The following is a discussion between Nick Warren and myself. Its difficult to summarize, so I won't. We'd both very much like your input. Enjoy, I hope it gets you thinking.
Nick:
What if belief in god is simply evolution, all over again?
To believe that there is no god means you believe that there is no afterlife, and thus one of mankind's greatest allies -hope- is ultimately destroyed for you personally. It can, of course, exist in other ways, but it takes a fair amount of intelligence to do so, and at the time religion was created humankind did not have the mental capacity to do so. Now, after we have evolved and do have the mental capacity, so have traits such as selflessness (doing what you do in hope of bettering the human race) and appreciation (the knowledge that if you took your life you would never again see such beauty, or even be cognizant that you are not seeing it).
Hope is, arguably, the most influential and survivalistic of all traits. It is what encourages us to persevere, to starve and keep living despite conditions that would have one think otherwise. It is indeed strong enough to have been passed down through the human genes since it's creation.
I realize, of course, that with this argument also comes a belief that agnostics/atheists (who were not born into that respective religion) have a slightly higher willpower/mental capacity to accept doom. This is not intended to be a jab at religiously-inclined people. It could just be that they have not considered it, although that in itself should be cause enough to consider it.
I think I might be on to something here, but would appreciate any rebuttal from you (Caleb) or people who might read this.
Caleb:
I don't think hope does anything until you have the mental capacity to give up. I think you'll notice with most animals that they will fight far beyond what is reasonable. Thats what hope is in many ways I think. Its trying even against the statistics. Hoping for a favorable statistical outcome and trying anyway, is only rationalizing what most animals already do, its just trying to make it acceptable to the mind of a human. in short that actions that hope invokes are all there in any living thing thats not intelligent, hope is just our word for it.
I don't see how not believing in an afterlife ultimately destroys hope.
Even if it does I don't think hope is necessarily a survival trait. I think that once intelligence is applied hope and stubbornness often hinders survival rather than helps it. When hope or stubbornness is involved we tend to work at one idea far more than is advisable. It disregards reason. I think its just the survival instinct that counts. That causes us to try even if we're sure we are doomed, because if theres a small chance we won't die why not work for it eh?
I also think selflessness is an extremely double edged sword and something that can be seen far before the onset of religion, hell even before the onset of religion. Selflessness is all about the propagation of ones genes. Its protecting the offspring or the progenitor its keeping those little strings of DNA around until they can reproduce even if it means the cost of your life.
Nick:
But selflessness is not about propagating ones genes. It is far removed from it, and involves sacrificing your own genes so that another person's may live. Thus, selfless.
And hope and stubbornness are two different things entirely, hope is wanting something to be true, stubbornness is not accepting something to be false. The flip side of that is being pragmatically hopeful, that is, hopeful to a realistic extent. Both involve intelligence, and are simply characteristics of differing people.
Disregarding this, however, people have hope because they believe that they will keep on living, because they WANT to keep on living. If you inform them that -no matter what they do- they will die and stop living, it is somewhat of a mood kill. Like you yourself said earlier, some people lean heavily upon religion and disproving it -and consequently an afterlife- could kill a person.
So while I'll agree with you that stubbornness and hope make poor compatriots, there are other traits that make excellent, reasonable choices, choices that would indeed put hope under a survival trait.
Caleb:
I don't think your looking at this in the right timescale. Selflessness came about when we were still living in tribes or family units. Selflessness is one of those things that won't come about until during or after puberty right? Back when selflessness evolved that was mating age. So presumably one would already have or be in the process of achieving offspring right? Well at that point if you sacrificed yourself to save a member of your family or tribal unit it would increase the likely hood of the survival of your offspring those maintaining your genes.
I think your definitions are almost the same thing just phrased differently. Either way they both accomplish the same thing, holding on to an idea beyond the point of it being statistically probable. Pragmatism isn't a trait that I find to be particularly common, so for the most part I'd say that hope isn't a survival trait. But I'll grant you that when paired with Pragmatism hope is a good survival trait.
It is somewhat of a mood kill but I think its not really going to be that devastating if introduced properly, the inevitability of death is something that I think should be dealt with and internalized. I did say that. But that only applies to disproving existing religion. If religion hadn't been there from the beginning, hadn't 'evolved' as it were I don't think there would be a problem.
I think hope is one of those things that has to come about simultaneously with specific other kinds of thought including empirical thought and careful reasoning for it to be any good.
Nick:
No, I think you are redefining selflessness until it has an entirely different meaning. Selflessness has no concern about your genes, at all. It is counter-instinctual. I would have to say that it is a fairly recent trait, and one that will probably not last as a genetic trait. However, not all traits are genetic. Nature vs. Nurture is the argument here.
Most times hope is simply optimism, that things will eventually turn out for the best. Hope is subject to change, although the same general air of 'things will get better' is maintained.
To be stubborn is to be unreasonably obstinate.
I don't really see where you're going here.....As I understand it, you say that based on a series of conditions not present things would be okay? Yes, of course, but that is simply irrelevant an hypothetical.
And hope is weighted against empirical reasoning: it is the continued outlook of optimism, though evidence does not warrant it. Hope against hope is the phrase, I believe.
Caleb:
I don't think I'm redefining it, just explaining its roots and how its now manifested in our larger society. Its similar to the whole tribal news thing. Where we get paranoid about some sort of event IE a sniper or a murderer because we hear about it on the news, but the news is far to far reaching for us to handle instinctually like that. We handle it as if the news was being presented to us locally within a small local, so the knowledge gets distorted and becomes more useless than it originally was. Selflessness is an admirable trait but one that will eventually be bred out of the human race. Because in such a macro scale "tribe" as we humans have it rarely ever furthers the procession of ones own genetic material. So no, I'm not redefining it, merely putting it into perspective, and showing the reason for it.
Hope isn't simple optimism its desire. "I hope BLANK happens" one hopes for something because one wants it to happen, not because it is likely. I hope to be rich, famous, powerful, happy and old one day, but I doubt its going to happen.
It is entirely a hypothetical situation, but it was to prove a point. I'll get to the point in a minute, but first to you agree with me that if the conditions I had set were true that the inevitability of death could be handled hunky dory by the average mind?
Your right. That is what hope is. The counter weight to empirical reasoning. The anti-logic. Since when is that a good thing?
By the way do you mind if I keep log of this discussion and possibly post it later for others to see and discuss?
Nick:
Nope, I don't mind.
"So the knowledge gets distorted and becomes more useless"....Then what? Could you continue your train of thought? Are you saying that because we are selfless for the betterment of the human race then we only do it to the extent that 99.9% of our genes get passed on? That definition is so large and encompassing that it is correct, and yet as vague as astrology and thus not correctly specific.
Counter-logical is good to the extent that it makes people feel better, similar to a placebo. Like religion.
And no, I disagree with those premises. The question of death would have indeed come up at one point or another, as it indeed comes up in this conversation. I have a feeling that, if not for the explanation of an afterlife, that people would have come up with other explanations, or still be scratching their heads. We (you and I), disregarding religion, are not 'hunky dory' about death. We can accept that we might become nothing, but not without countless sleepless nights. I myself still dislike accepting that.
Caleb:
The fact that the information is distorted is important, but wasn't the end point I was trying to reach. I was trying to show how our impulses and understanding is often muddled beyond the point of being useful. So we over estimate the probability of the events shown on the news happening to us. The same thing happens with selflessness. We likely overestimate the effect of our sacrifice on our original community. A soldier dieing in Iraq will not necessarily increase the survivability of their offspring now. So it looks completely selfless because the original impulse doesn't apply in such a large scale situation.
Your right, hope, religion and faith are mostly placebos. To get us to try and do things that the odds go against. I don't think those things are as good as cool calculating logic though.
Yes! The question of death would have come up at one point! One possible answer instead of the afterlife, is we die! People are going to be afraid of that. No one wants to just stop existing. So we have to develop massive theological structures that tell us that we don't really die? I don't think so. Do we have a religious dogma around getting robbed? Saying that it doesn't really happen? No. We have methods to prevent it and recover from it. Granted there isn't much of a way to recover from death, but there are plenty of ways to avoid it for quite some time. I don't believe religion is necessary as way to deal with death, death should be feared. Anything that takes away that fear of death is almost certainly bad for survival.
Nick:
Yeah, but there are of course situations that simply are selfless, regardless of how many there are which simply seem to be so.
Yes.
Yes. Death should be feared, maybe then people would be less willing to kill others.
"There are plenty of ways to avoid it for quite some time."
There are always people who would rather confront the problem and try to reason. Like, for instance, you and I. Thus I believe that the creation of religion was necessary, for the peace of mind of those thinkers. But now we need to be able to accept that we just die.
However, that was a huge tangent. My original question was how do you think religion originated?
Caleb:
Sure there are. I see that as an abnormality though. Similar to homosexuality. Homosexuality is a self eliminating trait because it has no avenue for propagating itself. But its something that is either a incredibly common (On an evolutionary time scale anyway) genetic mutation, or something that can be taught.
I think you misunderstand me. I'm notadvocating delaying dealing with death or the theological, psychological or philosophical questions presented by it, just delaying death itself.
I had to think about that for a while. I think religion started as innocently as anything can really. As simple teleological explanations of things. IE Why does the waterfall fall? Because it wants to. As these ideas were conceived they were passed along through generations and slowly changed as people acquired a better "understanding" or tweaked them for their on purposes. So essentially I think they "evolved" to where they are now. Once the theological frame work has been set up for any specific religion, it becomes much easier for other religions to pop up and grab some followers allowing religion to split further.
Nick:
Yeah, that was one of my thoughts. Another (the start of this whole conversation) was that hope for life after death was another of religions most powerful points.
Caleb:
Aye.
I'm posting this now with your acceptance. This and your acceptance comment will be included.
Nick:
and post that last comment of yours? Although I think we changed that whole topic around a lot....
and in the end you agreed to what I was saying about hope?
Caleb:
Yeah, we did change it around a lot. Good though.
I don't know I'll have to reread it. I'll tell yeh later.