Why believe?
14th March 2009
I have always been fascinated by the question of belief. Especially belief in things that are impossible to prove or disprove. I have wondered what the purpose of such beliefs would be.
Recent speculation has suggested that a genetic predisposition to gullibility might enhance survival. This seems to defy common sense. You would think that the closer a person could come to an accurate picture of reality, the better suited they would be for survival.
The argument goes something like this. If you saw a shadow in the forest and thought that it might be a tiger, you would run away. If you were wrong, no harm done. On the other hand, if you saw a shadow in the forest and dismissed it as a bush and you were wrong, you might wind up dead. Therefore, it would be best to err on the side of belief in a danger. So, those who a little more gullible would survive to pass on their genes while those who were more skeptical would not.
So much for the idividual but what about the group? There has been a big debate in evolutionary theory over whether survival selection operates primarily at the individual level or the group level. Some research with software agents has yielded provacative results. One group of agents was programmed to believe only things that could be validated. Another group was programmed to believe in both things that could be valideated and things that could not be validated. It turns out that the group that shared a belief in things that could not be validate fared better in internal cooperate and external competition than the group that went strickly by what could be validated.
Apparently, belief in things that cannot be validated could enhance survival at both the individual and group level.
Surveys of belief indicate that those with strong religious beliefs live longer, are healthier and happier. Research has shown that being able to understand the reason something happened can help a person cope with stress. So, if a person believes strongly that some supernatural power controls the world and that everything that happens happens for a reason, that person would cope better with stressful events even if they could not aticulate the reason for a particular event.
Loneliness can be very stressful and injurious to health. Believing that an invisible supernatural person loved you and was always with you could help someone cope with loneliness.
Consideration of individual mortality has been shown to be stressful. Believing that a supernatural power can grant eternal life if one believes strongly enough would be helpful in coping with fear of death.
Recently, a gene was discovered that appears to enhance the placebo effect. Apparently, if a person has this gene, they are susceptible to placebos. If you don’t have the gene, you are not. Is this the belief gene?
There seem to be a lot of reasons for a belief in things that cannot be proven or dis-proven to survive. Unfortunately, there are times when such a belief could prove to be fatal. So if seems that skepticism will also survive.
May 12th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
We should always consider FORCE when we ask: “Why are people like this?” The Darwinian selection mechanism which probably acts here is that “non-believers” are at least shunned if not killed when they do not conform to the leader’s will. This can be seen in any tribe or clan. We modern viewers have seen enough Mafia movies to recognize that the godfather, even when benevolent, demands that all his minions do as he orders.
We still often refer to Mexico as a Catholic country, Egypt as a Moslem country, Brazil as Catholic, etc. They did not get that way because adults were peacefully pursuaded to become Catholic or Moslem. People are forced to conform either by actual force of arms or by pressure. An example: A few years ago I was attending a senior dinner with wife and mother-in-law. Their custom was to open dinner with a prayer. I was requested to give the prayer. See how it works? If I had refused that would have made them suspicious. If I had given a new age or Wiccan prayer, that would have told them something – certainly, had I invoked Allah (peace be upon him) the room would have gotten extremely quiet. As it turned out, I just mumbled a standard Protestant prayer and we went on with the meal.
I have long suspected that the reason that the average Chinese person seems to have above average intelligence is that in order to succeed their ancestors had to learn a highly complex language and social culture. And while China today is not very religious at all, their people are forced into conformance. If the Chinese tyrants decided they needed to have a state religion (call it Maoism) within a few months virtually all Chinese would be devout believers.
Over the centuries the power of religion has often joined with the power of the state to run everything. Scripture has it that: “the love of money is the root of all evil.” What with the greedy capitalists destroying our economy and collapsing economies over the globe, we could well believe it. But I don’t agree that love of money is the root of all evil. Even more fundamental is rather the lust for power. When you have great power you can have everything you want, including loads of money. But still we haven’t encompassed All Evil. The Seven Deadly Sins are a pretty good list of the things that will lead us into evil.
The religious claim that all morality comes from religion. It is not true. Most morality was discovered well before religion. It can easily be argued that most religions adopted most moral prescriptions that were already present in society. But religious people also claim that their moral teachings produce an “afterglow.” That is, even when belief is in decline, as it now demonstrably is, that most people continue to be good because they were raised in religious households, even if now they profess agnostisim or atheism. I don’t buy it.
Only a tiny fraction of convicts admit to being atheists. That may mean that atheists have a lot higher morality than the religious, or it may mean that they don’t dare speak the truth in that dangerous environment. (See my previous comments above). And also, evangelicals in the military are demonstrating my contention that force and threats enforce group cohesion. They are forcing Christianity onto the troops. Worse, some officers go so far as to try to induce an “Onward Christian Soldiers” attitude. Just what we need. An 8th Great Crusade anyone?
March 20th, 2010 at 3:14 am
I trace my family history so I will know who to blame.
April 4th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
I Completely understand what your stance in this topic is. Even though I may disagree on some of the smaller points, I think that you did fantastic job outlining it. Definitely beats having to research it on my own. Many thanks.