The Question of God and Religion

Among the list of most asked questions of all time would include "Do you believe in God?" and "Does God exist?". Since these questions have been around for millennia, it is quite  presumptuous of me to downplay their significance. And yet, for this discussion I will... for I think these lines of thoughts to be less critical. The real question I believe is "Why do we have these belief?" and "Are these belief a necessity?".

Richard Dawkins tried to address the latter questions by suggesting that religiosity is a by-product of necessary mental processes, akin to moths being drawn to flames. The mechanisms that create this seemingly suicidal tendencies for moths are quite necessary for their day to day navigational tasks. Not the most inspiring explanation especially for those that are religiously inclined. But at least you get a physical process to latch this abstract notion into.

Perhaps in our case, since we are pattern seeking creatures we discern that we can create things that are useful and good. Consequently, we see our environment to seemingly do the same. We can then be forgiven for inferring, that we too were created for something purposeful and good. Ever since our ancestors figured out how to subdue nature to suit their needs, they would have seen the world through the filtered lens of utility...the world is there to provide for their needs.

So we have a hypothesis on why we have such belief, but then... is it a requirement? Is having religion a plus or a minus? Can we even objectively determine the answer to this question? I believe we can.

A lot of people at both ends of the religiosity spectrum are inclined to think that somehow religion is not subjected to the same natural-selection pressure that the rest of the world is a party to. You hardly hear about the evolutionary origins of religion. The argument is out there, a lot of prominent people discuss this publicly, Dan Dennett, Scott Atran and Robert Wright to name a few. And yet the argument remain relatively untouched. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have this tact at their disposal and yet choose the sentiment of equating religion to terrorism and evil.

Dan Dennett

Scott Atran

Robert Wrigth

Sam Harris

You have to be blind not to see the good that religion provide to society, however you will be in denial if you believe that only good things comes of it. For every argument you can raise in

Steel enabled us to venture into grand feats of engineering.

favour of religion, an equally valid counter-argument can be raise against it. Having religion is like having steel. Steel afforded us technology and

Agent of destruction afforded to us by steel.

progress through better architecture and tools, but it equally caused death and destruction through weapons and war-machines. Or like the Internet in free-ing up global communications and commerce and yet be a haven for fraud and piracy. Religion have good and bad effects, the question is... which effect is greater?

How do we determine if religion is a plus or a minus? Let us see what science can tell us. Natural-selection makes a prediction that characteristics that are advantageous to an entity's survival will have a greater chance of being pass on to the next generation. Inversely, characteristics that impede survival will be less likely to be passed on. Given enough time, the population of entities in question, will have differentiated between those that have the "positive" trait and those that have the "negative" trait (positive here does not mean innately good but rather a survival helping thing). Given more time, those positively endowed entities would outnumber their un-endowed counterparts.

Let us examine the historical landscape of human civilization. Given that there are gaps in our knowledge of history, we can still use what we know now and perhaps place a provision that we will re-evaluate our understanding as new information becomes available. As far as history is concern, civilizations have always

An artist's conception of the hanging gardens of Babylon

had institutionalized religion. Civilizations would fall but as new ones rise, religion is not far behind, if not leading the charge. In-fact religion has always been an integral part of administration. There are strong correlation between the rise and advancement of civilizations and the sophistication of its

The Aztec empire

religious protocols. If civilizations does not benefit from religion but arises nonetheless in spite of it, then where are all the civilizations that did not have religion? If religion is a "negative" trait then according to natural-selection civilizations that are non-theist, theist-light  or theist-neutral should outnumber the strongly-theistic civilizations. History rules in favour of religion as a necessity or at the very least a desirable characteristic.

Of course this does not mean that religion is innately good and that it will remain a necessity. Religion is amoral it can be use for both good and evil. Whether it remains a necessity depends on environmental and social pressures that will shape the future landscape of civilization. What we do know about nature in general and natural-selection in particular is that it very rarely start from scratch. If there is an existing mechanism that is good enough for a given task, it will commandeer that mechanism as a substrate on which to base the next stage of evolution. And what is religion good at? Organizing and mobilizing people... civilization would always need these.