God & Religion: Evolutionary Opiates

Religion may be a evolutionary opiate.There is a theory (hypothesis) that the tendency to have magical beliefs may be an evolutionary niche that played a role in our evolutionary survival. Magical thinking gives people hope in an otherwise apathetic cruel world. It may have helped early human endure and cope with harsh survival hardships and statistically cruel adversities. What believers really seek to find through religion is a sense security, order, purpose. It is the hope that there is an answer to the “why” of their existence (sometimes a miserable one). They want to feel special enough for a deity to concern him/herself with their obviously insignificant lives; Insignificant from the overwhelmingly large perspective of the universe. A person’s life may affect other people, his immediate environment, in very rare occasions mankind and our planet. But outside this picoscopic blue oasis the significance of their lives is nonexistent. The universe carries on unaware of our existence.

The believer’s desire is understandable, even skeptics wonder about these things. Shit! On some level we all seek some kind of validation to our existence. Subconsciously, I delude myself with the idea that I am special. However, I’m just another very curious self-aware human; One of many of our species; not exactly the same as the rest, but not very different. These false ideas help me emotionally tussle with failure, adverse circumstances. I delude myself with the prospect of an incredibly bright successful future to motivate myself, knowing full well many of my fantasies will not come true. I could fall ill and die. I could fall victim to some life altering event. A jagged frozen blue turd can fall off and airplane and land on my throat or I could just fail miserably. There is no destiny, no guarantees. The universe has no bias towards or against me. The only guarantee is that someday I will die.

It is normal for individuals to feel like they are destined to someday enjoy glory, wealth, happiness, success, peace, pleasure, a sense of fulfillment etc. These are delusions in contrast to statistical reality. Most people don’t become wealthy, glorious, and successful. Many die young, poor, under miserable conditions; work their entire lives earning meager livings with little satisfaction. Most don’t become what they dreamed they would grow up to be. Many achieve their goals, but the satisfaction is short lived or not as pleasurable as envisioned. Many, who were on the road to glory and success, living dream lives, die before their prime. But if we were to be so blatantly honest, realistic and pessimistic with ourselves I suppose we would all be overdosing on Percocet and Valium. There is plenty to be depressed about. A little Intentional self deception helps us deal with what would otherwise be overwhelming.

A very common example of this conjuration we play with ourselves occurs when a loved one passes away. To try and cope people sometimes say things like “He gone to a better place now”, “we will see her again when Jesus comes”, “I know I’ll see him in heaven” or “She is in heaven smiling down on us”. Yet our emotions defraud us and contradict our statements. We cry and grieve like we will never see them again. Deep down we are well aware death is an end and the likelihood of ever enjoying that person’s company again is nil. This is the reason why many religions, if not all, concern themselves with an afterlife. They help believers cope with the prospect of their own mortality.

So I wonder if religion is an expression of a somewhat necessary “brain generated delusion” that evolution has provided the human species. None the less, this particular expression of an otherwise useful evolutionary niche, is past its prime in many ways, and is retarding humanities progress.

Common Christian Arguments and Atheist Refutations

This was originally an email response to a fellow atheist who wanted to know my take on Christian arguments to be able to argue more competently.

Well, if you’re an atheist then you must naturally find some falsehood in the Christian claim for the existence of their God. You can argue it philosophically or through science. It’s really easy to find fallacies and contradictions in their belief on your own, there are so many.

First off you have to know that it is the duty of the person making a claim to prove it, not the person in disbelief. So logically the first argument is there is no evidence of their God.

They make scientific claims that God is the creator of everything in the universe and argue in particular earth’s creation. Since referring to the bible as evidence would be a circular argument, they either use the philosophical argument called “the watch maker argument”, whose author is William Paley or the psudoscientific of “intelligent design”. The” watch maker” is the origin of “intelligent design”, a very old argument put to rest long ago disguised as science. He compares the complexity of a watch to that of the universe and thus since a watch has an intelligent maker (humans) so must the universe. Paley’s argument was thoroughly put to rest by another philosopher named David Hume, 40 years before Paley even wrote it. Paley’s biggest mistake is in the comparison of the two. If comparing two objects, the strength of your argument relies on how similar the two items are, thus this argument is considered very weak. You can obviously notice how disparate the two are. Secondly, he fails to realize that one can obtain similar results from different causes. For example, you can die from a viral infection or in a car crash. Very different causes same result. So there is an obvious error in presuming the universe and a watch have similar causes. This argument is seen in many versions; many replace the watch with paintings of the Mona Lisa or a Coke-Cola can. They will say things like “it’s obvious something intelligent created this”. However the fundamental errors are the same. This is a very brief summary; you should go more into depth.

Since we live in the age of science and information, the biblical account of creation can be put to shame. Of course, the theory of evolution is the most opposed to by Christians because it is the most threatening to their entire dogma. Not just because it proves the bible is an unreliable source of information and not the word of an all knowing God, but because it supports the idea that we are here without the aid or over sight of a deity. No need for a God to explain our origins. It also takes away from the anthropocentric view of Christian religion. We are not the reason why the universe exists and it does not exist for us. Humans are not any more special in origin than any other animal. We were not created in God’s image and frankly there is no heavenly purpose to life other than the one you give yourself, not to mention how impersonal God would be if despite the evidence he existed. It also obliterates their dogma; with out original sin what need for Jesus is there?

Genetic and geographic evidence both support evolution and rebut creation. Different animals fossils are specific to different layers of earth. Each layer of earth is equivalent to a specific time period in earth’s history. Humans are found in the upper most layers indicating that they arrived later in earth’s history. If the biblical account of creation were to be true, all animals should be found in all the different layers since they were all created relatively simultaneously. Which is why the biblical creation myth does not prove true and is why human remains are not found alongside a dinosaurs’. Genetically we are almost identical to chimpanzees and bonobos. We share 98-99% similar DNA with them, implying we shared a common ancestor. This does not mean we came from monkeys, it means we are evolutionarily related. Just like you and you cousins share a common relative. There is a plethora of evidence sustaining evolution and refuting creation, check them out. Don’t be scared by “intelligent arguments”, like “there is no instance where genetic information is added to DNA sequence in any natural process”, “there aren’t any transitional fossils “or “evolution has never been witnessed”. These are false, check out www.EvoWiki.com for reference. Most of the time, Christians are ill informed or repeat lies and misconceptions of evolution. Know your shit if you don’t want to look stupid and leave Christians with the illusion that truth has triumphed. Remember that the fallacy they live by is: if you can’t explain or answer a question, they are right by default. Which is a warped assumption since the burden of proof is on the person making the claim; it’s not your burden to prove God doesn’t exist. There are stock piles of science that refutes biblical claims.

Thirdly most common argument is that of morality. Where does morality come from? What is moral? Again if you can’t answer they assume they are right by default. These philosophical questions were addressed by Plato in his classic work “Euthyphro” (www.wikipedia.com ), where Socrates is famously quoted as asking “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious? Or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In Greek, piety meant more than just religious devotion; it was more along the lines of justice and morality. The second part of the question is called the “God command theory”, implying that an action is deemed moral or virtuous merely because God says so. In which case, any action can be moral regardless if it is unjust and causes undeserved pain and suffering. There is no clear way of defining what is moral if this is the argument made, there is no reference to judge actions by, one is even unable to judge if God is all-good or evil. This way of thinking has been adopted my Islamic terrorist who defend their actions as righteous because God approves it in the Koran. The first half of Socrates question implies that God approves of morality because of its intrinsic virtue, meaning that morality exists independent of God’s judgment. This allows us to define morality by use of reason. If this is true, what need for God is there?

A general rule of thumb for knowing what moral is “The Golden Rule”, “do onto others as one would have others do onto you”. Of course Christians would claim that this is biblical and thus commanded by God. But the Idea transcends religion. In essence this has its origin in empathy, In other words, placing oneself in another person’s place. This is not original to Christianity; in fact it’s not even original to the human species. Primates such as chimps, gorillas and bonobos have been observed as showing this trait. There is an account in Frans de Waal’s book “Our inner ape”, where a bonobo rescues a bird that had flown into the wall of his enclosure. The bird was in shock and could not fly. The bonobo gently picks the bird up and climbs to the top of a tree and releases the bird. The bird falls but the bonobo continued to look after the bird, protecting it from a younger curious bonobo until the bird regained its motor skills and flew away.

Another account in his book is that of an 8 Year old gorilla coming to the aid of a 3 year old boy who has fallen into her enclosure and was injured. The gorilla runs to the boys rescue, cradles him in her arms and begins to pat his back; later giving the boy up to Zoo attendants. The truth is empathy is a trait we have inherited from our evolutionary ancestors. We are predisposed to empathetic behavior, but our environment, circumstance, and culture influences are behavior. Also empathy is not an absolute we are also able to be apathetic and cruel. Morality is much more complex of a subject and the Golden rule is much too general to encompass all our social scenarios. This is where philosophy and reason play their part is solving the moral conundrums that plague our world. In all honesty morality is a highly debated subject by philosophers. There are debates such as Utilitarianism versus individual rights. However the ground work has been accomplished through reason not divine intervention.

Last but not least is a classic argument specific to the monotheist Judeo-Christian religions. Their belief is that of God who is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent. There is an obvious discrepancy in this absolutist view of God. We live in a world full of evil, which is defined as undeserved pain and suffering inflicted by other humans as well as natural disasters like famine and volcanoes. If God is all-good then how can he allow evil to exist. Either he is not all good or he is not powerful enough to stop it. It is either one or the other but he logically cannot be both. This concepts brings about questions like “if God is all-powerful could he make a mountain he could not move”, if he can’t make one he is not all powerful and if he can’t move it he is not all powerful. Similar questions can be asked about his “all-knowing” mind.

The truth is Christians rarely come up with original arguments. They repeat the same old mistakes they made in the past. Unlike science that is always expanding its knowledge of our universe, this religion is stagnant and encapsulated in the same old rhetoric and presumptions. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself shaking your head, rolling your eyes and yawning in a debate. I call their faith a delusion because they maintain their belief despite of overwhelming evidence and rational ineptitudes of their dogma. They lack the ability to be objective and self-reflective. Reality is relative to what they want it to be and not what it actually is. Some compartmentalize their faith, as I once did; the laws of logical reasoning expire at the gates of their faith.