#54970: dr. dave — 12/23  at  12:40 PM
>Evolution is anti-religious in the sense that it removes the rationale for religion.


I'm not a religious person, but I couldn't disagree more with that statement. When you say that the "rationale for religion" is figuring out where people and animals came from (or how old the universe is or whether the Earth goes around the Sun or whatever...) you are making the same mistake the Creationists are making.

The primary rationale for religion is not physical explanations of the world, it is the METAphysical... the mysteries of consciousness, love, ethics, and what it MEANS to be human. These are the subjects on which science is mute, and for which we need various philosophical "-isms". The notion that evolution or the Big Bang IN ANY WAY remove the main rationale for religion is the misunderstanding that fuels BOTH sides of this ridiculous fight.

#54971: — 12/23  at  12:40 PM
Thanks for this. But who is this Robert Wright guy? The reason I ask is I have seen him interview Daniel Dennett and Wright seemed to be arguing in favor of an ID/creationist point of view. If you Google Dennett and Robert Wright you can find some accounts of this controvery, the upshot being that Wright post-interview this quote from Wright:

iI published a piece in Beliefnet about an interview I did with the philosopher Daniel Dennett for my video website meaningoflife.tv. In the piece I asserted that Dennett (long famously atheist) had said that, as I paraphrased it, “life on earth shows signs of having a higher purpose.” In other words: the process of natural selection may itself have been set in motion by a designer (in some sense of that word), and the ensuing biological/cultural evolution may be moving toward some purpose that we don’t yet understand.

Dennett, in statements that have gotten wide circulation on the internet, has since complained that my piece misrepresents the views he expressed in that interview. So far as I can tell, he’s wrong.

Wright strikes me as sort of slimy somehow after I saw that. Maybe I am not being fair to the guy.

#54972: — 12/23  at  12:42 PM
"Evolution is anti-religious in the sense that it removes the rationale for religion."

They may have an evolutionary basis, and not be rationales, but there is still a 'sense of wonder', and 'a desire for transcendence', as a basis of religion. Evolution, with some help from Cosmology, eradicates any basis for assuming that God interacts with the universe in a physical way. This frees God from having to explain why 'bad things happen to good people', allows us to use our own creativity to solve problems, accept responsibility for our actions, and a whole lot of other good things. But the 'sense of wonder', and 'desire for transcendence' remain as a basis for contemplating the infinite. A good result in my opinion.

#54974: — 12/23  at  12:43 PM
Religion isn't just about figuring out where life comes from, it has to do with death and moral order and social bonds.

#54975: — 12/23  at  12:46 PM
I guess evolution does give you a framework with which to understand death, moral order, and social bonds though, so I may be wrong.

#54976: — 12/23  at  12:58 PM
"Evolution is anti-religious in the sense that it removes the rationale for religion."

I think it's more than that. Religion (at least, the monotheistic religions) teaches that the earth is a place for human beings to live. God "created" human beings, even if he did so only by setting into motion a process that led to their evolution. Believers can accept an "intelligent design" form of evolution, whereby creation is steered slowly but surely to the emergence of human beings, into which souls can be placed. A very sophisticated believer could even believe that the physical form of humanity is not dictated by God, who would not have cared if evolution led us to evolve from dolphins instead of from primates, so long as creatures capable of knowing God eventually emerged. (This is how I understand Pope John Paul II's view of evolution, expressed here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM

But no religious person can, without believing two mutually contradictory things, accept a theory that requires the possibility that there could have been a creation in which no higher intelligence capable of entering the "spiritual realm," to quote the Pope, ever came into existence at all. And Darwinian evolution really does require this.

#54977: — 12/23  at  01:01 PM
#54970: dr. dave — 12/23 at 12:40 PM
The primary rationale for religion is not physical explanations of the world, it is the METAphysical... the mysteries of consciousness, love, ethics, and what it MEANS to be human.
...
</blockquote>
I have to agree with dr. dave here, but I would word it a bit differently. Religion isn't about an explanation for how the world came to be, it is about that warm fuzzy emotion and the power trip of believing that your life matters more than you have made it matter. That and the silly glee of watching infidels roast over the fire.

I do disagree with dr. dave's description of the metaphysical. Science can certainly tell us more about consciousness than religion can, and belief in fairy tales does not offer any particular superiority in the understanding of ethics.

As for what it means to be human - what it means to whom? And does religion tell us anything about what it means to be primate, or to be mammalian?

#54978: — 12/23  at  01:07 PM
"Evolution is anti-religious in the sense that it removes the rationale for religion."

It depends on what your rationale for religion is. Evolution certainly removes the necessity of a god to micromanage the creation and diversity of life. ID-iots notwithstanding, most mainstream religions have ceded explanations of the natural world to science, but assume that their deity created the laws that define our universe.

Many people seem to assume that a god is necessary as a source of moral authority. Which is ridiculous of course, as should be evident from all the conflicting moral codes among the various religions and the abominations routinely comitted in God's name.

People believe in God because it's comforting to think that a big daddy is watching over you, and that there is an afterlife for you and your loved ones, that you have some predefined purpose in life, and that there is fairness and justice in the next world if not in this one. All of it wishful thinking, and it doesn't stand up well to objective questioning - why would a supposedly all-powerful, all-good God allow so much pain, suffering, and death? But evolution has little relevance to these rationales.

The major problem that many people have with evolution is that it removes their sense of specialness. They don't like to think of themselves as animals. So they latch on to any half-assed idea (such as ID) that helps them preserve their sense of self-importance and purpose.

#54979: — 12/23  at  01:09 PM
I think that once you've divorced God and the supernatural from physical origins and phenomena, you can start divorcing him/it from human ethical/social concerns as well. It's that first necessary step. If you can think that the world just is, then you can start thinking that people just are. No need for supernatural complications.

#54980: Arun — 12/23  at  01:17 PM
Since what commony would be called "religion" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "God", and because some "religions" deny any role of a "god" in "creation", evolution doesn't do much for the rationale for or against religion.

#54981: — 12/23  at  01:21 PM
I think I remember a similar kind of statement in Carl Sagans "Demon-haunted world" (highly paraphrased): Astronomy is not explicitly ANTI-astrology, but once you've learned the basics of astronomy, one often no longer has the need to subscribe to the "meanings" that astrology provides.

#54982: Pete — 12/23  at  01:23 PM
It removed the only rationale left that had any claim to being grounded in something observeable. Imagine yourself in the early 19th century: you don't know about evolution, and you realize it is really a mystery where all these plants and animals came from. You might well wonder whether they were created by magic somehow. What evolution did, in Dawkins's words, was "make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist". You no longer had to shrug your shoulders when Bishop Paley asked where complex life came from, if not a deity. Nowadays, you can't be religious in the traditional sense without sacrificing some intellectual integrity. Since there is truly -zero- evidence for the existence of a deity, people who would be religious must either suspend their normal requirements for evidence, or else they use words like "contemplating the infinite" which really are not religious at all - I contemplate infinity from time to time but there's no sense in which this contemplation is religious.

#54984: Morgan — 12/23  at  01:33 PM

But the 'sense of wonder', and 'desire for transcendence' remain as a basis for contemplating the infinite. A good result in my opinion.

I agree these things remain and are parts of human experience that we need ways to address, and I suppose those ways would fall under the heading of 'religion' (being somewhat more personal and less abstract than 'philosophy'). However in paring down a god-idea to such issues, you change that god-idea to such an extent that it surely cannot fit into the original dogma or belief. You can't really defend Christianity on the grounds of a 'desire for transcendence' alone.

#54985: — 12/23  at  01:57 PM

#54984: Morgan — 12/23 at 01:33 PM
But the 'sense of wonder', and 'desire for transcendence' remain as a basis for contemplating the infinite. A good result in my opinion.
I agree these things remain and are parts of human experience that we need ways to address, and I suppose those ways would fall under the heading of 'religion' (being somewhat more personal and less abstract than 'philosophy'). However in paring down a god-idea to such issues, you change that god-idea to such an extent that it surely cannot fit into the original dogma or belief. You can't really defend Christianity on the grounds of a 'desire for transcendence' alone.

<chuckle> Fine with me. The more that we separate ourselves from superstitions the better. Even our 'irrational' or 'nonrational' selves benefit from dropping superstitions. A Christianity pared down to its 'sense of wonder' and 'desire for transcendence' is a Christianity without silly superstitions. Maybe it is 'no longer Christianity', maybe it is a culmination of Christianity – I don’t care as long as it is a useful way to address our 'desire for transcendence'. (And just to annoy Bill O’Reilly: 'Happy Holidays to All'!!!)

#54986: — 12/23  at  02:03 PM

I think it was an enormous relief to escape from religion.

Maybe you had to be there.

I grew up in a a secular Jewish family, and although it was obvious at Christmastime that we were different from all those Christians, most of the rest of the year there was no sense of religion at all. I asked to be sent to Hebrew school, because I wanted to learn the language (I've now forgotten most of it) and, of course, because I wanted to be bar mitzvah like the other kids.

But I already knew, years before the rite itself, that I had no belief in God whatsoever. I told the rabbi this, feeling that it would be hypocritical to proceed, but he told me that I need not worry about the ethics of the situation.

That was the extent of my liberation from religion, and the only time I've ever felt even remotely fettered by it. Or tempted to take it up, either.

Now, if my family had been Orthodox, or Catholic, or Jehovah's Witness, or Mormon, I'm sure that relief would have been an appropriate response.

#54988: — 12/23  at  02:17 PM

But who is this Robert Wright guy?

The short answer, Tastant, is that he's the author of a book called NonZero, in which he proposes that since intelligence has evolved, some intelligence must be behind it. Sound familiar? And since Dennett is a prominent atheist (excuse me, bright), Wright was naturally overjoyed when he heard (or thought he heard) Dennett admitting that life shows signs of having a "higher purpose".
I didn't have time to read through all the correspondence (links available for masochists here), but it seems to me to be a case of a sloppy interviewer getting sloppy answers, and then cooking them to his taste.

#54992: — 12/23  at  02:55 PM
Religion is simply the art and practice of believing in your fairy tale of choice. I like the story about the Velveteen Rabbit myself, but admit I only "believe" in it as an allegory of love, and that it is purely a work of fiction. I think there are probably a fair number of Christians who believe in the story of Jesus Christ in a similar way, and aren't all hung up on the silliness of the Virgin Birth, resurrection and such miracles actually happening, but of simply being real in the way that the Velveteen Rabbit became real. One does not to literally hold a fairy tale is true to understand what its meaning truly is.

#54995: — 12/23  at  04:07 PM

#54982: Pete — 12/23 at 01:23 PM
You no longer had to shrug your shoulders when Bishop Paley asked where complex life came from, if not a deity

Coincidentally, Tara Smith has started a thread with an excerpt from Shelley's 1814 refutation of Paley over at The Panda's Thumb. Some folks were able to see through the 'argument from design' even without Darwin's natural selection.

#55004: — 12/23  at  05:31 PM
Personally I don't think evolution has anything to do with the rationale for religion. It seems to me that all religions exist to answer two questions: Why am I here? and What happens after I die? Since everyone would like to have purpose, and not die, they turn to religion. As for me, I'm working on the old port-my-conciousness-to-some-computer/robot for my immortality!

#55006: — 12/23  at  07:46 PM
One of the more noble parts of religion is the struggle to be a better, more ethical person. Nominally that has nothing to do with evolution; but when the creationist wackoes abandon ethics to promote their anti-evolutionary biases, it makes one wish that they could find some religion.

#55010: Burt Humburg — 12/23  at  09:07 PM
Evolution makes religion superfluous? Why is that? Because something that hereto had no explanation suddenly has a natural explanation?

I suppose by the same token you could wind the clock back to the days when the chemistry of fire was just discovered. That research would, by the same token, make religion superfluous.

Or how about the latest research. Tylenol had an unknown mechanism of action. A PNAS a few months ago (years?) described how acetaminophen binds to and inhibits cyclooxegenase-3. I suppose the discovery of that enzyme system and inhibitor also made God superfluous.

Well, yay for atheism. What a compelling argument!

BCH

PS - Have you ever noticed how odd it is that evangelical atheists and intelligent design advocates both are convinced that science must prove the existence of God. They only differ in the conclusion.

#55012: smurfy — 12/23  at  10:40 PM
Tastant:
Regarding Robert Wright, he is the author of two very good books
1. The Moral Animal
2. Non-Zero: the logic of human destiny

Both are fascinating and are good general surveys of evolutionary psychology among other things.

I havent followed the Dennett controversy so I wont comment on it, but I can say Wright is anything but a ID/creationist/fundie. He subscribes to evolutionary psychology and rests his treatment of human interaction quite heavily on the field.

One point in Non-zero that may not sit right with historians/biologists respectively is that history/evolution is directional towards increasing complexity. Wright makes the case that intelligence would have evolved anyway regardless of the arrival of humans -- not an ID argument by any stretch.

#55013: PZ Myers — 12/23  at  11:26 PM
I missed the part where I said science proves the nonexistence of any gods.

Their nonexistence should be the default assumption; it's up to religion to provide support for their incredibly elaborate claims. That science demonstrates its explanatory power over and over again while religion accomplishes nothing merely makes the comparison compelling.

#55017: LochNess — 12/24  at  01:38 AM
It's amazing the places where creationist yahoos show up to spew their crap.

#55018: — 12/24  at  01:38 AM

Their nonexistence should be the default assumption; it's up to religion to provide support for their incredibly elaborate claims.

Faith only requires the acceptance of an explanation, doesn't it? Reason is relying on proof. You might be trying to make religion into what it's not. I agree there are area's where religion is trying to make itself into what it's not *cough* Intelligent Design *cough*. But you don't have to make the same mistake.