The subject of religion has always been on my mind despite my supposed anti-religious views. By the way, let me announce to the world; that my agnostic self is currently on sabbatical because Nigeria is showing me pepper; I need God to help me handle some things before I lose my mind. (I have been taking “God abeg” three times daily).
Jokes aside, recently, I have been wondering why religion is popular amongst the masses despite the supposed antagonism it gets from intellectuals, some of whom I respect.
I had a few theories and some half-baked thoughts in my mind until I stumbled on this weird study that answered my question.
In 1950, Curt Richter, a professor at John Hopkins University, carried out experiments on rats to measure “The Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals”; He wanted to see the changes in the vital signs of a rat as they died; to achieve this, he hooked up rats to a device that measured their vitals, after which he dropped them in a bucket of water and observed them till they drowned. He divided this experiment into three stages, experimenting with a different set of rats in each stage.
In the first stage, the professor took 12 domesticated rats, dropped them into buckets filled with water, and timed them to watch how long they swam around before they gave up while measuring their vitals. Three of the domesticated rats drowned about five minutes after being dropped into the bucket; the other nine swam for about 40 - 60 hours before they eventually drowned.
In the second stage of the experiment, professor Curt took six wild rats, freshly caught from the bush; fierce, aggressive and suspicious in Prof curt’s words. He hoped to compare the result from the domesticated rats to the one from the wild ones. All 34 wild rats drowned and died within 1 - 5 minutes of being dropped in the bucket of water. Curt made this remark about this observation.
“The situation of these rats scarcely seems one demanding fight or flight — it is rather one of hopelessness… the rats are in a situation against which they have no defence… they seem literal to ‘give up.’”
After this, Curt decided to twerk this experiment a little bit further; he gathered another cohort of rats and dropped them inside the same bucket of water, but he did something different this time. Moments before the rats drowned, he removed them from the water, dried them, help them recover; before putting them back into the water. After doing this, he noticed the most amazing thing. After putting them back into the bucket of water, The rats swam for a longer time. The wild rats who only survived for about five minutes in the first experience survived more than 60hours in the second experiment.
60 hours!
More than 100 times the number of times they swam the first.
Why did they swim longer the second time before giving up and drowning?
Prof Curt had this to say;
“the rats quickly learn that the situation is not hopeless” and that “after elimination of hopelessness, the rats do not die.”
The rats, being rescued from the water at a point, had learnt that a saviour would come if they swam for longer times.
Although humans aren’t rats, there are tons of lessons for us to draw from the experiment. In a world filled with vicissitudes and sad times, despondencies and bad days, the hope for better days could help one push on.
And if there is one thing religion does best, it’s the offer of hope to the weak, sick and poor. One may argue that such an offer of hope is far-fetched, some even go to the extent of calling such kind of hope delusion in the face of reality. I have realised that hope can be a lifeline for some individuals; that is the only thing making them stay afloat, or else they will have drowned. It’s the difference between life and death for them.
Even for us who seem to have a few things working out for us, we aren’t always on our best days. There are times when the cloud thickens and darkens, and it seems the whole world would collapse on us. In such times, we need hope and like it or not, religion is one of the few places you will find it; it is where you are likely to find the words and individuals who will strengthen you in your time of need.
I am learning to use the hope for a better time that religion has to offer because Nigeria and life are currently showing me pepper.
God Abeg.
Ọmọ, this is a beautiful write-up
Well organized