Unto the Next Generation

Ever since Max Weber postulated Entzauberung (or disenchantment), predicting the displacement of religious faith by scientific rationalism, theories of secularization have abounded. As described in an essay by William H. Swatos, Jr:

Many social theorists (e.g., Wallace 1966) doubted that modernity could combine religious traditions with the overpowering impersonal features of our time: scientific research, humanistic education, high-technology multinational capitalism, bureaucratic organizational life, and so on. Reacting on the basis of a functional definition of religion, religion appeared to these theorists denuded of almost all the functions it had previously appeared to perform. In this view, religion harked back to some prior level of human evolution and was now uselessly appended to the modern cultural repertoire.

That secularization has not swept religious fundamentalism out of American society is both disappointing and puzzling, and has given rise to no small amount of hand-wringing, tooth-gnashing and navel-gazing.

Some contemporary views of secularization hold that if only we could overcome early-life religious indoctrination, nontheism would prevail (or at least grow in acceptance and prominence). Some, like Richard Dawkins, are persuaded that encouraging children to believe in patently false ideas or to accept the possibility of eternal damnation for comparatively trivial breaches of archaic tribal law, is a form of child abuse, and that it would be far preferable to permit children to defer religious identification until later in life. But a solid educational grounding in science may be inadequate to overcome pervasive religiosity in adulthood.

Prompted by the recent publication of an international assessment of science competency among students in 40 countries, the British Humanist Association has posted a sort of meta-analysis correlating science education and the frequency of prayer. The ostensible goal of this exercise was to determine whether there was evidence that science education could inoculate against religious belief. Sadly, it did not.

On the basis of this evidence, at least, it seems that science education has no direct effect on the intensity of religious belief.

Although science education may be insufficient to influence religious behavior, so too is early religious socialization. A small longitudinal study published in the Journal of Personality found that adolescent personality appears to shape late-life religiousness, independent of early religious socialization.

Although neither the BHA analysis nor the personality study can be considered definitive, such data tends to suggest that, like personality, religious tendencies have a basis in culture, environment, situation and genetics. Overcoming the pervasive influence of irrationality, faith and fundamentalism is unlikely to be accomplished by a singular focus on science education, nor is its demise likely to be hastened by the preponderance of eloquent anti-religious diatribes now lining bookstore shelves. Instead, we might do well to develop comprehensive strategies that will increase the likelihood of continued societal evolution toward a more humanistic model.

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