Dedicated to everyone who has ever tried to save my soul.
Introduction
When I was about five years old, in Sunday School the week before Easter at my family's Congregational Protestant church, the teachers were playing for us a cartoon video about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I remember, quite clearly, seeing the cartoon image of the white man nailed to the wooden cross, and I called over one of my teachers: I had a question.
"How do we know this happened?" I asked, expecting a genuine factual answer.
"Because it is written in the Bible," responded the teacher, glad to see my interest in my assigned religion.
"So how do we know the Bible is right?" I asked, looking for something a little more substantial than that.
"Because it was written by God," responded the teacher, happy to help me find my way to the Lord.
"Well how do we know that God wrote it?" I asked, beginning to get confused.
At this, the teacher smiled broadly, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, "because we just have faith."
I looked around the room and saw the other young students, happy to know that God was watching over them and Jesus was their friend, not a doubt in their mind that any of this might be untrue, and it dawned on me that I was the only person in that room who saw any problem whatsoever with simply accepting these ideas with absolutely no evidence of their truth. The Bible said so, God wrote the Bible, and we just have faith. Asking for a rational argument made me the odd one out.
Over the years I have grown very interested in human religion. It is clearly not the result of gullibility or ignorance (as I thought when I was young and foolish), as even the most intelligent people are usually religious, believing in a higher power even if they do not subscribe to a particular religion. Even those who question authority at every turn, for every situation, never for a moment question the existence of God. A person like me, who finds the existence of such a figure unlikely and unnecessary, is rare.
Theory of Religion and Evolution
Most people would say that the reason the majority of humans believe in a higher power is because one exists, plain and simple; but after years of studying religion, psychology, biology, natural science, and whatever other subjects I found interesting, I have come up with an alternate theory which I think deserves consideration.
Humans share 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and though they can communicate with sign language and make and use tools, the apes have never developed cars or computers or coal power production plants. One thing that every religion I have studied has in common is the idea that human beings are special, and in some way superior to other animals, explaining this phenomenon of human advancement. It seems to me, however, that the main differences between humans and apes are small and few: we have opposable thumbs, and absurdly large brains. The thumbs make more complicated tool use possible, but are useless without the capacity to develop such tools. The brain size, on the other hand, has far more interesting consequences.
Human brains are so large that babies must be born before their brains are fully grown. While we retain a few basic instincts, they are not nearly enough to survive, and so our distant ancestors evolved a different way of surviving over time: a compulsion to ask questions, and find answers for them.
This drive to gather information led to an accumulation of human knowledge. Its beginnings were surely simple: is this berry good to eat? Experimentation added more and more information to the pool, eventually leading up to complicated hunting and farming techniques, crafting skills, and over time things like biology, astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. The use of language, and eventually writing, aided the species in keeping track of more information than could be stored in a single brain.
But not every question could be answered at first. Until fairly recently in human history, something like rain was a great mystery which could not be solved; but the drive to find an answer would not go away, and would torture a human until it could be satisfied. This is how religion was born: to answer all of the questions which could not be answered with experimentation. The rain is the tears of a higher being; it is controlled by that goddess; it is a sign that this god is pleased, or angry. Mythology was built up with stories to explain the origin of each phenomenon which could not be otherwise understood. Ancient religions held by groups such as the Druids, the Greeks, the Romans, and indigenous groups across the globe, are full of such stories.
Over time, experimentation, which came to be known as science, found answers to many of these questions, alleviating the need for religious answers to them. This was often problematic, and a scientist who contradicted the teachings of a religion would be punished for heresy. Now and then a new religion would take over, dismissing the mythology of the old one and replacing some answers with scientific ones, and other answers with new religious ones. Nowadays, most people in the Western world laugh at the beliefs of their ancient ancestors, because they accept the scientific explanations of things - and yet they still cling to their religion.
The fact of the matter is, religion can never be done away with completely so long as humans exist, because there are two questions which can never be answered by experimentation: why are we here, and what happens when we die.
Because we can never find scientific answers for these questions, there will always be a drive to find an answer for them in some other way. Without a purpose and an assurance that such a purpose will be continued even after death, humans would no longer have a reason to continue their lives. Our chimpanzee relatives do not need religion because instinct prompts them to keep going; the human instinct for survival is only enough if reinforced by a purpose in life. The prevalence of suicide in those who do not believe in an ultimate purpose for life is strong evidence of this. Humans need religion in order to continue their existence.
This is problematic for those, such as myself, who are not religious: the drive to find an answer is still there, but the answer is unacceptable, and a better one is unattainable. This often leads to insomnia, anxiety-related issues, severe depression, and sometimes suicide. Personally, I find that the only way I can keep going is to keep myself busy enough that I don't have time to think about it; I envy my cat, sleeping at my feet, who does not have this unfulfillable need.
The Consequences of Religion
Though I fully believe that religion is an invention, not a revelation of truth, I do not condemn or look down on those who are religious; that would be absurd, as religion is a necessary part of the lives of humans in general. I do, however, find it disturbing how many ways modern religion negatively impacts the lives of so many people in the world. Despite some potentially harmful superstitions, religion as a whole was not a major problem until monotheism came into existence. When a religion accepts the idea of multiple deities, it is not difficult to embrace the deities of another group should the two come in contact. These are the gods here, those are the gods there, and that is that. When first a group of humans decided that there is only one god, however, things began to get messy. If there is only one god, then those who believe in other gods are wrong. Depending on the style of the monotheistic religion, they must be corrected and converted to save their souls, or even slaughtered for their heresy.
Monotheism has continued to cause problems in modern Western society. Judeo-Christian morals have strongly influenced the social code of morals and ethics, and even laws which are often justified simply as "God's will." Monotheistic religion has been used to justify wars, racial intolerance, religious intolerance, and gender inequality. Notably in current events, there is a battle between those who see gender variance and homosexual behavior as wrong based on their religion, and those who see no harm in it or accept it as natural. The lives of a large percentage of people are determined by laws which allow or disallow same-sex marriage, adoption for same-sex couples, gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, and a plethora of related issues. Historically in many polytheistic cultures this problem never existed; such variances were accepted as normal or natural, and were common and unstigmatized. Even today, in areas where Christian influence is rejected or minimized, many indigenous cultures still practice the traditional acceptance of these variances.
It is clear that human religion is not about to disappear. One hopes, however, that its power will be used in the future to promote tolerance and acceptance rather than hate, violence, and bigotry.
When I was about five years old, in Sunday School the week before Easter at my family's Congregational Protestant church, the teachers were playing for us a cartoon video about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I remember, quite clearly, seeing the cartoon image of the white man nailed to the wooden cross, and I called over one of my teachers: I had a question.
"How do we know this happened?" I asked, expecting a genuine factual answer.
"Because it is written in the Bible," responded the teacher, glad to see my interest in my assigned religion.
"So how do we know the Bible is right?" I asked, looking for something a little more substantial than that.
"Because it was written by God," responded the teacher, happy to help me find my way to the Lord.
"Well how do we know that God wrote it?" I asked, beginning to get confused.
At this, the teacher smiled broadly, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, "because we just have faith."
I looked around the room and saw the other young students, happy to know that God was watching over them and Jesus was their friend, not a doubt in their mind that any of this might be untrue, and it dawned on me that I was the only person in that room who saw any problem whatsoever with simply accepting these ideas with absolutely no evidence of their truth. The Bible said so, God wrote the Bible, and we just have faith. Asking for a rational argument made me the odd one out.
Over the years I have grown very interested in human religion. It is clearly not the result of gullibility or ignorance (as I thought when I was young and foolish), as even the most intelligent people are usually religious, believing in a higher power even if they do not subscribe to a particular religion. Even those who question authority at every turn, for every situation, never for a moment question the existence of God. A person like me, who finds the existence of such a figure unlikely and unnecessary, is rare.
Theory of Religion and Evolution
Most people would say that the reason the majority of humans believe in a higher power is because one exists, plain and simple; but after years of studying religion, psychology, biology, natural science, and whatever other subjects I found interesting, I have come up with an alternate theory which I think deserves consideration.
Humans share 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and though they can communicate with sign language and make and use tools, the apes have never developed cars or computers or coal power production plants. One thing that every religion I have studied has in common is the idea that human beings are special, and in some way superior to other animals, explaining this phenomenon of human advancement. It seems to me, however, that the main differences between humans and apes are small and few: we have opposable thumbs, and absurdly large brains. The thumbs make more complicated tool use possible, but are useless without the capacity to develop such tools. The brain size, on the other hand, has far more interesting consequences.
Human brains are so large that babies must be born before their brains are fully grown. While we retain a few basic instincts, they are not nearly enough to survive, and so our distant ancestors evolved a different way of surviving over time: a compulsion to ask questions, and find answers for them.
This drive to gather information led to an accumulation of human knowledge. Its beginnings were surely simple: is this berry good to eat? Experimentation added more and more information to the pool, eventually leading up to complicated hunting and farming techniques, crafting skills, and over time things like biology, astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. The use of language, and eventually writing, aided the species in keeping track of more information than could be stored in a single brain.
But not every question could be answered at first. Until fairly recently in human history, something like rain was a great mystery which could not be solved; but the drive to find an answer would not go away, and would torture a human until it could be satisfied. This is how religion was born: to answer all of the questions which could not be answered with experimentation. The rain is the tears of a higher being; it is controlled by that goddess; it is a sign that this god is pleased, or angry. Mythology was built up with stories to explain the origin of each phenomenon which could not be otherwise understood. Ancient religions held by groups such as the Druids, the Greeks, the Romans, and indigenous groups across the globe, are full of such stories.
Over time, experimentation, which came to be known as science, found answers to many of these questions, alleviating the need for religious answers to them. This was often problematic, and a scientist who contradicted the teachings of a religion would be punished for heresy. Now and then a new religion would take over, dismissing the mythology of the old one and replacing some answers with scientific ones, and other answers with new religious ones. Nowadays, most people in the Western world laugh at the beliefs of their ancient ancestors, because they accept the scientific explanations of things - and yet they still cling to their religion.
The fact of the matter is, religion can never be done away with completely so long as humans exist, because there are two questions which can never be answered by experimentation: why are we here, and what happens when we die.
Because we can never find scientific answers for these questions, there will always be a drive to find an answer for them in some other way. Without a purpose and an assurance that such a purpose will be continued even after death, humans would no longer have a reason to continue their lives. Our chimpanzee relatives do not need religion because instinct prompts them to keep going; the human instinct for survival is only enough if reinforced by a purpose in life. The prevalence of suicide in those who do not believe in an ultimate purpose for life is strong evidence of this. Humans need religion in order to continue their existence.
This is problematic for those, such as myself, who are not religious: the drive to find an answer is still there, but the answer is unacceptable, and a better one is unattainable. This often leads to insomnia, anxiety-related issues, severe depression, and sometimes suicide. Personally, I find that the only way I can keep going is to keep myself busy enough that I don't have time to think about it; I envy my cat, sleeping at my feet, who does not have this unfulfillable need.
The Consequences of Religion
Though I fully believe that religion is an invention, not a revelation of truth, I do not condemn or look down on those who are religious; that would be absurd, as religion is a necessary part of the lives of humans in general. I do, however, find it disturbing how many ways modern religion negatively impacts the lives of so many people in the world. Despite some potentially harmful superstitions, religion as a whole was not a major problem until monotheism came into existence. When a religion accepts the idea of multiple deities, it is not difficult to embrace the deities of another group should the two come in contact. These are the gods here, those are the gods there, and that is that. When first a group of humans decided that there is only one god, however, things began to get messy. If there is only one god, then those who believe in other gods are wrong. Depending on the style of the monotheistic religion, they must be corrected and converted to save their souls, or even slaughtered for their heresy.
Monotheism has continued to cause problems in modern Western society. Judeo-Christian morals have strongly influenced the social code of morals and ethics, and even laws which are often justified simply as "God's will." Monotheistic religion has been used to justify wars, racial intolerance, religious intolerance, and gender inequality. Notably in current events, there is a battle between those who see gender variance and homosexual behavior as wrong based on their religion, and those who see no harm in it or accept it as natural. The lives of a large percentage of people are determined by laws which allow or disallow same-sex marriage, adoption for same-sex couples, gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, and a plethora of related issues. Historically in many polytheistic cultures this problem never existed; such variances were accepted as normal or natural, and were common and unstigmatized. Even today, in areas where Christian influence is rejected or minimized, many indigenous cultures still practice the traditional acceptance of these variances.
It is clear that human religion is not about to disappear. One hopes, however, that its power will be used in the future to promote tolerance and acceptance rather than hate, violence, and bigotry.
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