How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [90]
Cosmology and evolutionary biology provide a good answer to the first question and a partial answer to the second—we are star stuff and biomass, we evolved by descent with modification from our ancestors, but no one knows where we are going. About the third question, science knows a lot about the process of dying, has adequate explanations for phenomena such as near-death experiences, struggles when it comes to defining death, but can say nothing about what happens after we die, other than “No one knows.”
As for the second mode of religion’s purpose in the moral and social realm, humanists have worked to present viable secular alternatives. But as Wilson observed, we are small in number and, compared to religion, largely impotent as a social force. Studies show, for example, that following the 1992 Los Angeles riots it was religion that helped rebuild the looted and torched neighborhoods, not business, not government, and certainly not the humanists. Perhaps it is because religion has a 10,000-year head start on these other social institutions, or perhaps it is because that is what religion does best. Only time will tell. But the notion that religion will soon fall into disuse would seem to be belied by the data of both science and anecdotal observation. In this sense, at least for now, the separate-worlds model emerges as the only possible description of the relationship of religion and science. While scientists may manifest commendable moral traits, or act with admirable social consciousness, they do so as an expression of their humanity, not their science. Science has never trafficked, and likely never will, in the business of moral courage and nobility of spirit.
Chapter 7
THE STORYTELLING ANIMAL
Myth, Morality, and the Evolution of Religion
I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
—Charles Darwin, The final paragraph of The Descent of Man, Vol. II, p. 405, 1871
During the broadcast of the 1997 Cable ACE awards on VH-1, the rock star Madonna was called upon to present an award. After slinking her way down a flight of stairs in a tightly wrapped full-length skirt and stiletto heels, she approached the podium and announced that she did not wish to talk about Princess Di, or the paparazzi who hounded her, or the tabloids that exploited her, or the public who worshiped her to death. After adroitly making her point, while simultaneously denying she wanted to make it, Madonna instead suggested that we look for the deeper cause of Princess Di’s tragic death—our fascination with gossip and other people’s personal lives, especially when it is none of our business. Ignoring the simple and obvious fact that both Diana and Madonna, like most celebrities, depend and thrive upon the very obsession they pretend to hate, Madonna was asking that humans, who are by nature storytelling animals, quit telling stories about their favorite subject—other humans. Why does no one ever discuss the true cause of Diana’s death—just one more case of speeding and drunk driving? Because that would make her just another boring statistic—over 25,000 people are killed every year in America alone due to drunk driving. Nothing interesting about that fact—no juicy gossip, no web of sex and deceit, no assassination cabals, and, most of all, no evil villains. Every story needs a hero and a villain. Princess Diana died an ignoble death, and that does