X-Message-Number: 4579
Date: 30 Jun 95 15:04:05 EDT
From: Jim Davidson <>
Subject: Religious memes

Mike Darwin writes:

"I asume from the first sentence (taken in the context of second paragraph which

follows it)  of this post that it was meant to be facetious :)!  I (Mike Darwin)
didn't even make it through my second year of college!  With the academic CV
above you'd have to be a Christian Fundamentalist or "very pretty and very
spreadable" to have amassed such credentials and NOT know a lot about
evolution."

Since we've established that I know something about evolutionary biology, a
discussion of my religion, appearance, or spreadability is not in order.  The
first paragraph of my last post was meant facetiously, with some hope of
lightening up an otherwise dreary week of Cryonet postings.

There is a test of education of which I am fond which can be stated quite
simply: Is this person educated enough to realize that formal education is not
the only way to acquire useful knowledge?  It is a great weakness of American
society that the formally educated often discriminate against the talented and
knowlegeable but non-degreed.  So while I was being facetious, I *do* consider
it an honor to be complimented by someone who is widely recognized in our
community as talented and knowledgeable about matters biological.

Mike continues, "The question I asked Dawkins after his talk was in effect,
"well if these lies
are so damaging, how come they not only exist, but predominate, are present in

all human cultures and in fact no human civilization exists without them?"  Here
I was speaking of religion, which Dawkins pretty directly indirectly attacked
repeatedly during his presentation (and is what  is clearly what's driving the
Creationists).
 
"Did it ever occur to the Master Evolutionist that there might be a very good
EVOLUTIONARY reason why everybody wants to believe in this crap?

"BTW the talk was very good and Dawkins is a gifted speaker as well as a
brilliant scholar.

"Anyone want to know his answer?
"Anyone want to know mine?
"Anyone got some of their own that Dawkins and I haven't thought of?"


One of the best theories I have heard about why people believe in the tenets of
organized religion and large government and other irrationalities was expressed
by Randy Dumse.  In his "Return Theory" he discusses the emotional, spiritual,
and physical satisfaction of returning to the conditions of childhood.

Dumse points out that biology provides many examples of such behavior.  Salmon

return from hundreds and even thousands of miles after years of swimming at sea.
They return to the stream of their childhood and spawn there, and only there.
Migratory birds return to the same nesting grounds every year.  Sea turtles
return to the same beach from which they were hatched to lay their eggs.  What
drives this biological urge to return to the exact location of childhood?

Seems quite simple:  any creature which survives long enough to reproduce must
have had many advantages.  If one of those advantages was being born in the
right place, then it can only confer that advantage on its offspring by
returning to that place.  A built-in instinct for returning home may have
evolved because, despite the Copernican Principle, there are special places in
the universe.


With a built-in biological urge to return to the conditions of childhood, how do
humans respond?  We often create conditions as similar as possible.  Many of us
return to our home towns to raise our kids.  Some never leave those environs.
Others re-create those conditions as best they can, which must do a great deal
to explain the continuing success of hand-built houses when factory fabrication
offers such economies.

But there are many aspects of childhood, especially early childhood, which are
difficult to reach.  If we are to return to our nascent state, we must find
ourselves in the situation of an infant:  a mother to care for us, a father to

guide us, a breast to feed us.  All of our wants and needs cared for, all of our
errors swiftly punished, all of our good deeds rewarded, a path clearly defined

for our actions, decisions made on our behalf "for our own good," and every good
idea carefully presented to us with repetition.


If the biological urge is very strong, it can overcome all rational thought, all
intelligence.  The evidence for Dumse's Return Theory is all around.

We find breasts in architecture:  Domes are immensely popular and widely
considered beautiful.  Why was Christopher Wren such a heralded architect?  The

huge dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London was his idea.  Why is the Capitol in
Washington, DC so widely recognized as a symbol of good government?  Its
prominent dome feature plays a central role.  Where else do we find humans

creating large, reassuring round objects?  Balloons are a favorite with children
and adults, not entirely because they float.  Lightbulbs that produce a
reassuring warm light have that telltale shape.  Don't take my word for it (nor
Randy's), look around.  Is feeling a cantaloupe in the grocery store really the
best way to determine its freshness?  No, thumping it to hear its sound and
touching its stem is better, but there is a whole lot of cantaloupe groping
going on.  How do we account for the immense popularity of Playboy magazine in
the 1950s?  It revealed what everyone had seen before.  Why are sports such as
basketball and soccer so popular?  Those bouncing breasts, er balls, have much
to do with it.  I'm sure you can come up with dozens of examples on your own.


What about the very large figures which dominate our infancy?  Mother and father
are hard to get back.  As we grow older we find them fallible, infuriating, and
even infantile.  But the image is strong:  A large human shape that takes care
of us, guides us, teaches us, punishes our wrongs, rewards our good deeds...no
wonder we find belief in gods so widespread.  St. Paul speaks of the mother
church.  The Christian church speaks of "Our father who art in heaven..."  and
"Holy Mary mother of God."  And what do these institutions and beings do?  They

take care of us, teach us, guide us, punish us and forgive us when we are wrong,
reward us when we are right.  It is into their embrace that Christians seek to
go when they die their final death.

Similarly, being taken care of by government is a dominant theme in human
history.  A king to guide, judge, punish and reward.  Later a more shapeless,

indefinite entity, shaped as a bureaucracy, to care for the poor and needy, heal
the hurting, feed the hungry, house the unsheltered, police the streets, punish
the guilty, reward the virtuous, educate the masses.  Always look at the
mythology:  the Fatherland of Germany, "Mother Russia," even "Uncle Sam."  The
images are of adults of great power and wisdom, caring for their children, the
wards of the state.

Of course these ideas are irrational.  The idea of a socialistic, all-caring
state implemented by self-interested and often corrupt individuals is
nonsensical.  So is the idea of an anthropomorphic being of astronomical heft.
But to say they are irrational is not to dismiss them, not to me.


Humans are capable of great rationality and of great irrationality.  Many of our
favorite things are, at best, arational.  We seek "happiness" and "contentment"
which are emotional states.  Is there a rational path to happiness?  That would
be like finding a royal road to mathematics.  Even our most intellectually

oriented scholars seek "beauty" in nature while there is not an opthamologist on
the planet who can actually find it in the eye of the beholder.

Our emotional component is an essential part of our humanity.  It seems most

closely related to our biology.  And while many of the constructs of emotion and
biology defy rational analysis, they don't defy evolution, for they provide
survival value.

We are creatures that organize in packs.  So we enjoy pack behaviors:  bonding
with beer and television, obedience to pack leaders, sporting events which are
nothing more than pack dominance games.  We can learn the value of the
individual, we can recognize intellectually that the second-place team in the
NBA is an incredibly excellent team, but it is hard for us to see that
emotionally.  Thus, the Rockets are Red, the Magic are "blue"...


There is great potential in human intellect.  It seems that particular potential
is far greater than the potential of any other aspect of our species.  So we

extol its virtue.  And thus we have over the centuries been able to increasingly
recognize talented individuals for their skills without attributing all their
greatness to the aid of gods.  Today, we even recognize individual achievement
in selected athletic events.


>From time to time, our politicians recognize the rational nature of achievement
and make statements, such as that by John Quincy Adams in noting that the power
of a group is only a product of the powers of the individuals in the group, and

that the nation in which the individual is most free will have the most power in
proportion to its population.  But such rational statements are still
intermittent, and have long since ceased to be a theme in America.  The urge to
return to the conditions of childhood is so strong, that even the most
liberty-minded will agree that governments should provide certain things.


Being an adult means taking responsibility for your own actions.  That is a very
great burden.  So we have created institutions which take many burdens from us.
You are individually responsible for your actions, but there is a church to
reassure you that you are doing right.  You are personally responsible for the
education of your children, but the state is there to take care of it for you.
You must make your own choices about fitness, diet, and medication, but there

are government agencies to promote fitness, ensure the quality of packaged foods
sold, and limit your access to medicine "for your own good."  You must provide
for your own financial success, but there is a church for charity and a state
for social welfare, so you will feel taken care of even if you can't work out

how to put groceries on the table.  All these things help create conditions that
are familiar to infants.

Perhaps that explains why cryonics is not wildly popular yet.  A cryonicist
accepts personal responsibility for his life and death.  He establishes
conditions to prolong his life, refusing to rely on the myth of an after-life.

Rather than seeking to "go to heaven" and finding there the eternal happiness of
the infant with all wants and needs provided for and all suffering eliminated,
we want to go on living. We seek in a rational, intellectual way, to conquer

death.  Death has always been for all creatures the one thing that reduces us to
infants, levels all social classes, terrorizes our every move.

Most people revert to childhood, "return" to the state of infancy, when faced
with death.  They seek explanation in the arms of the church, redemption in the
eyes of God, eternal happiness for the virtue of their behavior.  For their
heirs, they seek the care and understanding of charitable entities and of the
state.  Perhaps because of the emotions that surround death, little attention
has been paid, even by libertarians, of the incredibly vindictive inheritance
taxes in the US.  Is it rational to seize 65% and more of a person's wealth
because they become clinically dead?  No.  But it meshes nicely with return
theory.  The individual wealth returns to the state, which takes care of the
survivors and may even manage the public cemetery.

In response to Mike's final questions, yes, I am very interested in Dawkins's

thoughts and Mike's thoughts on the subject.  For comparison purposes, I am much
more interested in such issues than in who screwed up what in which cryonics

society.  A discussion of why we do what we do and why others do that which they
do is far more likely to lead to a revelation about how to make cryonics work
financially and publicly than a discussion of the internal and intramural
politics of cryonics groups.

However, I'm aware that much of what we do is irrational.  So let me plea that

in our irrational discussions, we add that chemical of courtesy and the almighty

shroud of respect.  For if anyone is to respect us for the stand we take against
death, let us be clear that we must respect each person who shares that common
stand.

Jim


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