I would note that finding out what goes on in the brain when one looks at a tree has nothing to do with whether or not the tree exists. The question of how a belief in God evolved depends on the presumption that it did. This is the problem with sociobiology: It involves a petitio. The conclusion - that something is the product of evolution - is presumed. We then devise a scenario as to how that might have been. And that scenario is then used as proof of what has all long been assumed. The problem is that it is short on evidence and long on speculation. Maybe most people have always believed in God because there is a God. That's worth considering. And try this little thought experiment. In the Greek myths, Gods often take on human form. That they do this indicates that their normal "divine form" is altogether different from human form. So how would a God who had not taken on human form appear to us? Possibly as a huge and distant sphere of exploding gases.
Careful - I might plagiarise this one for a new story.
ReplyDeleteBe my guest, Lee.
ReplyDeleteHi Frank -- While I'm sympathetic to your point of view on God, I think you've got the evolutionary argument a bit wrong. From a thorough-going evolutionary perspective, everything about human behavior evolves, including discovery of truths. We discover, say, the truth about mathematics, but this doesn't mean there's not an evolutionary story to be told about exactly how and why human cultures came to be able to do so. And the same with belief in God. You can maintain (as I do) that belief in God is rational, but still welcome an account of how we humans discovered and developed this (rational) account of the universe.
ReplyDeleteIn short, evolutionary accounts aren't really petitios, since they're applied to all human beliefs, true or not. They're not attempts to discredit putatively false points of view, but rather attempts to explain the rise of any point of view, true or false. To put it another way: For a cultural evolutionist, "X is true" doesn't serve, by a long shot, as a good-enough explanation for why you or I might believe it. Look at all the true things people don't believe!
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI see your point, and stand corrected - up to a point. For it still seems to me that most evolutionary accounts of, say, religion - Daniel Dennett's, for instance - tend to be reductive, trying not to explain how, but to explain away. Would you not agree?
Indeed I would -- my complaint about Dennett, in fact, is that he's not enough of an evolutionist! If he were really consistent, he'd spend just as much page-time (I'm thinking of "Freedom Evolves" and "Breaking the Spell") developing his marvelous thought-experiments to explain how, for instance, a fairly sophisticated monotheism like Roman Catholicism rose from the ashes of Roman god- and goddess-worship. In order to do this, I think he'd absolutely have to give due weight to the possibility that monotheism is just plain truer. Truth (a concept Dennett is committed to, by the way) is a cultural datum like any other, and it would indeed be begging the question to take the position that there are no religious truths. But Dennett, as an atheist, isn't too interested in any of this.
ReplyDeleteStill, we shouldn't judge the power of a theory by the shortcomings of its exponents. And we rational theists (may I include you in that noble camp?) should regard good science as our best friend. We're going to need every rationalist on our side, in the bleak days ahead . . . unless we're all Raptured together, of course.
I like to think of myself as an inmaginative theist - since I regard imagination as the integrating power of intelligence - but I'll accept inclusion in the rational variety as well, John. I definitely am friendly toward good science. Though I sometimes wonder if some of its adherents aren't turning evolution into a theory of everything. What think you?
ReplyDeleteYes, Frank, I know what you mean about evolution as a "theory of everything." Clearly it's one of those brain-boggling realizations (like Freud's, like Marx's, like [maybe] Wittgenstein's) that seems to change the way you look at . . . well, everything you look at. My science background isn't strong enough to appreciate many of the finer points, but I can't help but be impressed at the amount of energy and creativity going on in evolutionary biology and culture at the moment. It may not be a theory of everything, but it sure looks like a contribution to (nearly) everything.
ReplyDeleteLove that "imaginative theist"! I was only using "rational" in a limited way, to differentiate it from "believe it or go to Hell" religion. Fundamentalists are indeed not only irrational but extremely unimaginative.