During our history on earth, our endowment with brains that have grown in sophistication over time has been a boon and a bane. Our brains have produced ever more effective technologies and conceived captivating myths, ideas and beliefs. All have fallen prey to our urge to prevail over our natural environment and fellow humans. For all our more advanced development relative to other species, we humans seem to arguably be the least tolerant to nature and our own species.
Just read Yuval Harari’s Sapiens to grasp the scope of devastation exacted on the fauna and flora of this planet by our ancestors – a devastation continued to this day by us. And our history books are no less replete with wars, massacres and barbarities people have committed upon other people. In my posts, I often refer to and decry the harm that religious zealotry and intolerance has inflicted on many people over the centuries. But to focus only on religion as a root of aggression is a narrow reading of history or a poor understanding of the full scope of the sources of intolerance. For example, religious people point out that secular movements have also produced great human suffering. They point, in particular, to human decimation committed by the Jacobins following the French Revolution, imperialism and colonialism, Nazism and various communist regimes.
What is common behind religious and secular human catastrophes is the presence of some Big Idea and the determination of its devotees to evangelize and impose it on all people. Is it possible that all these ideas – religious and secular – become disastrous because they fail to rely on reason? Not really. Jacobins embraced reason, they even built temples to celebrate reason. The genetic theories and policies of Nazis were based on reasoned science, though, in reality, it was pseudoscience. Because reliance on reason and science as antidotes to superstitious religiousness has again emerged as the safe path to a better humanity, it is wise to stare at both with some skepticism before we commit new mistakes in their name.
Two books I recently came across call us to think more open-mindedly about the human nature and the causes of our troubles. The first is Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray, a retired professor of Oxford and the second is Believers: Faith in Human Nature by Melvin Konner, a professor of anthropology and medicine at Emory University.
The gist of Gray’s book is that any idea or belief (religious or secular) that envisions an unique and universal “end of history” where all humanity finds spiritual salvation, peace or harmony (whichever state you prefer) puts itself at risk of becoming oppressive and very likely on the path of aggression in order to bring all of us into compliance with its tenets. For Gray, the various types of atheism he identifies are not different from religious beliefs if they also adopt the view that there is an end of history common and good for all humanity.
Christianity preaches that human history will end with the day of judgment when the pious will be separated from the sinful. Because to Christians saving one’s soul is a universal good, proselytizing and converting the heathen does God’s will. Millions of people have suffered for resisting this end-of-the-world vision. Islam with its own salvation story also has to account for its own spread behind the sword. Nazism believed that the end of history was a eugenically cleansed humanity that is represented only by the Arian race. The concentration camps bear witness to the pursuit of this belief. Russian Bolsheviks and China’s Maoists believed that communism would bring social harmony to the human race. Millions died before the pursuit of this idea was abandoned. Believers in reason and science also have their own blissful destination for humanity by placing too much faith in the capacity of humans to be rational and thus able to replace the comfort of religiousness with the certainty of reason and science. In pursuing that goal, atheists can become as illiberal as the religious people they oppose.
Gray’s premise is that the evolution of nature moves without purpose other than its preservation. Each person seeks and finds his or her own meaning by various spiritual, intellectual or materialist means. To proclaim that one purpose, one end of history is good for all of humanity is antithetical to how nature works. To him “live and let live” is what can keep us from oppressing each other.
Melvin Konner, an atheist himself, relies on evolutionary analysis to show that religiousness is not incompatible with human nature. Although there is no God gene that predisposes many people to spirituality and religiousness, a combination of genetic and cultural factors makes religiousness a very human condition. Therefore, the polemics of new-age atheists, like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, directed against religion, Christianity in particular, miss the point.
This is how Konner summarizes his arguments based on scientific evidence. Religious inclinations and capacities are built into the brain, though, without uniform intensity across all people. These inclinations start to develop in childhood and indoctrination does not explain religious development. Faith development is not the same as moral development. Religion evolved by natural selection. This means that those genetically inclined toward spiritual or religious experiences were helped to manage fear, grief, and existential loneliness, and through bonding with others in acts of altruism, common defense and cooperation developed a stronger advantage for survival.
Because of this genetic connection and the power of culture, religion’s functions cannot be replaced by science, arts, or secular ways of life. Religious believers which in Thomas Jefferson’s famous dictum “do not pick our pockets or break our legs” are entitled to enjoy freedom and tolerance just like atheists and non-believers are.
With arguments and evidence, Gray and Konner admonish us to recognize that though one species, each one of us seeks the enjoyment of life by taking different paths. Forcing humanity toward a single final spiritual, religious, or material destination can only cause us friction, suffering and unhappiness.
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