If (like me) you are interested in the (for want of a better word) natural origins of religion this New Scientist piece is well worth a look. It’s a serious article that should be taken seriously, but I have to confess that I read the following passage, thought about the ‘intelligent design’ crowd, and laughed:
“The ability to conceive of gods, however, is not sufficient to give rise to religion. The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none…experiments on young children reveal this default state of the mind. Children as young as three readily attribute design and purpose to inanimate objects. When Deborah Kelemen of the University of Arizona in Tucson asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist “to make nice music”, while rivers exist so boats have something to float on. “It was extraordinary to hear children saying that things like mountains and clouds were ‘for’ a purpose and appearing highly resistant to any counter-suggestion,” says Kelemen.”
books which elucidate this model:
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
Religion Explained
Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t
Why Would Anyone Believe in God?
Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion
During human evolution the brain’s complex cognitive apparatus had to reach a critical point where consciousness became self-consciousness and the limbic system was wired to provide emotional responses that intensify experiences related to awe and fear.However, the level of very crude and rudimentary self-consciousness in chimps and gorillas just misses and affords them them luxury of being entirely areligious.Once we crossed that theshold in Africa perhaps 100 thousand years ago, we became able to “find purpose” in rocks, moons, and sun as we tried to make sense of our environment.
Language had to be critical to all of this early mysticism. One could not share religious experiences without some use of language.One’s “divine feelings” would be entirely solipsistic otherwise.I can find no evidence that Homo erectus was religious at all, but it is remotely possible.Language, imagination, and Dean Hamer’s “god genes” would provide the right framework for early Homo sapiens to worship nature and often the tribal chieftain.
Why is there religion in the first place? I have a good chapter on it in my Apes or Angels? book. Since Harpending, Crow, and the great anthropologist Ralph Holloway all endorse my book, I submit that my ideas may have some value.Genes surely contribute by activating parts of the brain that enhance both social and sexual relations.Singing and dancing seem to also serve group bonds.Either religion served a Darwinian function directly or it arose accidently from the collection of evolving capacities associated with our use of language and social life.
Whatever important differences emerged during the Cochran/Harpending 10,000 year explosion of the Pleistocene, the human races all demonstrate a strong religious sense which continues full throttle today.
Without clouds we wouldn’t have rain. So clouds do have a purpose.
If I had a bigger brain I could figure out what the purpose of mountains is. But I’m certain they do have a purpose.
What is frightening is teacher Kelemen’s anxiety to herd the children back into a purposeless universe, good little servant of the state that I’m sure she is.
You don’t need to “experiment” on children to discover that they see purpose and design everywhere. Parents have known this for thousands of years… that’s why children love fairy tales so much. Don’t atheists have kids?
Younger children are naturally independent thinkers, which is why Keleman is shocked that they don’t immediately submit to her “counter-suggestions.” No need to worry, though… a few years of public education will boil the imagination, wonder and intellectual resistance right out of them.
How difficult can this question be? Religious or spiritual belief is an attempt to answer the oldest existential question of sentience. Why? How? Who?
The origin of religion is the origin of sentience. The largest and most long lasting monuments of man have been those of a religious nature. Does some Harvard tenured PhD really need a grant to dermine when, Neandrethal or homo erectus or Cro-Magnon or homo sapiens sapiens watched the sky revolve around them, night after night, and said “Duh?”
The greatest minds of a million generations of humankind have asked and sought the answers to those most basic of questions.
The only honest answer is “I don’t know.”
Voltaire put it more prosaically – “Doubt is uncomfortable. Certainty is ridiculous.”
@ricpic
Without clouds we wouldn’t have rain. So clouds do have a purpose.
ROTFL
Thanks for this exhibit of “child think”, causality does not entail purpose, it is only because you already assign purpose to the rain that you carry over a purpose to the clouds.
I have been debating the fallacies of the “why” questionning in another thread.
David T.
… they see purpose and design everywhere. Parents have known this for thousands of years… that’s why children love fairy tales so much.
Yes, exactly!
This is lovable and fun and a great reward to revel in fairy tales.
BUT THIS IS NOT THE PROPER WAY TO MAKE POLICY DECISIONS ABOUT HOW TO ALTER A REALITY WHICH WILL HIT BACK WITH CONSEQUENCES.
C’mon people – these are kids. Clouds and rain? My Great-Grandmother (lived to 104) used to tell me thunder was “God moving his firniture around.” Nice fairy tale by a kind and compassionate woman attempting to assuage the fears of a five year old.
Kids deserve fables – deserve imagination – when I was 10 that same Grt. Grndma gave me Bullfinch’s Mythology. She was a Scot and not a Christian and she, I imagine, wanted to give me an alternative to the Catholic myths I was being taught at a Catholic elementary school.
The origins of religion are as old as morons beleiving that the Sun is god.
Argue as we moderns and post moderns will – the Sun stops its fission, humanity has nine and half seconds to live.
Addendum – The owner and operator of this website may tip their hat to whom they choose. And, there can be no argument. Conversely, I would offer Andrew Sullivan something less and, something more, considering his serial juxtapostion of his “convictions” – such as they are.
I would apprehend that Mr. Sullivan consults the cockerel weathervane at the peak of his house to determine which way the wind blows and, on which side of his “convictions,” he will bless us with his observations.
Obviously, from the evidence of his many public dissertations, his opinion will always be of the presently, populist, prevailing majority.
I’m struck by the number of blogs in which gratuitous, topic-unrelated attacks on Andrew Sullivan pop up. I find him one of the most interesting bloggers around, but he must really bother some people.
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“Argue as we moderns and post moderns will – the Sun stops its fission, humanity has nine and half seconds to live.”
Good point. However, the light wouldn’t stop coming for about 8 minutes and cooling of the Earth would probably take a day or two. (I’m assuming that you’re referencing a cold death for humanity. If you mean in another way, I’m all ears…)
These are some very smart kids. Growing up, I used to believe that rain is the gods’ peeing and snow is their # 2.
“Argue as we moderns and post moderns will – the Sun stops its fission, humanity has nine and half seconds to live.”
Good point. However, the light wouldn’t stop coming for about 8 minutes and cooling of the Earth would probably take a day or two. (I’m assuming that you’re referencing a cold death for humanity. If you mean in another way, I’m all ears…)
If the sun stops its fusion, it seems the laws of physics no longer apply. It sounds like the strong nuclear force would cease to hold neutrons and protons together in the nucleus. Assuming the electro-magnetic force still existed, the protons and neutrons that make up every atomic nuclei would fly off in every direction. I don’t think we’d have 1 nanosecond to live, let alone 8 min, or 2 days. The universe would instantly become just a vast emptiness populated by a collection of highly separated sub-atomic particles.
How’s that Grant?
@Prof Frink:
You’re, of course, correct, but I think we were talking about a local miracle, not a universal one.
Thank you for sharing Andrew.
I’m not sure what the professor believes outside science but this is interesting:
“The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none…”
So how would she know where design starts and stops anyway? She seems to infer the lack of design when it suits her but how would she scientifically prove her research has design but the weather system doesn’t?
You’re, of course, correct, but I think we were talking about a local miracle, not a universal one.
Okay, then the strong nuclear force would cease to exist in area localized where fusion is occuring in the sun. The electro-magnetic force would still overcome gravity, propelling free protons away from each other and liberating the neutrons as well. This would shower the solar system with cosmic rays (basically free protons) and neutron radiation. This would be very bad for life on Earth. Any surface dwelling creatures would be wiped out in the 8 min 20 sec it takes light to travel to Earth. Those taking shelter underground — how would they possibly know? — could possbily survive a few more days until it got too cold.
@ Prof Frink
Now that’s an interesting miracle. I guess in that case, the thermophilic microbes at deep-sea hydrothermic vents will inherit the Earth.
Any surface dwelling creatures would be wiped out in the 8 min 20 sec it takes light to travel to Earth.
Only the ones on the day side. (Assuming, for the sake of argument, your huge increase of radiation was correct – aren’t there lots of free protons in the Sun already? Why aren’t they already doing this if they have a tendency to? But I’m not an astrophysicist.) It also takes time to die of radiation exposure, and protons are relatively massive and won’t easily penetrate even a thin covering like a window or a rainforest canopy. Perhaps not even the atmosphere.
In any case, the fact that if the Sun ceased to behave consistently in the future the way it has behaved in the past, the consequences for life on Earth would be dire, in no way implies that the Sun has a purpose for its consistency, let alone that that purpose is related to us. That’s just naive egocentrism and adopting the intentional stance toward everything (including, in the OP, pointy rocks!).
#5:
Ridiculous! It’s angels ten-pin bowling. I thought everybody knew that.
#18: According to Larry Niven, a certain amount of solar misbehavior is
survivable.
“sense of cause and effect”
Could be a mechanism which encourages “using things.”
(Assuming, for the sake of argument, your huge increase of radiation was correct – aren’t there lots of free protons in the Sun already? Why aren’t they already doing this if they have a tendency to?
Well, the whole catastrophe was premised on nuclear fusion in the sun spontaneously stopping. The only way this could happen is if the laws of physics were suddenly altered, in this case I postulated the strong nuclear force was reduced, possibly to zero. Without the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force would blow apart the helium atoms in the sun, showering the Earth free neutrons and protons. To be accurate, I should say the free protons would be primarily come from the decay of free neutrons on their way to Earth. The half life of a free neutron is only 15 minutes. The protons from the helium atoms would probably hold onto their electrons, forming hydrogen.
Yes, you are correct that the Sun is already spitting free protons at us in the form of cosmic rays, they interact with the atmosphere to form carbon 14, the basis for carbon dating. However, I’d be more concerned about the free neutrons, the ones that haven’t decayed. Perhaps you’ve heard of neutron bombs? They were basically designed to be anti-personel devices, in that free neutrons pass right through the steel armor of a tank, but reek havoc on organic molecules.
It also takes time to die of radiation exposure
True, but of course that depends on the level of exposure. I will admit that I haven’t done the calculation, but my intuition tells me that the sun is so massive (330000 times as massive as the Earth) that converting 24% of that mass to neutron radiation would deliver a high enough dose to instantly kill all living matter on Earth.
That this discussion became fatally side-tracked surely illustrates the meandering nature of much online chatter. Our noble guardians perhaps have little interest in guiding scattershot discussions, but people whose knowledge of the topic is nanometer thin should be humble enough to refrain from comment. Humble? The word is rare indeed these days.
“but people whose knowledge of the topic is nanometer thin should be humble enough to refrain from comment.”
Elitist?
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