In Reason Online, Ronald Bailey notes independent researcher Gregory Paul’s hypothesis, laid out in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, that Paul argues that  secularism/atheism increases as socioeconomic conditions improve. Religious belief, Paul argues, is more prevalent in the United States largely because “Americans experience higher levels of economic and social insecurity than do the citizens of other rich countries.” To Paul, the correlation between secularism and perceived economic and physical security counters the argument that religious belief is natural, i.e., genetic, to human beings:

In view of the reduced levels of religiosity consistently extant in populations that enjoy secure middle class lives, it can be postulated that if socioeconomic conditions had been similarly benign since humans first appeared it is unlikely that religion would have developed to nearly the degree seen in actual human history, and atheism would have been much more widespread and possibly ubiquitous since the beginning. Materialism and language in contrast would still be omnipresent. Ergo, strong religiosity has all the signs of being a natural invention of human minds in response to a defective habitat, and is neither supernatural, nor genetically preprogrammed to the same extent as are more deeply set language and material desire.

… Early humans were poorly informed hunter gatherers living impoverished and dangerous lives. These conditions were so ideal for the invention of supernatural entities that could be petitioned for aid and protection that it is difficult to construct a scenario in which primitive cultures would be rationalistic atheists. A genetic propensity driven by selective forces may not be necessary for the appearance of popular religion in this scenario. If genes are involved then they are strongly expressed only when the human environment is suitable, unlike the much more prevalent genetic programming for language and materialism. The lives of the great majority remained impoverished and insecure with the onset of agriculture and then civilization, the latter was accompanied and may have been partly driven by the appearance of priestly castes who invented organized religion as a means of maintaining sociopolitical control.”

Interestingly, perhaps, the number of Amercians claiming no religious affiliation is on the rise (see yesterday’s Field Notes).