Where do we find Faith?

Constantly, I’m wondering whether religious faith is innate, kind of hardwired in us, or shaped by external factors like culture and environment. If we look at the arguments for innate religiosity, we might have evolved to develop a tendency to attribute natural events to supernatural forces, like gods or spirits, just like our ancestors explained thunderstorms as the manifestation of some angry gods. 

There are also theories that assert that our brains are wired to infer others’ thoughts, making belief in invisible, mindful deities intuitive. Some studies have also suggested that spirituality can be inherited while neuroscience finds that temporal lobe stimulation can trigger mystical experiences. Still, I believe that religion is more influenced by cultural and social learning.

The best example is that kids typically adopt the religion and the general culture of their parents. A child born in Saudi Arabia is likely Muslim while born near us in Provo, Utah is more likely to be Mormon! Same thing for me when I was raised in France and had no other choice than being corralled into the Catholic faith. There’s the social aspect of organized religion with its rites and traditions, creating a certain cohesion in communities. 

The most attractive element of religion is that it answers existential anxiety by mitigating the fear of death, to the point, I’m told, that in societies with high mortality rates people tend to be more religious. The reverse is true in countries that are well-run, more advanced and very stable like Scandinavia. Between these two forces, some scholars agree that religiosity arises from both innate tendencies and cultural shaping and claim that our brain structure and cognitive biases make us prone to supernatural beliefs. 

I’m a bit skeptical about that and I believe that it’s culture and social pressures that determines which gods, rituals, or moral systems dominate. Then there are those that bring up near-death experiences, that’s explained by a biological phenomena stemming from oxygen deprivation and leading to the “tunnel of light” stories we’ve all heard about, as the gateway to Christian "heaven" or Buddhist "bardo". 

Along the same lines, there’s of course the effects of prayer and meditation with neurologically measurable effects, but these practices don’t come instinctively as they need to be taught. If it’s certain that religious faith is neither purely innate (like hunger), nor purely learned (like algebra). Instead, certain factors make humans susceptible to supernatural beliefs and our environment determines the specific form those beliefs take. 

What do you think?