If Religion Is A Consequence Of The Way Our Brains Are Wired...

[Reverend AtheiStar]

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/boo...1751371,00.html

 

The ideas interview: Lewis Wolpert

 

If religion is a consequence of the way our brains are wired, hears John Sutherland, all the more reason to question the truth of our beliefs

 

Tuesday April 11, 2006

The Guardian

 

Humankind's incorrigible and wholly irrational religiosity originates, Lewis Wolpert believes, in our addiction to causal explanations. We make gods and religious systems for the same reason that we make tools. Religion is as human, and as explicable, as the flint axe and the computer. It is a tool for the soul. Religion is a natural consequence of how we are wired as human beings: we have an inbuilt "belief engine". We should not, for that reason, accept that our beliefs, particularly our religious beliefs, are correct.

 

Wolpert, one of our best known explainers of science, came to his view about religion through his family experiences. He was born into a strict Jewish household and was, he records, "quite a religious child" until "I gave it all up around 16 and have been an atheist ever since." More specifically, he is "a reductionist, materialist atheist".

 

His son, Matthew, went the other way. Brought up in the Wolperts' atheist household, he was converted, in late adolescence, to fundamentalist Christianity. Matthew envied his father, he said, because Lewis was going to die soon. Matthew, alas, would have to wait years for admission into heaven (whence, as he later made clear, he was not entirely sure his father was going).

 

That exchange led Wolpert to a book-length meditation on "the evolutionary origins of belief", published as Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Having pondered the subject, Wolpert sees no reason to modify his reductionist, materialist, atheist view of the universe. But dismantling the belief engine will usefully explain how humans are different from other animals.

 

"What makes us human," Wolpert explains, "is causal beliefs. What makes us different from other animals is that we have a concept of cause and effect in the physical world."

 

How, then, is causal belief different from other kinds of belief?

 

"Well," he says, touching his face, "'This is my nose' is not a causal belief. 'This is my finger' or 'That is a computer' are not causal beliefs. But if I pick up this coffee cup and deliberately throw it at your nose with the expectation that it will hit you and hurt you, that is a causal belief." He does not, thankfully, throw the coffee cup.

 

"The crucial thing is that animals do not have causal beliefs. The animal people, by the way, do not like one saying that, but it's true. Animals do not have a concept of physical cause and effect." He cites as evidence the fact that chimps will watch fruit fall from a tree as it sways in the wind, but don't make the leap to shaking the tree themselves to get the fruit. "No animal, other than the human animal, could make that deduction," says Wolpert.

 

But isn't it the case that monkeys can use sticks to get objects, fruit even, beyond their reach? "There's no question that apes are at the very beginning of causality. Apes, for example, can use stones to break nuts, although it takes them years to learn to do this properly. And there are certain crows which are simply amazing. These birds can use the right length of stick, and the right thickness of stick, to get food out of strange containers they've never encountered before. But the tools that animals use bear no comparison with ours. What I'm claiming is that what made us human is technology. It can be summed up in Kenneth Oakley's definition, 50 years ago, that 'man may be distinguished as the tool-making primate'."

 

But how does that get us to God? "It was the mental concept of cause and effect which was critical. Once you had that concept which enabled you to manufacture complex tools, you then wanted to understand other things as well - why we got ill, what happened when we died, why the sun shone or disappeared. Those, too, must have causes. And that's the origin of belief."

 

Ideologies inspire belief, too, but Wolpert does not believe they, like religion, are a consequence of our human wiring. Moral beliefs - the foundation for ideologies - are different from causal beliefs, he says.

 

Yet he makes an exception for marxism. Marx, he says, "was putting forward a causal story, a mechanism, for the way society worked. That, for me, would be in the same box as religious beliefs. If you can reduce your political beliefs to causes in that way, that's one of the ways in which you try to persuade people. But science is different because, in science, cause is fundamental, and evidence matters."

 

So, in Wolpert's view, is religious belief going to be with us for ever?

 

"I believe that religious beliefs are at least partly genetically determined. How else can you explain the fact that there's no society ever discovered that didn't have some sort of religious belief? In America, 70% of people believe in angels. And look at the number of people who believe in astrology. People believe in all sorts of strange things and it's hard to change their beliefs. What I'm doing is asking people to take their beliefs seriously and look at the evidence."

 

Is there any upside to this genetic predisposition we seem to have to religious belief? "There's some evidence that people with religious beliefs are healthier, and have fewer psychological problems. There's some evidence, too, that people with religious beliefs are less depressed. But one of the interesting things about depression, of course, is that it's characterised by false causal beliefs."

 

What happens next? In what direction, if anywhere, does humanity evolve as regards belief? "I don't think there's going to be much change. Church attendance has certainly gone down in this country, but not in America. It may in time go down slowly but I don't think it will ever entirely disappear. I think mysticism is with us for ever. But we're still doing fairly well. There are a lot of people around, and technology is continually amazing. When one looks at all the cars that are around, or at one's computer, one's absolutely amazed. The beliefs of science are, of course, the most reliable we have about how the world works so could these, with time, become everyday beliefs? I very much doubt it. Our belief engine, programmed in our brains by our genes, operates on different principles. It prefers quick decisions, it is bad with numbers and sees patterns where there is only randomness. It is too often influenced by authority and it has a liking for mysticism. And that, as I say, will probably be with us for ever"

 

· Lewis Wolpert's Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast is published by Faber & Faber.

[Ouroboros]

Very good article RAS.

 

 

Burned, try to cut away the portions of what you're quoting, to make the posts smaller.

There was an author, Kenneth Burke, who stated that human beings are "symbol using creatures," and man gives symbols, mostly words to name, describe, imagione, understand everything we can see, feel, imagione, or try to understand. Religious beliefs are, perhaps of that very nature of us. Belief is the tool of what some would call faith or a reasonable speculation of the unknown. Just my crazy thoughts...LOL

Not crazy at all. I was thinking back to the article, and language, spoken and written, are just tools too. Tools to deliver thoughts and ideas. That's how the memes spread and develop.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Something else to also consider. When I was in college many years ago, I studied in the field of communication. Not the electronic kind per se, but the theoretical study of the ways and whys in which humans communicate with each other. There was an author, Kenneth Burke, who stated that human beings are "symbol using creatures," and man gives symbols, mostly words to name, describe, imagione, understand everything we can see, feel, imagione, or try to understand. Religious beliefs are, perhaps of that very nature of us. Belief is the tool of what some would call faith or a reasonable speculation of the unknown. Just my crazy thoughts...LOL

 

I've heard humans called "pattern-seeking primates." We're so good at this task that we see patterns that aren't there. We see faces in the clouds. We see people in smoke. We see alleged pcitures of Mary that really look like giant vaginas on subway walls. We even see pictures of Mary on grilled cheese sandwhiches! This are just visual representations of the efforts of our pattern seeking. We also see the pattern of events in our lives as being evidence of some higher power. Both instances are mistaken, imo.

 

 

Very good article RAS.

 

<bows> Thanks. It caught my eye with that provocative title and I knoew I had to share it!

[Ouroboros]

Okay, to completely side-rail and hijack this thread. I saw (and can see it anytime I want) a pattern in our bathroom tile. (When you're sitting on the throne there's much you can contemplate about. ) Anyway, the image I see is nothing else than... The Cute Chocolate Bunny!!! I just have to take a picture and post it here. It is the ultimate proof the CCB is real!!!

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Okay, to completely side-rail and hijack this thread. I saw (and can see it anytime I want) a pattern in our bathroom tile. (When you're sitting on the throne there's much you can contemplate about. ) Anyway, the image I see is nothing else than... The Cute Chocolate Bunny!!! I just have to take a picture and post it here. It is the ultimate proof the CCB is real!!!

 

 

I've seen crosses -- upside down and rightside up. They're pretty easy to make though out of boxes. You could just as easy spell out FSM! Is this evdience of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? My Dad's linoleum looks like little stealth bombers in places. Did his bathroom decoration foretell the invention of this airplane? I've seen countless images in my and my parent's popcorn ceiling. It's all me. That's what people don't realize. They just can't comprehend that it is their brain doing all the work. It's simply a matter of connecting the dots.