27 May 2004
Sixteen Reasons for Religion

Some interesting ideas on why people are attracted to religion. According to this academic, there are sixteen basic desires that lead people to become religious.

The desires are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise, and tranquility.

The study included mostly Christians, but came up with some interesting results nonetheless:

The study also showed that religious people valued honor more than non-religious people, which Reiss said suggests many people embrace religion to show loyalty to parents and ancestors.

Fascinating stuff. If we heathens are on our toes, we'll look long and hard at research like this, and do our utmost to understand the best way to attract folks to their own ancient folkways.

People are not drawn to religion just because of a fear of death or any other single reason, according to a new comprehensive, psychological theory of religion.

(link) [Ohio State University] via The Green Man

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