12.25.09
The darwinization game and religion
The God Gene
The term ‘god gene’ was already used, so Wade’s book on evolution and religion tried the ‘faith instinct’. The reviewer reverts to form.
The problem with this genre is that it makes not sense, for the simple reason that natural selection/Darwinism don’t explain the evolution of religion.
As we examine the eonic effect, the Axial Age we see the far more complex process involved.
It is unfair to be subjected to these endless Darwinizations of the whole of human culture. The game is stupid, and a brand of bad science.
How is a church like a can opener? Among the pleasures of using evolutionary logic to think about matters nonbiological, one is getting to ask questions like that. The evolutionary take on a cultural fact like religion or warfare can cut through the fog of judgment and show how a social institution solves some mechanical problem of human co-existence. What function did intergroup violence serve? What are gods good for?