Bering, Jesse M. “Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents; Minds: The Natural Foundations of
Afterlife Beliefs as Phenomenological Boundary.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 2.4 (2002): 263-308. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Helmke Lib., Indiana State U. 1 Nov. 2009
This author, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arkansas with a Ph.D. in Religion and Evolutionary Psychology, did a study to explore where the belief in afterlife comes from. Written for students of psychology, the author’s report discuses that his discoveries prove afterlife beliefs (of the variety in his report) to be more or less innate, rather than stories handed down socially. Incorporating other studies that prove the existence of innate knowledge, the author has discovered adults revert to what they have learned rather than to innate knowledge. This study, partially funded with a dissertation grant, does not state it is a dissertation.

In case you can’t find it, or just want a more simplistic version of the study, here is some of what I wrote about it in my research paper:

Jesse M. Bering of the University of Arkansas’ Department of Psychology did a study to explore where the belief in afterlife comes from. Interestingly, Bering’s discoveries prove afterlife beliefs to be more or less innate, rather than just to be stories passed down socially (292-293). In his report, Bering points out that “Cognitive developmentalists have long speculated on innate knowledge in human ontogeny” and he cites research that shows various forms of implicit knowledge in young children (265-266). Bering explains that his research expands on previous research and shows that, as children mature, they begin to incorporate learned behaviors/cultural trends, which naturally override innate knowledge (266). More specifically Bering acknowledges other research (i.e. Barrett & Nyhof 2001; Boyer & Ramble 2001) when he states, “Indeed, recent evidence shows that recall memory for counterintuitive concepts within the handling limits of the constraint systems is significantly higher than for mundane concepts that possess no ontological violations” (qtd. in Bering 266). In more simple terms, adults more easily remember what they have learned rather than what they innately know.
The overall concept of Bering’s findings is that studies prove we all have innate knowledge about an afterlife (264). However, when posed with the problem of trying to describe being without certain human faculties that we have never been without, such as thinking, we revert to what we have learned rather than to our innate knowledge of what being dead is like (Bering 273). Thus, our description of what it is like to die or be dead seems to contradict itself—causing our description to seem unrealistic (Bering 267). Bering explains that the intuitive aspects of human behavior, including our understanding of afterlife, are not wrong—they only appear to be a belief in paranormal behavior when attempting to communicate our understanding, because, as his study suggests, we combine what we innately know with what we have learned (267). According to Bering, his current findings parallel those of several other studies (i.e. Sperber & Hirschfeld 1999), “. . . showing that religious concepts may not simply be enticing anomalies of intuitive concepts, or the mongrel progeny of cross-domain parenting, as held by many cultural epidemiologists, but rather have, in many cases, natural foundations in their own right” (qtd. in Bering 292).

That’s it. I just felt an urge to share that with you. I think Bering’s study also proves why we can’t change another person’s mind about the existence of a “higher self” or whatever anyone wants to call it.

=) have a beautiful day! Lisa~

PS: anyone with comments or questions about my post can always reach me via e-mail at LisaRenee7610@gmail.com

Nate – this argument must equally apply to the supernatural realm you postulate. By your logic, the god(s) of this supernatural realm must ask themselves how it is they can rule out that an undetectable super-supernatural realm exists which in fact caused their supernatural realm to be. Of course this goes ad-infinitum and the so the argument that there ‘must be’ some unperceivable realm external to whatever current realm a being finds themselves in explains nothing.
Put a slightly different way..if you’re suspicious of mere earthly atheism.. what possible justification is there for your god to be an atheist and assume He/She/It does not have meta-gods?

It simply won’t do to plead ‘outside of time’ as a special property of some particular supernatural realm if you’re then going to claim that beings in this supernatural realm interact with reality not only through the *event* of creating it, but through various other interactions and monitorings as pretty much every religion claims. I might just as well claim the super-supernatural realm is a fabric ‘outside of and above the timelessness’ of the supernatural and yet designed and ’caused’ it.
It is not logically valid to claim that an *event-triggering* supernatural realm doesn’t require a cause yet the natural one does. It’s a non-solution to the question of ‘but what happened before that?’ and it certainly doesn’t answer the question of how a vast calculating intelligence can arise.. whereas, back in reality – we can and do begin to understand how biological and machine intelligences arise from non-intelligent beginnings.

1) There does not exist any true god -> Where did we come from? No answer.
2) There is only one true God -> If this God created the entire universe, then God sets the rules.

Option 3) which some people would like there to be, there are multiple true gods, is not possible. god A says only god A is true, all other gods are false. god B says only god B is true, all other gods are false. Can’t have god A and god B.

Here is my religion analysis:
Eastern religions must be wrong because the universe did have a beginning due to scientific observation. Trinaritary Christianity must be wrong because older Bibles never even reference it, an explicit statement > implicit statement, and older Christians believed 1 in 1 God. Avant-garde religions are also false for obvious reasons (just look at doctrine–Pastafarianism? Scientology?)

Therefore, this is how I see it: Judaism, Unitary Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, or Atheism must be true. Or, of course, there is a different deity who never contacted us earthlings.

I believed in Christianity my entire life, then converted to Judaism, then Buddhism, then Hinduism, then Zoroastrianism, then Atheism, and finally Islam. When I go into a religion, I try to LEARN everything about it.