Religion sticks around for a reason

...and it's not really much about reason.

One of the big mistakes complainers against religion make is based in a misinformed anthropology.  Such complainers denigrate people for not taking evidence into account about their religious claims.[1]  But people do not operate this way in the normal go-about activities of their lives.   Occasionally, when people need to, they take care to bring evidence into account for acting.  But it's rare for people in stable situations to always be taking evidence into account.  Most of the time people live according to their default worldview, one formed by habit and a tolerable level of pragmatic success.  No extra thought is expended in examining something that is working "good enough." 

Ultimately, denigrators of religion seem to be making some sort of ethical complaint.  They seem to be saying that people "should" be constantly assessing one's beliefs in terms of what justifies those beliefs.  But this is an overly intellectualistic worldview, and does not actually represent what people empirically do, how they live their lives. 

Furthermore, the denigrator's view is usually that it would be better for people, somehow, if they were committed to this philosophy of constant assessment in life.  But that is anything but clear to me. 

Socrates said something to the effect that the unexamined life is not worth living.  Is that really so?  Maybe that's a mistaken view.  And, at any rate, it's vacuous, since no one completely lives an unexamined life.  People make choices, and they make them on localized evidence, such as when considering what is likely to result in one thing being more advantageous than another.  So, people regularly consider evidence.  Yes, they consider badly, or attend to the wrong information.  But it's still examination.  And such examinations couldn't be all that inadequate, since people survive and operate within greater society, along with others. 

Religion has the advantage of offering a lot of systematic integration in topics normally requiring lots of independent investigation.  Morality, metaphysics, social conventions, case-studies thru its literature, geography, history -- a regular exposure to and participation in a religions life far exceeds what a trip to the mall and evening after evening of watching television has to offer a person of limited means or even poverty-stricken existence.   And even integration is probably over-rated, as most people want a community, and their worldview is really subordinate to the meaning they find in social interaction with others.

o.

REFERENCES

[1] For example, noted new atheist Sam Harris makes these kinds of claims regularly in one form or another, as when he writes, "I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs" (in his book Letters to a Christian Nation).

Atheism advertising on U.K. buses uses second-rate aphorism

There's been a bit of talk about some bus advertising in the U.K. which was purchased by groups friendly to atheism. But it's not much fuel for freethought. The slogan is as follows:

"There's probably no God. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life."

One question I'd like to ask is whether this is the probability from expectation, or the probability from observation. The prior probability just says, given what we've interpreted about life's experiences, God's existence does not match our intuitions. The latter probability just says, given our observations, the data does not support the existence of God. Now just what would those observations be? Unless someone makes one of the Abrahamic religions a foil for his or her philosophy of life, there are many metaphysical systems that could account for some pet set of observations, thus allowing there to still be a God -- or, even stronger, that those observations would actually be supportive for evidence for a certain kind of God.

An example might be helpful to express my position. Lots of people think that since there is so much suffering imposed on humans by nature (diseases, disasters, etc.), and so many morally bad things imposed on humans by one another (murder, rape, etc.), this screwed-up world is not compatible with the existence of God. Well, actually the state of affairs of the world might be easily compatible with the existence of God, if God is not involved or attentive to human affairs. But that's the problem, for most people want to presume certain attributes on God -- i.e., they want to do theology -- and do so in ways that somehow define God as attentive to the affairs of humans. But that's not observation. That's faith.

I'm not sure what are the probabilities of there being a God (or not), but I'm pretty sure the atheists don't have a clue about those numbers either.

Here's another odd thing: Apparently, given the phrasing of the message, the assessment of significant probabilities of God's existence is supposed to have made people worry or not enjoy life. Is that an empirical claim? Again -- were there several correlating studies that showed people who assess the odds of God's existence as significant or high were somehow found to be more worried or more sad? Ironically, a review of more than 40 scientific studies has found quite the opposite.[1]

Look, I'm the first to point out stupid, irrational, or fanatical religious patterns of thought. I'm even paid to do so. But this bus advertising aphorism isn't doing freethinking any favors.


REFERENCES

[image] Jon Worth Euroblog (Accessed October 27, 2008)

[1] "Religious People Live Longer Than Nonbelievers" Millennium Magazine September 8, 2008 (Accessed October 27, 2008)

O.

God vs. Mammon = Mammon Wins

{ Podcast this essay } This picture (click it for a larger view) tells quite a story, especially given the U.S. as an exception to a discernible curve on religion as compared to wealth. The picture is taken from an excellent article which came out in March 2008 in The Atlantic. As Alan Wolfe, the author, puts it:

[I]intellectual fashions are fickle, and the idea of inevitable secularization has fallen out of favor with many scholars and journalists. Still, its most basic tenet—that material progress will slowly erode religious fervor—appears unassailable. Last October, the Pew Global Attitudes Project plotted 44 countries according to per capita gross domestic product and intensity of religious belief, gauged by the responses to several questions about faith (a rendition of the Pew data appears on the opposite page). The pattern, as seen in the Pew study and a number of other sources, is hard to miss: when God and Mammon collide, Mammon usually wins.[1]

Wolf explicitly notes that the U.S. is an out-lier, and stands alone as a country which is both wealthy and religious. Also it turns out that Kuwait has a similar disposition, but is not such an acute case. Perhaps the U.S. had more in common with Kuwait than its people (and, of course, Saddam Hussein) ever knew. In another comparison, it's pretty well known that the U.S. is more religious than Europe (a cause of consternation for their diplomats who try to figure out what our politicians are thinking), but it's somewhat surprising that we even out-pious some of the Latin American countries. What can be said of all this?

For some time now, I have felt that religion is actually a market-based, evolutionary phenomena. Religion grows more powerful as a cultural force when it polymorphs in order to survive within the ecosystem of ideas. Religious ideas compete for citizens' allegiance in terms of practicality and believability. An open society is productively thought of, metaphorically of course, as a host with many religious ideas. Now a flexible system of ideas tells the people what their itching ears want to hear, and if a religious system offers a pragmatic course of action and organization for living -- well, that system is more fit than the other contenders. Given time and different rates of gathering adherents (or losing apostates), soon a few religious systems will come to dominate. Christianity has shown itself remarkably flexible in many different western contexts. Moreover, South Korea seems to show that it works well in western-like contexts too; where S. Korea, I hear, has many affinities to U.S. market and cultural systems.

Again, to reiterate the point, U.S. and similar capital/cultural systems would seem to allow Christianity to survive in its current formulation so long as it addresses the day-to-day pragmatic concerns that the general populous has. Notice I am avoiding any reference to best explanation or even 'truth' here. As an illustration of why I avoid such, take as an example Mormonism. Mormonism maintains a very silly pantheon of mythological claims,[2] yet has a superb social system for family organization and for middle-class (or higher) existence. Kudos are rightly accorded them for offering a viable code of living. But as for such beliefs being evidentially warranted or true, that's an entirely different matter. But picking on a heretical sect of Christianity is easy. As a second illustration, orthodox Christianity, too, can take some lumps here as being (seemingly) silly. Sam Harris (the "baby bear" of atheism, as Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga dubbs him) gives a similar thumbnail snub of traditional doctrines:

We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ ‘’ To cite but one example: ‘’Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?’’ The danger of religious faith, he continues, ‘’is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.[3]

Alas, whether mythful wishing or faithful believing, religion will be around for some time to come, contrary to the predictions of some dominant intellectuals of the 19th century. Again, a quote from Wolfe:

If proof is needed that religion will remain a dominant force in history for a long time to come, the fact that the world’s most affluent society is also well up among the faithful would seem to provide it. When the president says that his decision to invade another country was influenced by a call from God, or when school boards decide to include creationism in their curriculum, it appears safe to conclude that Americans are not living in the world envisioned by Marx or Freud.[1]

Karl Marx thought he had figured out the laws of history, but at best he probably only discerned some trends, the money-religion one showing itself in the graph above. And Sigmund Freud got one thing right: there's more going on in the mind than what we are conscious of, but the rest he got wrong, particularly about religion: God is not the Sky-Daddy we all desperately long for, but we do have longings for a transcendental something, and these longings seem to come from parts deeper than what humans are explicitly conscious of.

Alas -- physical beings that we are -- perhaps there's a genetic component influencing the vast majority of people to be religious. (Yes, I count myself among them.) Apparently, Dawkins and some of his friends didn't inherit this gene. Too bad -- I think he (and others like him) would be more fit for the contemporary environment, and thus happier, if he had.


REFERENCES

[1] "And the Winner is" The Atlantic March 2008 (Accessed May 30, 2008)

[2] As regards odd mythological claims by Mormons, these are all de-emphasized in their official web site, with the exception of claims about "the importance of eternal families" and that a utopian Zion "will be built upon this [the American] continent." (See "The Articles of Faith" Mormon Beliefs (Accessed May 30, 2008) There's lots and lots more weirdness for anyone who wants to skim the internet for summary accounts of their strange beliefs. However, few care about what their church doctrines are, only how their church addresses the practical needs of their lives. But, of course, even otherwise nominal protestant theological doctrines are pretty much ignored by parishioners.

[3] "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. By Sam Harris." New York Times Book Review Sept. 5, 2004 (Accessed May 30, 2008) It's a rare and valuable thing when an atheistic, intelligent person trash talks orthodox (as opposed to fundamentalist) Christianity. Richard Dawkins too often trashes only Christian fundamentalism, and too rarely gives explicit arguments. In contrast, "Baby bear" Harris does not make these mistakes, and thus forces theologians to defend the Christian creeds instead of the Christian cretins. Protestant theologians have been given an easy time of it for far too long, in my opinion.


O.