An Adaptive God

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

This…

  • Shakes my faith
  • Unshakes my faith
0 voters

An Adaptive God.

  • One of the stumbling blocks of anti-theistic arguing is that any theist can point to any place on the globe and say “Here, in this place, they believe in some kind of God(s)” without any real fear of being wrong. Logic be damned - everybody has a God, how can they all be wrong…?

Everybody has heard of Tony the Tigerâ„¢ the loveable stripey tigger advertizing Kellogs Frosties. Does this ‘having heard of him’ require his existance…? Obviously not. But, if he doesn’t exist, why has everyone heard of him…? Because he’s associated with a rather scrummy breakfast cereal, chok-full of vitamins and frosty goodness.

Most people have eaten of Tony, and found him to be good. :smiley:

But you don’t buy Tony for Tony, you buy it for the benefits of the cereal inside, even if it’s Tony’s face you see when you think of the brand.

Obviously God and Religion are not very crunchy, and do not fit easily into a bowl at the breakfast table, but might theism and cereal-ism have more in common than meets the eye…?

Might the simple belief in a God, and obedience to the strictures of the religion involved, be benefcial in itself, without there actually needing to be anything concrete involved…? Let us see.

The purely motivational benefits of believing in an afterlife have been discussed before, however I put it to you that religions have become so widespread because societies believing in them automatically breed a more competitive group of humans.

(First off, do your homework, and read the relevant bits of Dawkin’s Legacy, or skip ahead and take it all on… ahem… Faith).

It does this in three ways.

  1. Religions usually in some way regulate reproduction and the family unit by ratifying some kind of marriage ceremony. In christianity - 1-1 - in Islam 1-4 (if the man is able to support all his wives equally). I can’t think of a religion that does not stipulate limits on sexulaity. Sex outside of marriage is frowned upon to the extent of execution in some cases.

The effect of this is to stabilize the family unit and further ensure that the child recieves attention from its mother and, in most cases, father. In rats, offspring which do not recieve adequate attention from their mothers in the form of licking, closeness etc. - rat-love - grow up stupid. Intimacy inhibits methylation (ie the switching off) of gene-sequences which promote brain growth.

In short - the more intimacy, the more intelligence.

ie: Religion, by encouraging a stable family unit, and preventing oportunistic coupling, increases the intelligence of its believers.

  1. Most religions go to various lengths to regulate the diets of their adherents. Bans on various foods - pork and alcohol for example in Islam - Kosher meats in Jewish Orthodoxy etc. Sometimes periods of fasting, Ramazan, Lent are involved. Abstinence and/or moderation. Fish on fridays etc. Big dinner on sundays; hand outs for the poor.

A poor diet and the overindulgence in ‘vices’ such as alcohol causes increases the methylation of genomic sites varying from genes which produce anti-cancer effects, effectively shutting down the body’s protection, to areas of the genome dealing with the immune-system and cell-repair, shortening life and increasing vunerability to disease.

A poor diet in early pregnancy can switch the phenotype of the child produced to a thrifty-metabolism making said child prone to type II diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.

ie: religion, by influencing dietry habits, increases both the fitness of adult members and the phenotype of their children.

  1. Any follower of Religion would probably say that with it they feel a little more cheerful about the future knowing that death is not the end of the deal. And a kinship of belief add friends to your social circle and avenues of support you’d never have had without.

Religions have a high Happy-Clappy value, when compared to say, fatalism, or nihlism.

Background from Dawkin’s Legacy:

It would seem feeling happier about the future manifests itself in a skew toward males in the sex-ratios of new-borns.

What impact would this have upon society…?

Males are more competitive than females. If the direct method of fighting to the death is prohibited this leads to a lot of economic showing off in the form increased productivity, creativity and hardwork on the parts of the competing males - women being a materialistic lot on the whole.:slight_smile:

ie: religion by proxy of sex-ratio skewing, increases the productivity of a society.

A surplus of males is useful in times of war, on the one hand you have more available warriors, and on the other, when they are all dead, you still have some guys left over to knock up the women and rebuild the population.

ie: religion by proxy of sex-ratio skewing, increases the aggressive capabilty of a society.

There are probably other avenues of epigeneticimpact religion can have on a host society as yet undicovered - the field is still relatively new.

But perhaps I have been able to illustrate then that religion, and a belief in God, just like eating a bowl of Frostiesâ„¢, can have great physical benefit without the actual need for a Tony.

Er… I mean, a God. :blush:

Just to be completely transparant:

I assert that the actual physical and reproductive benefits derived from religious belief, with or without God, coupled with the purely social and motivational effects such a belief set lends its hosts - gives religious societies a competitive edge over irreligous societies, to the extent that no such societies exist in any dominant form today.

ie: It is no coincidence that belief in God covers the map, it was always going to be that way. And it still does not give any credence to the existance of the divine.

2

You left one out in your poll. doesn’t affect me. I take the third.

I am not religious but have always seen the need for religions almost the way you wrote.

those that are religious have need of it for one reason or another. the same with the anti religious. I can’t imagine our human society totally going one way or the other. Although being combative and competitive apes we would find something else to fight about.

3

Hey Kris, thanks for stopping by. I’ll add a topic.

Ahh - but the point is religion physically fortifies a society’s ability to express that agression.

4

I always read your threads, even if I don’t post. IMO they are most enlightening.

Politics does the same, as does any controversial social groupings. Classism/ economics for a prime example.

Humans love to take sides and own things that others can’t own or they don’t want others to own it. People own their religions. They are quite possesive over them. Its the same with politics and economics.

Poor people are just as classist as the wealthy. And political beliefs? LOL

All three have started wars. Politics, religion and economics.
If its not one thing its another.
We could get everyone to agree on the same thing with each of those three and we would just find something else to fight over and own.

Possiveness is the crux of it. Its a survival trait we have. It has over the eras carried into our society. Where the first humans had hunting grounds which they protected fiercely, they now have beliefs. One replaced the other. If we lost our beliefs to another, it is pretty much going to kill a part of what we are. We own our beliefs the same way our ancestors owned hunting grounds. Survival.

5

We always had beliefs Kris. Some beliefs allow you to protect your hunting grounds better, some don’t.

Sometimes even empty secrets can have power.

So Kris - Does there need to be a God behind a religion for it to empower the society that has accepted it…? Yes or no.

6

Some had hunting grounds and spirituality. Even always protecting the hunting ground. None of it was worshiped but respected and still is.

7

I refuse to answer your poll, mister! You and your memes have me going all… upstream, as we say in my neck of the woods…

8

Spawning time?

9

heh heh, er, something like that

10

Religion, at least in its rudimentary forms, has had a beneficial effect on social structure from the earliest beginnings of socialization. Tab has already addressed this, so I won’t repeat. Religion provides an external focal point that becomes the ‘glue’ sticking together all of the disparate bits and pieces of human thought and activity. I’ve just used a bunch of words to say nothing. So what? There isn’t anything new in this, it’s been recognized for millenia.

What is new? The novel perspective that it appears less external than we have previously thought. Religion arises because of a basic need to be social, and to be effectively so. The gene - meme perspective turns the conventional picture on its head. Is there an external creator? Let’s not go there. Leave the ineffable to the individual. Beyond that, it makes little difference. Even if we assume that there is no external creator, we would invent such an entity. Why? Because it gives a society advantages not found in non-religious groupings. We need a God the better to persist as a social group over time. This need isn’t necessarily known, talked about, or understood by the vast majority. It can and usually operates ‘below the radar’. Again, most of this has been said before, many times in many ways. So what is really new? We are beginning to connect the dots in ways not understood even a few decades ago. That religious belief and practice can alter the physical makeup of a social grouping (advantages and disadvantages) has been suspicioned, but given little credence until now. The very idea that a social grouping could function as a mirror image of genetics is both new and unsettling. We don’t know enough yet to make posittive claims, but the evidence is growing. The complexities outweigh our understanding, but the drive toward greater socialization makes a God necessary and unnecessary at the same time. The understanding of gene survival and its mechanisms are now being seen in our societal organization as well, and as the research continues, we are finding that perhaps they are the same stuff. We may be less individuals than we think.

11

Agreed. But I can’t post any more right now … your OP has me rolling, your means of expression are truly a thing to behold … and right now, I beholden my stomach …

Viva la Blank Slate!!!

12

Hmm. Seems like my church is empty of the faithful.

Is it a special day or something…? They’re all out singing carols…?

Hello - is this thing on…?

13

Good read Tabula Rasa.

Frosty flakes go well with children in commercials. Grown ups in Frosty Flakes commercials are just kids that have never moved on to a real hearty breakfast. :slight_smile:

14

Unequivocally, affirmed. God must be present.

What lies at the heart of every circle?

15

I would conjecture that your church is empty of the faithful because you are making the same mistake that has been presented in the “materialism” thread. As with the materialism thread, the sort of religionists that this thread is targeted at (i.e. Christianity and its brother religions) don’t deny materialism but rather find it unsatisfactory as an ultimate explanation. Materialists, on the other hand, think that “ultimate explanations” are hokum and so both sides end up talking at crossed purposes.

By-and-large, the same this is established here. Religion has a very large social value. I don’t think any religionist, or even anyone who employs any sort of mental faculty worth having a discussion with, would argue against such a point. Indeed, that these rules strengthen the social bond and the societies that have them have often been used as a ‘proof’ for the veracity of their religions!

So . . . in terms of “shaking people’s faiths” I’m not sure you’ve really said anything at all. So, why would they jump in?

16

Oh c’mon Xunzie I would have thought that saying a God need not actually exist for the act of worship to confer beneficial effect upon the faithful…

…Would perhaps worry some people.

I mean, what else can anyone point at and say “Here is god’s presence made tangible.” …?

And another point - in a country with a cosmopolitan spread of religions, why is it that it is always the people of the largest religious faction that dominate, whatever the actual nature of that religion/god may be…?

ie: 100,000 Spaghetti-monster-believing loonies beat 10,000 Seventh-Day Adventists every day of the week.

If all religions are not equal, if a particular religion conveys benefit by some more divine means - then why hasn’t one particular religion, one particular flock of the faithful, come to dominate the globe…?

This homogenuity of effect, to me at least, suggests a more mundane mechanism behind it than a host of angels.

And, duh, however much I/we/they may ‘strengthen the veracity of religion’ if there is indeed no God, then it is a load of balls. Why…? Because I can replace religion with a self-help manual and some uplifting speeches - and - extinguish global religious conflict. Which is nice.

17

Interesting thought: would society (in it’s many forms) have come to be without the socialization that religion provides? I think there could be an argument that human development was contingent on the idea of God. More than a biological argument I think this would give more credance to the idea of ID.

18

Hello, Tab.

I disagree with your claim here. My disagreement, however, consists entirely about the tense of one word. Rather than to say in effect that ‘Religion GIVES societies a competitive edge over irreligious societies’ I would tend to say that ‘Religion that promoted evolutionary beneficial practices GAVE those religious societies an edge over their irreligious and religious counterparts which did not.’

I don’t think that’s true any longer, however. Religion and all other forms of irrational belief have run their course in terms of social utility and here’s one example to highlight this point.

Look at your ‘point #2’:

There is no doubt that religions in the past which promoted healthful eating practices flourished while those that didn’t, didn’t. But is this still true today? Do we turn to religion today when we want to know what foods are healthful and which are not or do we turn to science?

Obviously it’s the latter. By adhering to a diet that was recommended on the basis of experience and superstition five thousand years ago rather than one recommended solely on the basis of experience, one will be at an evolutionary disadvantage today in terms of eating healthfully.

To summarize then, yes, some forms of religion proved to be evolutionary beneficial to societies in the past when compared to other forms of religion or to societies that were non-religious.

Today, however, it no longer appears to be true that societies which conform to the practices of a religion have an evolutionary advantage over societies which do not IF the practice of science plays a dominant role in those latter societies. In fact, just the opposite seems to be the case. See: countries in the Middle East and countries in western Europe.

Our government’s official stance which restricts embryonic stem cell research, based largely on religious ideas, will not prove to be a long-term boon for our country’s well-being. The rejection of safe sex practices in the third world, based largely on religious notions, will not prove to be a long-term boon for those countries’ well-being. The treating of women as second-class citizens in the Middle East will not be a boon for those countries’ future well-being.

[And before anyone brings it up, atheism was NOT the reason that the USSR failed so let’s not go there. :wink:]

19

I have to say that generalisations on facts can ruin an arguement. Case and point here, but other than that I agree, not whole-heartedly, yet I agree. The price of the use of this kind of vehicle for ideas, while with it’s merits , is an inability to digress on specific points in order to compound related facts. You coped quite well with this handicap.
Great subject. The link between the most basic of human complex-religion, and the very basis of humanity-the genome is a tentative subject as people of take only extremes on it. They either completely deny religions significance, or its relation to science, or completely romanticise it.
No wonder you provoked some people. =D>

20

Well, I think socialization can occur without religion, chimps manage it without errecting great idols of Charlie in the jungle, and dolphins get pally without bowing down to effigies of Lord Shamu. But I’ll wholeheartedly agree religion can be a catalyst to intensify society, with ceremonies as seed-crystals around which knots of social bonding occur.

He’s right folks. Religion. Past tense. This point cannot be labored enough. Time to lose the appendix.

Hey Tertiary Mindset,

Glad you [insert degree here] agree with me.