Several million years of evolution have given us a tendency to feel content and be mildly optimistic for the future, but until the last 100 years our expected lifespan was around 50 years at best. So what kept our ancestors going over millennia when faced with so much disease and imminent death? I’m not sure that mild unfocused optimism alone would have been enough. Perhaps real faith was needed and the search for God and belief in the welcoming afterlife was the answer.
One of the surprising results of the 2001 UK census was that 390,000 citizens identified their religion as Jedi. This is a religion invented by George Lucas as a composite of Eastern cults and religions that worship the power of nature – ‘The Force’. Although most respondents were undoubtedly joking, over 16,000 members have signed up to its serious side. There are eight Jedi chapters worldwide committed to its aims of purity and charity and respect for nature. It is led by its founder Daniel Jones, and after recognition by the UK census office, is currently the fourth-largest religious group in the UK and very likely to become third in the latest census. What does this tell us about the state of religion in the West? Is it changing? Or is it even disappearing? Have modern lifestyles changed the meaning of belonging to a religion, and is a belief in powers greater than ourselves hard-wired into most humans?
Identical twin sisters Debbie and Sharon were adopted and separated soon after birth in New Jersey. They were raised apart in similar families, but very different religious environments – one in an orthodox Jewish family where the father was a psychologist, the other in a Catholic family where the father was a furniture salesman. Both went to regular services and Sunday school and were firm believers in God. They both independently went to college and both studied social work.
Debbie married a Jew and moved to Connecticut; Sharon married a Catholic and moved south to Kentucky; both had kids. Debbie eventually found out about her adoption and hired a private detective to track down her biological family, who told her about her twin. She discovered that her mother was originally German – probably half Protestant, half Jewish – and her father probably an Italian Catholic. When the twins were finally reunited in their forties, Debbie remembers: ‘I was struck by the fact that we didn’t look as alike as I thought we would. We had very different hairstyles and clothes – but we had many other odd habits in common, such as how we moved our hands and made faces. Everyone told us we both went a bit cross-eyed and rolled our eyes when we got excited.’
Soon after their reunion Sharon accompanied her sister to the conservative Jewish synagogue and said: ‘It felt so natural to me,’ and Debbie felt similarly relaxed in her sister’s church and congregation. Both now help out with each other’s charity work and remark on the similarities of their religious activities. Neither sister wanted to change her religion, or to convert the other, but their hairstyles and choice of clothes have slowly become more similar.
The only area they have difficulty discussing came up on a visit to a US theme park with dinosaurs. This was the tricky area of creationism and the interpretation of the book of Genesis. Debbie believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution and Sharon did not. Sharon on moving south had abandoned Catholicism and had joined a fast-growing ‘and more positive and practical’ local Evangelical church. She now accepted the teachings of her church, which took literally the words of the book of Genesis, suggesting the earth was less than 8,000 years old. To Sharon it was quite possible that dinosaurs and man had coexisted at the same time, and she didn’t like discussing areas that might contradict the teachings of her church, which she was proud to belong to. To Debbie, being Jewish, science and faith had a more flexible relationship which normally would be freely discussed. But she knew it made her twin uncomfortable.
As they were identical twins, only culture and family environment should in theory explain their religious differences and behaviours. Clearly both twins had a similar predisposition to believe in God and attend and participate in religious activities and charity work and derived great pleasure from it. Both were also, luckily, very tolerant. These traits could have been socially or genetically influenced, as they were raised in religious and happy caring families. Yet neither of them wanted to convert, and they clearly differed in their specific beliefs and affiliations – which must presumably be due to their environment.
Before we delve further into what makes some of us religious and others not, it is important to clarify what we mean by the loose term ‘religiousness’ or ‘religiosity’. It has at least three dimensions, known as the ‘Three Bs’: belonging (affiliation), behaving (attendance), and believing.1 Although they are somewhat linked, some believers are non-attenders and vice versa, and studies have also shown differences in behaviour between the groups. So exactly how you are religious matters as much as how religious you are. For the genetic studies we discuss, if you firmly believe in God your precise belief in religious stories or the nature of God is largely immaterial.
Despite the three dominant monotheistic religions emanating from the same roots of Judaism and Abraham around 4,000 years ago, humans are very diverse in our religious beliefs and make a big play to accentuate them. Over two-thirds of the world’s population believe today that religion is important to them.2 Faith is sometimes described as a strong belief in something that cannot be demonstrably proven. In the New Testament, faith is simply described as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’.3 So some people’s faith is to believe literally in the Quran being God’s word (as do most Muslims); that the world is only 8,000 years old (as do 45 per cent of Americans); or that man is descended directly from Adam and Eve (60 per cent of Americans).4 Others with a vaguer knowledge of history believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife (10 per cent of Americans),5 or those with a longer cosmic perspective may believe more in a God that designed the universe, with its sextillion stars, well before the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. Whatever your faith – and we probably all have some – it is important to appreciate our wide cultural and educational differences and contemplate where they come from.
I am frequently asked by journalists to recall the most surprising finding of our twin studies. The study of religion and belief in God is the one that always comes to mind, and the results are not easily accepted by many people. Most people can accept diseases or height and even weight being genetically heritable to some extent, but when it comes to our personal beliefs we tend to be more sceptical. For many, the idea that there is a genetic component to our faith – or lack of it – is a stretch too far and damages the concept of self-determination that we hold so dear. Nevertheless science has shown us clearly that our level of belief in God and overall spirituality is shaped not only by a mix of family environment and upbringing – which is not surprising – but also by our genes. Twin studies conducted around the world in the US, the Netherlands and Australia as well as ours in the UK show a 40–50 per cent genetic component to belief in God.6
What is striking is that these findings of a genetic basis for belief are consistent even across countries like the US and the UK, with their huge differences in beliefs and church attendance. For example in the latest surveys in the US, when asked, 61 per cent of white Americans say they firmly (i.e. without any doubt) believe in God, compared with only 17 per cent of firm believers in similar populations in the UK – greater than a threefold difference. The opposite scenario of non-belief is also true – only a tiny 3 per cent of the US population report being firmly atheist compared with 18 per cent in the UK. As well as belief, participation follows separate trends in the two countries. Some form of weekly church attendance is now nearly three times higher in the US than the UK.7
Sceptics among you might say that the twin studies showing similarity for belief are just reflecting some cultural or family influence that wasn’t properly corrected for in the study design. However in the Minnesota adopted-twin study mentioned previously they also looked at religious belief in a number of adopted twins raised apart like Sharon and Debbie. They found exactly the same result – greater similarity in identical twin pairs, even if raised apart. The conclusion is unavoidable: faith is definitely influenced by the genes.
To uncover in more detail exactly what part of belief or religion was genetic, an unlikely research partnership was formed between two academic twin experts – Nick Martin, an extrovert atheist Australian, and Lindon Eaves, a British lay preacher originally from Birmingham.
In an attempt to separate the ‘3 Bs’ they asked a range of questions attempting to get a handle on individual differences in spirituality. They defined this as ‘the capacity to reach out beyond oneself and discover or make meaning of experience through broadened perspectives and behaviour’. The scale is based on three main factors: self-forgetfulness, transpersonal identification and mysticism. Questions in the test they designed included:
‘I believe that all life depends on some spiritual order or power that cannot be completely explained’ – true or false?
‘Often when I look at an ordinary thing, something wonderful happens – I get the feeling that I am seeing it fresh for the first time’ – true or false?
They estimated the heritability of ‘spirituality’ to be around 40–50 per cent, which is quite high considering how tricky it is to measure.8 Other US studies using even more detailed questions in larger numbers have found similar or even stronger genetic influences.9 These studies demonstrate our variable but innate inherited sense of spirituality, which affects how we perceive the world, ourselves and the universe. This is independent of our formal religious beliefs and practices and, strangely, largely independent of family influence.
The positive feedback and inner reward we get from these spiritual or religious thoughts could also account for some differences. One individual during prayer or meditation may feel a rush of immense joy and fulfilment from the reward centres of the brain (in the hypothalamus), and someone else may feel only the uncomfortable chair and be worrying about the shopping list. While the spiritual side is important for some, others find great comfort in religious practice and attendance.
Studies show that for twins living at home, there is no clear genetic influence or difference from their parents in their practice. However, once they leave the nest, genes start to play a role.10
Elizabeth and Caroline were identical twins who came from an academic middle-class English family with an atheist father and agnostic mother. The sisters were very similar in appearance and character, both admitted to being stubborn, although Elizabeth was the naughtier of the two. At primary school they both became interested in Christianity and much to their father’s surprise and displeasure they were baptised and prayed regularly. Their parents split up soon after and their father left home. They went through the normal teenage tantrums and slowly lost interest in organised religion and prayer.
After school they went to different universities. Caroline quickly rediscovered her faith; she became an even more committed Christian and joined student societies and church groups. Elizabeth began discussions with an Islamic group, initially arguing against religion, read the Quran to dismiss it and then found herself being drawn to and then converted to Islam. Both married and had two kids – Caroline with an English Anglican husband, and Elizabeth with a Pakistani Muslim (from then on she wore the veil – hijab – in public).
As she now says: ‘I strongly believe that Islam is the one true faith and Christianity wrong. I endured many taunts and bigotry about my style of dress and beliefs and was often frightened to go outside. I once had to witness my three-year-old disabled son being spat at.’ Caroline is similarly strongly opposed to her sister’s Islamic views and ‘her lack of belief in Jesus being the Messiah really upsets me.’ She has had an easier time socially, but misses being close to her sister and having a drink with her. She says: ‘I will never forget the fact that she very pointedly refused to sing hymns at my big day – a Christian wedding.’ Both twins admit being saddened that neither could bear to act as guardian of the other’s children because of their faith, although ironically they have much more in common genetically with each other’s children than other aunts and share the same proportion of genes with them.
Sadly their mother, Annie, developed terminal metastatic lung cancer, which had the positive side-effect of briefly bringing the family back together. The closeness and bonding was short-lived. She admitted: ‘I was initially bemused and then distressed by their fierce disagreements over faith, which being a self-confessed agnostic I just couldn’t relate to. My main hope was to live long enough to see the birth of my two new grandchildren.’ When, against the medical odds, she did, and was still alive nine months later, she had a revelation. ‘I think I’ve found God,’ she told her daughter Caroline as she recounted an epiphany moment she had while out walking. ‘I felt his presence all around me – a spiritual presence. It’s not just because I’m about to die – I’m not afraid of death. But I’ve changed my mind, there is more to life than just this current one.’ She died shortly afterwards. Annie’s genetic predisposition for faith, likely suppressed by her secular surroundings and her dominant atheist husband, may have been the crucial factor that influenced her daughters’ uncompromising beliefs.
Where did this religious fervour come from? Neither had religious parents, and it is unlikely that the school alone could have had such an influence. Other twin studies have shown that after leaving home, children with the right predisposition can often switch religions, and that which form they then choose is not down to the genes but to life events or some mysterious unknown force.
Evolution, according to Darwin’s theory, is the slow change over hundreds or thousands of generations of our gene pool through random gene variation and subsequent survival of the fittest. Traits and their gene variants that emerge by chance or selection, if useful, are kept, and disadvantageous ones are dropped. Religion or faith – like many other traits, particularly with a variable and genetic component – would have had to start somewhere. We tend to ignore religions that preceded monotheism 4,000 years ago. However, some eminent US geneticists like Francis Collins, who became a born-again Christian after reading the works of C. S. Lewis (and philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas), believe that humans have always possessed an innate moral law. Instinctively knowing right from wrong in every culture and tribe on the planet had to have come from somewhere, he argues. God and not evolution is the only logical source of this altruism and the universal search of humans for God.11 Collins was the head of the US government’s genome project (and now head of the NIH) and stood next to Bill Clinton in 2000 during the TV speeches. He refers to DNA, which is universal to all of earth’s creatures, as ‘The language of God’.
Others believe that this moral law is not innate but evolved, although there is considerable speculation about when and how this may have first occurred. Darwin (who originally tried his hand as a clergyman) himself speculated: ‘As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning had become partially developed, Man would naturally have craved to understand what was passing around him and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence.’12
The fact that humans were receptive to religious thoughts may be a by-product of our uniquely human trait of being able to predict the behaviour and minds of others. We will discuss this further later, but it was clearly a very useful trick, allowing early man (unlike other apes) to avoid conflicts and allow collaborations. Quite when in man’s history this happened is unclear. Many link this development to the use of symbols. Figurines with half-human and half-lion bodies have been found dating back 30–35,000 years, which could indicate the existence of early shamans or witch-doctors.13 Others suggest that religion might have evolved when societies got over-complex and collective decision making became difficult. To avoid repercussions to an aspiring leader if he got a decision wrong, he could avoid direct responsibility if he consulted the gods or planets or sacrificed some spare virgins.
David Dennett, a philosopher, suggests a theory for selection for religion.14 Each small tribe in Palaeolithic times would have had some form of witch-doctor who for sick individuals was their only source of comfort or hope. If, as is likely, they underwent a form of hypnosis, on average this may have saved some lives – it still has a place in modern medicine. So any ancestors who survived will over generations have been selected to be more susceptible to forms of suggestion and persuasion. Anyone who has ever attended a public hypnosis show knows how a few people in the audience are instantly put under the hypnotist’s spell. Thus a group of individuals susceptible to group beliefs that had modest survival traits may have arisen and continued to evolve, using religion as a protective emotional and collaborative survival trait over many generations. As groups grew in size, religion provided common goals and reduced selfish behaviour with the perception that ‘a higher being’ was always overseeing them.
E. O. Wilson, the father of socio-biology, proposed that many religions had clear health benefits – like the kosher laws of Judaism that banned pork and shellfish and so reduced food poisoning. Although not all studies concur, there is overall evidence that religious people may even nowadays have subtle health benefits. One summary analysis of 40,000 people from 22 European countries showed that weekly religious attenders had half the rate of self-reported ill health of non-attenders.15 Some of this benefit may have emanated from a sense of well-being, or optimism, or from the cultural benefits and social networks created. Others might say: ‘It’s God’s hand.’
Another curious fact is that sufferers from a certain form of epilepsy, which affects the temporal lobes, often report that while having a seizure caused by tiny electrical impulses in this brain region they experience very firm religious beliefs and convictions. These include religious visions and voices, as well as having the urge to write down religious messages. This is understandable in medieval Europe and probably accounted for Joan of Arc’s visions and fervour; what is remarkable is that it still occurs so frequently today. A recent survey showed about 10 per cent of sufferers in Brazil made the sign of the cross during their seizures.16 As well as having religious DNA, could we also have parts of our brains formed for that purpose? Some studies have shown that enlargement of certain parts of the brain such as the middle temporal lobe are associated with greater religiosity17 and others, like the precuneus in the centre of the brain, associated with scepticism.
Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, coined the concept of ‘memes’ (based on the Greek word to imitate), which are the cultural equivalent of genes. The analogy is that genes are units of transmitted biological information and memes are units of transmitted cultural information. Thoughts, beliefs or ideas helpful to a ‘meme’s’ survival can be passed on to future generations in a much faster way than painfully slow natural selection taking hundreds of generations. Examples include transmissions of melodies, fashion or ideas. Most successful religions also encourage the practice of procreation and large families, which jointly help both the religious genes and memes to spread rapidly – a process called cultural hitchhiking.18
There are plenty of examples of cultural trends that may be associated with certain receptive personality traits or genes. These include the relatively modern trend of women crossing their legs, or older recurring customs of piercing, tattoos or men’s shaving customs. But an unrelated cultural trend that came to my notice was the recent fashion for shaving or waxing pubic hair. A medical friend mentioned that some patients were now apologising for not having waxed before a gynaecological exam, in the same way they might have done for having smelly socks. This habit is apparently mainly restricted to women aged under 40. Intrigued, I took a closer look and found surveys showing that the trend has hitchhiked and crossed oceans. This new ‘religion’ of the hairless pube has now taken firm root in the young.
A German study in 2009 of 18–25-year-olds found that 50 per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys pruned to some extent. Recent large-sample studies in the US and Australia suggest that 20 per cent of young women are totally hairless.19 Across Western countries, waxing rituals such as ‘the Brazilian’ (leaving a small remnant above the vulva (called ‘le ticket metro’ in France) and the ‘Hollywood’ (total) have become as common as having your nails done. How can a trend like this spread so quickly?
In the Netherlands, surveys have found a worrying subgroup of children who have developed ‘pubo-phobia’, with fears and obsessive behaviour about pubic cleanliness and hygiene, akin to some extreme religious intolerances. Some brave girls resisting the trends have been teased at school in the showers and ostracised. Some US psychology students agreed to do a trial of stopping body shaving for eight weeks and became traumatised by the social consequences. There is also one story of an American bachelor in his twenties who gallantly told the world that his older date, an aspiring female senator just under 40, was very sexy, until in bed he noticed that the waxing trend had passed her by. He promptly feigned tiredness and pretended to go to sleep. Clearly not conforming to a popular social trend can have downsides, and studies show the current cohort of depilators are more likely to have regular oral sex, be more adventurous and have fewer sexual problems.20 How much of this is cause or effect is unclear, but it demonstrates how rapidly an idea can propagate when there is a perceived benefit, especially relating to sexual attraction.
So when did this waxing religion start? Were there any early prophets? Sources suggest it was unheard of in the West before the 1990s. Recent gruelling surveys by highly dedicated researchers who had to study 647 Playboy magazine centrefolds from 1953 onwards confirmed this trend toward the hairless ‘Barbie look’ that occurred from the year 2000 onwards.21 The trend or meme likely arose about ten years before from an extremist sect in Hollywood, led by prophets like Larry Flint, called the porn industry. They continued it because it made stars look more ‘impressive’ and sold more films and so made money. Sociologists believe the combination of the recent reduction in female communal bathing and nudity and the easy access to the Internet in the 1990s allowed this meme to initially spread so rapidly by making women believe it was initially more common than it was in reality. Strangely, certain religious and geographic groups – mainly in the Arab world and in Oriental Sephardi/Mizrachi Jewish female communities – have for thousands of years practised this. Some authorities believe the ancient Egyptian royal family, including Cleopatra, were proponents, but whether initially this was for social or hygiene reasons (pubic lice can be a nuisance in hot countries) was not recorded for posterity.
Jews and Muslims practise male circumcision and most religions prescribe a number of practices relating to beard and hair growing. These religious rules, although supposed to be God’s commands, are a good way of identifying group members and stopping inter-faith marriages. The recent example of waxing our bodies shows how susceptible we are to following cultural practices relating to our hair, and how quickly trends can start and produce extreme proponents. Some of these same traits that make us conform so readily are clearly related to our susceptibility to religion.
Most people when asked would guess that religious beliefs are universally declining, and the majority would say this is a negative thing. How is it that with these powerful evolutionary advantages, patterns are changing so rapidly over a few generations? A good example is Ireland, one of the most religious countries in the world. Surveys showed that 85 per cent of the population attended church at least monthly in 1988. By 2005 rates were down by a third, and still dropping due to recent sex-abuse scandals, despite Polish immigration. During this time, thanks to an ‘economic boom’ that has since gone sour, Ireland experienced an unprecedented doubling of per capita gross domestic product. As consumerism increased (spending on holidays, leisure and alcohol in particular), so did secularism – switching from worshipping God to goods.22 While some of these lapsed church non-attenders might still have had faith, beliefs also fell over the same time period. In a land where not long ago it was the most popular and prestigious profession for many, priests are now risking extinction. In Dublin diocese there are 45 priests over 80 but only two under 45, and the whole country is predicted to lose two-thirds of its priests within 20 years.23
In most of Western Europe, where base rates were already much lower than Ireland, churches are being converted into apartments, priests and nuns can’t be recruited, and believers are now in the minority. In the UK the numbers of believers have reduced from 64 per cent in 1991 to 48 per cent in 2008 – a drop of around 1 per cent per year.24 European cultures are becoming increasingly secular, with organised religions slowly losing influence and power. So in the modern world, is the decline of religion now inevitable?
In some countries a natural experiment occurred where the effects on religion of sudden culture changes other than economic booms could be measured. In Russia, where nearly all the population believed in God at the start of the 1917 revolution, religion was heavily suppressed for 70 years. Just after the end of communism in 1991, the number of believers was 22 per cent of the population, with a third of previous non-believers under the old communist regime recently converting.25 Most were young Russian males. These ‘revivalists’ reported this to be a miraculous turning point, one that suddenly gave a purpose to life.
Compared with East Germans in a similar situation, Russians, despite similar baseline rates of belief, had four times the recent religious conversion rates. They are also more enthusiastic church attendees, with more extreme socio-religious views – the majority believe that all anti-religious books should be banned and only religious figures should hold public office. Socio-economic factors may have mellowed East Germans. Elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe post-socialist increases were seen in places like Hungary, where regular church attendance has tripled in ten years. Unlike the changes in Europe and many other countries in the last few decades, religious beliefs and practices in the US have remained firm and stable, despite its affluence and materialism.
These national figures are averages and disguise the fact that within every country some people of religious backgrounds are losing faith and a proportion with no previous religious background are taking it up. So even if not always expressed outwardly as ‘religion’ or belief in God, these faith-susceptibility genes of our ancestors can’t disappear from our genetic make-up so easily and must still be an influence in many of us.
We know that religious people are encouraged to have more children. Recent surveys of 82 countries in the World Values Survey 1984 to 2004 found that women attending some kind of weekly religious ceremony had 2.5 kids on average and those not attending had only 1.67. With stricter orthodox religions the results are even more striking – old order Amish couples have an average of 6.2 children, and most other strict religious groups have a fertility at least three times higher than the average woman.26 However, some raised within strictly religious communities are tempted to leave and join the secular world. Recent predictions of future religious gene rates in the US population, balancing fertility versus desertion in each generation (through cultural hitchhiking), have given surprising results.27 The genes of the smaller religious groups would not only continue to survive, they would actually grow and make up an increasing percentage of the population. If a group like the Amish or Orthodox Jews with three times the fertility rate made up 0.5 per cent of the population and lost 5 per cent of its members every generation, its genes would account for 20 per cent of the population of the US after only ten generations. Even if 50 per cent of the group defected and became secular, it would still dominate the US after 20 generations.
So even in secular societies like those of Western Europe, while overall fertility rates are dropping, the genes would infiltrate into the main population due to slow dilution from the high-fertility religious groups. In the UK the Muslim population has tripled in 25 years and has recently reached 2.5 million, due only in part to immigration.28 Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of non-Muslims over the next two decades – an average annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent for Muslims. However, it is expected to then slow down due to changes in female education and prosperity. The Amish population in the USA has already doubled in twenty years to 250,000 in 2010 and is predicted to increase exponentially to reach 40 million by 2050. Changes in other orthodox or extreme religious groups (Hutterites, Othodox Jews, fundamentalist Muslims, Mormons etc.) are likely to be similar, stimulating a possible economic revival in traditional black cloth and hats, and beard-grooming equipment, as well as more eco-friendly horse-drawn carts and facilities for manure clearance.
Scientists have claimed to have found the God gene in the past. This was based on the old methods of linkage and candidate genes which implicated the VMAT2 gene – a brain neuro-transporter. Sadly like many ‘discoveries’ of the early genetic era before 2007, this turned out to be a false dawn.29
My group, too, have been trying to track down the genes responsible for religious belief (or disbelief), using the modern analytic methods of half a million DNA markers (genome-wide scans), and are getting really close. Using 4,000 of our UK twins we narrowed the search to a clear signal from a small stretch of DNA on chromosome 15. This could only occur by chance 1 in a million times. When we looked to see what gene this signal was close to on the chromosome, we had a surprise: there was no gene anywhere near this marker. This area is known by geneticists as a gene desert, because it is huge and was believed to contain nothing useful, being full of what was known as junk. Mysteriously, quite a few real associations with diseases (about 1 in 4) end up in these desert areas – something that we can’t yet properly explain.
While it is just a matter of time before gene variants like these, which alter your chances of divine belief, are convincingly confirmed in humans, their origin will cause major disagreement. Atheists will probably argue that they have been selected for by the randomness of trial and error – i.e. natural selection over many generations – and are evidence for the non-existence of God. Believers in a greater power will no doubt counter that the presence or absence of genes like these is part of a creator’s perfect master plan via God’s language, DNA, allowing faith and inherent morality to occur. The scientist mainly responsible for the split between science and the Christian Church doctrine – Darwin – himself was clearly torn in his beliefs. He expressed ‘the extreme difficulty in or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.’
Alice and Sally were identical twins born in 1948, brought up together in Lambeth, London, close to my hospital, in a working-class Christian home. While both of their parents believed in God, they didn’t go regularly to church, but their two shy and pretty daughters attended Sunday school, which they enjoyed and which played a key part in their social lives. They were baptised and confirmed and both twins prayed regularly. Although in different classes at school they shared a room and were otherwise always together. They sometimes had violent fights, and were always called ‘the twins’. After they gained good final ‘A’ levels at school, their working-class parents didn’t allow them to go to university, thinking it ‘a waste of time’. They both got comfortable jobs in different branches of the Civil Service. Then their paths began to diverge.
When she was 20, Sally married a self-employed builder with family money. She continued to work for six years, but despite the financial security was not happy. After four children and several affairs she decided to abandon the marriage and divorced. She remarried soon after and is now happy with an older man who resembles her father. Alice, in contrast, had an early broken engagement and decided to wait for Mr Right. Finally at 35 she married a much older man, and stayed faithful. When their father, whom they both adored, died of lung disease five years later they were both devastated, but their religious paths changed dramatically. Sally lost her previously firm belief: ‘If God existed – he wouldn’t have let my father die. I no longer believed in God, an afterlife or the point of church.’
Alice continued to believe and said that she was shocked by her sister’s reaction: ‘God doesn’t work in that way. He helped me come to terms with my father’s death and I know I will meet him again in Heaven.’ Her father’s death actually strengthened her belief: she regularly attended Catholic mass and prayed daily. Alice doesn’t think she is a very spiritual person, she just believes firmly that God is there and loves her. Sally also doesn’t believe she is very spiritual, but she still remembers the comfort she used to get from praying. Sally is generous, gives to many charities and has very strong views on the planet and global warming, being a member of Greenpeace and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her views on helping the most needy and strong socialist principles are in contrast to her religious sister Alice, who firmly believes that most people should learn to stand on their own feet and compassion and charity should be reserved for those that try.
The contrasting religious twin stories provide an insight into how our beliefs are shaped. While all three sets of identical twins probably carry the religious susceptibility genes, they behaved and expressed them very differently. Are beliefs simply a mix of upbringing and genes, as the first pair of twins, Debbie and Sharon, suggest, where genes and culture work in tandem? Or can small differences in life events change a Christian to a Muslim, as in the case of Elizabeth and Caroline, or – as with Alice and Sally – a bereavement change something so fundamentally human as belief or disbelief in a universal creator or afterlife? These twin stories and the changes in populations over time suggest that our thoughts, beliefs and practices are less fixed and much more malleable than superficially they appear. It suggests that even our patterns of beliefs could be altered epigenetically – with faith genes switched on or off.
If so, could we modify the behaviour of, for example, religious fundamentalists as easily as our missionary ancestors converted non-believers? Can materialism and prosperity mixed with a sense of security reduce faith? Or could we alternatively have another resurgence of religion in the West, as suggested by the data from Russia, where dormant genes may be switched on? These faith genes are still very much present somewhere in our genomes and may be actually growing in the population, so in a secular world they could be influencing our behaviour in new ways that we are unaware of. This could take any number of forms.
People who are susceptible to faith are more likely to also have conservative views, with greater respect for tradition and authority.30 In the UK surveys show that religion is not associated consistently with any particular politics, but religious people are more likely to vote than non-believers, suggesting that subconsciously they wish more strongly to identify with other groups. In the absence of religious culture (as in the old Soviet Union or secular Europe), others might seek or find comfort in other authoritarian ways. Could the growing number of small groups of individuals with extreme inflexible views on the world but who can’t express themselves through religion come into this domain? Surveys in the US suggest that beliefs in the paranormal are currently on the rise, with 54 per cent of Americans believing in psychic healing and 50 per cent in ESP.31 The findings are also true of US students.32 Those with the strong beliefs may end up identifying with other like-minded people. This could include extreme vegans and caloric restrictors, obsessive gym worshippers, extreme political groups, believers in alternative medicine, Apple techno addicts, AIDs and vaccination deniers, conspiracy theorists, or believers in alien abductions.
It is also possible that extreme atheists – those who are trying to convert believers and are less than tolerant of religions – could also be carrying these faith genes, though highly unlikely to admit it. Ancient philosophers and more recently psychologists suggest that it is natural for humans to question their own existence and seek higher powers. Yet we are still surprised when children like Helen Keller – totally deaf and blind from 19 months of age and isolated – can still ask unprompted: ‘Who made the sky, the sea, everything?’ Richard Dawkins, when asked in an interview what he thought our purpose in life was, replied: ‘It’s not a proper question to put, it doesn’t deserve an answer.’33
Most of us, whatever our genes, would probably disagree.