Religious believers are acting in accord with evolution

Having arrived at a churchless view of reality, I'm amused when true believers accuse me of taking the easy way out by being a skeptic about God and other things divine'ish. They see religious belief as a courageous stand against rampant secularism -- a bold independent search for ultimate reality that transcends materialistic boundaries.

Actually, the truth is far different.

Religious belief is the default human condition. What takes courage, effort, and determination is going against the religious current that sweeps the vast majority of people into a faith-based ocean.

Interestingly, the evidence for this is scientific.

Evolutionary psychology has arrived at well-founded explanations for why religious belief is almost ubiquitious in cultures around the world. So those who decry the theory of evolution as undermining the Bible and other holy books are doing so because of evolutionary influences.

They can't help themselves.

Belief in the supernatural essentially is hard-wired into humans. J. Anderson Thomson explains why in the first chapter of his fascinating short book, "Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Scientific Science of Faith." (Thanks, Alex, for letting me know about this book via an email.)

All known cultures have revolved around some concept of at least one god and/or central mystical figure, with or without a corresponding supernatural world. Why? Why is religion an apparently universal feature of humans and the cultures we create?

We are beginning to understand. Over the past two decades there has been a revolution in psychology and the cognitive neurosciences. Out of it has come an evolutionary explanation of why human minds generate religious belief, why we generate specific types of beliefs, and why our minds are prone to accept and spread them.

...religion, while not an [evolutionary] adaptation in itself, derives from the same mind-brain social adaptations that we use to navigate the sea of people who surround us. These adaptations formed to solve specific social and interpersonal problems as humanity evolved. Almost incidentally, but no less powerfully, they come together to construct the foundation of every religious idea, belief, and ritual. Religious beliefs are basic human social survival concepts with slight alterations.

...All religions -- as sets of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe -- begin with belief in one or more central holy figures or teachers. Most also involve a deity or deities capable of interacting with us, able and willing to intervene in our lives, to hear our silent wishes, and to grant them, and capable of doing literally anything.

...If, when you were a teenager, your mother had set you up on a blind date and assured you that your date was extraordinarily good looking, wealthy beyond measure, kind, loving, willing to do anything for you even though you'd never met, and wanted nothing more than for you to have the best of everything, would you have believed her? Well, maybe when you were a teenager. For a few minutes.

So why are we so willing to believe in an invisible god that does all of that, and more?

Compared to what really goes on in our minds, the concept of one holy supernatural entity seems easy. Just to believe in a god, our mind bounces off no fewer than twenty hardwired adaptations evolved over eons of natural selection to help us coexist and communicate with our fellow Homo sapiens to survive and dominate the planet. In the pages that follow, we'll show you exactly how and why human minds not only accept the impossible but also have created cults of it.

We will show you how and why humans came to, among other things, believe in a god, love a god, fear a god, defer to a god, envision a god like us, pray to a god and assume prayers would be answered, create rituals to worship a god, and even die and kill for a god. And we will show you why these handwired social traits make it extradordinarily difficult to depart from those beliefs, even if and when you are so inclined.

Difficult, but not impossible. Evolution also has brought us humans a well-developed cerebral cortex that can make progress in sorting through our delusions, untruths, and mistaken beliefs.

I'm enjoying Thomson's book. In future posts I'll share more insights from it about why people are drawn to religious belief in much the same way as we're drawn to eat fast food -- not because it is good for us, but because an inborn appetite is exceedingly strong.

Comments

[Brian from Colorado]

"Why? Why is religion an apparently universal feature of humans and the cultures we create?"

Another answer would be that many people intuitively sense that there is more to existence than is apparent from the materialist line of inquiry.

Here's the bottom line, Churchless - your religion is predicated on the belief that consciousness is wholy generated and contained inside that fine ivory box a.k.a. "the cranium." Ironically, core findings of the most emperical of your scientific disciplines is indicating in rather certain terms that this CANNOT BE THE CASE.

Meanwhile Homo Scientistic continues to descend along a sad inward spiral, its collective trajectory traced on Facebook by a billion personal altars. Because when Nietsche said that God was dead, he really only meant that the starring role was being allocated to a new set players. But make no mistake, the franchise is still very much alive.

Don't worry though - when it comes to evangelists, you'll always be one of my favorites.

[Dungeness]

Religious belief is the default human condition. What takes courage, effort, and determination is going against the religious current that sweeps the vast majority of people into a faith-based ocean.

I think mystics would agree but would clarify that the real 'current' is non-denominational. True believers - whether at the altar of science or religion - are swept away by their own inner helplessness, by a tsunami of thought they can't control, by an inability to ever simply remain in stillness and in the here-now, by an enduring existential angst that no material discovery or religious dogma will ever allay. The "courage, effort, and determination" to reform oneself and swim against this riptide is the real beacon of hope.

[Blogger Brian]

Brian from Colorado, if you put something in ALL CAPS, it must be REALLY IMPORTANT. So tell me: what is the scientific research that proves, as you said, that it "CANNOT BE THE CASE" that human consciousness is confined in "the cranium"?

I'm curious about the specifics of what you're referring to. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps you're wrong. We'll never know if you don't share the details of what you mean. Talk is cheap; facts are more difficult to come by. So...facts please.

[Brian from Colorado]

Well Churchless, I rarely use ALL CAPs. And see what happens - I'm immediately mocked for it! And now who knows what obloquy will result from my egregious use of italics! : )

Anyway, you and I have touched on this topic before. I recall you even said that you took a peek at a book I once mentioned (Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness). And I submit to you that physics is indeed the king of empirical sciences - to paraphrase departed evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, all the other scientific disciplines have "physics envy".

BTW, nicely said, Dungeness

[Blogger Brian]

Brian, I've read Quantum Enigma. As I recall, it's one of quite a few books that attempt to make a connection between human consciousness and quantum phenomena such as non-locality.

This is interesting stuff. Also, speculative. That's why I didn't think that your CANNOT BE THE CASE was justified. Much better to say "possibly could be the case."

As noted in a recent post about subjective and objective reality, it's easy to mistake our subjective beliefs, hopes, preferences, and such for something objective.

Of course, sometimes a phenomenon that starts off subjective, as an intuition, hunch, or the like, is proven to be objectively true. So subjective and objective aren't dichotomies; they're part of a sliding scale that varies continuously.

Keeping an open mind is important. But too much openness lets a lot of crap in. It's a matter of balance.

I'm very much open to the possibility of consciousness being more than just physical goings-on in the brain. However, I respect reality too much to mistake my own thoughts in this area for really real reality.

[Mike Williams]

In all my occult adventures and groups,
I have never seen consciousness out
side the brain.

Consciousness does not appear to be
the water the spunge soaks in.

[Brian from Colorado]

Whoa. As that book makes clear there's nothing speculative when it comes to the scientific truth of the participatory aspect of consciousness at the quantum level, and the authors also go on to make it clear that what we see at the gross material level is naught but a seamless extension of that finer realm.

Now what it all means is anyone's guess, but it sure indicates that there's something more to consciousness than a bunch of electrochemical sparks locked up tight in a bone box.

[Blogger Brian]

Brian, there's no agreement about what quantum mechanics means, only what it does. New Scientist recently had a piece about the different philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics. "What you look for is what you get" does seem to be true. But why and how this happens (or if there is a why and how) is unknown.

The traditional "Copenhagen" view is that there is no reality until a measurement is made. Makes sense. Reality will look different to different forms of consciousness -- a wonderfully churchless perspective. See:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20600-quantum-magic-trick-shows-reality-is-what-you-make-it.html

[Peter Holleran]

Religious belief as being an evolutionary creation may be true. That's what Arthur Janov of Primal Therapy fame thought. So did Marx, essentially. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Janov even argued that the development of the cortex was only to prevent us from feeling pain lodged deeper in the brain, in the limbic system. He is a die-hard materialist, as opposed to that of many 'post-primalers,' who found themselves, after they got rid of their core pains, with a greater appreciation for life and spiritual considerations.

But it doesn't matter.

I say there are no true 'beliefs', and Seng Tsan's advice, "cease having views" is perhaps the best practice, which is no practice. There is no true 'faith' in some thing either. I agree both are consolations for the ego, which is dead already. Trust in the heart, imho.