An other excellent discussion over at Mixing Memory. This one on religious cognition. Is the god-concept different in kind from say a gorilla-concept? He also notes the difference between formal theological conceptions of god and more lay approaches to God, which often portray god quite differently. (I'd say more Mormon-like, but perhaps that might be going too far) One issue is what one might call animism or attributing agency to entities that perhaps don't deserve the attribution. We apparently develop this skill in the first year of life and apply it quite regularly. Does this mean that many claims about ghosts, angels and the like are mere misapplications of this brain function? I'd discussed that theory a few months back.
I've also been reading Michael Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil which discusses game theory and the possible evolution of religious belief and ritual. There Shermer summarizes several theories that make use of the development of tribes of around 150 people. (That tribal size being related to brain size and development in certain interesting ways) As one gets above 150 people, normal tribal (family) structures and "shunning" to promote altruistic behavior cease to work, due to limits on human memory and recognition in the brain. To keep society functioning, and to keep a sense of "us" vs. "them" that was necessary in the ancient world, religion develops. Religious rituals often involve ways of formalizing belonging to the community, being excluded from the community, as well as issues related to ethics within the community. While I think Shermer overstates his case, it is interesting, especially when one considers that many sins were only sins when committed to other members of the community but not to outsiders. He appeals to many examples from the Old Testament for this. (i.e. an outsider involved in an accidental death still receives the death penalty while a member of the community doesn't)
There was a recent discussion on religion and tribes over at Times and Seasons a few weeks ago that might be relevant.
There's a lot of directions one could head with regards to all of this. Obviously skeptics will suggest that religion is no more that a way the human species developed. Many religious beliefs are "accidental" or unfortunate applications of instincts and mental processes that create incorrect perceptions. Other religious beliefs and experiences will be evolutionarily useful to ensure a cooperation at the tribal level, thereby benefitting transfer of genes in a fashion superior to pure selfishness. (This is controversial in evolutionary circles still though)
As I mentioned last week with respect to brain function and religious experience I think that religious believers can make a case for all these same issues from a religious point of view.
Obviously even religious believers will accept that many claims for religious experiences aren't. Not every immprobable survival is a miracle of God but can be explained by the requirements of probability. The improbable simply happens a lot with all the events going on in the world. We have the tendency to attribute to God what benefits us rather than what hurts us. (Although this is a more recent tendency - I think until recently all such acts were called "acts of God" as we can see from the terminology in insurance and law) Likewise claims of visions or revelation may be hallucinations, improper interpretation of natural phenomena by the brain, or just wishful thinking.
Having said all that though, if there is real spiritual phenomena (whatever that means) then one ought to expect there to be brain structures evolved to deal with them. Just as we can point to many optical illusions due to the way the eye and brain evolved, we ought expect similar "illusions" with other parts of the brain. The fact that the brain sometimes interprets incorrectly says nothing about whether such functions are provisionally true. i.e. work in the general case. Of course proving that or even arguing persuasively for it to a skeptic will be difficult. One really has to find unambiguous public spiritual phenomena and show how the brain evolved to deal with it. But thus far there isn't such public phenomena so the skeptic is warranted in attributing a naturalism that excludes accounts of spiritual phenomena.
Of course to the believer, who believes God is acting through their lives, I think one can work things out differently. However one must say that the average religious person can't be expected to engage in careful scientific analysis of their personal experiences to be religious. Especially not if religious phenomena was expected to be dealt with by the human brain from thousands of years ago. (This is a variation of the point made in the discussion of rationalism and faith from earlier this week) Regular people need to deal with religious phenomena in an instinctive way, while still preserving their freedom. Thus we ought expect such brain function to be functioning at an unconscious level but in theory open to analysis and rational justification.
Fascinating stuff, Clark. I went over to Mixing Memory and read the Atran article. He starts with the human propensity to attribute mind or agency to natural objects and forces, which he roots in the survival-enhancing value of such a reflex in a predator-rich hominid environment. He doesn't really sketch a developmental line (which would run through animism and shamanism to shrines and priestly temple states, I suppose) but at one point kind of intuits that, in the end, religious and governing elites use these "agency reflexes" to manipulate the masses. Except that now it is evil corporations and advertising campaigns that do the manipulating to sell products and candidates. I don't care -- I still order cheeseburgers and covet Hummers.
I recall that Dennett made some speculation that any mildly complicated reactive system will be perceived as an agent of sorts by humans that have to deal with it, kind of a cybernetic application of the same approach.
Brandon at Siris has some comments on Chris' post as well. I think I disagree with one of his comments, regarding the religious use of the term "omnipotence." But you can read the comments to his post to see what I think.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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