Dancing with the snake

The Evil One recently talked to Paul Bloom, one of my favorite cognitive psychologists. Here is something I found of interest:

...and I brought up the issue that many researchers -- David Sloan Wilson being one that springs to mind -- have argued that religion is evolutionary but that it is also evolutionarily beneficial. David Sloan Wilson has proposed the idea that religion arose from group selection because religion promotes in-group cohesiveness. This would differ from Dr. Bloom's ideas because Bloom is essentially arguing that religion is neutral to selection and secondary to larger evolutionary trends in human social capacity. Dr. Bloom responded that he was aware of the alternative ideas, but that he doesn't buy them because he doesn't see why supernatural belief would be necessary to promote cohesiveness -- an excellent point.

Wilson basically promotes a form of functionalism, that is, cultural forms and motifs which enhance the survival value of a society as a whole (as opposed to simply individual fitness). Wilson's hypothesis is that societies with "fitter" religions flourish while those with less fit ones (or none at all) do not, ergo, religion, and the propensity toward religion, spreads.

I think Bloom was trying to pull a fast one on the Devil here, though perhaps there's more to the conversation that Lucifer left out, because he has to know that cognitive anthropologists like Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran have hypothesized that supernatural agents serve a role as a hypothetical mediator which can punish "free riders" within a society. Theoretically supernatual agents are enforcers of oaths and contracts which selfish individuals might otherwise take advantage of. I can't believe that Bloom doesn't know of this, so perhaps he dismisses it.¹ Bloom's own thesis seems to be that religion is a natural byproduct of cognitive mental processes, in other words, it is fundamentally a spandrel that arises out of "friction" in the function of mental modules as they collaborate and occasionally misfire in "false positives" (i.e., too much agency detection).

But I think there is a false dichotomy here, the cognitive roots of supernaturalism might simply be a lower layer of organization than the functional religious phenomena. In short, there is a difference between superstition and religion in that the former is a necessary precondition for the latter. The group selective mechanisms favored by David Sloan Wilson might simply coopt the "heat" (continuing the byproduct of normal cognitive function analogy) and use it to drive "work" on the social and cultural level. Art,² which emerges out of our sensory biases, dialect, which is a variation on our language instinct, both serve to foster group cohesiveness and allow the sharp separation of tribal groups (e.g., the between group variation is far greater than the within group variation for these cultural traits, which is not true for biological traits). Similarly, supernaturalism might fundamentally be an emergent property of our individual minds, but social religion builds upon this supernaturalism toward functional.

But this isn't just all important in theory-land. I recently reviewed The God Delusion, and was frustated by Richard Dawkins' lack of interest in exploring the importance of the cognitive roots of religion, though he lays the groundwork for such an analysis Dawkins is focused more on the functional/cultural aspects of religion, as he notes when he singles out the Abrahamic faiths, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and gives Buddhism a relative pass. But, cognitively, Buddhists are no more rational than Christians or Muslims. I am not speaking of philosophical Buddhism here, rather, I am speaking of Buddhism as it is practiced by the typical believer; which as documented in Theological Incorrectness by D. Jason Slone is just as theistic and devotional as another other religion. Similarly, Dawkins does not focus much on Hinduism despite that religion's close association with astrology and other superstitions. Though operationally for the modal believer all religions are equally superstitious (because they tend to hijack universal cognitive processes and archetypes), the higher philosophical content and organizational and historical context are what concerns Dawkins, as the history of Christianity and Islam is one of particular intolerance and fixation with orthodoxy. There is a priority in dangers, and reality imposes upon us constraints and scarcity of resources, and the current "enemy" is fundamentalist monotheism, though other religions are also part of the grand parade of the demon-haunted world. I would argue that just as we acknowledge variation between religion, we need to acknowledge variation within religion. Dawkins seems to be suspicious of a modus vivendi with the more liberal elements of Christianity because he sees them as part of the irrationalistic continuum with fundamentalist sectarians. They are, but so what, so are Buddhists and Hindus and shamanists. Fundamentally the concepts are all primitive gibberish, sometimes spun into baroque quasi-logical systems by logic chopping philosophical theologians, what we need to focus on in front of us are the proximate consequences of religion, and the only religious threat today to liberal universalism is Islam (muscular Christianity is relatively quiescent today in comparison to Islam³).

If irrationality is the modal state of humanity, supernaturalism a strong cognitive bias, then to say that liberal Christianity is part of the problem is like posing a conundrum which has no solution. When it comes to philosophical and intellectual discourse I am happy to man the trenches and defend the coherency of materialism in the face of all the varieties of theism, but in regards to the wars of politics the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Finally, no matter whether we bow our heads to one God or no God, Baal or Allah, we are all human and in regards to interpersonal relations. Intellectual differences need not lead inevitably to enmity between the child of the gods and those who would assert that men are the only gods.⁴

1 - This is also part of the "rational choice" theory of religion favored by many social scientists.

2 - Tattoos and other bodily adornment I am including in this category.

3 - Yes, Creationism is bad, but not as bad as hanging homosexuals and putting apostates on death row. Perspective is important.

4 - The fixation on what others believe as if it is of existential significance is a hallmark of Christianity and Islam, of course, I and tend not to share that concern.