[ExI] Rick Warren on religion

[John Clark]

Keith Henson  Wrote:


> *> The trait of having religions, like all else in living things,
> evolved.  It was either directly selected or it is a side effect from some
> other trait that was selected. *


I don't see any way religion could be selected for directly, maybe it helps
something else that is selected for directly but I think it's more likely
religion is a Evolutionary Spandrel; I wouldn't be surprised if music
appreciation was one too.


>
> *> The trait to have religions is widespread.  This indicates that at some
> point in our past, the trait was under strong selection. What situations in
> our evolutionary past would have led to a strong selection for this
> psychological trait? War. *


I'm skeptical that religion will in general help to get a gene into the
next generation, for one thing one of the main causes of war is religion
and the genes in young men killed in religious wars end up going nowhere,
and for another in the last 60 years death from violence has dropped to the
lowest level in human history and the general trend toward violence has
been declining for centuries.


> > *Humans are a top predator, i.e., nothing except other humans
> ultimately limits their numbers. *


I don't think that's true. The 1918 flu epidemic killed more people than
World War one and two combined, and the 1346 Black Death epidemic killed 50
million people in Europe and that was 60% of that continent's entire
population at the time, no war has come close to doing that.  And a Chinese
famine in 1846 killed 45 million people and then in the same country just a
few years later in 1850 another famine killed 60 million people.


>
> *>I make a case that "Surrendered people obey God's word, even if it
> doesn't make sense" has its origin in the same psychological trait that
> worked up our ancestors in a resource crisis to kill their neighbors.*


I think it's more likely religion results from a tendency of very young
children to believe what their parents tell them. Without that tendency it
would be impossible to pass on valuable information from one generation to
the next, like how to make a fire or how to hunt a Mammoth or how to plant
seeds etc. Most parents don't hear voices in their head telling them what
to do but some do. And they tell their children about it, and they believe
it, and in time they end up telling their children about those voices and
on and on it goes. Not all cultural information is true or beneficial but
if overall if it helps genes get from one generation to another then the
tendency of children to mimic the behavior of adults will persist, and so
will the belief that God tells some people what to do.


> > *This is not to condemn religions in general. *


Why not? I have no qualms about about condemning religion in general,
explaining how something got screwed up doesn't make it any less screwed up.

John K Clark
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