Is religion inevitable ?
While most modern individuals are convinced they are living only in the rational realm, what if humans evolved psychologically hard wired to also be religious ?
“ When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. ”
G. K. Chesterton
To the contemporary liberal westerner, simply thinking about this question will trigger laughter and disdain as very little spotlight or credibility is given to religious beliefs in an era of rapid scientific progress where every phenomenon, physical or psychological, is systematically proclaimed to be explained, understood, and mastered, through the lens of scientific inquiry alone. After all, once free from the shackles of religion, individuals and nations can now reach their true potential, or so they say.
But is it that simple ? Are we really heading towards a post-clerical world where ideals and norms stemming from the great monotheistic religions will be thrown in the basket of discarded superstitious ideas of history ? It all depends on how we define religion in the first place.
What if there was an evolutionary necessity for us to coalesce around shared ideals, often religious in nature, to better survive as groups. Is the current value structure we espouse in this post-modern era really based solely on scientific principles and rationality ? It is doubtful, to say the least.
Humans are group oriented and tribal by nature. We tend to like gossip, stories about heroes and vilains. We swiftly distinguish right from wrong or good from evil. Storytelling binds us together, not the pursuit of any scientific endeavor. Without any shared narrative, how could we be able to peacefully collaborate within large groups; in cities, large multinational corporations or entire nations. The ritualization of our lives is still present today regardless of its secular nature.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt who has extensively studied the fondations of morality in individuals, was himself surprised by the evolutionary utility of religions. It is not to say that Haidt (or me for that matter) is suddenly promoting any form of religious renaissance, with all the old rituals and pitfalls it might entail, but psychologically speaking, humans have evolved for this sense of group belonging that can only be achieved through a shared story, much like a national historical narrative that lead to all forms of nationalism in history.
Here’s how Haidt himself would summarize it:
“ If you think about religion as a set of beliefs about supernatural agents, you’re bound to misunderstand it. You’ll see those beliefs as foolish delusions, perhaps even as parasites that exploit our brains for their own benefit.
But if you take a Durkheimian approach to religion (focusing on belonging) and a Darwinian approach to morality (involving multilevel selection), you get a very different picture.
You see that religious practices have been binding our ancestors into groups for tens of thousands of years. That binding usually involves some blinding - once any person, book, or principle is declared sacred, then devotees can no longer question it or think clearly about it. ”
Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist
The religious switch
The blinding aspect as described by Haidt above must be taken with the necessary seriousness for us to better understand our proclivity for such behaviors. Shared values and ideals did help us as a species in expanding and developing our civilizations but have a blinding dark side that makes rational thinking not necessarily our default mode 100% of the time. If we would only agree and accept this basic reality in human nature, it would go a long way in preventing the negative aspects of this religious switch.
With the long and slow decline of Christianity in the West for the last couple of centuries, the void seems to have been replaced by a succession of new pathological ideologies. The quote from Chesterton at the beginning of this essay, in retrospect, should probably have resounded as a warning for all of us. Or at the very least, a realization that we are only replacing a set of beliefs for another set of beliefs.
Like others, he witnessed the risks of continuous secularization in western societies, especially since the industrial revolution. The now famous “death of god” proclaimed by Nietzsche back in the 19th century could also fit this warning category. This monument in philosophy also foreseen that future wars would most likely be fought over ideas, ideologies, and probably taking millions of lives in the process.
His prophecy surely materialized when the 20th century came around.
As predicted, entire populations were overtaken by the creation of new secular value structures that morphed into full blown political systems; like fascism and communism. These political ideologies surely demonstrated the deadly outcome of such utopian value systems, akin to religious beliefs but with obvious defects compared to the belief systems they aspired to replace. The terrible outcomes are limitless, from Soviet gulags, to Nazi concentration camps and Maoist China’s cultural revolution, all of which ended with incalculable numbers of people dead in the name of proclaimed utopias that never materialized as advertised.
If there is one takeaway from all the horrors of the 20th century, it’s this: we need to teach this particular history to the next generations and have some humility when facing the emergence of new ideologies like the ones we are experiencing now.
Our western culture is again going through a crisis of meaning. Thus hungry for a new set of beliefs.
The limits of atheism
In the eyes of the New Atheists like Sam Harris or Richard Hawkins, religions are only a combination of supernatural beliefs influencing the behavior of individuals and reducing their capacity for rational thinking. But what these thinkers missed in their analysis of the nature of religion is the moral and group belonging utility in human societies. Not mentioning the fact that it just might be futile to pretend that we could completely rationalize our way out of the necessity for belief systems.
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