Imagine Martian biologists coming to Earth and looking around. Among the many things that would puzzle them and fascinate them would be the Vatican and Mecca.
Another would be the one species, Homo sapiens, that engages in stupendous outlays of time, energy and money, devoting their lives to these very expensive projects. Among their questions would be: “Why are they doing this? What is this for? How did all of this religion originate? After all, it hasn’t always been here. It had to evolve somehow. What is it for? How does it perpetuate itself?”
Human culture can influence the biological or genetic basis of behavior, and can modulate the selective environment from which we get our genes. But we also have to understand that human culture is itself one of the fruits of the tree of life. Its own evolution and design have to be explained, ultimately, in biological terms.
Zoologist Richard Dawkins introduced the controversial term meme for such replicating ideas. There are some significant scientific problems with the concept of memes, but I think we can salvage at least the skeleton of the idea and put it to some rather unusual use in looking at the evolution of religions over a long period of time.
Dawkins and Dennett are not only a world-class source for seminal information on biology and zoology, they offer a stellar challenge to cultural leftovers from the Dark Ages.
Bittorrent a copy of Richard Dawkins latest “The Root of all Evil”…an interesting take on the non-rationality of religious thought. Since 1975 with E. O Wilson’s publication of “Sociobiology” we have been free to think about human social behavior in terms of how it was shaped by evolution. That’s over thirty years ago and yet, we are now in the 21st century struggling to STILL understand why religion stills compels people the way it does. The obvious answer (to me) is that religious belief must possess something which plays to the hard-wiring in our human minds, something rather powerful. Otherwise, why would people in Palestine be blowing themselves up for the promise of a great and rewarding ‘here after’? Or, why would a man or woman devote themselves solely to God’s mission for them on Earth when it might mean foregoing reproductive success?
from Matt:
“The obvious answer (to me) is that religious belief must possess something which plays to the hard-wiring in our human minds, something rather powerful.
I would argue the oppisite. That religion is hard-wired INTO the human mind not playing to something IN our brains. Any passionate belief, theist or non-theist, could be considered a religion.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=religion
definition #4
Religiphobia? Is this the latest neoligism from the sub-intelligent design crowd? Similarly, “arguing the opposite” doesn’t mean a hill of beans in the world of science without experiment, validation and proof.
Generating yet another platitude about who or what you think you “serve” and believe — and applying it to the sum of humankind’s scientific knowledge is about as egregious as you can get.
I’ve offered up an intriguing theory from two of the leading biologists in the world — published in a forum for discussing science and theology — and all you can do is run and hide behind sophistry. Can’t you do better than that?
Mike — I’d suggest you read some of Dawkin’s work in biology and Dennett’s writings on Darwin. You won’t discover unresearched guesses or leaps of faith. Even if this brief article seems to suggest otherwise to you. The comparison to parisitology is certainly apt — as your analogy isn’t.
Leftovers? The 3 biggies, bubba. They continue to demand fervor — more so than, those that have already fallen by the wayside. Not so incidentally, I hope you don’t delude yourself into thinking there is any sort of growth in belief in religions, worldwide. The few sects enjoying an increase in numbers — if that’s an appropriate word — grow from proselytizing their competitors. The fact is diminishing returns proportionate to education.
I’m not certain if you’re serious about the topic or just irked by having to confront materialist philosophy. Do you ever spend time enjoying the literary fruits of scientific research? Would you like a suggestion or two?
Imagine Martian biologists coming to Earth and looking around. Among the many things that would puzzle them…
Actually Daniel C. Dennett is making a curious assumption (leap of faith?) that intelligent “Martians” would be confounded by religion. So far our universal database of intelligent creatures contains a sample of one — and that one species in all of its cultures seems to have a persistant affinity for religion.
Why wouldn’t martians be the same way? We possess no evidence that would lead us to think otherwise. I’d suspect one of the first issues Martians would investigate upon discovering intelligent life is to check the aliens’ religious beliefs (we’d do the same thing). For that matter the first Martian ships might be missionaries.
Unless you can prove that there is no god, that’s a pretty big assumption.
Religion is a response to sexual scarcity. It was a way to castrate men since literal castration could not be done. What do people do to their own pets in order to make them happier and more docile to live with? WE NEUTER THEM. Humans are animals. In order to create a society where men were not running around fucking by force every female he encountered and thus dispelling most of his energy in an endeavor that only benefits him and not society, the smartest men available at that time created religion. Religion creates FEAR of a God who is wrathful AND IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU. Think how you behave if you know you are being watched by an authoritive figure who has the power to judge you and prosecute you. That’s right you behave. Religion creates an idea (an idea is NOTHING, literally. IT DOES NOT EXIST IN MATERIAL FORM until someone ACTS on it to create form) that God is watching. ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Do something against this ALL POWERFUL BEING and you will be condemned to ETERNAL DAMNATION IN HELL. This is like telling a kid not to go into the tool shed because the boogie man is there. We create “a boogie man” in the mind of the child so that he becomes FEARFUL of entering a dangerous place. Once the child really believes it, you can leave the tool shed unlocked. He won’t enter. THAT IS THE POWER OF A BELIEF.