Religion is not a single thing. It is a complex set of things. What form it will take in the human future depends on which of its components come to dominate it.
Religion consists of a set of doctrines, as well as spiritual feelings and experiences. Spirituality, based directly on human experiences, will probably continue forever. Our brains have experiences such as the following, which I listed in Chapter 7 of my forthcoming book, Life of Earth: ecstasy; loss of awareness of having a defined body; altruism; need for an authority figure; awareness of death; and belief that phenomena are caused by invisible persons. It is likely that each of these is caused by a particular brain function. They will never go away, except perhaps over a longer period of time than human civilization has yet existed; and we will probably always interpret them as spiritual experiences.
But the doctrines are memes. They are culturally transmitted. However unlikely it seems at the moment, these memes can die away quickly, over a very few generations. I do not expect many of them to die away, but I can at least hope that the more oppressive and destructive of them will become extinct. For example, the idea that God will send most people who have ever lived to a hell in which they will experience conscious eternal torture. This doctrinal belief makes people comfortable with the idea that it is acceptable to torture or harm other people. Another example: the idea that God has given our religious group the unique truth, and has not given it to anyone else. This doctrinal belief makes people comfortable with the idea that they can sweep aside other religious groups by whatever means necessary. The time for belief in God as Supreme Torturer and Dispenser of Unique Truth to Fundamentalists Who Can Enforce It (whether in Christian or Muslim garb) must end as speedily as possible. We should oppose these ideas vigorously and without interruption for as long as it takes to ensure their memetic extinction. One of the best ways to do this is just to educate people—about evolution and about the brain chemistry basis of our thoughts, for example.
And when we do so, should we happen to succeed at some point long after my life is over, what will we have? Perhaps, primarily, we will have spirituality—people who worship God by feeling the inspiration of nature and by living by the Golden Rule. People who think and act the way Jesus did when he was out in the hills. The component of religion that makes people better, not worse. This may be impossible, but it is a future worth working for.
Home » Archives for July 2010
Thursday, July 29
Friday, July 23
It's A Miracle!
This essay is a follow-up to the previous one, about Occam’s razor. Here is an example of a complicated spiritual explanation for something that does not really exist—the ability of a piece of wood to influence the course of events in life. Even within the realm of spiritual assumptions, it is a convoluted piece of reasoning that defies Occam’s razor. It is something that, when the ancient pagans of the Middle East did it, the prophet Isaiah denounced it. Isaiah said, you take a piece of wood, make half of it into an idol and burn the other half in the fireplace—so how can the wood be a god? The reasoning is flawed but it is a commendable ancient attempt to test spiritual assertions by hypothesis testing.
“Occam’s razor” is a philosophical position, attributed to medieval theologian William of Occam (Ockham). It is that the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts is the one that should be accepted. He applied it to theology, but it works in all areas of study. It is one of the foundational assumptions of science.
Religious people have, for the past few centuries, abandoned William of Occam’s theological premise. The reason is that science has steadily put physical explanations of nature in place of spiritual ones. At first it was that the Earth goes around the Sun. Then it was the idea that gravity and momentum, not angels, propelled the planets in their orbits. A few simple Newtonian equations explained as much as a multitude of angels.
One of the biggest examples of a simple natural explanation replacing a complex theological story is, of course, evolution. At the time of William Paley, every species was seen as not only a special creation by God but as evidence that God was good. Even mosquitoes. Evolution replaced “natural theology” largely because one, single explanation—natural selection—replaced thousands of separate acts of design and creation. Why does each species exist? In Paley’s time, each species had its own reason. Ever since Darwin, there has been only one reason: evolution.
But evolution is far from being the only example. If I were a fundamentalist, I would be a lot more worried about psychology than about evolution. Scientists have now explained nearly everything that happens in our “minds” and “hearts” as a physical or chemical process that occurs within our brains. This applies even to the most intense religious experiences (see the earlier essay about the Near Death experience.) Now, we know that these processes, involving neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, and genes occur. In order to believe that a person has a spirit that thinks and feels, you have to believe that this spirit exactly mirrors, in every detail, the functions of the brain. You have to create, without evidence, an imaginary shadow of the brain. Occam’s razor says that, if the brain explains everything, there is no need to invent a spirit that is just a duplicate of the brain.
Occam’s razor, a philosophical position invented by a theologian, has now turned against theology.
Well, here is my story.
I walked into a dark restroom and the lights suddenly came on. It must have been a miracle! Anyplace else and I would have assumed it was a motion detector. But I was in no ordinary place. I was at the Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague. This shrine is an example of how convoluted religious reasoning can become. I have to start at the beginning.
In the late middle ages, there was a wooden statue of a baby boy with royal garments, a crown, and holding a sceptre and globe of the world. To my knowledge, Jesus never did this, at least when he was a child. But this statue was reputed to have special powers if you made offerings to it. After various adventures, the statue ended up in Prague (now in the Czech Republic). Meanwhile, there was a Catholic priest from Prague, Oklahoma who somehow ended up with a replica (souvenir copy) of the original statue. He apparently thought that there was some significance in his town in Oklahoma having the same name as the European city, and before you knew it, the replica statue was reputed to have special powers if you made offerings to it.
So here is the line of causation that comes into play if you visit this Oklahoma shrine. 1. Stick some money in a hole at the shrine. 2. The souvenir copy statue projects spiritual energy across the Atlantic to the European statue. 3. The European statue has some influence on the Virgin Mary. 4. The Virgin Mary is obligated to tell her Son to answer your prayer. 5. Jesus is more likely to answer your prayer this way than if you just asked him directly.
Wow. All this was happening less than twenty miles from where I was born, and I knew nothing about it until I was 52.
I considered my options. Nobody was around except the woman in the office behind the gift shop. First, I considered telling her that I had walked all the way from California (on my knees? no; backward? no) just to venerate the statue. But it was obvious that I had not been outdoors that much. Second, I considered using my fake eastern European accent which I learned from Boris and Natasha and saying I was from the shrine of the original statue and wanted to inspect it. But I realized that I did not know the secret catatonic handshake (if I remember correctly, this is the Catholic version of the secret Masonic handshake that my Dad never taught me) and my imposture would be revealed. Third, I considered proposing a statistical study to determine whether offerings to the statue actually increased the chances of having a prayer answered, as in the Benson heart study. But I didn’t do any of these things. I just went home and wrote this.
“Occam’s razor” is a philosophical position, attributed to medieval theologian William of Occam (Ockham). It is that the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts is the one that should be accepted. He applied it to theology, but it works in all areas of study. It is one of the foundational assumptions of science.
Religious people have, for the past few centuries, abandoned William of Occam’s theological premise. The reason is that science has steadily put physical explanations of nature in place of spiritual ones. At first it was that the Earth goes around the Sun. Then it was the idea that gravity and momentum, not angels, propelled the planets in their orbits. A few simple Newtonian equations explained as much as a multitude of angels.
One of the biggest examples of a simple natural explanation replacing a complex theological story is, of course, evolution. At the time of William Paley, every species was seen as not only a special creation by God but as evidence that God was good. Even mosquitoes. Evolution replaced “natural theology” largely because one, single explanation—natural selection—replaced thousands of separate acts of design and creation. Why does each species exist? In Paley’s time, each species had its own reason. Ever since Darwin, there has been only one reason: evolution.
But evolution is far from being the only example. If I were a fundamentalist, I would be a lot more worried about psychology than about evolution. Scientists have now explained nearly everything that happens in our “minds” and “hearts” as a physical or chemical process that occurs within our brains. This applies even to the most intense religious experiences (see the earlier essay about the Near Death experience.) Now, we know that these processes, involving neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, and genes occur. In order to believe that a person has a spirit that thinks and feels, you have to believe that this spirit exactly mirrors, in every detail, the functions of the brain. You have to create, without evidence, an imaginary shadow of the brain. Occam’s razor says that, if the brain explains everything, there is no need to invent a spirit that is just a duplicate of the brain.
Occam’s razor, a philosophical position invented by a theologian, has now turned against theology.
Well, here is my story.
I walked into a dark restroom and the lights suddenly came on. It must have been a miracle! Anyplace else and I would have assumed it was a motion detector. But I was in no ordinary place. I was at the Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague. This shrine is an example of how convoluted religious reasoning can become. I have to start at the beginning.
In the late middle ages, there was a wooden statue of a baby boy with royal garments, a crown, and holding a sceptre and globe of the world. To my knowledge, Jesus never did this, at least when he was a child. But this statue was reputed to have special powers if you made offerings to it. After various adventures, the statue ended up in Prague (now in the Czech Republic). Meanwhile, there was a Catholic priest from Prague, Oklahoma who somehow ended up with a replica (souvenir copy) of the original statue. He apparently thought that there was some significance in his town in Oklahoma having the same name as the European city, and before you knew it, the replica statue was reputed to have special powers if you made offerings to it.
So here is the line of causation that comes into play if you visit this Oklahoma shrine. 1. Stick some money in a hole at the shrine. 2. The souvenir copy statue projects spiritual energy across the Atlantic to the European statue. 3. The European statue has some influence on the Virgin Mary. 4. The Virgin Mary is obligated to tell her Son to answer your prayer. 5. Jesus is more likely to answer your prayer this way than if you just asked him directly.
Wow. All this was happening less than twenty miles from where I was born, and I knew nothing about it until I was 52.
I considered my options. Nobody was around except the woman in the office behind the gift shop. First, I considered telling her that I had walked all the way from California (on my knees? no; backward? no) just to venerate the statue. But it was obvious that I had not been outdoors that much. Second, I considered using my fake eastern European accent which I learned from Boris and Natasha and saying I was from the shrine of the original statue and wanted to inspect it. But I realized that I did not know the secret catatonic handshake (if I remember correctly, this is the Catholic version of the secret Masonic handshake that my Dad never taught me) and my imposture would be revealed. Third, I considered proposing a statistical study to determine whether offerings to the statue actually increased the chances of having a prayer answered, as in the Benson heart study. But I didn’t do any of these things. I just went home and wrote this.
Sunday, July 18
Occam's Razor
“Occam’s razor” is a philosophical position, attributed to medieval theologian William of Occam (Ockham). It is that the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts is the one that should be accepted. He applied it to theology, but it works in all areas of study. It is one of the foundational assumptions of science.
Religious people have, for the past few centuries, abandoned William of Occam’s theological premise. The reason is that science has steadily put physical explanations of nature in place of spiritual ones. At first it was that the Earth goes around the Sun. Then it was the idea that gravity and momentum, not angels, propelled the planets in their orbits. A few simple Newtonian equations explained as much as a multitude of angels.
One of the biggest examples of a simple natural explanation replacing a complex theological story is, of course, evolution. At the time of William Paley, every species was seen as not only a special creation by God but as evidence that God was good. Even mosquitoes. Evolution replaced “natural theology” largely because one, single explanation—natural selection—replaced thousands of separate acts of design and creation. Why does each species exist? In Paley’s time, each species had its own reason. Ever since Darwin, there has been only one reason: evolution.
But evolution is far from being the only example. If I were a fundamentalist, I would be a lot more worried about psychology than about evolution. Scientists have now explained nearly everything that happens in our “minds” and “hearts” as a physical or chemical process that occurs within our brains. This applies even to the most intense religious experiences (see the earlier essay about the Near Death experience.) Now, we know that these processes, involving neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, and genes occur. In order to believe that a person has a spirit that thinks and feels, you have to believe that this spirit exactly mirrors, in every detail, the functions of the brain. You have to create, without evidence, an imaginary shadow of the brain. Occam’s razor says that, if the brain explains everything, there is no need to invent a spirit that is just a duplicate of the brain.
Occam’s razor, a philosophical position invented by a theologian, has now turned against theology.
Religious people have, for the past few centuries, abandoned William of Occam’s theological premise. The reason is that science has steadily put physical explanations of nature in place of spiritual ones. At first it was that the Earth goes around the Sun. Then it was the idea that gravity and momentum, not angels, propelled the planets in their orbits. A few simple Newtonian equations explained as much as a multitude of angels.
One of the biggest examples of a simple natural explanation replacing a complex theological story is, of course, evolution. At the time of William Paley, every species was seen as not only a special creation by God but as evidence that God was good. Even mosquitoes. Evolution replaced “natural theology” largely because one, single explanation—natural selection—replaced thousands of separate acts of design and creation. Why does each species exist? In Paley’s time, each species had its own reason. Ever since Darwin, there has been only one reason: evolution.
But evolution is far from being the only example. If I were a fundamentalist, I would be a lot more worried about psychology than about evolution. Scientists have now explained nearly everything that happens in our “minds” and “hearts” as a physical or chemical process that occurs within our brains. This applies even to the most intense religious experiences (see the earlier essay about the Near Death experience.) Now, we know that these processes, involving neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, and genes occur. In order to believe that a person has a spirit that thinks and feels, you have to believe that this spirit exactly mirrors, in every detail, the functions of the brain. You have to create, without evidence, an imaginary shadow of the brain. Occam’s razor says that, if the brain explains everything, there is no need to invent a spirit that is just a duplicate of the brain.
Occam’s razor, a philosophical position invented by a theologian, has now turned against theology.
Saturday, July 10
What Happened to the Social Darwinists?
This essay is a follow-up to the one I posted on June 13 about English and American social Darwinists of the late nineteenth century: people such as Herbert Spencer, John Fiske, Henry Ward Beecher, and Andrew Carnegie. As I completed Werth’s book, Banquet at Delmonico’s, I realized how much effort all of these thinkers had put into their work. They poured out their lives and their health into their work. They died disappointed. Spencer and Fiske, in particular, broke their health from nervous overwork on trying to figure out the evolution of societies. They did not live long enough to also discover that they were wrong.
Andrew Carnegie did live long enough. Like the academics, Carnegie believed passionately that government should not interfere with the process by which societies evolve into ever higher forms. On the negative side, this meant that the government should not help the poor. On the positive side, this meant that governments should encourage industry and get out of the war business. All of them expected an imminent utopia, or something tolerably like it. Carnegie, however, lived until 1919, which was long enough to see England cling to its colonialist policy and the United States begin one; to see that militarism was on the rise in Europe; to see that the social evolution for which he hoped was not going to happen. He was a broken man starting the day when World War I began, and died in disappointment. With his death, it might be said that World War I had driven the final stake in the heart of social Darwinism.
We now understand the message of evolutionary science to human society. It is that we are animals, not so very different from chimpanzees. Evolution has conferred upon our innate behavioral patterns the ability to be altruistic and the ability to be destructive. This means that, for every individual and every society, the choice of good and evil is always before us. There is no inevitable evolution of society. The world will be what we make of it. This is the mental flexibility that evolution has given us.
Right now, in the world, we see an unstable altruism that threatens each moment to collapse. And as global warming causes international disruption, the threat of collapse gets ever greater. What can we do? Perhaps what Andrew Carnegie did. Even when he was discouraged, he continued to be philanthropic. To the end, he gave away millions of dollars. His foundation still exists and does good work. Few of us have very much wealth to give away, but we can keep doing whatever good we can.
Andrew Carnegie did live long enough. Like the academics, Carnegie believed passionately that government should not interfere with the process by which societies evolve into ever higher forms. On the negative side, this meant that the government should not help the poor. On the positive side, this meant that governments should encourage industry and get out of the war business. All of them expected an imminent utopia, or something tolerably like it. Carnegie, however, lived until 1919, which was long enough to see England cling to its colonialist policy and the United States begin one; to see that militarism was on the rise in Europe; to see that the social evolution for which he hoped was not going to happen. He was a broken man starting the day when World War I began, and died in disappointment. With his death, it might be said that World War I had driven the final stake in the heart of social Darwinism.
We now understand the message of evolutionary science to human society. It is that we are animals, not so very different from chimpanzees. Evolution has conferred upon our innate behavioral patterns the ability to be altruistic and the ability to be destructive. This means that, for every individual and every society, the choice of good and evil is always before us. There is no inevitable evolution of society. The world will be what we make of it. This is the mental flexibility that evolution has given us.
Right now, in the world, we see an unstable altruism that threatens each moment to collapse. And as global warming causes international disruption, the threat of collapse gets ever greater. What can we do? Perhaps what Andrew Carnegie did. Even when he was discouraged, he continued to be philanthropic. To the end, he gave away millions of dollars. His foundation still exists and does good work. Few of us have very much wealth to give away, but we can keep doing whatever good we can.
Tuesday, July 6
The Dregs of Evolution
Humans are the only primate species that has a very long post-reproductive lifespan. In most primates, as in most animals and plants, an organism that has finished reproducing has nothing more to contribute to its offspring. But the extended human lifespan seems to be an evolutionary anomaly, and seems to require an evolutionary explanation.
Enter the Grandmother Hypothesis. Grandmothers, though long past their reproductive age, could help to take care of grandchildren while the mothers and fathers searched and hunted for food. Furthermore, grandmothers were what science writer Natalie Angier called “Alexandrian libraries of preliterate cultures.” The brains of old people were filled with cultural lore that could be passed on to the next generation. Humans are weak but smart, and our adaptation to hostile environments (which is, in some way, nearly all of them) is principally cultural. According to the hypothesis, natural selection has favored old age in humans as a way of passing on a lifetime of memorized culture.
But there is a problem with this, according to evolutionary gerontologist (yes! there is such a thing!) Bruce Carnes. In primitive cultures, grandparents were only about 35 years old, and most people did not live past 40. The Grandmother Hypothesis is correct, but it does not explain the characteristics of humans past the age of 40.
The unfortunate conclusion, then, is that most of the characteristics of middle- and old-aged humans (which includes me) come from the breakdown of human physiology. Our bodies could live longer, if we lived more mildly, but natural selection has favored humans that lived hard and died young, though not as young as squirrels and birds. The mild mannered Paleolithic man might live a little longer but would probably leave fewer offspring. Natural selection has seldom had a chance to act, positively or negatively, upon 53-year-old men like me. We are just lucky that our physiological processes do not simply collapse at age 40. I, for one, am thankful for each day of life in which my body does not simply stop working.
Enter the Grandmother Hypothesis. Grandmothers, though long past their reproductive age, could help to take care of grandchildren while the mothers and fathers searched and hunted for food. Furthermore, grandmothers were what science writer Natalie Angier called “Alexandrian libraries of preliterate cultures.” The brains of old people were filled with cultural lore that could be passed on to the next generation. Humans are weak but smart, and our adaptation to hostile environments (which is, in some way, nearly all of them) is principally cultural. According to the hypothesis, natural selection has favored old age in humans as a way of passing on a lifetime of memorized culture.
But there is a problem with this, according to evolutionary gerontologist (yes! there is such a thing!) Bruce Carnes. In primitive cultures, grandparents were only about 35 years old, and most people did not live past 40. The Grandmother Hypothesis is correct, but it does not explain the characteristics of humans past the age of 40.
The unfortunate conclusion, then, is that most of the characteristics of middle- and old-aged humans (which includes me) come from the breakdown of human physiology. Our bodies could live longer, if we lived more mildly, but natural selection has favored humans that lived hard and died young, though not as young as squirrels and birds. The mild mannered Paleolithic man might live a little longer but would probably leave fewer offspring. Natural selection has seldom had a chance to act, positively or negatively, upon 53-year-old men like me. We are just lucky that our physiological processes do not simply collapse at age 40. I, for one, am thankful for each day of life in which my body does not simply stop working.
Thursday, July 1
Conservatives are Nature-Worshippers
This essay is a follow-up to the one on June 17.
Environmentalists are sometimes accused of being Earth-worshippers. I have heard this excuse more times than I can remember from the religious right. And it doesn’t help when scientists like James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (and myself, in my forthcoming book Life of Earth) refer to the Earth as Gaia.
But these scientists are using Gaia as just a metaphor for the living systems of the Earth. They do not believe the Earth is really a goddess or even an organism (I got this straight from Margulis). In fact, these and all other scientists are only too aware that the Earth is not godlike in its invincibility. The Earth is quite resilient—it has many processes that allow its habitats to recover from damage and disturbance, to maintain a balance of temperatures and atmospheric carbon. But it has its limits. It was in fact Lovelock himself who wrote a book about The Revenge of Gaia. The Earth can be pushed past the tipping point into disaster. Or what at least we consider disaster. Maybe bacteria, which were the only life forms on Earth for over two billion years, would not consider it a disaster. The Earth has its limits because it is not a goddess.
It is the political right that worships the Earth. They think that the Earth can recuperate from any abuse that we lay upon it. The right-wing co2science.org website says that we can pour as much carbon as we like into the air and plants will clean it up. Fred Singer, a famous anti-environmentalist, says that global warming will cause lots of new biodiversity. Conservative economists like the late Julian Simon think that the economy will create new resources whenever they are needed. They are worshipping a godlike, indestructible Earth goddess who leads our economy with what Adam Smith called (figuratively; but to some today, literally) the Invisible Hand.
This essay also appeared on my website in 2008.
Environmentalists are sometimes accused of being Earth-worshippers. I have heard this excuse more times than I can remember from the religious right. And it doesn’t help when scientists like James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (and myself, in my forthcoming book Life of Earth) refer to the Earth as Gaia.
But these scientists are using Gaia as just a metaphor for the living systems of the Earth. They do not believe the Earth is really a goddess or even an organism (I got this straight from Margulis). In fact, these and all other scientists are only too aware that the Earth is not godlike in its invincibility. The Earth is quite resilient—it has many processes that allow its habitats to recover from damage and disturbance, to maintain a balance of temperatures and atmospheric carbon. But it has its limits. It was in fact Lovelock himself who wrote a book about The Revenge of Gaia. The Earth can be pushed past the tipping point into disaster. Or what at least we consider disaster. Maybe bacteria, which were the only life forms on Earth for over two billion years, would not consider it a disaster. The Earth has its limits because it is not a goddess.
It is the political right that worships the Earth. They think that the Earth can recuperate from any abuse that we lay upon it. The right-wing co2science.org website says that we can pour as much carbon as we like into the air and plants will clean it up. Fred Singer, a famous anti-environmentalist, says that global warming will cause lots of new biodiversity. Conservative economists like the late Julian Simon think that the economy will create new resources whenever they are needed. They are worshipping a godlike, indestructible Earth goddess who leads our economy with what Adam Smith called (figuratively; but to some today, literally) the Invisible Hand.
This essay also appeared on my website in 2008.
