The God Delusion - Chapter 5

[otseng]

According to Dawkins, how did religion arise?

McCulloch's question:
Is religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful?

[otseng]

If he is not explaining the origin of religion in this chapter, then what is he trying to explain? Simply how it propagates? If so, then the title for the chapter "The roots of religion" would be misleading.

Are roots the same as seeds?

I believe he uses the word "roots" as "origin".

The first sentence of the chapter starts off with:
"Everybody has their own pet theory of where religion comes from and why all human cultures have it."

The first sentence of the second paragraph:
"Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favoured the impulse to religion."

[McCulloch]

I believe he uses the word "roots" as "origin".

The first sentence of the chapter starts off with:
"Everybody has their own pet theory of where religion comes from and why all human cultures have it."

The first sentence of the second paragraph:
"Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favoured the impulse to religion."

But in his book The Ancestors' Tale, he makes it rather clear that evolution and natural selection does not explain the ultimate origin of life. Although, even there, he uses natural selection as a mechanism acting on the development of pseudo-life from raw chemicals and energy and life from pseudo-life.

Once started, religious thought seems to propagate throughout the human culture that spawned it, that is what he is really addressing in this chapter. For a good analysis of how it may have started, I would recommend Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett.

[Confused]

I'd also add that the details are lacking. I don't see where he clearly states what it is a by-product of.

Actually, he does.

page 174.

My specific hypothesis is about children. More than any other species, we survive by the accumulated experience of previous generations, and that expecience need to be passed on to children for their protection and well-being...
...But, to say the least, there will be a selective advantage to child brain that posess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, what your grown-ups tell you.

Religion is the by-product of believing what your grown-ups tell you?

It does not explain the origin of religion. How did the first grown-up come up with the idea of religion to pass on to all the future generations?

Further, this would imply that passing down religion would be for their protection and well-being.

I think overall, he fails to explain the origin of religion per se. He relies quite heavy on this "Dualism" concept and "stances". The more he applies psychological concepts, the more he moves his argument out of the "hard" sciences field. He is equating it with a psychological disorder that has evolved as a by product of something else. Yet this answers really no questions in regards to the roots per se. Speculation at best. He also fails to show why he is equating it with a psychological disorder (he refers to love and its hormonal and neuorchemical imbalances).

[Confused]

It does not explain the origin of religion.

It does not need to. Evolution does not explain the origin of life, just its development from what was to what is.

I think he is using natural selection in regards to the dualism concept to explain why we are prone to religion, ie. programmed for it in regards to teleology, and uses childhood as an example. But I fail to see how he shows its development at all. He may show some genetic predisposition (memes) with some environmental behavioral learning patterns (dualism). But the same could be said for why someone develops night terrors as a child and becomes psychotic as an adult. I don't see how he is linking religion in with a causation or purpose.

[McCulloch]

I think overall, he fails to explain the origin of religion per se.

I don't think that the origin of religious thought is that hard to explain. Someone gets too much sun, too much peyote, a knock on the head, some dreams or hallucinations or other delusions of an interaction with supernatural beings. Boom, religion begins. The difficulty is exactly where Dawkins spends his time, how does it persist and spread in human society?

[QED]

'That is the one point which I think all evolutionists are agreed upon, that it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment.' If anting wasn't positively useful for survival and reproduction, natural selection would long ago have favoured individuals who refrained from it. A Darwinian might be tempted to say the same of religion; hence the need for this discussion.

He goes on to try to discuss this, but does not address the point that "it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment". And if religion is a result of natural selection, then it would be virtually impossible for humans to have a better alternative than religion. If religion wasn't positively useful for survival and reproduction, natural selection would long ago have favoured individuals who refrained from it.

I would like to clear up something that I think is very wrong here. otseng - you make the point that if religion was a product of natural selection, then by analogy with what Dawkins says we should not be able to do any better. Well, this quote of his is wrong. Natural Selection is only capable of reaching a "local maxima" in the terrain of all possible configurations for living things. This is why we don't find naturally occurring RADAR or animals with built-in firearms - despite the fact that such developments would confer great selective advantages.

And the analogy of memes with genes does not establish a link between the survival of the idea and the survival of the organism. The survival of the idea could run all the way up to the last living pair of organisms. I think you are quite wrong to suggest that the idea would be deselected through the deselection of the host.

[otseng]

I think overall, he fails to explain the origin of religion per se.

I don't think that the origin of religious thought is that hard to explain. Someone gets too much sun, too much peyote, a knock on the head, some dreams or hallucinations or other delusions of an interaction with supernatural beings. Boom, religion begins.

That's a new one for me.

The difficulty is exactly where Dawkins spends his time, how does it persist and spread in human society?

This shows again how disappointing this book is. He leads the reader to believe that he'll be talking about the origin of religion with the title and first two paragraphs. Then he goes on for the next 44 pages and doesn't even address this.

[otseng]

I would like to clear up something that I think is very wrong here. otseng - you make the point that if religion was a product of natural selection, then by analogy with what Dawkins says we should not be able to do any better. Well, this quote of his is wrong.

Are you saying I quoted him incorrectly or that what Dawkins states is incorrect?

And the analogy of memes with genes does not establish a link between the survival of the idea and the survival of the organism. The survival of the idea could run all the way up to the last living pair of organisms. I think you are quite wrong to suggest that the idea would be deselected through the deselection of the host.

Actually, I'm not too sure now if he's referring to memes or genes in regards to religion. This sentence suggests that religion is associated with Darwinian evolution.

"Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favoured the impulse to religion."

[QED]

I would like to clear up something that I think is very wrong here. otseng - you make the point that if religion was a product of natural selection, then by analogy with what Dawkins says we should not be able to do any better. Well, this quote of his is wrong.

Are you saying I quoted him incorrectly or that what Dawkins states is incorrect?

What's incorrect in my opinion is to apply Dawkins quote about "not being able to do a better job" to all aspects of evolution:

...it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment.' If anting wasn't positively useful for survival and reproduction, natural selection would long ago have favoured individuals who refrained from it.

This is true within a given "well" of potential, hence my mention of the fact that animals haven't naturally evolved firearms or RADAR. However, when it comes to the evolution of idealism the well is much, much deeper.

In other words, the constraints of idealism are infinitely lighter than the practical constraints of biological adaptation.

[otseng]

I would like to clear up something that I think is very wrong here. otseng - you make the point that if religion was a product of natural selection, then by analogy with what Dawkins says we should not be able to do any better. Well, this quote of his is wrong.

Are you saying I quoted him incorrectly or that what Dawkins states is incorrect?

What's incorrect in my opinion is to apply Dawkins quote about "not being able to do a better job" to all aspects of evolution:

He does qualify himself with "virtually impossible" and doesn't say it always is true. But, I think he does make a pretty strong statement about how often it would be true.

This is true within a given "well" of potential, hence my mention of the fact that animals haven't naturally evolved firearms or RADAR.

The bombadier beetle has some interesting firepower capabilities. And the echolocation capabilities of bats is quite complex.