Whence Religion?

      An interesting review in this week's New Yorker: H. Allen Orr discusses Daniel Dennett's new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon."   Orr tells us that Dennett is trying to construct a "science of religion," to analyze dispassionately - faithlessly we might say - how it is that religious ideas have exercised such a powerful hold on the human imagination for just about ever.  After reviewing a number of different theories of the origins and appeal of religion, Dennett adds a new one of his own, drawn from notions of evolution.  He argues that certain processes of natural selection can help explain the why and how of religion over the millennia.

    I am going here only on Orr's review, and a less salutary one by Leon Wieseltier in the New York Times, but I find myself mildly repulsed.  It just seems like a stretch to me, reaching for natural selection to explain religion.  It reminds me of economists, some of whom are determined to show that their theories can explain everything.  Perhaps we should just leave evolution to the biologists.  And I think I can see a more parsimonious explanation for the origins of religion, one that does not rely upon theories from other fields.

    Fear of a lonely and meaningless death.

    In the past few days, many, many people have offered their condolences to me on the occasion of Aidan's death.  People have used many different expressions in their generous extensions of comfort and care.  But a very common understanding, especially for Christians, goes something like this: he is with God and Jesus now and, thus, he is better off, whole and free and at peace.  This is a powerful idea.  His death is not an end, but a beginning; not a sad thing, but a "victory."   For those left behind, it is a notion that can ameliorate the pain; it offers a positive and constructive focal point, from which the daily tasks of finding a new life's routine without him can proceed.

    And that, to my mind, is the origin of religion.  Virtually every religion, and some systems of thought that may not be formally considered religions (like Confucianism and philosophical Taoism) but that offer ethical guidance, have a comforting story for either the after-life of the person who has died, or the life-after for the survivors of one who has died.  The Christian notion of heaven encompasses both the decedent and the survivors: the person who has died is promised eternal life, and this comforts the ones who mourn.

    I would bet that, since human beings have been confronted with the deaths of their loved ones, they have turned to such ideas for comfort and systematized them into religions for continuing meaning and solace.

    Confucianism and Taoism both do this as well.

    Confucius was famously silent on what heaven might be, and he did not talk about an after-life.  But everything about his ethics serves to provide comfort for those who have suffered the loss of a close relative or friend.  The purpose of maintaining the proper burial and mourning rituals, which are centrally important in Confucius's writing, is to maintain the integrity of the family.  When children carry out the correct rituals for their parents they not only are continuing the family unit, but they will find a certain comfort in doing so.  In doing the right thing, they are creating and reproducing the meaning of life in the face of death.  And for parents, or those who know they are going to die, perhaps the understanding that their children or survivors will carry on provides some sense of completeness and solace.   Confucianism may not be a formal religion (I think it is not) but it does provide a means for coming to terms with death.

    Philosophical Taoism, too, has its way of dealing with death.  Not everyone may find if sufficiently comforting (I do), but it does have a religious-like purpose in this regard.  For philosophical Taoists, the meaningfulness of death is to be found in its meaninglessness.  That is, the death of one individual is no more and no less than the death of any other individual.  Just as in life all things move as "one and the same," so, too, in death.  In this, then, we are all one.  We are all part of the totality of Way.  We each have our place not only in life but also in death.  Each death is simultaneously unique and the same.  Each person, each thing, moves through his or her own particular life's Way, but each Way ends and is absorbed into the vastness of all Way.  In sameness is uniqueness, and in uniqueness sameness. 

    Again, I know not everyone will find comfort in such Taoist ideas.  My main point here is to suggest that philosophical Taoism, like religions in general (even though in its "philosophical" guise, Taoism is best not considered a religion), speaks to, and provides solace for, the fear of a lonely and meaningless death.

    And there is really no need for an invocation of natural selection in any of this.

Comments

[Little Dragon]

Reading your post reminded me of an article on The Guardian website written by Madeleine Bunting which refers to both Richard Dawkins and the work of Daniel Dennett. The title for the article was "Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins", the web link can be found here.

The author discusses why the work of both Dawkins and Dennett might work to the advantage of the 'intelligent' design apologists (and I do use the word 'intelligent' advisedly).

Personally, I find Dawkins' work a little aggressive although there are a number of points that he makes that I am in agreement with. Dennett's work is very interesting and I can certainly recommend his books to all.