01.21.09
Absurdities in ‘scientific’ approaches to religion
Religion as the ultimate big mac.
Anyway, one of the broad points of dissension in the discussion of the evolution of religion can be split along one general question: was religion directly adaptive in the evolution of humans, or was it more of a side-effect of other useful cognitive and social properties? I’m on the side of the side-effect gang, and so this article on the evolution of religion jibes nicely with my position. And I really like this simple analogy:
The reason religion is so successful is that it taps into our primal-brains in much the same way that a Big Mac does — only more so. Religion gained its foothold by hijacking the need to give purpose at a time when humans had only their imagination — as opposed to the evidence and reason that we have today — to fathom their world. Spirits and demons were the explanation for illnesses that we now know are caused by bacterial diseases and genetic disorders. The whims of the gods were why earthquakes, volcanos, floods and droughts occurred. Our ancestors were driven to sacrifice everything from goats to one another to satisfy those gods.
Attempts by scientists to figure out religion get more and more ridiculous. Here the comparison to the big mac gets downright lurid. The position from which scientists gaze on religion is so off the mark that their analyses are generally absurd. The basic assumption is that religion is a mindless by product of something else, Darwinian evolution, or some psychological process. The assumption now reigning in the confusion created by Dawkins is that metaphysical Darwinism legitimates metaphysical atheism, and that it is somehow OK, that is, scientific, to exhibit a totally biased stance toward religion in the name of reductionist explanation (objectivity).
One need not be religious to see that these tactics produced absurd explanations.
Scientists have given themselves an excuse to not study the phenomena of religion, and they are diverse, complicated, and historically embedded. And much in the history/evolution of religion seems to be beyond the capacity of scientists. Certainly it is not possible for them to break from conformity to really discuss religion in public.