A purpose of religion is to show us the paths to relationships that broaden our experience and our perspectives and ultimately lead us to a life of caring and follow the Golden Rule. Being caring toward diverse others can replace the innate human ego drive to compete and win, though that will take time. Most religions include stories, prayer, weekly services, rituals and ceremonies that strengthen spirituality in the followers and ideally lead them to become caring persons. Some old doctrines, stories, and rituals are losing effectiveness in our scientific age. But another reason that some people are giving up on religion is that they see religion as leading some followers toward extremist actions against others who believe differently. Extremists in many cases regress to simple views of faith to help them counter the complexity of life in a fast changing world. They become easy prey for political power seekers. They are misled and join true-believer militant gangs to defend a distortion of the old belief system.

In times of societal change many people regress to older and simpler views of faith. As societies become more complex, some people become saturated with the increasing numbers of personal identities they must manage and the increasing amount of information they must process. Saturation is another cause of regression.

This posting aims to show how increasing knowledge of how our brains work supports the new idea of hardwiring. Hardwiring, in this case, implies that newborns grow to desire relationships with CARING OTHERS, like they had with Mom. The need for such relationships is what becomes hardwired in our brains. Later in life the caring other might be a favorite teacher, a mentor, or a supervisor at work.

A few good people are lucky and find a Gandhi, a Mandela, or a Martin Luther King to relate to. They internalize memories about relations with such leaders. Others must rely upon stories in the Christian Bible and/or the Islamic Hadith. Humans find it easier to relate to and internalize other humans than to relate to an infinitely powerful and remote creator God. Therefore many of us anthropomorphize Jesus or The Prophet Muhammad, God or Allah. (Anthropomorphizing God means viewing God in the image of a super human. Sometimes that process can lead to idolatry.)

Karen. Armstrong, in her book The Spiral Staircase, described the quest for a relationship with an ultimate transcendent caring other associated with broad global perspectives. This is THE ONE GOD of the three Abrahamic faiths. Others call it The Force.

Two sections in the last chapter of my published book Countering Polarization discuss "The Psychology of Fear" and "Altruism and Peacemaking". I quote from them. "The way the human body responds to each of these two types of experiences (hateful violent fear and hopeful altruistic experiences) is so different, that it is difficult to have altruistic experiences counterbalance the hateful violent ones. A dynamics engineer would say: "This is not a linear process."" "Altruism requires broader perspectives and to overcome focus on self, spiritual activities must be guided to help in developing transcendent relationships."

Progress in critical thinking and working with broader perspectives plus the internet and videos show how people helping others create joy in the helper and those who are helped. People broaden their perspectives by working together with others from different backgrounds. Progressive religious actions and the old traditions in their time and today, worked to guide more people around the world to climb farther up the Spiral Staircase. Such progress in relationships is an increasingly attractive approach that just might be the start or a worldwide transition. In the past, world-wide transitions in religion took centuries. The internet can speed up this process if it is used wisely.

I have posted an essay that outlines an alternative response to the stresses in a rapidly globalizing world. It is accessible at: Relating To The Divine and Peacemaking. A quote from that essay follows. "I believe that social scientists, cognitive scientists, and human scientists in related fields will overcome the separation between religious faith and science and by so doing will provide a basis to help expand common beliefs in all religious faiths. (I define religious faith as trusting in the idea that God is present and active in and through the behavior of loving and caring humans.)"

For a detailed discussion of the many considerations that are involved in the foregoing, see the first three chapters of my book entitled: Countering Polarization - A Key to Peacemaking mentioned above. Those chapters discusses stages of faith and moral development, eight ever broader levels of perspective taking, managing personal identities, and what we must do to decrease polarization in legislatures, among the general public, within church congregations, and in the political sphere. My printed book is available now from Xlibris' bookstore at: Countering Polarization, the Colorado State University Bookstore, and the Boulder Book Store. The book is now also available from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.