Henry: The Three Bs

Almost every argument about religion is an argument about belief. Does God exist, is the book true, can you prove it. But in our Mini Philosophy interview, the scholar Andrew Henry pointed out that this is a very Protestant assumption about what religion even is. Because a religion is usually defined by three things, not one. The three Bs. Beliefs, behaviours, belonging. Beliefs are the creedal claims: there is a god, we are reborn, the world is an illusion. Behaviours are rituals, like celebrating Christmas, and ethical rules, like don't drink alcohol. And belonging is religious identity, community, often ethnicity woven in with it. And according to Henry, for most of the world, across most of history, belonging and behaviours have mattered far more than belief. There is a strand of cultural evolution that asks why a handful of religions persisted across a hundred thousand years while thousands of others vanished entirely. And one answer is that some of them gave their communities a selection advantage. And so, we need to look at what each B is doing. Shared belief lets you trust a stranger you have never met. Shared ritual has been shown to improve wellbeing and build in-group solidarity. Shared belonging gives you an identity you will fight for. For Henry, some cultures found the secret sauce of beliefs, rituals, behaviour and belonging. Of course, evolutionarily advantageous does not mean true. But Henry is pointing at two things. First, that for a great many people, true was not what mattered the most. And second, that true or false might not be the only measure of how good a belief is.