Born to believe
New Scientist has an article (via A&L Daily) that discusses evolutionary theories for the existence of religion and the particular fervor engendered in times of crisis. The central supported argument is that we naturally make a dualist distinction between animate and inanimate objects, supposedly ascribing intentionality to the former but not the latter. This dualism supposedly allows us to conceptualize the actions of absent entities, culminating in a concept of god or gods.
The article is full of contradictions, however, which probably reflect uncertainty within the discipline more than poor logical construction. Still, here are two major ones. The first, in contrast to the idea that children naturally distinguish animate and inanimate objects and ascribe intentionality to the former, is an example used to demonstrate how the idea of god could emerge that involves examples of children ascribing intentionality to mountains and the sun. This would imply that we naturally ascribe intentionality to all objects around us. In fact, this is the suggestion that Freud makes in Totem and Taboo.
The second is more troublesome, stumbling on the presumption of objectivity discussed by Lukacs in the previous post. First, the natural inclination to attribute intentionality to objects in the world around us is evidenced by the explanations children provide for natural phenomenon.
Again, experiments on young children reveal this default state of the mind. Children as young as three readily attribute design and purpose to inanimate objects. When Deborah Kelemen of the University of Arizona in Tucson asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist “to make nice music”, while rivers exist so boats have something to float on.
Then, two paragraphs later, the persistence of this kind of belief in adults is explained:
Our predisposition to believe in a supernatural world stays with us as we get older. Kelemen has found that adults are just as inclined to see design and intention where there is none. Put under pressure to explain natural phenomena, adults often fall back on teleological arguments, such as “trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe” or “the sun is hot because warmth nurtures life”.
How adamantly must one want to find scientific justification for one’s religious beliefs to overlook the high probability that adults, when “[p]ut under pressure to explain natural phenomena” by their children, give explanations that their children repeat? This sociocultural perpetuation of a set of beliefs about the world do not represent an irreversible, natural, evolutionary state of being. It simply illustrates that we are the center of a universe of our own making.
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