Miguel model Charlene Hitulah
MONA LEDGISTER remembers the interminable devotions that her mother would hold every morning at home while she was growing up.
All her six other siblings would be cold and shivering and barely awake as the 'Word of God' was read.
Twenty-four years later, however, Mona is a committed member of a Christian congregation and cannot help wondering if her orientation might be different, had her mother been less interested in religion in general and Christianity in particular.
Today, she told Outlook, she enjoys worship music and a good doctrinal presentation as much as others love a good dance hall session.
Do we inherit God from our parents, in a manner of speaking, in just the same way that we inherited their strategies for relating to others?
The issue of whether religious choices are made based on environmental/sociological reasons, was answered for us by Ian Boyne, writer with a special interest in religion and host of the RJR programme Religious Hardtalk.
"Many atheists say that we are all born atheists, that we are not born with a God concept. Instead, our consciousness comes from parents, from socialisation. Even if our parents were atheists, at school we learn about God from teachers, from friends and from many other sources. We learn that there is a God who created the world.
"There is also the concept that our natural curiosity about how the world comes into existence could lead the conscious child to wonder whether there was not in fact a First Cause or Creator. There are also those who believe that there is a biological basis for religious belief.
"Some theologians hold the view that the God-consciousness is implanted by the Creator in all of us human beings and that in effect we have a God gene. The theologians refer to this as the Sensus divinitatis, this sense of the divine. Some scientists have also shown that there is a part of the brain which explains religious activity. Even some atheistic scientists believe that people are hard wired for religion. "Human beings feel alone in the world and therefore they are apt to create God. It is not that there is a God who has put the desire within them, the atheists believe," said Ian Boyne.
Cultural environment
Aside from this, Boyne said that it has been empirically demonstrated that people get their concept of God primarily from their cultural environment.
"The evidence seems to be that even before that God gene or any form of innate religious consciousness kicks in, because all societies have been religious, the environmental factors would kick in before these."
Religion is largely culturally inherited, he claims, even though some scientific studies have suggested that there is a part of the brain which controls religious activity. (That is why, they say, that when certain parts of the brain get damaged, some people get religious delusions.)
Why don't we all embrace God? we asked.
Boyne explains that people will respond differently to the environmental influence that introduces them to God. He also said: "Active religious commitment usually comes out of psychological needs. Rarely do we find people coming to active religious life as a result of cognitive, intellectual reflection. It is usually because there is an emotional and existential yearning which they believe religion alone can satisfy."
Depression and anxiety
A recent BBC report noted that people who pray frequently are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. The report quoted a study carried out by psychologists from Sheffield Hallam University and said findings were that personal prayer was much more likely to have a positive effect.
They studied 251 men and 223 women aged between 18 and 29, and measured their reasons for having a religious belief, the frequency with which they attended church and their tendency to depression.
Women were more likely to be religious than men, but for both, the frequency with which they prayed was strongly associated with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Women, it appears, are more accepting of their Godly inheritance. Both sexes have benefited.
- Outlook Team
