much as its political system and market economy. [1] From the earliest settlements of the 17th century to the great social reform causes led by religious congregations in the late 19th century and again in the 20th century, religion has been a dominant theme of American life.

Today, almost 90 percent of Americans say that religion is at least “somewhat important” in their lives. [2] About 60 percent are members of a local religious congregation. [3] Faith-based organizations are extremely active in providing for social needs at home and in sending aid abroad.

Why does religious liberty matter—to America and to the world?

Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of the American experiment. That is because religious faith is not merely a matter of “toleration” but is understood to be the exercise of “inherent natural rights.” As George Washington once observed: “[T]he Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” And “what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator,” James Madison wrote in his 1786 Memorial and Remonstrance . “This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

The model of religious liberty brilliantly designed by Madison and the other American Founders is central to the success of the American experiment. It is essential to America’s continued pursuit of the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence, the ordered liberty embodied in the Constitution, and peace and stability around the world.

The key to America’s religious liberty success story is its constitutional order. The Founders argued that virtue derived from religion is indispensable to limited government. The Constitution therefore guaranteed religious free exercise while prohibiting the establishment of a national religion. This Constitutional order produced a constructive relationship between religion and state that balances citizens’ dual allegiances to God and earthly authorities without forcing believers to abandon (or moderate) their primary loyalty to God.

This reconciling of civil and religious authorities, and the creation of a Constitutional order that gave freedom to competing religious groups, helped develop a popular spirit of self-government. All the while, religious congregations, family, and other private associations exercise moral authority that is essential to maintaining limited government. The American Founders frequently stated that virtue and religion are essential to maintaining a free society because they preserve “the moral conditions of freedom.” [4]

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. – Samuel Adams October 16, 1778

Today, the religious roots of the American order and the role of religion in its continued success are poorly understood. One source of the confusion is the phrase “separation of church and state,” a phrase used by President Thomas Jefferson in a widely misunderstood letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1802. [5] Many think this means a radical separation of religion and politics. Some have gone so far as to suggest that religion should be entirely personal and private, kept out of public life and institutions like public schools.

That is incorrect: Jefferson wanted to protect states’ freedom of religion from federal government control and religious groups’ freedom to tend to their internal matters of faith and practice without government interference generally. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s phrase is probably more widely known than the actual text of the Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The American model of religious liberty takes a strongly positive view of religious practice, both private and public. While it does not mean that anything and everything done in the name of religious liberty is not subject to the rule of law, it does mean that the law ought to make as much room as possible for the practice of religious faith. Far from privatizing religion, it assumes that religious believers and institutions will take active roles in society, including engaging in politics and policy-making and helping form the public’s moral consensus. In fact, the American Founders considered religious engagement in shaping the public morality essential to ordered liberty and the success of their experiment in self-government.

Defying predictions that political and social progress would eventually marginalize religion, religious belief and practice remain widespread and vibrant around the world.

“The very things that were supposed to destroy religion—democracy and markets, technology and reason—are combining to make it stronger,” write the authors of a book about religion’s persistence in culture and politics around the world. [6]

In this era—as in all prior human history—God has occupied the thoughts of man. Conscience, the mystery of existence, and the prospect of death challenge every human being to grapple with questions of transcendence and divine reality.

Religious freedom recognizes the right of all people to pursue these transcendent ends. This right is granted not by government but by the Creator. By respecting it, a government acknowledges that such ultimate issues are outside its jurisdiction, and that conscience is answerable to a higher authority than the law of the land. Individuals and institutions should be free to believe and to act in response to divine reality.

Because religious liberty is the bedrock for all human freedom, it provides a sturdy foundation for limited government. Liberty of conscience demands, and ultimately justifies, limited government.

Conversely, limited government requires individual responsibility. Freedom engages the moral responsibility of each and every person. In a free society, religion is an ally of good government as it forms the moral character of individuals and communities.

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right that ought to be enjoyed by the people of all nations. This principle has been recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international agreements. Despite widespread recognition, many people are unable to exercise this basic liberty.

Even with religion’s global prevalence, religious freedom is far from universally respected. About a third of the world’s nations restrict religion to a high or very high degree, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in these countries. [7]

In some cases, totalitarian governments have oppressed religious individuals and groups generally. In others, statist regimes built on an established religion have persecuted religious minorities.

Countries designated by the U.S. State Department as “countries of particular concern” because they restrict religious freedom (such as North Korea, Iran, and Burma) suffer in other ways as well. They also tend to have the least economic liberty—and some of the worst economic outcomes.

On the other hand, governments that respect religious liberty tend to respect other freedoms as well. Religious freedom is strongly related to political liberty, economic freedom, and prosperity. As one researcher of international religious liberty notes, “[W]herever religious freedom is high, there tends to be fewer incidents of armed conflict, better health outcomes, higher levels of earned income, and better educational opportunities for women.” [8]

The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act made religious liberty an official part of U.S. foreign policy. The United States committed to promote freedom of religion as “a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries” and to “identify and denounce regimes” that engage in persecution on the basis of religion.

Condemning and curtailing religious persecution is a critical goal, but religious freedom includes much more. Our vision of religious liberty must be robust.

Attempts to relegate religion to private life or to prevent religious institutions from conducting their business according to their beliefs threaten this fundamental freedom. Religious individuals and institutions should be free to exercise their religious belief within their private spheres as well as to engage publicly on the basis of religion. Believers should be free to persuade others to embrace their beliefs. Individuals should be able to leave or change their religion without fear of reprisal, and all should have the right to protection under the rule of law regardless of belief.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. – Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963

The most secure and consistent protection for religious liberty needs to be rooted in constitutional government. U.S. public diplomacy can support the development of such robust religious freedom by telling America’s success story.

That requires that U.S. policymakers understand and be able to articulate the role of religion in the American constitutional order. In the 21st-century war of ideas, U.S. public diplomacy must rely on the bedrock of American founding principles in the fight against potent ideologies that present strong, coherent, and deeply misguided explanations of the nature and purpose of human existence. Evaluating religious dynamics around the world should become a regular function of analysis, and articulating the role of religion in the U.S. should be a consistent feature of communications strategy.

Religion and traditional morality continue to play a significant role in American public life. Most Americans continue to attach great significance to religious faith and practice, marriage, family, and raising children in a morally rich and supportive environment—values shared in many highly religious societies around the world.

Religious freedom is the birthright of all people, but too few governments around the world acknowledge it and far too many people have never enjoyed it.

One of the gifts of providence to the United States is a Constitution that has successfully safeguarded this fundamental right. It is a gift Americans should cherish and a model for all throughout the world.

Jennifer A. Marshall is Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation .

Enduring Truths

• George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island The first president’s letter to this Hebrew Congregation—and by extension to one of the most persecuted religious groups in world history—eloquently articulates the American position that religious liberty is not merely a matter of tolerance but is an inherent right to be guaranteed by government.
• Gerard V. Bradley, Religious Liberty in the American Republic In this monograph, Bradley explains the Founders’ view of the relationship between religion and politics, and demonstrates how the Supreme Court radically deviated from this view in embarking on a project aimed at the secularization of American politics and society.
• J. D. Foster and Jennifer A. Marshall, “ Freedom Economics and Human Dignity ” The way we talk about freedom in the economic sphere tends to overlook the aspects of human experience that transcend the material. This essay explains how economic freedom helps order our lives together in a way that reflects the nature of man, the purpose of human life, and the satisfying of material needs and wants.

Current Issues

• PROMOTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Thomas Farr, Ph.D. and Ambassador Terry Miller, “ Diplomacy in an Age of Faith: How Failing to Understand the Role of Religion Hinders America’s Purposes in the World ,” December 17, 2008. Farr and Miller argue that the American foreign affairs establishment has failed to grasp the significance of the resurgence of public religion around the world. As a result, it has missed an opportunity to incorporate the advancement of international religious freedom and the promotion of religious liberty into the general freedom agenda. This missed opportunity has harmed our interests.
• DEFAMATION OF RELIGION. Steven Groves, “ Why the U.S. Should Oppose ‘Defamation of Religions’ Resolution at the United Nations ,” November 10, 2008. The United Nations, with the backing of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, seeks to promote the concept of “defamation of religion,” which would establish an international ban on any speech that would insult, criticize, or disparage any religion. But the First Amendment to the Constitution protects the freedom of religion, which includes the right both to follow a faith and to criticize it. Groves demonstrates that the U.S. must oppose any effort to make “defamation of religion” part of U.S. law, and must resist spread of this concept inside the U.N. system.
• PUBLIC DIPLOMACY. Jennifer A. Marshall, “ Religious Liberty in America: An Idea Worth Sharing Through Public Diplomacy ,” January 15, 2009. U.S. public diplomacy seeks to impart to foreign audiences an understanding and appreciate of American ideals, principles, and institutions. In the United States, religious freedom is compatible with a positive and public role for religion. This is an American success story that should be told around the world. Marshall shows that, if public diplomacy is to play its full role in advancing American interests and ideals, it must systematically address both the role of religion and religious audiences.

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[1] Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Madison Books, 1991), p. 16.

[2] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant,” June 2008, p. 22, at http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf (November 16, 2010).

[3] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant,” pp. 36 and 39.

[4] Thomas G. West, “Religious Liberty,” Claremont Institute, January 1997, at http://www.claremont.org/writings/970101west.html (November 16, 2010).

[5] Daniel L. Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (New York: New York University Press, 2002).

[6] John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World (New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 12.

[7] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Global Restrictions on Religion,” December 2009, at http://pewforum.org/Government/Global-Restrictions-on-Religion.aspx (December 6, 2010).

[8] Brian Grim, “Religious Freedom: Good for What Ails Us?” The Review of Faith & International Affairs , Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer 2008).

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The moral and religious beliefs of individuals and organizations should be respected in law.  

Learn more policies that protect right of conscience in everyday living with Solutions .

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News outlets were leaked insider material from the Trump campaign. They chose not to print it

At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received. Here’s what to know.

FILE - Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, shake hands at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance order ice cream at Olson’s Ice Cream Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, waves as he leaves with ice cream at Olson’s Ice Cream Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received.

Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms.

Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these embarrassing missives, and mainstream news organizations covered them avidly.

Politico wrote over the weekend about receiving emails starting July 22 from a person identified as “Robert” that included a 271-page campaign document about Vance and a partial vetting report on Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also considered as a potential vice president. Both Politico and the Post said that two people had independently confirmed that the documents were authentic.

“Like many such vetting documents,” The Times wrote of the Vance report, “they contained past statements with the potential to be embarrassing or damaging, such as Mr. Vance’s remarks casting aspersions on Mr. Trump.”

What’s unclear is who provided the material. Politico said it did not know who “Robert” was and that when it spoke to the supposed leaker, he said, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from.”

The Trump campaign said it had been hacked and that Iranians were behind it. While the campaign provided no evidence for the claim, it came a day after a Microsoft report detailed an effort by an Iranian military intelligence unit to compromise the email account of a former senior advisor to a presidential campaign. The report did not specify which campaign.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said over the weekend that “any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies.”

The FBI released a brief statement Monday that read: “We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter.”

The Times said it would not discuss why it had decided not to print details of the internal communications. A spokesperson for the Post said: “As with any information we receive, we take into account the authenticity of the materials, any motives of the source and assess the public interest in making decisions about what, if anything, to publish.”

Brad Dayspring, a spokesperson for Politico, said editors there judged that “the questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents.”

Indeed, it didn’t take long after Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate for various news organizations to dig up unflattering statements that the Ohio senator had made about him.

A lesson from 2016?

It’s also easy to recall how, in 2016, candidate Trump and his team encouraged coverage of documents on the Clinton campaign that Wikileaks had acquired from hackers. It was widespread: A BBC story promised “18 revelations from Wikileaks’ hacked Clinton emails” and Vox even wrote about Podesta’s advice for making superb risotto.

Brian Fallon, then a Clinton campaign spokesperson, noted at the time how striking it was that concern about Russian hacking quickly gave way to fascination over what was revealed. “Just like Russia wanted,” he said.

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Unlike this year, the Wikileaks material was dumped into the public domain, increasing the pressure on news organizations to publish. That led to some bad decisions: In some cases, outlets misrepresented some of the material to be more damaging to Clinton than it actually was, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania communications professor who wrote “Cyberwar,” a book about the 2016 hacking.

This year, Jamieson said she believed news organizations made the right decision not to publish details of the Trump campaign material because they can’t be sure of the source.

“How do you know that you’re not being manipulated by the Trump campaign?” Jamieson said. She’s conservative about publishing decisions “because we’re in the misinformation age,” she said.

Thomas Rid, director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins, also believes that the news organizations have made the right decision, but for different reasons. He said it appeared that an effort by a foreign agent to influence the 2024 presidential campaign was more newsworthy than the leaked material itself.

But one prominent journalist, Jesse Eisinger, senior reporter and editor at ProPublica, suggested the outlets could have told more than they did. While it’s true that past Vance statements about Trump are easily found publicly, the vetting document could have indicated which statements most concerned the campaign, or revealed things the journalists didn’t know.

Once it is established that the material is accurate, newsworthiness is a more important consideration than the source, he said.

“I don’t think they handled it properly,” Eisinger said. “I think they overlearned the lesson of 2016.”

David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder .

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W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak

The epidemic is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the virus has now appeared in a dozen other African countries.

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By Apoorva Mandavilli

The rapid spread of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in African countries constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization declared on Wednesday.

This is the second time in three years that the W.H.O. has designated an mpox epidemic as a global emergency. It previously did so in July 2022. That outbreak went on to affect nearly 100,000 people , primarily gay and bisexual men, in 116 countries, and killed about 200 people.

The threat this time is deadlier. Since the beginning of this year, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone has reported 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths. Those most at risk include women and children under 15.

“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern D.R.C., its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general.

The outbreak has spread through 13 countries in Africa, including a few that had never reported mpox cases before. On Tuesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared a “public health emergency of continental security,” the first time the organization has taken that step since the African Union granted it the power to do so last year.

“It’s in the interests of the countries, of the continent and of the world to get our arms around this and stop transmission as soon as we can,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, the executive director for preparedness and response at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that finances vaccine development.

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