Freethought Association Minutes, June 9, 2004, #164
The next Freethought
Movie Night will on June 20 at 7PM at Jason Pittman's house. For
location and details contact at 616-634-2471 or jpittman@backpacker.com.
“The
Science of Chiropractic” will be the topic of our next regular
meeting and will be on June 23rd. It will be presented by Dr.
Brian Mikula of Mikula Chiropractic. He is also Adjunct Professor,
GRCC Biology Dept.
Our 7th Annual
Freethought Picnic is on Saturday, July 10, from 12-5PM. It will
be held this year at Johnson Park near Wilson and 28th. Bring
a beverage, place setting and dish to pass. Feel free to bring
any rec. equipment you wish to as well. Hope to see you there!
Coordinated by Charles LaRue: calart@hotmail.com.
There was
a Board Meeting prior to our regular meeting on this date. Because
it was moved up, there will be no Board Meeting on 6/23 as had
been originally scheduled. We discussed long term planning issues
and smaller group options as well as more mutually beneficial
affiliations with like organizations and campus coordination efforts.
There are many exciting things on the horizon as possibilities.
Minutes were taken at our open meeting by Vice Chair, Dr. Robert
Collins, and will be available for group perusal once completed
and distributed. Please remember to fill out the questionnaires
that are available at each meeting, to help us get a bead on where
the membership body is focused as to the volunteer possibilities
available and the interest levels among the group for various
potential avenues as we continue to grow. The questionnaires are
also available online at our website; see above.
Camp Quest
of Michigan, the non-religious youth camp program, will be taking
place from August 15- 21st. For more information, visit http://michigan.camp-quest.com/.
Nancy Bedell
was available at our meeting to register new voters or update
records for current voters. This was non-partisan and not limited
to which county in which one resides.
The canoe/kayak
social activity, led by Dr. Gregory Forbes, was a very good time,
as reported by those who attended.
We gather
after the meetings at Vitales Restaurant on Leonard. There is
generally a very good attendance for this social time and we have
our own section of the establishment reserved. Come check it out
and see the amazing acoustic marvel of the dome there-- better
than “The Mystery Spot”!
Jan Van Oosterhout
(FA Board Treasurer) and husband Bill (FA member) have invited
the FA membership to a potluck at their cottage in Mears, MI on
Lake Michigan on Saturday, July 24, starting at 12 noon. Bring
a dish to pass and your own beverages. They have a kayak and sailboat
and a rubber raft and two bicycles available. Feel free to bring
any other items you wish. A bonfire on the beach is planned, weather
permitting, and a croquet set will be up. The cottage is located
about 1.5 hours from downtown GR. RSVP to the Van Oosterhouts
by e-mail or phone: Jabivo@aol.com, or (616) 677-5536.
Jan is also
coordinating the first Annual Freethought Assoc. Garage Sale next
year in May. Start saving your items for donation to this fundraising
event. For more info, contact Jan at the above-mentioned number
and/or e-mail address. Board member, David Cleveland has offered
storage space assistance. Contact him at davidc@altelco.net.
We thank camera
man and producer, Gordon Matousek for his work in getting our
meetings recorded for broadcast on GRTV Cable Channel 25 in Grand
Rapids. “The Myth of the Golden Mean” and “An
Atheist Runs for Office in Grand Rapids” will be shown during
the months of June and July. For more information and broadcast
dates and times, contact info@freethoughtassociation.org.
There is a
Book Study/ Discussion group in the offing. Look for more information
in future minutes and on our website. We are also making a more
concerted effort in college campus outreach programs.
Our topic
for this meeting was “Why We Believe: Social Cognition,
Cognitive Psychology and Religion.” It was presented by
FA member, Luke Galen, PhD; Department of Psychology at Grand
Valley State University. He combined his field of clinical psychology,
with special interest in cognition, thinking processes and memory,
with research he has done in preparation for courses taught on
the psychology of religion @ GVSU, to create a fascinating tapestry
of the psychological underpinnings of belief.
The first
visual image pair he showed us was the Cone Nebula in space and
The Animal Master from Trois Freres, produced 13,000 BCE. The
former is seen by some people to represent the likeness of Jesus
(the traditional representation) when the mental gymnastic gestalt
is employed to make this random pattern of space gases and star
clusters cohere into a profile of the Christian Messiah. Later,
Dr. Galen would talk about our built in extreme bias to see faces
very easily in all manner of patterns in the environment. The
newborn baby smiles at the icon of the “smiley face”
as soon as his eyes can focus whereas another arrangement of the
same parts do not evoke this response. The ancient painting from
Trois Freres shows us a mythical creature, a chimera, where animal
shapes in the natural environment are arranged imaginatively into
a creature of the artist's own musings. This shows ritual thinking
and how early humankind was able to lay imaginary templates upon
the natural world to visualize something of a special significance
to the people that could not be actually seen in the world around
them.
Professor
Galen presented an overview of some of the questions to be considered,
including: How are we religious, or how are the ways in which
humans think reflected in the ways in which we are religious?
Why are we religious? Why do we find supernatural thinking to
be so ubiquitous? Is this learned, and if so, which aspects? Or
is it that the potential for supernatural thinking is in-born
as part of natural brain organization? And we considered questions
of social cognition and thinking biases.
The social
cognition examples relevant to religion that he presented were:
confirmation bias, in-group bias, selective forgetting and cognitive
dissonance. Confirmation bias refers to our tendency to seek information
consistent with our own beliefs. With in- group bias, we give
more favorable evaluations and greater rewards to in- group members,
which brings us to selective forgetting, where we overlook or
“forget” bad behavior from an in- group member. Conversely,
we conveniently also forget the good behavior from members of
an out- group. For cognitive dissonance, Dr. Galen showed us a
Scott Adams cartoon strip reproduction of Dilbert, where the boss
is talking to the engineer, Dilbert, saying: If your numbers are
correct, my strategic plan is irrational. An arrow balloon points
to when cognitive dissonance takes over in the mind of the boss.
This causes him to say: You sure are bad with numbers. This humorously
points out the hallmarks of cognitive dissonance: holding simultaneously
two inconsistent cognitions, the recognition of having acted inconsistently,
which creates a feeling of dissonance and a motivation to reduce
it. The weaker the link to attitude for reasons to act inconsistently,
the greater the pressure to change the attitude.
When people
believe there is no strong external determinate to change beliefs
(monetary or other reward, etc.) then they often think there must
be something valid to the belief held by the non-recompensed person.
We discussed cognitive dissonance as it related to the problem
of evil, where Professor Galen provided a quote from Epicurus
(341-270 BCE) to start it off: “Is God willing to prevent
evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not
willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then
whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call
him god?” Without the function of cognitive dissonance,
this line of pondering would significantly undermine belief in
an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god.
In the Problem
of Job, Dr. Galen showed how the salient features of the story;
that God is all powerful, God is just and Job is a good person
results in the conclusion that Job has no business questioning
God for his unwarranted ordeals he was put through, when run through
the lens of cognitive dissonance. A modern day quote displayed
this bias as well. A parent of two terminally ill children saw
the horrible circumstances thusly when filtered through c. dissonance:
“If God would ask me to suffer this significantly, I think
he has something significant he wants me to do with it through
me, if only just in my heart. Jesus [in the Bible] may not be
the author of evil, but he permitted it for reasons of his own.”
This technique resolves the challenges to one's beliefs and attempts
to keep a consistency of worldview, with all of the parts making
sense when assembled and regarded as a whole.
Next we turned
to the Just World Belief. In this system, the world is believed
to be a fair and equitable place where justice prevails. Clean
living will be rewarded and the sinful will be punished. Since
most of us are more likely to see ourselves in a positive light,
we can be comforted by this belief system where we are among those
destined for reward. There is also the seductive illusion of control,
since believers deem themselves the architects of their future
glory (by doing God's will); strong JWBers have less depression,
stress and greater life satisfaction. However, they can blame
victims for their misfortune and are less compassionate or sympathetic
for their suffering. They view them as bringing it on themselves.
In a just world, if one is not reaping the benefits, then one
must not be adhering to the plan and therefore deserves what is
meted out. Research shows that strong JWBers tend to distance
themselves from others, so they are less affected by their pain.
They are generally more religious, authoritarian, conservative
and have negative attitudes toward underprivileged groups. When
conflicting ideas filter in, the JWBer may experience cognitive
dissonance. The resolution forms along the lines that suffering
is good and that this life is only a veil before the afterlife
where ultimate justice is served. It all works out in the end.
Dr. Galen
spoke of the General Attribution Theory which regards the inferences
about causes of behavior or events. The 'correct' explanation
is not important; it is how people perceive the causes that matter.
There is no way to disprove the individual's inference. In the
example of the self serving attitude, the person takes credit
for good outcomes (due to one's own merits and effort) but blames
negative results on external causes (others, the environment.)
There is no sense of self- responsibility in this approach.
We examined
the locus of causality; whether it is external or internal. In
this dichotomy, the naturalistic causes: people, natural processes,
accidents and chance, are pitted against supernatural agency such
as God, Satan, angels and demons. Regarding the supernatural view,
one may take the proximal or direct view of causation: God did
it, or the distal, or indirect perception: God allowed this to
happen for His own mysterious reasons. One way may figure into
that ultimate justice (if the sinful are seen as being punished
or the godly are seen as being rewarded), while the other still
works for the believer if she thinks of God as being in control
but that His strategies are beyond our comprehension and there
is still some unseen logic and justice that will ultimately emerge.
Other religious
attributions can be seen in statements like “The Lord helps
those who help themselves”, Adolf Hitler's pronouncement:
“Who says that I am not under the special protection of
God”, Mel Gibson's attribution: “The holy spirit was
working through me in this film,” regarding “The Passion
of the Christ” and Jerry Falwell's take on the September
11 attack: “Liberal organizations had so weakened the US
spiritually that God had removed his protection and allowed the
attack to succeed. I believe that if America does not repent and
return to a genuine faith and dependence on Him, we may expect
more tragedies, unfortunately.” As noted by this Secretary
in the summary of the presentation on “The Secret Origins
of the Bible” the early Hebrews were henotheistic, believing
that there were gods who oversaw the goings on of individual tribes;
each with their own deity. When a given tribe would lose in battle,
it was seen as their god being unhappy with them for some failing,
and therefore lifting its protection from them (allowing their
defeat). When they won, it was their god guiding them to victory,
being pleased with them, and so rewarding them.
Religious
attributions are not random but are most often triggered when
meanings are unclear, as in ambiguous situations, or when control
is in doubt, where the attributions become a means of gaining
a sense of control again, or they are triggered when self esteem
is challenged and such attribution helps maintain or enhance self
esteem. Some of the examples Professor Galen cited were: 74% of
breast cancer patients saw much or total control as being in the
hands of God. 90% of breast cancer patients pray and/or offer
religious attribution once they receive their diagnosis and feelings
of powerlessness decrease as religious commitment and action increase.
The individual feels she is an active agent in her own recovery.
We looked
at how religion is used as a source of comfort in even the extreme
anguish of the death of one's child. The example given was when
the death resulted from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). In
this instance, the naturalistic attributions are regarded as unsatisfactory.
The random events that occur throughout the rest of the natural
world are hard to accept as being a part of humanity's lot as
well, if we are the special pets of an all powerful Creator. There
must be a bigger, more spectacular or at least more personal reason
behind things that happen to us; the pinnacle of God's creation.
Parents, using religious attribution will reframe the child's
death with thoughts of an afterlife reunion, or that the death
was a purposeful event, or, sometimes, that it is a punishment
for wrongdoing on the part of the parents. The speaker who presented
to us on Islam, ironically on September 11, 2002, spoke of how
the child's death has a silver lining in that the babe is automatically
destined for a happy afterlife, and more, she or he can actually
advocate for the surviving parents to sort of grease the afterlife
tracks on their behalf.
Cognitive
dissonance may play a part in how religious beliefs may be strengthened
by tragedy for those who already have a strong faith commitment.
Religion indirectly affects adjustment by boosting social support
networks (peers, church, etc.) and increasing the meaningfulness
of death. There simply “must” be a purpose or overarching
Plan.
In the God
of the Gaps hypothesis, God becomes an explanatory agent when
naturalistic attributions as causes are either felt to be insufficient
and unrewarding or when there is simply no other explanation that
the individual can call forth. People, Dr, Galen noted, do not
totally forsake all aspects of the naturalistic attribution. They
may say, for instance: “God acted through the illness.”
A terminal illness evokes religious attribution and a remission
becomes a sign of his mercy. Again, it becomes a no lose proposition
for the believer. Sometimes the religious attribution is heuristic
as when a positive event is credited to God but where a negative
one becomes the work of Satan.
The situations
that are most likely to evoke religious attribution combine factors
of being extreme, uncontrollable, unjust, dissonant, etc. God
is most frequently seen as allowing rather than controlling, negative
events, sometimes in combination with secular causes. Since there
are plenty of naturalistic explanations for events, why do we
retain the supernatural component? What is the basis for the tendency
to make religious attributions? Can the various cognitive biases
mentioned indicate a deeper level as to the origin of supernatural
beliefs? Some of the reasons for religion and the problems with
religious constructs and formulations are as follows: It provides
explanations for the causal gaps in our knowledge but the explanations
are often circular and complex and the interest is greater for
particular occurrences instead of general things like the existence
of witches. For example, it isn't about the particulars of the
origin of the Garden of Eden but rather how the Fall is relevant
to them personally. It is not about how witches came to be but
what can be done about them.
Another reason
and problem is the comfort factor. While religious attribution
can provide this balm, it seems to create as much anxiety as it
allays. In unpleasant environments, religion tends not to be reassuring.
The comfort factors can be culture- specific. Social order is
derived from religion but many links between morality and religion
are rationalizations with little, or the opposite effect on behavior.
Religion can be used to justify immoral acts and comfort the troubled
brow over the commission of such acts. Cognitive illusion is another
product of religious thinking, but people are not generally gullible.
The same person who believes in a literal virgin birth, etc. will
not likely buy swamp land in Florida, for instance. Galen noted
that some religious ideas lead people to relax their standards
of reason more readily than others. Why are we so selective? he
asked.
Turning to
the distal and proximate aspects of explanation, we examined the
different levels of psychological belief in religious or supernatural
factors. The proximate reasons include the social psychological
one that this is what we have been taught. It provides a buffer
against stress and offers existential explanations and a sense
of meaning. It functions to help deny a final death and offers
a sense of control. Ultimate or distal reasons, on the other hand,
say that beliefs represent underlying brain organization and have
survival value (coping, optimism, hope and striving). Or they
may be by- products of systems designed for survival where templates
for other concepts are applied or exapted to religious ones.
There are
different models that we might use in religious acquisition, such
as the “blank slate” versus the “template”
ones. Allport believes that children learn religion. William James
instructs us to study exceptional religious experiences, with
the idea that common religion is merely diluted exceptional experiences.
This causes us to ask, why are religious ideas plausible to others?
The evolutionary accounts speak to adaptationist models (religion
enhances survival/reproduction) or, as mentioned above, by employing
mechanisms arising for one function and exapting them to other
functions not related to their direct evolutionary reason for
origin.
Is there sufficient
reason to hold to an in-born model for religion? Does an unlearned
behavior with a physiological basis, evidencing evolutionary underpinnings,
explain the ubiquity of supernatural beliefs? An example of the
suggested advantage of religious traditions is the encouragement
of reproduction (be fruitful and multiply). There is the negative
correlation between hostile environmental conditions and such
encouragement such as sanctions on non- procreative sex and encouragement
of polygamous traditions. Other candidates for adaptiveness are
physical, mental, social health benefits. Reynolds and Tanner
wrote of religious traditions acting as “...culturally phrased
biological messages resulting from survival strategies.”
Dr. Galen
mentioned the book Why God Won't Go Away (Newberg, d'Aquili, Rause
2001). which undertakes to to explain the biology of belief via
brain science. It holds that evolution has changed the “machinery”
of the brain and favored those with religious capacity because
these beliefs and behaviors are adaptive. Researchers have found
that the neurology of transcendent experiences “borrows”
neural circuits from other areas (e.g., sexual) that creates survival
advantages. Also, depression and apathy are diffused by clinging
to a view that life goes on even after the physical form is done.
With Spilka's
indirect model, there is an emphasis on cognitive elements (attribution).
In our need for meaning, religion becomes exapted to create a
determining cause in the face of incomprehensible circumstances.
Control factors in because humans with a long range view of interests
are at a survival advantage and the need for relationships for
the social primate, H. sapiens, works into it by creating group
identity and loyalty. A religious mindset encourages conformity
and takes in the adaptive advantages of cooperation and altruism.
For those who display religious responses, personal gain is more
likely to come to him within the society.
The evolutionary
survival needs of meaning, control and stability are addressed
with a religious template that satisfies all these needs. Religion
provides the memes that enhance survival and self- perpetuate
as a result of their success in addressing these fundamental human
needs.
Pascal Boyer
(Religion Explained) stated the idea that religious concepts are
successful to the extent that they activate inference systems
of evolutionary importance. Religion, to him, is a by- product
of universal cognitive processes resulting from activation of
distinct mental systems. Stuart Gutherie (Faces in the Clouds;
A New Theory of Religion) had it that religion is systematic anthropomorphism.
In the face of pervasive (mostly unconscious) uncertainty about
what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can.
We returned at this point in the presentation, to the Cone Nebula
and how we anthropomorphize this stellar scene into something
we are wired to see-- a face. The religious template makes this
not just any face, but the visage of Jesus. The famous face on
Mars held great fascination for many people who mentally reconfigured
the pattern of shadows and light in the Martian terrain into a
face, with great portent seen in this. When any other vantage
point is used however, the “face” collapses into a
random array of landscape features without any correlation to
a face. Besides the multiplicity of Marys and Jesus' seen on every
surface from knot holes to tortilla chips to grease stains and
clouds, there is the putative face of Satan making an appearance
in the plume of smoke rising from the destroyed twin towers of
the World Trade Center on 9/11. There were two different photos
Dr. Galen showed of this in his presentation. The believer thinks
that there must be something more than just the acts of humans,
so envisions the Prince of Darkness in the black smoke as a more
satisfactory explanation.
He quoted,
in this context, the late Carl Sagan from his book, The Demon-
Haunted World: “As an inadvertent side effect [of the evolutionary
development of the ability to recognize faces at an early stage
of each individual's life], the pattern- recognition machinery
in our brains is so efficient in extracting a face from a clutter
of other detail that we sometimes see faces where there are none.
We assemble disconnected patches of light and dark and unconsciously
try to see a face.”
Religious
ideas come easily to us. Supernatural explanations reign supreme.
In our early evolutionary environment, dismissing strange sounds
as “just the wind” (for instance) might result in
one's death, where perceiving the auditory phenomenon to herald
some horrific demon could impel the individual into rapid flight,
enhancing his survival and subsequent reproduction. Even though
both people would be mistaken—it was not the wind nor a
demon, but a natural world predator, the latter person survives
with his irrational but life saving fears intact. Belief in the
paranormal is difficult to shake while critical thinking and a
scientific approach does not come easily to us. Dr. Forbes, in
a presentation to us, showed how many of our phobias have a basis
in our deep ancestry, so that even though most humans are no longer
plagued by the elements/entities that they had a good reason to
be afraid of in the past, we innately fear them now, as they have
been passed down to us. Conversely, things that should instill
fear in us, but that were not part of our evolutionary development
over time—more recent phenomena-- generally fail to evoke
a strong fear response.
People's religious
concepts are not consciously accessible. They often diverge from
what they believe that they believe (doctrine does not equal folk
belief). Interestingly, Dr. Galen showed that explicit properties
of God differ from explicit ones under different circumstances
and depending on whether it is recall or fast access. Religions
have different cultural contexts and surface disparities but the
underlying templates are mostly the same. This is true even with
“non-theistic” religions (Buddhism, Taoism, etc.).
It is variation (food preferences, musical tastes, etc.) within
constraints that evoke an optimal stimulation of brain systems.
As alluded to earlier, the most robust supernatural beliefs concern
practical matters, rather than abstract notions, but are realized
through the costume of supernatural trappings.
Dr. Galen
contrasted the explicit with implicit views of concerns. Something
that is generated after the fact in the explicit construct is
spontaneous personal intuition in the implicit. What is rendered
as metaphysical philosophy in the explicit is translated into
what it is that god wants the person to do in the implicit view.
Likewise, the origins of the universe are too remote to be a meaning
filled part of the implicit concern. The mechanism behind the
dead transmogrifying into spirits (explicit), becomes how do I
deal with my deceased ancestors (implicit). The philosophical
query of why evil exists in the explicit, is refashioned into
why did my house burn down in the more personal implicit way of
looking at things. The first concepts that are jettisoned in the
explicit are more robust across time and place in the implicit
formulation.
There can
be a default expectation while other expectations for that domain
hold as in the example Galen gave us of incorporeal ghosts who
nonetheless care about what we care about. They can walk through
vertical solids but walk upon horizontal ones. They wear clothes
(where did the fabric arise from?). They are apart from the material
world in all ways but can interact with it somehow, etc.
Minimal violations
are optimal. God can hear you pray from anywhere in the world,
whereas the statue of Mary, as an example--can hear you but cannot
hear you from anywhere in the world. One thinks of the miracle
places in the world that the suffering individual must travel
to for cures, with no one wondering why those miracles cannot
themselves travel to the afflicted.
Professor
Galen contrasted what he called good religious ideas with not
so good ones. There are a great many concepts that could be part
of religious belief but some are more successful than others.
Examples from his presentation are that God knows everything (good
idea) but that he forgets everything instantly (bad idea). Souls
come back (good) but cannot communicate with us (bad). There is
a life after death contrasted with “when you die—that
is the end.”
A belief in an omnipotent, unlimited God (good idea) as opposed
to the not so good idea of a God that exists only on Wednesdays.
A study by
Justin Barrett showed how we project our own interests onto supernatural
agents and confer a human- like mind onto what is regarded as
divine wisdom. In his Imagine a Titanic Situation scenario, Barrett
presented subjects with 3 options for what to pray that God should
do. The first was that God should help the ship stay afloat with
a broken hull. The second option was to give the passengers the
physical strength and fortitude to withstand the freezing waters
over a sustained interval and the third, more prosaic option,
was for God to give the ship's captain the idea of changing course
to avoid the disaster. For an omnipotent God who fashioned the
universe, worked outside of natural laws, unrestrained, and blew
into clay to make the first man, the first two options are as
likely as the third. But people almost always selected the 3rd
option; the one that would be the easiest for a person to do.
We anthropomorphize the deity. The supernatural concepts that
reference our own inference systems are the most successful and
robust ones. The degree of rationality or coherence is not an
issue.
There were
three types of gods described to make the above point, all dealing
with omniscience. One was not omniscient but could make you ill,
destroy your house, or other brutish activities. The second deity
was cognizant of every fact in the world. The third one was aware
of all information relevant to your own inference systems. This
last one is the god that has the most popular omniscience trait.
Dr. Luke Galen
next showed how evolutionary priorities are reflected in religious
concepts. Social exchange can be transformed into the supernatural
realm through placating ghosts or sacrifices to gods, especially
when misfortune occurs. As alluded to earlier-- if one jumps to
false conclusions for what is the causal agent of some sight or
sound in the environment (ghosts, demons, etc.), there is little
cost to the flighty being, but a “false negative”--perceiving
a very real threat as something easily explained away can spell
death. Our tendency toward group identification and allegiance
increases solidarity in a coalition, especially when our behaviors
are borne out in rituals which are hard to fake. A system of justice
that creates evolutionary group survival can be transposed onto
supernatural agents that demand and or dispatch justice. Throughout
evolutionary history, we have not had to regard those who were
long dead but we were affected by the recently deceased. Now,
this is played out by the dearth of caveman ghost sightings. Even
our extraterrestrials are hominid-like, while the odds of such
conformity to our physiology are remote in the extreme. People
seem to fashion their supernatural expectations on their own wish
fulfillment. The dearly departed have nothing else to do than
tell the living survivors through a medium of how much they love
them, and, per a personal correspondence with Dr. Galen, we discussed
how “past life regressions” almost always place the
subject's position in history as that of a ruler or person of
greatness and significance, even though throughout most human
history the overwhelming majority of people lived short and brutish
lives and died unknown to all but their small circle.
Regarding
death, we looked at how dualism results from an activation of
a variety of systems. The animacy system knows that death is permanent
and the person is not coming back. But other systems kick in and
we show respect for the lifeless body, talk about how the dead
person would have wanted this or that, and experience guilt over
transgressions regarding the dead. Spirits are seen as agents
with knowledge that explain one's own moral intuitions as the
spirit monitoring one's actions, because attributing the spirit's
viewpoint is a simpler way of understanding why we have those
intuitions.
He contrasted
the idea of moral principles decided by the gods (as in the Decalogue)
as opposed to those who worship ancestors who have desires for
actions but these are looser and less codified. What matters for
most people is this particular situation. Even while this is how
most believers truly feel, when it is rendered as “situational
ethics” it is seen as a godless way of life to them. Most
principles are an interpretation of our intuition, not the cause.
People are
pattern- seeing geniuses and pattern seeking zealots but are not
moved much by rational accounts. We personify misfortune and see
it as punishment for bad behavior. We don't ask why there is suffering
in the world so much as we ask why did my barn burn down!? Why
is there disease becomes why did the disease strike me? Germ theory,
hygiene, viral contamination simply haven't the power to move
people the way that talk of prayer and grace and god's mercy and
master plan do. People do not care so much about the precise powers
that the supernatural agent uses to smite, but rather the reasons
for acting thusly. Did I fail to follow God's will sufficiently?
Dr. Galen
showed how the intuitive system is manifested into the religious
one. Social exchange becomes sacrifice and atonement; fear of
contamination goes to the ritual handling of corpses, purity,
and taboo; goal and agency detection manifests as gods and spirits
as agents; and inferences about others' states of mind are informed
by religion into interactions with spirits and the dead. The intuitive
concepts spark doctrinal explanations. We employ religious justification
to explain what we intuitively feel about the situation.
We next focused
on genetics. Research data from the Minnesota Separated Twin Study
indicate that about 50% of variation on religious measures (interest,
not denomination) was a function of genetics. The differences
between monozygotic and dizygotic twins was significant (-.o8
for DZ vs. plus .55 for MZ). Religious affiliation is culturallu
transmitted but religious attitudes are influenced by genetic
factors. There can be a genetic disposition toward perceptually
altered states, conventionality, etc., that marry well to religious
traditions.
Because religious
thinking comes so naturally to us, while scientific instruction
is so much harder to instill as an “unnatural” foreign
thing, such instruction is likely to be insufficient to reduce
superstitious thought. A surprising (to this writer anyway) finding
was that while organized religion rates may change (e.g., Europe)
, tendencies for supernatural attributions are more robust. Another
implication of the research is that atheism may never appeal to
people whose religion addresses specific needs. Also it is not
likely to be a successful endeavor to avoid the science/religion
conflict where supernatural and personal intervention is removed
from life's equation while retaining a religious foundational
view (a la deism, etc.) precisely because religion's popularity
rests upon its use in practical situations.
The Q&A
portion of our meeting regarded many issues including temporal
lobe epilepsy and its spurring on of religious visions as well
as other mental state afflictions that cause a different agency
to be focused on (paranoia that secret agents are watching, for
example). Professor Galen was asked about how his course on The
Psychology of Religion went over with the students he taught.
Some people, it was noted, cannot even entertain the idea that
religious thought should be analyzed. “Why do we believe?
Because it's true!”
Secretary:
Charles LaRue.
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