The life-long tormenting question: What could possibly give religion the grip on humankind that it has?

For the last decade I’ve been trying to put a similar fictional journey into a novel. I’ve researched maybe 25 to 30 books touching on the subject: Evolving God, the Evolution of God, Religion Explained, Breaking the Spell, In Gods We Trust and a couple of dozen more relevant books.

Yet none of those books really captures the source of religion. They are all ancillary factors, but with no core cause among them that’s of a sufficient magnitude to explain religion as the phenomenon we see.

As all other explanations fell short, including most of those above, they all paid lip service to the evolution of various and sundry aspects that might be behavioral components shared with other human behaviors, e.g., If love intoxicates us with dopamine, perhaps, religion intoxicates us similarly in a peak spiritual experience–mystical/epiphany. This love buzz could have been co-opted by some newer genes-of-the-neural-net complex and put to use serving the rapturous born again feeling.

You have delivered to me, Mr. Wade, as great an insight (though, yes, I was converging on a spot somewhere in the territory) as Darwin did.

I’m going to that Daniel Dennett/Scientific Study of Religion conference in December. I suppose I’ll be frustrated to hear weak reasons why none of them think religion (religiosity/spiritual drive) was an evolutionary adaptation.

It’s like they’re not paying attention. Every human culture has religion, no exception. A counter argument: Europe is becoming secular. Agreed, religions have life cycles–the waning of any particular religion can and will happen. The drive, the felt need, is going to go on in spite of the death of a religion. New modes of being spiritual will rise. (Can you hear them saying, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.”?

Tenacity. Believers aren’t just hoping for wish fulfillment. They’re highly invested. As mentioned in a post, above, there are many believers who will kill or be killed for their religion.

There are a lot more reasons that show why religion is an evolutionary adaptation and they’re going into my book. For more evidence, though, one only has to look around. The hints are everywhere in the culture that show the strength, stamina, and tenacity of religion. Sacred writings that say “Kill the infidel.” Preachers pinpointing the day of destruction. Those directly inspired: “I saw God by______ (fasting, eating peyote buttons, repetitious rhythmic dancing for hours).”

No other theory/hypothesis has the explanatory power that the Faith Instinct brings to bear.
Of the few people I’ve discussed it with (remember, I’m in Ohio where every third person is an evangelical Christian) I’m getting blank stares.
I haven’t met any “neutral” people who are aware of it. Probably most believers aren’t going to warm up to it; I can’t say for sure. It seems like the atheists don’t want to admit religion might have ever been good for humankind. For me, the truth will eventually have to be faced. At least in science, that eventually happens. There are a few rock star scientists that have an agenda. Looks like you need to “teach the controversy.” I was at the American Atheist Alliance/Texas Freethought Convention in early October. From what I could tell, most were open to it there.

Mr. Wade, you probably didn’t need an editor; I do. Can you recommend one? A nonbeliever would be more comfortable with my work.

secularholyman

You raise a profound question: do we come wired for religion?

29 years of age, at the height of his creative powers, Darwin wrestled mightily with this problem. The received scientific wisdom of his day insisted that the Deity had inscribed a moral sense in all of us, separating us from the lower animals. If true, this would introduce an ontologic discontinuity in the evolution of man, smashing to smithereens Darwin’s theory.

From a lifetime of listening to folks as a country doc, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, the evidence suggests the Moral Sense comes innate, probably evolved over the last million years as a consequence of group life, whereas the religious experience is a latter-day version of the care we require as infants. The Moral Sense is the chief contaminant of the religious experience, pitting the group against the individual.

Frederick Kurth, M.D.

You raise a profound question: do we come wired for religion?

29 years of age, at the height of his creative powers, Darwin wrestled mightily with this problem. The received scientific wisdom of his day insisted thatDear Dr. Wade,the Deity had inscribed a moral sense in all of us, separating us from the lower animals. If true, this would introduce an ontologic discontinuity in the evolution of man, smashing to smithereens Darwin’s theory.

From a lifetime of listening to folks as a country doc, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, the evidence suggests the Moral Sense comes innate, probably evolved over the last million years as a consequence of group life, whereas the religious experience is a latter-day version of the care we require as infants. The Moral Sense is the chief contaminant of the religious experience, pitting the group against the individual.

Frederick Kurth, M.D.

You raise a profound question: do we come wired for religion?

29 years of age, at the height of his creative powers, Darwin wrestled mightily with this problem. The received scientific wisdom of his day insisted that