London (CNN) - Religion comes naturally, even instinctively, to human beings, a massive new study of cultures all around the world suggests.
“We tend to see purpose in the world,” Oxford University professor Roger Trigg said Thursday. “We see agency. We think that something is there even if you can’t see it. … All this tends to build up to a religious way of thinking.”
Trigg is co-director of the three-year Oxford-based project, which incorporated more than 40 different studies by dozens of researchers looking at countries from China to Poland and the United States to Micronesia.
Studies around the world came up with similar findings, including widespread belief in some kind of afterlife and an instinctive tendency to suggest that natural phenomena happen for a purpose.
“Children in particular found it very easy to think in religious ways,” such as believing in God’s omniscience, said Trigg. But adults also jumped first for explanations that implied an unseen agent at work in the world, the study found.
The study doesn’t say anything about whether God, gods or an afterlife exist, said Justin Barrett, the project’s other co-director.
“This project does not set out to prove God or gods exist. Just because we find it easier to think in a particular way does not mean that it is true in fact,” he said.
Both atheists and religious people could use the study to argue their sides, Trigg told CNN.
Famed secularist Richard “Dawkins would accept our findings and say we’ve got to grow out of it,” Trigg argued.
But people of faith could argue that the universality of religious sentiment serves God’s purpose, the philosophy professor said.
“Religious people would say, ‘If there is a God, then … he would have given us inclinations to look for him,’” Trigg said.
The blockbuster study may not take a stance on the existence of God, but it has profound implications for religious freedom, Trigg contends.
“If you’ve got something so deep-rooted in human nature, thwarting it is in some sense not enabling humans to fulfill their basic interests,” Trigg said.
“There is quite a drive to think that religion is private,” he said, arguing that such a belief is wrong. “It isn’t just a quirky interest of a few, it’s basic human nature.”
“This shows that it’s much more universal, prevalent, and deep-rooted. It’s got to be reckoned with. You can’t just pretend it isn’t there,” he said.
And the Oxford study, known as the Cognition, Religion and Theology Project, strongly implies that religion will not wither away, he said.
“The secularization thesis of the 1960s - I think that was hopeless,” Trigg concluded.