LET ME QUOTE MYSELF BELOW.
"YOU THINK THAT THE DEVIL IS TELLING YOU TO ACT ON YOUR IMMORAL, SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE, BASE INSTINCTS? YOU THINK GOD IS TELLING YOU NOT TO? YOU'RE FUCKIN' DERANGED AND INSANE. NEITHER THE DEVIL, NOR GOD ARE TELLING YOU ANYTHING. WHY? BECAUSE NEITHER THE DEVIL, NOR GOD EXIST. KNOW WHO'S TELLING YOU SOMETHING, THOUGH? YOU. YOU'RE TELLING YOURSELF ALL OF THAT SHIT. THAT LITTLE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD THAT'S TELLING YOU TO ACT ON YOUR SELFISH, VIOLENT, SEXUAL, "IMPULSIVE, HEDONISTIC, AND UNINHIBITED" TENDENCIES, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME TELLING YOU THAT IF YOU DO ACT ON THESE "IMPULSIVE, HEDONISTIC, AND UNINHIBITED" TENDENCIES THERE COULD BE SERIOUS REPERCUSSIONS IS YOUR CONSCIENCE (YOUR THEORY OF MIND), PIMP. AS YOU CAN SEE, WE HUMANS ARE INHERENTLY CONFLICTED. WE'RE BORN WITH A BRAIN THAT'S EVOLVED TO BE CONTRADICTORY. IT HOUSES ANCIENT DESIRES, DRIVES, AND EMOTIONS THAT ORIGINATE IN THE MORE PRIMITIVE PARTS OF OUR BRAIN, WHICH ARE AT ODDS WITH THE MORE RECENTLY EVOLVED PARTS OF OUR BRAIN, PARTICULARLY THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX, WHICH WORK TO SUBDUE THESE MORE SAVAGE DESIRES, DRIVES, AND EMOTIONS. ONE PART OF YOUR BRAIN IS TELLING YOU TO DO ONE THING AND THE OTHER PART IS TELLING YOU TO DO THE OPPOSITE AND THIS IS BECAUSE THERE'S A CONSTANT BATTLE BEING WAGED BETWEEN THE PRIMITIVE AND MODERN PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR SELF-AWARENESS (YOUR THEORY OF MIND) MAKES YOU CONSCIOUS OF ALL OF THIS."
NOW LET ME QUOTE BROTHER SANYIKA SHAKUR (KODY SCOTT), "I'VE BEEN AT WAR WITH MOTHAFUCCAS, BUT I'VE REALLY BEEN AT WAR WITH MYSELF!"
WE ARE INNATELY AT ODDS WITH OURSELVES. WE HAVE ONE PART OF OUR MIND TELLING US TO ACT MORALLY WITH CONCERN, COOPERATION, AND EMPATHY TOWARD OUR IN-GROUP (KIN, FRIENDS, ETC.) AND ANOTHER PART OF OUR MIND TELLING US TO ACT IMMORALLY WITH CONCERN ONLY FOR OURSELVES AND OUR INTERESTS. HOW DID WE EVOLVED TO BE THIS WAY? THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION IN THE FORMS OF INDIVIDUAL SELECTION AND GROUP SELECTION. WHY DID WE EVOLVE TO BE THIS WAY? BECAUSE AT CERTAIN TIMES THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY THESE TWO FORMS OF SELECTION HAVE EXERTED DIFFERING INFLUENCES ON OUR GENOME. IN SOME INSTANCES THROUGHOUT OUR EVOLUTION INDIVIDUAL SELECTION HAS HAD A STRONGER IMPACT ON OUR GENES THAN GROUP SELECTION, WHILE AT OTHER TIMES, GROUP SELECTION HAS HAD A GREATER IMPACT* THAN INDIVIDUAL SELECTION. THE RESULT IS THAT WE'VE INHERITED THE GENES THAT HAVE BEEN CHOSEN FOR BY THESE TWO CONFLICTING SELECTIVE PRESSURES AND ARE, HENCE, COMPOSED OF GENES THAT CODE FOR CONFLICTING THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR. READ BELOW.
*BOTH FORMS OF SELECTION HAVE HAD VARYING DEGREES OF INFLUENCE ON OUR GENOME, SO OUR MINDS ARE NOW THE PRODUCT OF THESE CONFLICTING SELECTION PRESSURES.
YOUR
UNCONSCIOUS MIND DICTATES YOUR THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIOR AND YOUR
UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS COMPOSED OF MANY, MANY MENTAL MODULES THAT ARE IN
CONFLICT WITH ONE ANOTHER. ULTIMATELY, THE WAY YOU THINK AND BEHAVE IN A
GIVEN SITUATION IS A RESULT OF ONE OF THESE MENTAL MODULES
OUT-COMPETING OTHER MENTAL MODULES LEADING YOU TO THINK AND BEHAVE THE
WAY THAT WINNING MENTAL MODULE WANTS YOU TO THINK AND BEHAVE. AND THIS
WHOLE PROCESS PLAYS OUT BELOW THE LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS!
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/david-eagleman-the-human-brain-runs-on-conflict
The human brain runs on conflict - Wired magazine
Edward O. Wilson on the Human Condition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XFILxfpOYw
E.O. Wilson on the 'Knockout Gene' that Allows Mankind to Dominate Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XFILxfpOYw
E.O. Wilson on the 'Knockout Gene' that Allows Mankind to Dominate Earth
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201212/the-evolutionary-biology-altruism
The precursors of Homo sapiens, if archaeological evidence and the behavior of modern hunter-gatherers are accepted as guides, formed well-organized groups that competed with one another for territory and other scarce resources. In general, it is to be expected that between-group competition affects the genetic fitness of each member (that is, the proportion of personal offspring it contributes to the group's future membership), whether up or down. A person can die or be disabled, and lose his individual genetic fitness as a result of increased group fitness during, for example, a war or under the rule of an aggressive dictatorship. If we assume that groups are approximately equal to one another in weaponry and other technology, which has been the case for most of the time among primitive societies over hundreds of thousands of years, we can expect that the outcome of between-group competition is determined largely by the details of social behavior within each group in turn. These traits are the size and tightness of the group, and the quality of communication and division of labor among its members. Such traits are heritable to some degree; in other words, variation in them is due in part to differences in genes among the members of the group, hence also among the groups themselves. The genetic fitness of each member, the number of reproducing descendants it leaves, is determined by the cost exacted and benefit gained from its membership in the group. These include the favor or disfavor it earns from other group members on the basis of its behavior. The currency of favor is paid by direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity, the latter in the form of reputation and trust. How well a group performs depends on how well its members work together, regardless of the degree by which each is individually favored or disfavored within the group.
The genetic fitness of human beingS must therefore be a consequence of both individual selection and group selection. But this is true only with reference to the targets of selection. Whether the targets are traits of the individual working in its own interest, or interactive traits among group members in the interest of the group, the ultimate unit affected is the entire genetic code of the individual. If the benefit from group membership falls below that from solitary life, evolution will favor departure or cheating by the individual. Taken far enough, the society will dissolve. If personal benefit from group memberships rise high enough or, alternatively, if selfish leaders can bend the colony to serve their personal interests, the members will be prone to altruism and conformity. Because all normal members have at least the capacity to reproduce, there is an inherent and irremediable conflict in human societies between natural selection at the individual level and natural selection at the group level.
Alleles (the various forms of each gene) that favor survival and reproduction of individual group members at the expense of others are always in conflict with alleles of the same and alleles of other genes favoring altruism and cohesion in determining the survival and reproduction of individuals. Selfishness, cowardice, and unethical competition further the interest of individually selected alleles, while diminishing the proportion of altruistic, group-selected alleles. These destructive propensities are opposed by alleles predisposing individuals toward heroic and altruistic behavior on behalf of members of the same group. Group-selected traits typically take the fiercest degree of resolve during conflicts between rival groups.
It was therefore inevitable that the genetic code prescribing social behavior of modern humans is a chimera. One part prescribes traits that favor success of individuals within the group. The other part prescribes traits that favor group success in competition with other groups.
Natural selection at the individual level, with strategies evolving that contribute maximum number of mature offspring, has prevailed throughout the history of life. It typically shapes he physiology and behavior of organisms to suit a solitary existence, or at most to membership in loosely organized groups. The origin of eusociality, in which organisms behave in the opposite manner, has been rare in the history of life because group selection must be exceptionally powerful to relax the grip of individual selection. Only then can it modify the conservative effect of individual selection and introduce highly cooperative behavior into the physiology and behavior of the group members.
...
The key question remaining in the dynamics of human genetic evolution is whether natural selection at the group level has been strong enough to overcome the powerful force of natural selection at the level of the individual. Put another way, have the forces favoring instinctive altruistic behavior to other members of the group been strong enough to disfavor individual selfish behavior? Mathematical models constructed in the 1970s showed that group selection can prevail if the relative rate of group extinction or diminishment in groups without altruistic genes is very high. As one class of such models suggests, when the rate of increase of group multiplication with altruistic members exceeds the rate of increase of selfish individuals within the groups, gene-based altruism can spread through the population of groups...if cooperative groups were more likely to prevail in conflict with other groups, has the level of intergroup violence been sufficient to influence the evolution of human social behavior? The estimates of adult mortality in hunter-gatherer groups from the beginning of Neolithic times to the present...support that hypothesis.
....
Are people innately good, but corruptible by the forces of evil? Or, are they instead innately wicked, and redeemable only by the forces of good? People are both. And so it will forever be unless we change our genes, because the human dilemma was foreordained in the way our species evolved, and therefore an unchangeable part of human nature. Human beings and their social orders are intrinsically imperfectible and fortunately so. In a constantly changing world, we need the flexibility that only imperfection provides.
The dilemma of good and evil was created by multilevel selection, in which individual selection and group selection act together on the same individual but largely in opposition to each other. Individual selection is the result of competition for survival and reproduction among members of the same group. It shapes instincts in each member that are fundamentally selfish with reference to other members. In contrast, group selection consists of competition between societies, through both direct conflict and differential competence in exploiting the environment. Group selection shapes instincts that tend to make individuals altruistic toward one another (but not toward members of other groups). Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin, while group selection is responsible for the greater part of virtue. Together they have created the conflict between the poorer and the better angels of our nature.
Individual selection, defined precisely, is the differential longevity and fertility of individuals in competition with other members of the group. Group selection is differential longevity and lifetime fertility of those genes that prescribe traits of interaction among members of the group, having arisen during competition with other groups.
...
Each member of society possesses genes whose products are targeted by individual selection and genes targeted by group selection. Each individual is linked to a network of other group members. Its own survival and reproductive capacity are dependent in part on the structure of the network...what counts is the hereditary propensity to form the myriad alliances, favors, exchanges of information, and betrayals that make up daily life in the network.
...
...Human beings are prone to be moral - do the right thing, hold back, give aid to others, sometimes even at personal risk - because natural selection has favored those interactions of group members benefiting the group as a whole.
...
...Substantial evidence now exists that human social behavior arose genetically by multilevel evolution. If this interpretation is correct, and a growing number of evolutionary biologists and anthropologists believe it is, we can expect a continuing conflict between components of behavior favored by individual selection and those favored by group selection. Selection at the individual level tends to create competitiveness and selfish behavior among group members - in status, mating, and the securing of resources. In opposition, selection between groups tends to create selfless behavior, expressed in greater generosity and altruism, which in turn promote stronger cohesion and strength of the group as a whole.
An inevitable result of the mutually offsetting forces of multilevel selection is permanent ambiguity in the individual human mind, leading to countless scenarios among people in the way they bond, love, affiliate, betray, share, sacrifice, steal, deceive, redeem, punish, appeal, and adjudicate. The struggle endemic to each person's brain, mirrored in the vast superstructure of cultural evolution, is the fountainhead of the humanities. A Shakespeare in the world of ants, untroubled by any such war between honor and treachery, and chained by the rigid commands of instinct to a tiny repertory of feeling, would be able to write only one drama of triumph and one of tragedy. Ordinary people on the other hand, can invent an endless variety of such stories, and compose an infinite symphony of ambience and mood.
...
What dynamical force lifted us to this high estate? That is a question of enormous importance for self-understanding. The apparent answer is multilevel natural selection. At the higher level of the two relevant levels of biological organization, groups compete with groups, favoring cooperative social traits among members of the same group. At the lower level, members of the same group compete with one another in a manner that leads to self-serving behavior. The opposition between the two levels of natural selection has resulted in a chimeric genotype in each person. It renders each of us part saint and part sinner.
...
...group selection is clearly the process responsible for advanced social behavior. It also possesses the two elements necessary for evolution. First, group-level traits, including cooperativeness, empathy, and patterns of networking, have been found to be heritable in humans - that is, they vary genetically in some degree from one person to the next. And second, cooperation and unity manifestly affect the survival of groups that are competing.
It is further the case that the perception of group selection as the main driving force of evolution fits well with a great deal of what is most typical - and perplexing - about human nature. It also finds resonance in the evidence from the otherwise disparate fields of social psychology, archaeology, and evolutionary biology that human beings are intensely tribalist by nature. A basic element of human nature is that people feel compelled to belong to groups and, having joined, consider them superior to competing groups.
Multilevel selection (group and individual selection combined) also explains the conflicted nature of motivations. Every normal person feels the pull of conscience, of heroism against cowardice, of truth against deception, of commitment against withdrawal. It is our fate to be tormented with large and small dilemmas as we daily wind our way through the risky, fractious world that gave us birth. We have mixed feelings. We are not sure of this or that course of action. We understand too well that no one is so wise and great that he cannot make a catastrophic mistake, or any organization so noble to be free of corruption. We, all of us, live out our lives in conflict and contention.
The Social Conquest of Earth. E.O. Wilson, p. 53-55, 72, 241-242, 247, 273-274, 289-290.
WHY ARE WE INNATELY DRIVEN TO FORM GROUPS? WHY IS A SENSE OF BELONGING SO IMPORTANT TO OUR IDENTITY AND WELL-BEING AS HUMANS?
To form groups, drawing visceral comfort and pride from familiar fellowship, and to defend the group enthusiastically against rival groups - these are among the absolute universals of human nature and hence of culture.
Once a group has been established with a defined purpose, however, its boundaries are malleable. Families are usually included at subgroups, although they are frequently split by loyalties to other groups. The same is true of allies, recruits, converts, honorary inductees, and traitors from rival groups who have crossed over. Identity and some degree of entitlement are given each member of a group. Conversely, any prestige and wealth he may acquire lends identity and power to his fellow members.
Modern groups are psychologically equivalent to the tribes of ancient history and prehistory. As such, these groups are directly descended from the bands of primitive prehumans. The instinct that binds them together is the biological product of group selection.
People must have a tribe. It gives them a name in addition to their own and social meaning in a chaotic world. It makes the environment less disorienting and dangerous. The social world of each modern human is not a single tribe, but rather a system of interlocking tribes, among which it is often difficult to find a single compass. People savor the company of like-minded friends, and they yearn to be in one of the best - a combat regiment, perhaps, an elite college, the executive committee of a company, a religious sect, a fraternity, a garden club - any collectivity that can be compared favorably with other, competing groups of the same category.
...
Experiments conducted over many years by social psychologists have revealed how swiftly and decisively people divide into groups, and then discriminate in favor of the one to which they belong. Even when the experimenters created the groups arbitrarily, then labeled them so the members could identify themselves, and even when the interactions prescribed were trivial, prejudice quickly established itself. Whether groups played for pennies or identified themselves groupishly as preferring some abstract painter to another, the participants always ranked the out-group below the in-group. They judged their "opponents" to be less likable, less fair, less trustworthy, less competent. The prejudices asserted themselves even when the subjects were told the in-groups and out-groups had been chosen arbitrarily. In one such series of trials, subjects were asked to divide piles of chips among anonymous members of the two groups, and the same response followed. Strong favoritism was consistently shown to those labeled simply as an in-group, even with no other incentive and no previous contact.
In its power and universality, the tendency to form groups and then favor in-group members has the earmarks of instinct. It could be argued that in-group bias is conditioned by early training to affiliate with family members and by encouragement to play with neighboring children. But even if such experience does play a role, it would be an example of what psychologists call prepared learning, the inborn propensity to learn something swiftly and decisively. If the propensity toward in-group bias has all three criteria, it is likely to be inherited and, if so, can be reasonably supposed to have arisen through evolution by natural selection. Other cogent examples of prepared learning in the human repertoire include, language, incest avoidance, and the acquisition of phobias.
If groupist behavior is truly an instinct expressed by inherited prepared learning, we might expect to find signs of it even in very young children. And exactly this phenomenon has been discovered by cognitive psychologists. Newborn infants are most sensitive to the first sounds they hear, to their mother's face, and to the sounds of their native language. Later they look preferentially at persons who previously spoke their native language within their hearing. Preschool children tend to select native-language speakers as friends. The preferences begin before the comprehension of the meaning of speech and are displayed even when speech with different accents is fully comprehended.
The Social Conquest of Earth. E.O. Wilson, p. 59-60.
The evidence that lies before us in great abundance points to organized religion as an expression of tribalism. Every religion teaches its adherents that they are a special fellowship and that their creation story, moral precepts, and privilege from divine power are superior to those claimed in other religions. Their charity and other acts of altruism are concentrated in their coreligionists; when extended to outsiders, it is usually to proselytize and thereby strengthen the size of the tribe and its allies. No religious leader ever urges people to consider rival religions and choose the one they find best or their person and society. The conflict among religions is often instead an accelerant, if not a direct cause, of war. Devout believers value their faith above all else and are quick to anger if it is challenged. The power of organized religions is based upon their contribution to social order and personal security, not to the search for truth. The goal of religions is submission to the will and common good of the tribe.
The illogic of religions is not a weakness in them, but their essential strength. Acceptance of the bizarre creation myths binds the members together. Among the various prominent Christian denominations, we find the belief that those who have surrendered their will to Jesus will soon ascend bodily to heaven, and those left behind will suffer for a thousand years, after which the world will end. A rival faith disagrees, but recommends communion with Christ on Earth by eating his flesh and drinking his blood - both made literal by the act of transubstantiation. For outsiders to openly doubt such dogmas is regarded as an invasion of privacy and a personal insult. For insiders to raise doubt is punishable heresy.
Such an inherently tribal instinct could, in the real world, arise in evolution only by group selection, tribe competing against tribe. The peculiar qualities of religious faith are the logical consequence of the dynamism at this higher level of biological organization.
The core of traditional organized religions are their creation myths. How, in real-world history, did they originate? Some were drawn in part from folk memories or momentous events - of emigration to new lands, of wars won or lost, or great floods and volcanic eruptions. Each was reworked and ritualized over generations. The perceived arrival of divine beings on the scene is made possible by the personal thought processes of the prophets and believers. They expect the gods to have the same emotions, reasoning, and motives as their own. In the Old Testament, for example, Yahweh was at different times loving, jealous, angry, and vengeful in the same manner as his mortal subjects.
People also project their humanness into animals, machines, places, and even fictional beings. It has been relatively easy in such transference to take the step from human rulers* to invisible divine beings. For example, God in all three of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) is a patriarch much like those in the desert kingdoms in which these religions arose.
The Social Conquest of Earth. E.O. Wilson p. 258-260
...
The benefits required submission to God, or his Son the Redeemer, or both, or to His final chosen spokesman Muhammad. This is too easy. It is necessary only to submit, to bow down, to repeat the sacred oaths. Yet let us ask frankly, to whom is such obeisance really directed? Is it to an entity that may have no meaning within reach of the human mind - or may not even exist? Yes, perhaps it really is to God. But perhaps it is to no more than a tribe united by a creation myth. If the latter, religious faith is better interpreted as an unseen trap unavoidable during the biological history of our species. And if this is correct, surely there exist ways to find spiritual fulfillment without surrender and enslavement. Humankind deserves better.
The Social Conquest of Earth. E.O. Wilson p. 267
The early humans had no knowledge of Earth beyond the reach of their territory and trading networks. They knew nothing of the sky beyond the celestial sphere on the inner surface across which traveled the sun, moon, and stars. To explain the mysteries of their existence, they believed in superior beings otherwise like themselves, the divine ones who built not just stone tools and shelters but the whole universe. As chiefdoms and then political states evolved, the people imagines that supernatural rulers must exist in addition to the Earth-bound rulers* they followed.
The Social Conquest of Earth. E.O. Wilson p. 291
(GOD THE RULER. WE JUST REDIRECTED THE POWER AND INFLUENCE ATTRIBUTED TO HIGH STATUS MEMBERS OF SOCIETY TO GOD. GOD IS THE ULTIMATE KING AND RULER OF THE WORLD. WHY? BECAUSE WE'VE ANTHROPORMORPHIZED HIM AND PROJECTED THESE HUMAN TRAITS ONTO HIM EVEN THOUGH HE DOESN'T EXIST.)
*RICK THE RULER.
UMM, I'M AN ATHEIST. THAT MEANS I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD. PLEASE DON'T SPEAK TO ME ABOUT GOD, BECAUSE GOD DOESN'T EXIST. HE ONLY EXISTS IN OUR MINDS BECAUSE HE'S A PRODUCT OF THE NEUROLOGICAL WIRING OF OUR BRAINS AND THIS NEUROLOGICAL WIRING IS A PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION JUST LIKE THE REST OF OUR BODY, INCLUDING OUR BRAIN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUCkylLAxK0
Behavioral Genetics - Robert Plomin (2003)
Excerpts From BORN THAT WAY Coming Soon.
Could it be that a supersense also results from a biological basis? Maybe culture spreads belief by feeding our bias with ideas, but that does not mean that we inevitably grow up believing. Unlike language and face expertise, which are present in almost every human, belief has much more variation. It depends on the individual as well. For example, I heard a radio interview with Peter Hitchens and his brother Christopher, who recently published his provocatively entitled criticism of religion, God Is Not Great, in the United Kingdom. Both men are intelligent, well-educated journalists. They were raised in the same family, one that taught them to be independent. However, Christopher is an atheist and Peter is a Christian. At the end of a rather surprisingly barbed argument - typical of squabbling brothers, each accused the other of changing the subject - the interviewer interjected and asked how two brothers raised in the same household could be so passionately different in their beliefs. There was a pregnant pause. This simple question had them both lost for words. Eventually Christopher answered, "This doesn't help to sell my book!"
The answer to the interviewer's question may be found in a natural experiment that allows investigators to look at the role of biology and environment. When a human egg splits into two after fertilization, the result is identical twins who mostly share the same genes. If these identical twins are fostered out to different homes, we can estimate the influence of environment and the contribution of genes to their development. It's not a perfect experiment, since most environments are very similar, but it does reveal something fascinating about the power of genes. The research findings are vast, but to sum up the conclusions drawn from identical twin studies, on many psychological measures a comparison of results indicates that it's often like testing the same person twice. Aspects of our personality that we think we have cultivated ourselves are often biologically predictable. This is also appears to be true for each twin's inclination toward religion.
Identical twins raised in separate environments share more religious beliefs and behavior compared to non-identical twins who also live apart. A study by a Minnesota team led by Thomas Bouchard found that the environment is less predictive of religiosity than genetic similarity. Another study from the same group found that once twins leave home, only the identical twins continue to share the same religious beliefs. The geneticist Dean Hamer has even identified a gene, vesicular monoamine transporter 2, or VMAT2, that is linked to the personality traits of spirituality. He found that in a survey of over two hundred people including twins, those who share religiosity also share VMAT2. This gene controls a number of the brain chemical responsible for controlling moods. Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg have even made progress toward identifying the relevant neural circuitry that is activated during religious experiences, again suggesting a brain-based account for the spiritual. So maybe our brains and our own unique mind design determine whether we believe or not. Even if Peter and Christopher Hitches have shared very similar environments and experiences, they will be pleased to know that they have different brains, which probably explains why their beliefs are so different.
It's early days yet, and it's not clear that reducing the search for belief to the gene level is going to make much sense of a rich and complex human behavior. However, this research does suggest that the explanation of how belief operates should look at the role of biology working within environments. If the findings from genetic studies hold up, this means that there is something in our genes that contributes to building a brain that is predisposed to belief. If that turns out to be the case, those on both sides of the debate about the true origins of belief are going to be really annoyed, because the suggestion would be that maybe we don't have a choice about whether we believe. In other words, there is no free will in making the decision to believe or not.
Your own individual mind design determines how predisposed to belief you are...if there is one thing that both believers and nonbelievers are uncomfortable about it is the prospect that there is a mind design when it comes to choices in life. That's because we like to think that when we make our decisions we are doing so on the basis of objective reason. We like to think that we are weighing up the evidence and making a balanced judgment. In truth, when we make decisions there are all sorts of biases operating that are independent of reason. We don't necessarily have the free will to choose...
Supersense: Why We Believe In The Unbelievable. Hood, p. 65-67
One possibility is that almost by definition, and in contrast to groups organized around secular themes (politics, age, shared hobby, etc.), religion provides more social glue, generating enhanced cohesion - which includes greater staying power for the group as a whole - simply because of its more densely structured rules and social patterning, which typically includes songs, chants, ceremonial events, prohibitions and requirements, anD so forth. If so, then this contributes to the prospect that religion may indeed prosper as a kind of viral meme, operating by virtue of its positive impact on groups themselves, rather than within the minds of individual practitioners and believers.
The origin of the word religion is uncertain, but seems most likely to involve the Latin word religare, meaning "to bind together." Perhaps it is this unifying, binding aspect of religion that explains not only its emotional appeal but also its adaptive function. Groups do better when their actions are coordinated, when individuals subordinate their immediate personal interests to the benefit of the greater community. It seems plausible, therefore, that religion developed and prospered because it bound people together, creating groups that were more coherent and thus more successful than were groups lacking religion, and which, as a result, were more "atomic," individualistic, and selfish.
Prominent among the possible group-oriented benefits of religion would have been enhanced coordination, notably when it came to the high risk, high payoff associated with coordinated violence - which is to say, warfare. After all, human beings are a very social species, whose major threats have derived - ironically - from other social units of the same species. Homo sapiens is unusual in living in social groups whose major enemies are other social groups. Usually, animals that live in large social units do so to obtain protection from predators, not from others of their own species, although there are exceptions, such as colonies of social insects (notably ants) and some nonhuman primates including chimpanzees and, on occasion, baboons and gorillas. Insofar as early hominids and even prehominids experienced violent and sometimes lethal competition with other groups, it seems likely that the better organized, more coherent groups were victorious. And when it comes to mechanisms that generate such cohesion, religion ranks high.
Anthropological accounts of primitive warfare among contending tribes are replete with examples of how tribal religions help generate and shore up enthusiasm and mutual commitment. Religious rituals, with communal dancing, singing, chanting, body decorations, and various forms of blessings on the part of shamans, priests, and other consecrated elders are intimately associated with preparing warriors for battle. In many cases, religious faith also serves to discourage defection, with threats of social ostracism in this world and often eternal damnation in the next helping to ensure compliance. The promise of afterlife rewards - of which the supposed 72 dark-eyed virgins awaiting Islamic suicide "warriors" is a notorious but not unusual example - can help motivate otherwise improbable actions that are fitness reducing for the practitioner but potentially beneficial for the warring society of which he or she is a member. Beyond this, assurances of immediate battlefield success, even in the face of seemingly long odds, can - if believed by the believer - translate into an enhaned prospect of success...or at least, reduced likelihood of catastrophic defeat, if it makes the believer more likely to fight.
It may have worked wonders for the ancient Israelites. "When thou goest out to the battle agianst thine enemies," we read in Deuteronomy 20:1, "and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more [numerous] than thou, be not afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Such promises might not be altogether adaptive, when we consider other examples, such as the assurance - surprisingly common, especially among colonial people fighting against western armies possessing guns - that their religion will render them invulnerable to bullets. But in much primitive war, when there was an enormous price to be paid by the side that turned and ran, religiously based reassurance could have been hugely helpful. Not unlike placebo: Those who believed in the cure (promise of victory) were more likely to experience it.
Other creatures engage in highly destructive warlike activities, notably ants, which, like human beIngs, occupy a pinnacle of social evolution. Unlike people, however, their coordination is achieved (at the level of proximate causation) by pheromones and, at the level of ultimate causation, by unusually close genetic relatedness among the colony members. People, lacking either of these factors, have used religion. On the other hand, there are many highly social birds and mammals that have attained remarkable levels of cooperation but without anything even approximating religion. It is one thing, however, to cooperate in building a nest or migrating to a new feeding territory, but quite another to risk your life in lethal, organized encounters; maybe human beings, lacking the instinctive social repertoire of weaverbirds, elephants, dolphins, or chimpanzees, needed something else to generate cooperation in the face of such dangerous activities.
Most Brutal Human Sacrifice Techniques Throughout History
Writing of the extraordinary military success of the Aztec (Mexica) armies prior to Cortes, a pair of anthropologists note that
The Mexicas' sacrificial cosmology gave them the competitive edge needed for such victories: fanaticism. The unending hunger of the gods for mass sacrifices also generated the tireless dynamism of Mexica armies, a persistence which allowed them to wear down some of the most obstinate of their opponents.
Peter Turchin Is Human Sacrifice Functional at the Society Level?
Answers coming soon thanks to Seshat data coding by @a_ducrayon
http://peterturchin.com/2016/04/is-human-sacrifice-functional-at-the-society-level/ …
Did human sacrifice help promote complex societies, or hold them back? @lfspinney investigates:
https://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/2016/04/07/human-sacrifice-reinforced-social-hierarchy-study-reports/
Aztec Sacrifice
Long before such highly structured empires as the Aztecs, success in war and its earlier antecedents of organized violence and intertribal raiding would have given the upperhand to early human groups that were more cohesive than their competitors - and nothing promotes such cohesion more powerfully than shared religion. Part of this cohesion presumably involved encouraging tolerance and restraint toward other group members (more on this shortly). But in-group cohesion likely posed a problem for groups, tribes, and ultimately states that sought to engage in war: Having taught that killing others within one's group is bad, how to justify the killing of others, outside the group? Religion could have pitched in here, too. Thus, objective observers agree that one of the ethical downsides of religious practice involves the frequent exhortations to kill followers of other religions (or deviationists from the accepted orthodoxy).
There are cases, at least in recent times, of religion standing athwart political power. One thinks of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States, the Catholic church in opposition to Soviet-backed authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, Buddhist peace programs around the world, and so forth. It is also true, however, that religions have contributed to means of social and political control by supporting governmental power. It is unclear which was the predominant orientation of religion in its long evolutionary infancy, but the likelihood is that religious and political leadership has long been mutually supportive, and that religious and secular power have long been hand in hand, if not one and the same. Divine commands have long been a convenient way to get people to follow orders, even though more recently, governments have discovered how to obtain loyalty without necessarily relying on such pressure.
It can certainly be argued, therefore, that religion doesn't only promote within-group cohesion, but it also generates schisms, competition, and war. This raises the question of whether religion is an aid in waging successful war or a cause of war. In many cases, however, it can at least be argued that religion isn't the fundamental, underlying basis for organized violence, which involves competition among polities or ethnic groups, squabbles between leadership elites, misunderstandings and personal animus, ambition, fear, etc., so much as it provides an organizing principle and rallying point once wars have been generated for these and other reasons. It is debatable, for example, whether the hostility between Jew and Muslim in the Middle East is literally caused by their religious differences or whether these differences serve as proxies for differences arising wHen groups contend for the same real estate. Ditto for most of the other iconic cases of "religious wars," such as between Hindu and Muslim in India/Pakistan, Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland, and so forth. There seems little doubt, in any event, that once war breaks out, groups that are more coherent and whose population is more disposed to altruistic, self-sacrificial devotion, if called for, would be more likely to prevail - and here, religion may provide the winning margin, now and in the past.
Homo Mysterius: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature. Barash, p. 239-244
This is an important matter, deserving a brief detour, both because it highlights an interesting scientific debate in general and because it goes to the heart of the hypotheses we have just been discussing for the evolution of religion. It is tempting to think that natural selection works to promote the success of groups, especially when these grouPs compete with each other. If individuals could somehow be persuaded to give up their interest in maximizing their personal reproductive success and instead agree to subordinate some of their selfishness to the overall greater good, then the groups of which they are members would do better as a result, whereupon the constituent individuals would do better, too. Shouldn't they give up a bit to get even more in return? And shouldn't such a tendency be favored not simply by ethical appeal to the human conscience, but also by the hard-wiring of natural selection?
In most cases, the answer is no.
This is because even though self-sacrifice might help groups do better in competition with other groups, it would necessarily mean that within their groups, altruists would be worse off than selfish individuals who refused to go along. Economists call it the "free-rider problem," experts in game theory talk about "defectors" or "cheaters," while for biologists, it's a matter of self-interested individuals enjoying a higher fitness than their more selfless, group-oriented colleagues. Even if groups containing altruists - whose altruism might incline them to share food, sacrifice themselves in defense of others, and so on - are better off than groups lacking altruists, the problem is that those altruistic food sharers and other-defenders would be trumped by free-riders, defectors, and cheaters who selfishly looked out for number one.
Mathematical models have demonstrated that whereas altruism could, in theory, evolve via group selection, the constraints are very demanding. Among other things, the difference in reproductive success between altruists and selfish cheaters would have to be quite low, whereas the disparity between groups containing altruists and those lacking them would have to be very high - and in actuality, the opposite is typically true. It makes a big difference whether you are a self-sacrificing, group-oriented altruist or a selfish, look-out-for-number-one SOB. Moreover, although the differences between successful and less successful individuals is likely to be very great, disparities in the reproductive rates of groups are likely to be much more sluggish. Not surprisingly, no clear examples of group selection among nonhuman animals have been identified.
On the other hand, things just might be different when it comes to Homo sapiens. Compared to other creatures, our own species is extraordinary in the degree to which we stick our noses into each other's business: snooping; gossiping; wondering who is doing what and when; who is toeing the line and who is shirking; who said what to whom; who attended church, synagogue, mosque, or the ritual fire dance and who stayed home; who sacrificed a goat and who held back; who engaged in the expected observances and who deviated from the rules.
Of course, every species is unique. That's how we are able to identify each as a distinct species! Human beings aren't unique when it comes to enforcing social cooperation via punishment of noncooperators. Thus, dominant meerkat females attack and may even kill subordinates who attempt to breed; among the brilliantly colored superb fairy wrens of Australia, males punish "helpers" who flag in their helping; honeybee workers destroy eggs laid by other workers (by doing so, they police their siblings who would produce offspring to which they are less closely related than they are to the queen's direct offspring); cleaner fish that nip the fins or gills of those they are supposed to be cleaning are punished by their client; and something equivalent even occurs among plants: Soy beans cut off the flow of nutrients to root nodule bacteria that fail to supply the host plant with the nitrogen-based protein normally associated with such microorganisms.
Nonetheless, human beings are still unusual in the degree to which they are able to enforce their sociocultural traditions. Far more than other animals, among which cooperation typically occurs at a limited one-to-one scale, people have long been obliged to partake in distinctly group-oriented and group-sustaining behaviors as a result of which selection might have been able to operate at the level of such groups, free of the self-directed undermining that would occur if individuals were permitted to opt out.
If so, then the various group-oriented benefits suggested for religion just might have been selected for after all. Certainly, religion is among the more prominent behaviors that are enforced at the group level. Those who deviate from its rules, obligations, and precepts - the heretics, apostates, and plain old-fashioned shirkers - have long been punished, often severely. According to Verse 9:74 of the Qu'aran, Allah will allot to apostates grievous penalty both "in this life and in the Hereafter," and indeed, defecting from Islam (apostasy) is a capital crime in many Muslim countries.
Nor is Islam unusual in coming down hard on any who deviate from religion's expectations - which of course is precisely what we would expect if religion (whatever its benefits to the group) is enforced via social sanctions powerful enough to generate group-level selection on its behalf. Ostracism, for instance, is enforced by nearly every religion, as punishment for leaving the fold. Renouncing the Mormon faith results in complete isolation from friends and family, a devastating experience even now in the 21st century, and something that must have been yet more severe for early human beings who were, if anything, more isolated and dependent on their immediate social network.
There is direct biblical support for ridiculing and isolating non-believers...and for much more. Psalm 14, for example, begins, "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable works, there is none that doeth good." In Numbers 15:32-36, we are given an account of someone discovered picking up sticks on the Sabbath, whereupon Moses, after consulting with God, commanded that the guilty party should be stoned to death.
Skipping church on Sunday was a crime in Shakespearean England, punishable by a fine of 20 pounds sterling (approximately 1 year's salary), while frequent offenders risked being hanged, drawn and quartered. And a country that prides itself in promoting freedom of religion was notably reluctant to institute freedom from it. Thus, in the late 18th century, many states and local jurisdictions in the United States passed blasphemy laws that carried severe punishments for religious dissenters. First offenders could have a hole bored in their tongue, while repeat offenders risked execution. And even today, anyone aspiring to high political office is well advised to keep his or her atheism under wraps.
In short, a strong case can be made that religions conform to many - perhaps all - of the requirements for group selection. David Sloan Wilson is a biologist who has long championed the general theory of group selection, and although his perspective (some might say his fervent ideology) has not been embraced by most evolutionists, there is growing, grudging acknowledgement that group selection might have been significant in human evolution in general, and in the evolution and maintenance of religion in particular. To summarize the argument: Group selection might have been important in human evolution, in part because of the strong sociocultural pressure for sticking to social norms - which in turn would have worked against the tendency to be a selfish nonaltruist (read: nonfollower of the group's religion).
In addition, there could well have been substantial competition among early proto-human groups, manifested via primitive warfare. Under such conditions, more organized and cohesive groups could well have been more successful, while at the same time, individuals within such groups who were resistant to cohesive norms - such as religion - would have had a difficult time prospering or even, perhaps, surviving.
The objective truth of falsity of religious claims may thus be less important than the impact they have - whether they induce their followers to do things that are, on balance, in their interest. "Clearly," writes Wilson,
I need to accurately perceive the location of a rabbit to hit it with my throwing stick. However, there are many, many other situations in which it can be adaptive to distort reality...Even massively fictitious beliefs can be adaptive, as long as they motivate behaviors that are adaptive in the real world.Such as cooperating.
For Wilson, "Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve alone." He suggests, accordingly, that there has been group selection for religions, with various form coming into existence, competing with each other, some replicating themselves more successfully than others and some going extinct, not unlike what happens among individuals and genes. Science writer Nicholas Wade is similarly persuaded, pointing out that religion "can unite people who may share nether common kinship, nor ethnicity nor even language." If religion evolved in the context of group selection, the drama must have played out over tens of thousands of years (or more), among groups of pretechnological, early human beings living in small social units, within which individuals likely knew each other very well, and who would certainly have shared kinship, ethnicity, and language.
Wade's argument suggests not only that religion initially evolved in the context of group selection but also that it continues to offer survival benefits even in a world of huge nation-states: "When nations feel their existence is at stake, they often define their cause by religion, whether in Europe's long wars with Islam, or Elizabethan England's defiance of Catholic Spain, or the Puritans' emigration to New England, or the foundation of Israel." Overlooked here is that these and so many other conflicts, in which religion supposedly provides a protective function, would not arise if the various religions in question weren't being practiced. Thus, much of the Israeli-Arab conflict is generated by the fact that overwhelmingly, Israelis are Jewish and Arabs are Muslim. Can we say that religion unified and thus protected the Puritans against persecution in Europe - given that if they weren't self-identified as Puritans, they wouldn't have been persecuted in the first place?
Maybe we can, since once the labels Puritan, Anglican, Jew, or Muslim have been affixed, they might indeed help rally the troops and induce them to remain committed to the larger social unit. Although "mega-group selection" (as with nation-states) doesn't answer the fundamental question of how religion could have been adaptive in the first place, there seems little doubt that it could contribute to the success of groups already designated as consisting of one religious affiliation or another. Moreover, as we have seen, group selection in its more intimate and biologically relevant context could well have been instrumental in the initial evolution of religion.
Group selection remains controversial among evolutionary biologists. It has been invoked, in the past, when attempting to account for seemingly altruistic behaviors, actions that impose a cost on individual participants, while possibly conveying a compensating benefit to the larger group. When it comes to the evolution of religion, group selection also appears an attractive explanation, and for the same reason. (In the extreme case, after all, people literally sacrifice themselves for their religion.) This, in turn, leads to yet another debate, one that is even more fraught than that over group selection itself, and which goes beyond technical disputes among biologists: the extent to which religion equals morality. After all, altruism is often considered a cornerstone of morality, and many people consider that religion is a prerequisite for moral behavior more generally.
This book is not the right venue to examine this dispute. Suffice it to note there is no evidence that religious people are any more moral or law abiding than are agnostics or atheists. On the other hand, it is probably significant that every major religion takes some responsibility for teaching morality. Of these pedagogic efforts, the Ten Commandments are best known to Westerners, but certainly not unique. Note, however, that in most tribal societies, moral precepts do not come from religion; more often, they derive independently from interpersonal patterns and social expectations. But even in such cases, religion may yet be ethically consequential when it comes to the important function of achieving peace among strangers from within the same society, a need that arises when populations become so large that people encounter same-society members who were not previously known. Under such circumstances in the nonbiological "evolution" of societies, religions probably contributed adaptively by proclaiming that killing a fellow tribe member, for example, is offensive to the gods or God.
But isn't this unnecessary, since we have laws that mandate what we should and shouldn't do?
Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature. Barash, p. 253-259.
http://io9.com/5950256/evolutionary-anthropology-to-ayn-rand-you-fail
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/the-good-fight/
