R P McMurphy

Friend Phyrro,

You are correct that the simple existence of something does not in itself mean that it has survival value. As Helmethead pointed out, freckles do not have survival value though they do exist. This is clear to me, and I do acknowledge that the mere existence of a trait does not in itself mean much.

In the case of religious belief I think that maybe the case is a bit more complicated than that of freckles or the appendix.

Religion is not a physical characteristic - though it is universal among ancient societies. At least no one has yet argued that religion was not universal. Religion is a social phenomena and not an individual phenomena and so is an *idea* - transmitted by "memes" rather than by genes.

I am not addicted to the idea that religion has survival value - I am open to other ideas that will explain the universal presence of religion in ancient societies. Otherwise I would not bother to ask for other opinions.

In my last post I speculated that perhaps religion is the by-product of a physical characteristic that does in itself have survival value - intelligence. Intelligence is a product of genes and is presumably the result of natural selection. What do you think of that idea?

R. P. McMurphy

Pyrrho

I agree that religion is a byproduct of other characteristics, one of which is intelligence, as a stone cannot be religious. But it appears to me that religion is the result of faulty intelligence, as it appears to attempt to explain things that it fails miserably to explain.

Thus, I am inclined to think that religion is a byproduct of characteristics that do have survival value, but is not itself something that has survival value.

Now, I am willing to admit that my position is somewhat speculative, and am willing to listen to someone who claims to have some reason to think otherwise. But religion being universal among all known human societies is simply inadequate as "evidence" that it has survival value. If it is, as you have suggested, a byproduct of intelligence, then that is enough to explain its universality without it being beneficial in itself.

The Helmetmaker

Hi R.P. and all,


Helmethead?

You said, "So perhaps it isn't that religion itself has direct survival value but that religion is the by-product of something else that has survival value - intelligence." I can agree with that. Since evolution concerns the transmission of genes, and the physical structure of an organism is determined by its genes, and since our intelligence comes from the physical structure of our brains, the behavior of religion isn't transmitted, only the propensity for it. I think it's fair to say at this point the behavior of religion is irrelevant to survival, for as many examples as can be cited of its pro-survival qualities, an equal number of its anti-survival qualities can be cited. But we need to look at it from another perspective, which may give a different answer. That aspect is just what the definition of religion is. From our modern-day perspective, it can be said that insofar as religion codified actual knowledge of the world that it was really science, as that is the realm of science, even though ancient societies may have had no concept of the term. Where it can be said that religion provided social cohesion, then from a modern perspective it can be considered politics, and politics is sine qua non in society. What is left to actually be considered as religion then (ancient or modern) is belief in the supernatural, which is the distinguishing feature in the modern definition of religion. So if we are to ask what is the survival value of religion, even though science and politics may have only been embryonic in ancient times, then we are really just asking what is the survival value of belief in the supernatural. For a trait, a behavior, or even a belief to have had survival value, it must have resulted in our ancestors having had children who had children. Now even though science and politics may have demonstrable survival value, I don't think it can be shown that belief in the supernatural resulted in our ancestors having had children who had children. Knowledge is necessarily incomplete, though we do have more now than in the past. Since we're obliged to analyze things in the light of our best knowledge, I think we can say religion has no survival value. The next question, though, is does it have survival disadvantages? To this, I would answer yes. What are everyone else's views on this question?


The Helmetmaker

excreationist

R P McMurphy:
I think primitive people wondered how things began and what happens to those they love who die... so they'd come up with their own explanations. They'd believe in the "life force" - i.e. when an animal is alive, it is animated by a life force... when it dies the life force goes away. When people die... this life force also goes somewhere... one possibility could be that it disappears... another is that it goes somewhere else - e.g. it could be the basis for the wind or the stars or other mysterious phenomena.
So primitive people had supernatural explanations for a lot of things... I think it is because they saw living and non-living things as being radically different (unlike materialists). And they could see similarities with moving things like the sun, moon, stars, wind, etc... they would appear "alive" - like animals. And plants give life to people and some animals, and they grow - so they contain some of the "life force" too... some of the things might seem intelligent to them, so they might use an intelligent spirit to explain some things.
Another thing that primitive people would do is have rituals. I think people like habits and familiarity (to promote order) and so this would be an extension of that desire. (We also crave some newness) We also desire some connectedness - a sense of belonging... this would motivate social bonding - but would also have a side effect of making people get pleasure when they feel connected with other animals and the environment (and the creator/creators).
Tribes would usually have some kind of holy person or shaman. They could be someone who has schizophrenia who sees and hears things. Since they mightn't have a materialist explanation for that, their explanation could be that the shaman can see the spirit world - with visions. People who have extreme mental illnesses (are "insane") might be believed to be possessed by evil spirits.
The people in the tribe might develop superstitions by associating their actions with the weather... e.g. if there was a drought, they might think there is a pattern between their actions and the weather - so they might try and cheer up the rain spirit, etc.

I think we have a desire to have a somewhat complete understanding of things. That is why toddlers who are learning to talk ask so many questions - they need to fill in the gaps. And for primitive people, spirits and things would probably be the easiest way to answer big questions like why the sun is there, etc. The Greek philosophers thought more about it though... and some of them didn't believe in gods and believed in a form of evolution and at least one didn't really believe his senses at all (he was a sophist?). Those philosophers spent huge amounts of time thinking though, and they debated other philosophers to try and determine the truth. When you're in a tribe you're supposed to believe what they tell you to believe otherwise you might be banished from the tribe or something.

R P McMurphy

Sorry for the name thing there, helmetmaker,

I'll get it right one of these days - I just imagined that you are a "hard-headed" person - a good thing to be in my view.

Anyway, I would like to inject another idea into the discussion. But first I'll explain my basic views on religion. I am not a believer in the supernatural. Actually, I'm what I would call a radicle materialist. I have no interest in making religion look better than it is - its my view that we would all be better off without religion and in the modern world those who hold that religion helps rather than hurts are being naive at the least.

However, there is a difference between truth and utility. Just because a theory or an idea isn't true doesn't necessarily mean that it is useless or bad. For example, Newton was wrong about several important ideas - the uniform flow of time for one - and still no one suggests that Newtons ideas weren't highly useful. The same may be said for ancient religion.

Yes, it was bogus. And possibly, probably in my view, ancient religion may have still been *useful* to ancient people. Here I am sticking to the narrow view of ancient religion that its only the belief in the supernatural - leaving out the political and proto-scientific aspects.

That which is useful tends to be preserved, while that which is not tends to be dropped. That which is a little of both, or is neither good nor bad, may also go on for a long while as well.

Everyone knows Murphy's law - if it can go wrong it will. Well here's R. P. McMurphy's corrollary to Murphy's law - given enough time, every solution becomes a problem. Just consider the internal combustion engine.

The sad situation we are in now is that people living in the modern age with vastly more information at their disposal than our ancestors are still deluded by supernatural explanations when long ago experience has shown that reality is totally natural. This leaves us today with very little of the utility of an ancient solution while at the same time we have greatly expanded the damage that can be (and is) done by religion - think of George Bush and Osama bin Laden. Both believers in the supernatural and both mass murderers.

But it may be that on the large scale of time the very un-usefulness of religion in the modern world will cause there to be a gradual falling away from the superstitions of our grandfathers. Here we can look forward to the very traits that were responsible for the rise of religion to also be the nemesis of religion - intelligence.

Whach ya'll think of that?

R. P. McMurphy

The Helmetmaker

Hi R.P.,


Certainly no offense taken with "Helmethead." I thought it was funny. Someone else called me "Hat," and I've been waiting for "Helmy" and "Helmeathead," and other monikers. I get a kick out of it. That's part of what screen names are for. The inspiration for this particular name came from one of Auguste Rodin's statues, and I have a signature ("You should see my wife") but it never comes through on my posts.

What do you mean by a radical materialist? Do you mean you think only matter and energy exist? If so, I'd like to cross swords with you again. Or do you mean something else?

You said, "Just because a theory or an idea isn't true doesn't necessarily mean that it is useless or bad." Truth is relative. In hindsight, we find many ideas which were once not only useful, but considered to be true. It's only through the advancement of knowledge that we discover they are not true. Pretty much, the only time an idea known to be untrue is useful is when we're trying to scam someone. As far as religions, ancient or modern, are useful, they are believed to be true. A more enlightened viewpoint which knows them to be false also has its own ideas which it considers to be true, but may in the future be found false.

I like McMurphy's Corollary. I'll have to use it, if you don't mind. But the belief in the supernatural in our times has nothing to do with its usefulness, or lack of, in explaining the naturalness of reality. It has everything to do with psychology. Exactly because it is an explanation with no explanatory power, believers can use it to explain anything they want in whatever way is most psychologically useful or beneficial for them. Since so much bombards people from outside their own little sphere of influence, religion, or at least the public display of it, seems to be on the rise. Powermongers use these facts to their advantage. But don't characterize the President as a mass murderer. That's both untrue and offensive.

Religion may be its own nemesis, but that alone won't make it fade away. People must be educated away from it. But the psychological space it fills can't be ignored. It must be filled more completely by better ideas, and so far atheism hasn't been able to get these out on the wide scale. So far, there is no general education that atheism is a more moral, more personally satisfying, and more socially beneficial alternative. I think the internet is making some headway in this regard, but it's still just one person at a time. Hopefully, as time goes on, we'll get more of a snowball effect, but religion has a few thousand year head start.

There's more to be said about religion's anti-survival qualities, but it's late, I work way too much, and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. Talk to ya' later.


The Helmetmaker

R P McMurphy

Helmetmaker,

You asked about my calling myself a radicle materialist - I don't know if that is a description that has a specific meaning or not. I'm not trained or educated as a philosopher so I might use terms in an inaccurate way to someone who knows formal meanings in philosophy. Actually, I'm a lowly engineer.

I called myself a radicle materialist because I reject dualism from an apriori point of view.

That is, it just seems silly to me to say that there is another reality (such as a "spiritual" reality) that nevertheless can interact with the material world that we all live in. From my thinking, if a "seperate" reality (or parallel universe) or anything can have any effect on this reality - then *for that very reason* it is part and parcel of the material world and not actually seperate from it. If it can't have any effect on the real (material) world in any sense at all, then I can safely ignor it, and use Occam's razor to shave it away from my thinking.

This means to me that as a radicle materialist I may or may not have faith in God, believe in the existence of the soul, etc. It's just that if I do believe in say for example heaven, that I simply believe that heaven is a place in the universe that can, at least theoretically, be geographically located and that heaven is place where physics operates.

I don't personally hold such views, but if I did they could still be held without resorting to a dualism of natural and supernatural. It would simply require me to have "faith" that these things exist in a natural rather than a supernatural sense.

For me as a materialist, faith is not an unreasonable concept. I have faith in lots of things that I don't have direct physical evidence of. This brings me to what I consider to be a very profound concept - namely knowledge.

Try this exercise for kicks. Write a list of true statements. But order the list according to how certain you are of the truth of each statement so that at the top of the list is the single most absolutely true statement you can think of.

My list starts with

#1 - We don't know all the truth

The knowledge of ignorance is the most certain knowledge there is - at least in my puny opinion.

So whereas I am a materialist I don't extrapolate that to mean that I know all the physical, natural laws of the universe.

Therefore I think there may be stuff that isn't either matter or energy to finally answer one of your questions. But the truth is that I just *dont know* if there is or not. However, I am sure that if there is, then whatever it is, is *natural* and not supernatural.

I prefer to use scientific methods to determine what I *believe* and what I don't. It's not quite correct to say that I don't believe in God. It's more correct to say that I am unconvinced of the existence of God as advertised based on the "evidence" presented to me so far. I am conservative in my requirements for knowledge or belief. So I am a radicle materialist and also a skeptic.

Well that should be enough to bore you to death, sorry about that but you asked,

Randle P. McMurphy

BDS

Does history promote survival? Can we learn something from history which will help us in the future?

Until fairly recently, myth and history were one and the same. Most pre-literate societies don't differentiate the two. Certainly the Old Testament (for example) is largely a history of the Jewish people. So if history promotes survival, so does myth.

Do laws promote survival?

Until fairly recently, secular and religious laws were one and the same. Most societies didn't differentiate the two. So if laws, history, ethics, communal rituals (I could go on and on) promote human survival, we must conclude that religion does.

Of course, in the last several centuries, the separation of church and state, of myth and history, etc. may have led to a dimunition in the selective value of religion. I'm not sure.