De Novo

For some interpreters, such as philosopher Daniel Dennett and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, science reveals religious beliefs to be malignant memes gnawing their way through believers’ brains, diseases needing to be cured. Yet for many of the researchers closest to this work, the recognition that religion has biological roots only makes it harder to talk about severing it from ourselves.

This must have come as a disappointment to comedian and Real Time host Bill Maher, who traveled the world making fun of religious people for his documentary Religulous. Standing at the prophesied site of Armageddon — 

Meggido, Israel — 

Maher indicts religion as a “neurological disorder” that causes the afflicted to wish for apocalyptic death.

Maher interviewed Dean Hamer and Andrew Newberg, two scientists who study the biology of religion, to back up his anti-religious polemic; neither says much of substance in the film. Hamer, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, is the author of The God Gene, which posits that human beings are genetically predisposed for “self-transcendence,” the feeling that there is something beyond ordinary experience. In other words, we’re hard-wired to believe in a higher power. In his research, Hamer noticed a correlation between personality survey data and different alleles of the gene VMAT2, which codes for an emotion-regulating brain chemical. In the course of human evolution, he suspects, this gene helped foster “an innate sense of optimism” that had adaptive benefits.

Since the NIH doesn’t sanction Hamer’s religion research, Maher interviewed Hamer at a lab at American University. During the interview, “[Maher] really kept on pushing me to say that science proves religion is wrong,” Hamer recalls. “And I kept on trying to push back and say, ‘Science proves that people have an innate desire for religion.’”

from Seed Magazine, via 3qd.

My takeaway from seeing Religulous was that Maher was, on the whole, more even-handed than someone like Dawkins has been in his documentaries; he was able to treat people with whom he disagreed with a modicum of human respect, even as he made fun of their beliefs.  But the film was light on science and research from experts in fields like neuroscience and psychology, and heavy on unfounded opinion.

Likewise, Dawkins, in his recent crusade against Harry Potter, is cited saying: “I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s something for research.”  But Dr. Dawkins, there is already plenty of research.  Reams of it.  It just doesn’t say what you wish it did.

There seems to be a pattern emerging: secular fundamentalists like Maher and Dawkins seek to use the cover of science to advance their foregone conclusions, rather than looking objectively at what the evidence presents; there’s a deadly certainty here that is the actual culprit of radical fundamentalism.  In Dawkins’ words: “Always look at the evidence.”

If you vote for Obama, bad things will happen to the Jews.

 We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.

– John Muir

A recent TED talk by mycologist Paul Stamets on the importance of allying with fungal life to propel human interests; you can watch the video here.  He addresses “mycophobia”, fear of fungi, which manifests itself as dismissal of or mistrust of fungal agents, notably “magic mushrooms”; his talk, however, focuses not on psychedelics but rather on the importance of mushrooms in processing hostile environments (sterile rock beds, fields contaminated by oil waste, etc.) in preparation for life.  I’m lucky to live in the PNW; a quick jaunt into the woods underscores just how fundamental mycelia are to life.  (Via 3quarksdaily.)

Two items from the last week:

This photo depicts the Mars Phoenix lander in descent, as shot by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.  Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing says: “How badass awesome is it to be a human? Super badass awesome.”

This is a view of a group of “uncontacted” indigenous people in the Amazon, who were photographed last week from a plane flown by Survival International, a group that advocates for indigenous rights.

While I sit and type on my Macbook Pro, others of my culture are busy sending machines to investigate another planet.  And here on our own planet, we investigate each other: Westerners, using advanced technology, to look at other human beings who have a radically different (but no less “human”) experience of the universe.

Amazingly, this is also the dawn of the first time in Western history when we might be able to actually begin to treat these folks with some respect and dignity – by leaving them alone and preserving the ecosystem upon which their lifestyle depends.  Where previously Europeans might have invaded with hostility and taken their land by force, or, more recently, killed them with kindness in a misguided attempt to “rehabilitate” or “assimilate” the “natives” into a “modern” lifestyle, we are beginning to have enough understanding to be humble about our relationship toward others with an autonomous, self-sufficient way of living.

At Sentient Developments, George Dvorsky ponders the ethics of leaving them in the wild, untouched by the wonders of Western civilization.  He raises the following “ethical issues”:

What if some of these people need medical help and medicine?

Is it ethical for us to not let them know about the greater world around them?

How could we ever have consent for contact and/or cultural uplift? Should it be assumed? Why? Why not?

Are we sufficiently justified in keeping this tribe in a zoo-like scenario?

If eventual contact is unavoidable, why wait until then? Would contact with the modern world ever be ‘on their terms?’

How would we feel if we discovered that we were being observed and purposefully held-back by a more advanced civilization?

Is this the kind of cultural diversity that we want to preserve? If so, why? To what end? Does cultural diversity benefit the lost tribe?

What does it mean to say that we risk their “extinction?” Is it accurate to equate the extinction of a culture with that of a species? What are the consequences of a lost cultural mode for a) those who used to participate in it and b) for those who will never be a part of it? What are the consequences relative to the benefits of adopting a new culture?

First of all, let’s dispense with the notion that by leaving them alone, we’re somehow confining them to a zoo.

This is the wild world, you know, the world that predates our civilization and will outlive it.  It couldn’t be more different from a zoo. Animals in zoos are transported from their natural environment into an extremely confined cage, where they are fed processed food and monitored round the clock. If anyone’s in a zoo, it’s us out here in the “modern” world.

Secondly, it’s telling that Dvorsky’s first impulse is to assume there are people needing medical help and medicine among them.  Probably so, but tell that to the millions of impoverished third-world people deprived of access to traditional medicines AND modern medicine.  The warriors in the photographs look plenty strong and healthy.  Any group of people that can survive in the jungle – surrounded by insects, snakes, wild cats, poisons and dangers of all kinds – is going to have ways of coping with them.

The rest of the questions are amazingly condescending in their premises, assuming that “we” in the civilized world have knowledge to share with them, and that this knowledge only goes one way: that their understanding of the world is necessarily incomplete or naive.  How would we know that?  Presumably, they’ve developed a mythological/religious framework that is well-suited to their environment.  We’re not “holding them back.”  They’re doing what they want on their own terms.

Consider for a moment the possibility that human knowledge exists outside the published canon, and that there are paths to spiritual fulfillment that are outside of the realms of typical Western experience. We’re looking at a tribe which doubtless has a complex system of myths and rituals, replete with oral history, magic, storytelling, probably music and dancing, and (since the evidently have paint) possibly also art. Self-fulfillment is not contingent on a Western lifestyle. In fact, one could argue that the comforts of a Western lifestyle are an obstacle to be overcome.  An intimate familiarity with the bounties and dangers of one’s own environment and an understanding of one’s place within it is a treasure we often just don’t have in cities.

There’s nothing that Westerners can do to “help” these people. They’ve been doing quite well for millennia, and their culture – which includes amazingly advanced technologies for survival wholly incompatible with a Western worldview – would be utterly shattered by any contact with Westerners.

No, we have nothing to offer them. Nothing. Before extolling the benefits of Westernization, let’s see if we can’t clean up its record first by making life better for the millions of impoverished people already living under the grip of industrial society in slums around the world. Then – MAYBE – we can talk. Until then, Godspeed, indigenous people. May this be the last anyone in the West ever sees of you.

UPDATE:

Check out Werner Herzog’s heartbreaking documentary on a well-meaning first encounter gone horribly wrong:

Part one

Part two

Part three

On the corner of 6th & Pine in downtown Seattle stands an aging Cuban refugee named Pedro (or perhaps Juan).  (Follow those links for more detail.  I’ll be right here waiting for your return.)  An apparent schizophrenic, Pedro has created his identity around condemning the Seattle Police and “everybody in Seattle” for being “communist” and signing a petition (unanimously signed! by everybody in Seattle!) to evict him from his old home in the Frye Apartments.  He’s evidently no longer homeless; he neither asks for nor accepts donations of food or money; and he’s not interested in speaking one-on-one to individuals to sell his mission.  He’s not looking to make converts.  He’s looking to vanquish.

Two or three times a week, my morning bus gets stopped at the stoplight where Pedro stands, 8 to 5 every day, brandishing a wooden sign covered in masking tape and painted with a pseudoreligious rant, in pidgin English:

Pedro with an older version of his sign

A more recent picture of Pedro, sign not yet embellished

In his hand, he carries a scepter fashioned of numerous stickers and model paint with a miniature plastic figure of the Archangel Michael.  The photo above is quite old; his current sign contains less Jesus, and more stickers of Michael:

 St Michael slays the Devil (based on Guido Reini)

St Michael is interspersed with images of Superman:

Clearly, Pedro sees his fight aligned with the Good and Holy fight personified by these two Apollonic gods.  St Michael – a warrior incarnation of Christ – has long personified the triumph of Good over Evil.  And there’s clearly nothing morally ambiguous about Superman.  But what about the Dragon?

In the Biblical context, Michael’s enemy is quite clearly a dragon:

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon;
and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out,
that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan.

– Revelation 12:7-9

Because the Serpent symbol is possibly one of the most ancient, universal, and complex of symbols in mythology, here (in the context of the second century), it represents the old pagan system.  Michael is the warrior of a new, bright, sky-based religion vanquishing a earth-based one that crawled on its belly in the dirt and in the water.  This is the archetypal triumph of good over evil, the Final Battle.

Albrecht Dürer: St Michael’s Fight Against the Dragon (1498)

In modern-day post-protestant Christian thought (oh how crucial those qualifications are!), the finality of this battle is taken for granted.  Satan is defeated once and for all, and God’s people enter heaven to reside there eternally, free from the evil forces of the Dragon.

Heaven (the Sky-Realm) is the home of clarity and light, Hell (the Earth-Realm) a place of confusion, temptation, suffering and desire.  To defeat the Dragon is to defeat whatever holds us from attaining that realm of light and purity. In another sense, it’s the triumph of mind over matter.  It is the central archetypal image of the Western mind, and in the same way that we identify with Superman through his mild-mannered alter-ego, Clark Kent, we would have St Michael as our avatar.

Though couched in the symbols of Christianity, Pedro doesn’t have a coherent Christian message; his use of Michael is to represent himself and his struggle on cosmic terms.  For Pedro, the “communist” Seattle police are the cosmic Dragon, the evil force.  For American Christian fundamentalists, the Dragon is the force of secular humanism.  For eco-conscious liberals, it’s the global corporations and the greed and selfish power they represent.  For Richard Dawkins, the Dragon is religion itself.  (Perhaps for me, it’s Richard Dawkins?)  In each case, the Dragon represents not merely the Evil, but also the Lower, a force which, at one time, dominated, but whose vanquishing is the herald of a new era, a greater, brighter time untroubled by the struggles of the past.

Yet Pedro’s greater struggle is clearly not with some outside enemy.  The dragon that presents the greater challenge to him – if only he could perceive it – is his own mind.  He has projected his own greatest fears and anxieties (that the Seattle Police have allied with Fidel Castro to evict him, throw him into exile) on an external enemy, but the real enemy and obstacle is within.  Likewise, we tend to see our large, impersonal external foes with the greatest disdain because we’re really looking at our own worst nature reflected back at ourselves. Defeating this dragon is only achieved once that internal struggle is accomplished.

Take it away, Joseph Campbell.

At the Guardian, Charlie Brooker reviews Richard Dawkins’ latest film, Enemies of Reason. As in his last film, The Root of All Evil, Dawkins takes apart straw men of all shapes and sizes, all of which personify a variety of human foolishness he lumps together as “superstition”. To his credit, Dawkins correctly perceives a threat to human progress, and he gets close to the root cause of this evil – but ultimately, blinded by outdated semantics, he misses his true target.

As we’ve all learned in our high-school history classes, over the last 600 years, Western society has advanced in great strides, made possible by the birth of rationality through the liberation of progressive minds from the shackles of orthodox correctness. This brought about the Renaissance – the first major revival of state-sponsored secular progress in the West since antiquity – and later, the Enlightenment, an embrace and codification of rationality and a renewed interest in studying mankind’s place in the universe as hitherto accepted notions of divine origins were discarded.

However, in our current time, we can observe the tendency to drag humanity back into the dark ages – to resist scientific ideas which disagree with an outdated worldview, and attack those value rationality over fealty to frozen, self-righteous dogma.

Apparently, those are our only choices.

Brooker attacks those who harbor fondness for “outmoded” worldviews:

“Spirituality” is what cretins have in place of imagination. If you’ve ever described yourself as “quite spiritual”, do civilisation a favour and punch yourself in the throat until you’re incapable of speaking aloud ever again. Why should your outmoded codswallop be treated with anything other than the contemptuous mockery it deserves?

Really? Does this image ring a bell?

Fundamentalist christianity is a child of the enlightenment, the ugly twin of reason.  And both sides get it wrong.

Prior to Gutenberg and widespread literacy, the Bible was largely a secret, an ancient tome in dead language read and digested by clergy, who fed it in soundbites to the masses.  As ugly as the Catholic church was in the Dark Ages, the cosmology and creation stories of the Bible were not read as literal truths, but rather as allegories, codifications of eternal recurring stories handed down from culture to culture, early Greek and Roman Christians working Mithras and Apollo into an appropriated Hebrew mythology, itself brought out of Egypt (hello, Moses?) and adapted through trials and competition with Sumerians and Phoenecians (aka Canaanites), worked in with the ancient proto-Indo-European archetypes which also found their way into Hinduism.  (Go read Joseph Campbell.)

The Church, for its part, was concerned with secular authority and denounced those who fought against that authority.  It had no particular stake in this or that creation story; what it feared most were the implications that its right to determine truth was being challenged.  Hence heresy, excommunication, burning at the stake.

After the Renaissance, empiricism made its debut, and faith responded by breaking away from organizational rigor: after Martin Luther, Christians began fighting amongst themselves, which took the heat off science and reason.

After the Enlightenment, science proceeded about its business of chipping away at the authority of religious institutions in the 18th and 19th centuries; after the Protestant reformation (and correspondingly, literacy) began to take hold, the individual was given a “personal relationship” with Christ.

Literacy taught naivety.  It gave theology over to the untrained, undisciplined layman.  The theology of Protestant churches (and, yes, for the most part, mosques and synagogues) had to compete with science for mindshare.  On all fronts, including the Creation story and the afterlife, it demands to be taken just as seriously as science, seeking to answer the same questions (where do we come from? where are we going?) with the exact certainty and specificity of scientific inquiry.  It starts with a different premise (that the Bible/Koran/Torah is the literal word of God), but uses the same means (or at least a mockery of those means) to analyze and dissect its subject.

Fundamentalism is essentially a reaction against science and modernism.  It is the equal and opposite force that resists change.

But Brooker and Dawkins and the “New Scientists” don’t realize what’s at fault here.  It’s not spirituality per se, it’s the very means developed by science that have brought about the fallacies of Modern America.  Look in the mirror to point your finger: the resoluteness of belief, at any time anywhere, is responsible.

Science and faith get along much better when we all acknowledge that nobody has the complete picture of truth.  We’re all seekers here, with two halves of the same picture.  Science, the extension of our senses, establishes what is known to be repeatable.  Faith translates the information of our senses into the language of our animal brain.  We’re made of both things and we need them both.

UPDATE:

Emily proposes that all Dawkins needs is a good peak experience.  So does John Horgan.