The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [89]
Somewhat surprisingly—given that we are the most technologically advanced and scientifically sophisticated nation in history—America is among the most religious tribes of the species. A 2007 Pew Forum survey found the following percentages of belief:
God or a universal spirit
92 %
Heaven
74 %
Hell
59 %
Scripture is the word of God
63 %
Pray once a day
58 %
Miracles
79 %
Who or what God represents varies depending on religious faith. Is God a person with whom believers can have a relationship, or is he an impersonal force? According to the Pew survey, 91 percent of Mormons believe in a personal God, but only 82 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 79 percent of evangelicals, 62 percent of Protestants, and 60 percent of Catholics do. By contrast, 53 percent of Hindus, 50 percent of Jews, 45 percent of Buddhists, and 35 percent of unaffiliated believers believe in God as an impersonal force. Most striking to me and supporting one of the central themes of this book—agenticity—the dualistic belief that there must be something else out there is so pervasive that even 21 percent of those who identified themselves as atheists, and 55 percent who identify themselves as agnostics, expressed a belief in some sort of God or universal spirit.2
Why God Is Hardwired into Our Brains
Such statistics stagger the imagination. Any characteristic that is this common in a species cries out for an explanation. Why do so many people believe in God?
On one level, I have already answered this question in the chapters on patternicity and agenticity. God is the ultimate pattern that explains everything that happens, from the beginning of the universe to the end of time and everything in between, including and especially the fates of human lives. God is the ultimate intentional agent who gives the universe meaning and our lives purpose. As an ultimate amalgam, patternicity and agenticity form the cognitive basis of shamanism, paganism, animism, polytheism, monotheism, and all other forms of theisms and spiritualisms devised by humans.
Although there is much cultural variation among different religious faiths, all have in common the belief in supernatural agents in the form of a godhead or spirits who have intention and interact with us in the world. There are three lines of evidence pointing to the conclusion that such beliefs are hardwired into our brains and behaviorally expressed in consistent patterns throughout history and culture. These evidentiary lines come from evolutionary theory, behavior genetics, and comparative world religions, all of which support the larger thesis of this book that the belief comes first and the reasons for the belief follow. After reviewing this evidence, I will demonstrate why it is not possible to know for certain whether God exists, and why any scientific or rational attempt to prove God’s existence can result only in our awareness of an intelligence greater than our own but considerably less than the omniscience traditionally associated with God.
Evolutionary Theory and God
In his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin noted that anthropologists conclude that “a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder.”3 What flummoxed Darwin about the universal nature of religious beliefs was how natural selection could account for them. On the one hand, he noted, “It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents, or of those who were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared in greater number than the children of selfish