Is Religion a Natural Phenomenon?

Daniel Dennett, one of the "Four Horsemen" of contemporary atheism, has written a book Breaking the Spell purporting to explain religion naturalisticly. Dennett is the most professorial of the Horsemen, with all that that implies. You can watch his own summary of the Book in a lecture given at Cal Tech. It's really long, and he tends to ramble, but it beats reading the 450 page tome.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=daniel+dennett+breaking+the+spell

So my questions are: can religion adequately be explained as the naturalistic product of evolutionary processes, culture, psychology, and sociobiology? If so, so what?

P.S. I'm intrigued by one of these frames which appears to be an ode to Satan. Not sure how that got in there, but I doubt Dennett believes in him.

 

My take: Dennett is supposedly addressing an audience of believers, whom he hopes to persuade to re-examine their beliefs in light of the evidence ot their origins and see which of them, if any, they might want to modify. The title refers to breaking the alleged taboo against analyzing religion objectively, which Dennett says needs to be done because of the importance of religion in the modern world. He then tries to explain the development of religion, drawing on the anthropological studies of Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran, evolutionary biologist D.S. Wilson, and Dawkins theory of memes. Atran sees religion as a product of our ancestors' tendency to attribute intentionality onto things in our environment, which helped in alerting them to possible dangers but led to false positives like spirits. Dennett calls this HADD (Hyperactive Detection Devices). Wilson stresses the social role of religion in helping genetically unrelated people to co-operate by sharing common beliefs and rituals. They can also avoid the expense of a policeman by utilizing invisible supernatural agents to enforce their norms. As societies get bigger, Boyer says that religion simplifies choice making in an informationally complex world, and specialists develop in mediating between humans and the spirit world. These specialists--shaman, priest, etc.--develop a vested interest in the beliefs. They and others in the society come to value a "belief in belief", so that religion no longer had to depend on actually believing the doctrines--only to profess doing so. (Here suspicions are aroused about certain contemporary American politicians, of which we have plenty in Oklahoma. I told my Bible thumping Republican representative we should put the Ten Commandments in the office of every state legislator and have them check off which ones they keep every week). Religious ideas became memes, units of cultural information that act like genes in seeking to replicate themselves, sometimes at the expense of their human hosts. By being aware of this, religious folks can make rational choices about their beliefs.

Methodologically, Dennett, a philosophy professor, relies mainly on impressions gleaned second hand from studies which, themselves, are somewhat impressionistic approaches. Anthropology isn't a "hard science" and Wilson's group selection theory is controversial among evolutionary biologists. This, of course, is but one of a number of similar attempts to reduce religion to biological, psychological and/or sociological causes--e.g, Freud's Totem and Taboo and Future of an Illusion. Food for thought, but I think unlikely to convince most believers, including me.

 

Thanks for the cites to the sites. I think brain chemistry and physiology is a promising area of inquiry, and modern brain scanning technology has yielded some interesting results. Of course explaining religion in terms of any kind of "hallucination" suggests that it has no factual substance: i.e., the thing being experienced as a entity isn't real. That naturalistic assumption is central to all science, as it must be. Scientists found early on that they weren't going to make headway studying or invoking supernatural explanations, which tend to be untestable. In other words, naturalism is an assumption, rather than a proven fact, and the data is interpreted with this assumption in mind. Some sociobiological approaches, seem like little more than naturalistic "just so" stories, with little in the way of testable hypotheses.

In fairness to Dennett, he doesn't purport to present more than a plausible account that requires more testing. One thing I like about his book is that he presents a multi-stage, multi-causal explanation--distinguishing between early development of belief in supernatural agents and later transformation of such beliefs to meet the needs of complex social units and specialized "mediators" between the physical world and the real world. I think this would be a good framework for plugging in other pieces of the puzzle. I wonder if, at some point, we'll be able to address the question posed by William James: whether religion is "nothing but" or "something more."

 

monotheism may be a phenomina of a kind of collective arrogance, although i like to think that among its motivations are at least some i would consider less negative. all of them vestedly human though.

 

What is arrogant about monotheism?

 

Religion is not natural. It is LEARNED. Babies are born atheists. They know NOTHING at birth except hunger and tiredness and even then they do not know WHY they feel those things. They poop and don't know why. They LEARN from birth onwards. They are TAUGHT by their PARENTS or guardians everything they experience. You learn good from bad from your parents or guardians. Period. You are what these people MAKE you until you are old enough to THINK for YOURSELF.

 

I don't think it's that simple. In my own case, I was raised Catholic and sent at an early age to a Catholic school where I was introduced to religion by nuns with rulers. Then my parents took me out of that place (thank God!) and sent me to a public school where I experienced the cross-pressures of secular education and Bible thumping Baptist peers. My efforts to reconcile these conflicts led me to question, think, read a lot, and change my religion to my current Progressive Christian identity--a process that 's still going on. There was also a life-changing experience: moment of clarity, religious awakening, psychotic break, whatever. My parents would certainly have no part of that (a very Protestant thing). If I were looking for naturalistic explanations, I'd study brain chemistry and physiology, as the phenomena discussed in Barbara Hagerty's Fingerprints of God.

Certainly learning from our parents or guardians is probably the biggest source of our ideas about religion, politics and everything else. Dawkins makes the point that we were biologically selected to trust the people who take care of us; ergo, trusting their religious beliefs. But somewhere at an early stage of pre-history, somebody had to start the ball rolling. Most of the people on earth today subscribe to one religion or another. Why did that happen? Evolutionists say it's because religion gave their ancestors some advantage in survival, or because it was a by-product of some other characteristic that gave them a survival advantage. Schemer emphasizes that humans are pattern-seeking animals; Dennett stresses the tendency to attribute agency to things encountered in the environment, etc. Or there can be an advantage in controlling angst from the uncertainties of existence by developing beliefs in magical control or supernatural friends. Then social forces take over. Specialists develop as intermediaries between humans and the spirit world, and they have a vested interest in promoting the belief systems that give them their jobs. Governments turn to the belief systems for legitimacy, and promote their spread. And the religious memes develop a life of their own in the evolutionary struggle for survival. Anyhow, we may get our beliefs from our parents, but our parents are part of social networks that reinforce them. And as we grow older, we may come under the influence of other social networks and memes. By the way, I don't think it's particularly useful to think of newborns as atheists. Atheism implies conscious awareness of disbelief, which comes at a much later stage.

 

The propensity for the mind of early man to have the idea of a god or gods may have been a survival trait, a way to deal with the seemingly unpredictable nature of..well, nature! lol Until the carefull observation of cause and effect revealed some of the secrets of predicting future events, ( cycles of the sun and moon, seasonal migration habits of herds..etc) one could only pray to zob the sun would even come up in the morning!

All fine and good until the rise of agriculture and the advent of 'surplus'.. that's when religion really began to be use by the elite as a tool of control...

excerpted from Norm Kidders essay; "Was agriculture a good idea or an act of desperation?" (bold added)

http://www.primitiveways.com/agriculture.html

 

I'm not sure from where the ode to Satan originates, im guessing Dennetts irony....but religion is necessarily a natural phenomenon. it is within the naturalistic paradigm that all things that would qualify as ACTUAL 'things' are natural....all things imaginable are only naturalistically imaginable by definition. And all else is superfluous PERIOD.

Techically, even things we cant imagine would be naturalistic because 'natural' is the all-embracing term in the naturalistic philosophy of atheism, pantheism, Buddhism if you will.....If it weren't true, the proceeding sentence referencing "things we cant imagine" wouldn't make sense. These terms were only created to make other humans understand what the shit we're talking about......I'm not trying to confuse you or being intentionally obtuse, but 'natural' with regards to naturalism, is one of the words i would choose to describe 'universe' if i was challenged with the task....And by 'universe' i mean "Everything that exists everywhere".

 

The capacity however that makes learning possible is our devotional nature. We are instinctively devoted to our own good. In the case of a child, good is mom and dad and we hang on their every example.

 

insecurity is a natural thing possibly, but the nature of reality is diversity rather then hierarchy

 

The FEAR of the terrifying forces of nature upon our ancestors eons ago, morphed into the idea that "something" must be causing those events,often including sudden death, that were not understandable then,(as was much else ,except to eat,breed and try to stay alive) ,so to address that "something" in an obsequious manner because of the scale of those terrors to wreak havoc on them, was thought to hopefully preclude personal hardship and/or disaster to them by placation of that "something". More and more, humans saw this as reasonable behaviour and of course,differances arose as how exactly to institutionally organize the behaviour. Bodies of pertinant knowledge were introduced,and differing opinions caused differing ideas to come to fruition and become rooted deeply in most if not all societies and the organization became complete for whatever reasons each decided was most important to stress in their society/group. Religion. The fear is still inducement to "organize" ones mind into one institution or another or face the consequences. Not the dire consequences one can read about from hundreds of years ago that would befall unbelievers--just the ire the believers occasionally show to their unbelieving brethren. Exception is the "religion" full of homicidal maniacs. That's how I see it,anyway.

To add: so with the developement of our brains ,we are now organized incorporating religion/science in our lives and don't sit around in nature terrified of lightening or fire. We just dress up,show up and pay up.

 

I look at religion as a mental problem. Keep hoping someone will find a drug to free the sheep.

 

What are the symptoms of my mental problem?

 

It's disputable if Dennett is the most 'professorial' of the 4. Dennett is a philosopher, and I think he dabbled in cognitive science. Philosophy is a dead subject. I doubt he's the smartest of the group. To your question, I haven't read the book, but I saw his Ted talk. I don't think he can prove religion is natural phenomenon. Religion is just stories that try to explain what our species is so curious about: is there an afterlife? Is there a creator? How does the earth work? If we do have a creator is it benevolent or malevolent? In my opinion, religion was created to answer the enigmas and conundrums that man couldn't answer at the time. It gives peace of mind. We don't really know if the religious texts were even tampered with throughout history, or reiterated through the minds of different humans distorting the first copy.

 

I can’t address your personal neurosis or mental issues, but for the general public I do feel if a person is talking to invisible people, placing blame on undocumented evil beings, and dodging responsibilities due to his view the invisible friend will save his ass, than he has a problem.

 

None of those things are part of my religious thought or practice.

 

Your opinion doesn't matter. You're not a psychologist, nor have you studied religion or mythology. Religion is hereditary, it's passed on to the next generation from person to person. When you're a kid and your parents tell you god created the earth, and the bible was written by people visited by angels and god, you have the mental capability of that age to dispute that claim? You're educated at that age to debate if that really happened? Or are you just going to accept it because your parents told you it, and what parents tell you at a young age you believe. Then you see how it 'possitively' affects your family, you go to church, and it gets embedded in your neurophysiology that your religion is correct and you fight for it. You believe it for so long that the other educated answers coming from 'non-believers' don't stick, and you refute them. That's how religion works buddy. Don't make yourself sound stupid.