Gregory S. Paul - Religion

Religion

Because creationists claim that popular acceptance of evolution harms societies, and because the sociology of religion's cultural impact is under-researched, Paul began to investigate what he labels the "moral-creator socioeconomic hypothesis." Paul authored a paper in 2005 wherein, he states in the introduction that the paper is "not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health". He concludes that less religious first world societies generally have low social dysfunction. However, many important and unresolved problems were noted by other researchers on his methodology. Among the criticisms are lack of clarity in his definitions and concepts of "religion" and "secular", too much reliance on scatter plots instead of multivariate and multiple regression analysis which single out variables from complex phenomena to better source the probable causes of any correlations, and not indicating the limits of his sources of data in such as the diverse linguistical understanding of "religion" in all cultures in the data used.

In a follow-up paper in 2009 he notes "high religiosity is not universal to human populations, and it is actually inversely related to a wide range of socio-economic indicators representing the health of modern democracies." Paul holds that, "once a nation's population becomes prosperous and secure, for example through economic security and universal health care, much of the population loses interest in seeking the aid and protection of supernatural entities. This effect appears to be so consistent that it may prevent nations from being highly religious while enjoying good internal socioeconomic conditions."

These conclusions are in line with other sociological research such as Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhart's Sacred and Secular (2004) and Phil Zuckerman's Society Without God (2009). His research is not in line with works from John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodbridge, or research from Peter L. Berger (2009) and Philip Jenkins. These latter works argue that the resurgence of religion in diverse and previously secular nations such as India, Singapore, China and Turkey, which has primarily been among the more educated, economic upper-class, when viewed alongside the continued religious adherence in the United States, seems to paint Europe (the primary center of Paul and Zuckerman's arguments) as the exception instead of the norm.

Paul's paper goes on to conclude that religion is not universal, that there is no well developed God gene, and that humans are much more adapted to be materialists than spiritual. The study was covered by the senior science editor at Newsweek who observed that the "brain may indeed be predisposed to supernatural beliefs. But that predisposition may need environmental input to be fully realized." An article in USA Today presents contrasting views on Paul's conclusions.

In Philosophy and Theology Paul published a study that cites the large scale death of immature humans as evidence against the existence of a good God. The paper concludes that the widely held free will and best of all possible worlds theological hypotheses are not correct. The absence of a moral creator is cited in the Evolutionary Psychology paper as one reason why religion would not lead to superior societal conditions.

In a discussion in Science, Paul observes that "Prosperous modernity is proving to be the nemesis of religion". The same piece also claims that the lack of religion in some hunter-gatherers refutes the God gene hypothesis, in which a propensity to religion is genetically hard wired into the human brain.