A landmark study conducted in 2011 by the University of Oxford — involving 57 researchers, over 40 separate studies, and participants drawn from 20 different countries — arrived at a conclusion that challenges the very foundation of modern atheism: belief in God is not a social construct, a childhood indoctrination, or a crutch for the uneducated. It is innate. In a wide-ranging conversation on The Deen Show, Professor Jonathan Brown — Islamic studies scholar at Georgetown University and a convert to Islam himself — sat down with host Eddie to explore what this research means for our understanding of human nature, why the New Atheist movement continues to attract followers despite the scientific evidence, and what Islam has always taught through the concept of fitrah — the natural, God-given disposition every human being carries from birth.
What Science Now Confirms About Our God-Given Disposition
The Oxford study, conducted through the University’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, found that human beings are cognitively predisposed to perceive the world as designed, purposeful, and guided by an intelligent Creator. Dr. Justin Barrett, one of the lead researchers, offered a striking thought experiment: take a group of children, place them on an uninhabited island with no religious instruction whatsoever, and they would still — through reason and observation alone — arrive at a belief in God. Professor Pascal Boyer of Washington University reinforced these findings with equal directness, noting that disbelief, far from being the enlightened default, is the harder cognitive path, one requiring sustained and deliberate effort against our natural inclinations. Islam has conveyed this reality for over fourteen centuries through the fitrah: every soul, before entering this world, bore witness that Allah is its Lord. Science is only now catching up to what the Quran declared long ago, affirming that faith is not something imposed upon human beings — it is something we must work to suppress.
“The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown… a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose. If we threw a handful [of people] on an island and they raised themselves, I think they would believe in God.” — Dr. Justin Barrett, University of Oxford
- Belief is innate, not acquired: The Oxford study — spanning 20 countries and over 40 research projects — concluded that faith in a Creator is a natural human disposition embedded in our cognition from birth.
- Atheism requires deliberate effort: Professor Pascal Boyer confirmed that disbelief is “the work of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions” — making irreligion the unnatural position, not faith.
- Religion is universal across all human civilisations: Philosopher Henri Bergson observed that no human society has ever been found without religion — though many have existed without science or formal arts.
- Islam’s fitrah aligns perfectly with modern science: The Quranic concept of the innate covenant between the soul and its Creator predates and precisely mirrors the secular findings of these contemporary research institutions.
- Purpose and meaning are inseparable from belief: Prof. Jonathan Brown, reflecting on his own youth consumed by existential anxiety, found that belief in God and commitment to good deeds are “absolutely central” to a life that feels meaningful — a reality no secular framework adequately replaces.
New Atheism: A Social Badge, Not a Rational Conclusion
Prof. Jonathan Brown, drawing on his years in academic circles, offers a crucial insight that rarely reaches mainstream audiences: the apparent prevalence of atheism in elite Western universities is not evidence of science leading humanity away from God. A broader cross-institutional study found that scientists, when sampled across a full range of universities rather than just a handful of Ivy League institutions, hold religious belief at roughly the same rate as the general population. What exists at certain universities, Brown argues, is not the logical endpoint of scientific inquiry — it is a social subculture, a shared identity where atheism functions as a membership badge rather than a rationally arrived-at conclusion. New Atheism’s animosity toward religion, he explains, has deep roots in historical hostility toward Catholicism in the United States, which gradually expanded into a generalised attack on all faith. This becomes especially clear when examining how some Western academics approached the Birmingham Quran manuscript — first insisting it came from long after the Prophet’s ﷺ era, then claiming it predated him entirely, so long as the conclusion undermined Muslim belief. Their position, Brown notes with precision, is every bit as dogmatic and faith-based as anything they mock in religious communities. The evidence, however, continues to point in one direction: towards a Creator, and towards Islam as the complete and final articulation of the guidance every human soul already recognises.
“Religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the work of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions — hardly the easiest ideology to propagate.” — Professor Pascal Boyer, Washington University
This conversation is ultimately not just an academic exercise — it is an invitation to honest self-reflection. If belief in the Creator is the default state of every human heart, then those who have drifted away from faith have not evolved beyond religion; they have, through distraction, noise, and cultural pressure, suppressed the most natural part of themselves. Islam — the same message of pure monotheism delivered by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and finalised through the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon them all) — calls every soul back to what it already knows at its core. Whether you are a lifelong Muslim seeking to deepen your iman, a seeker exploring spirituality and purpose with a sincere heart, or someone who abandoned faith and carries the quiet weight of that absence, the door of Allah’s mercy is never closed. As Prof. Jonathan Brown discovered as a restless teenager wandering the California hills, consumed by anxiety about mortality and meaning: the answer was always there, written into the very fabric of human nature — and Islam provided the light to finally find it.
