Opposable thumbs are really useful. They have enabled humans and other apes to use tools and otherwise manipulate and control their environment in a way that they could not do without opposable thumbs. In evolutionary terms, opposable thumbs are selected for, probably because they confer an advantage that makes the individual more successful than its non-opposable thumbed rivals.
Language and communication are also really useful. Not so much for the individual, but for the family and social group. It enables better hunting and gathering, dealing with crises and situations by allowing people to share experience and expertise. It probably goes hand-in-hand with extra brain capacity and memory, and I am not trying to argue which caused which, I am just using it as an example of an evolutionary trait that is selected for because it confers an advantage on a group.
Almost every culture or society has, or had, a religion of some sort. Some worship the sun, some revere trees; others believe in a coffin suspended halfway between heaven and earth, or a cosmic Jewish zombie. Presumably, such a ubiquitous piece of social behaviour is also selected for, evolutionarily. I cannot think of any other reason that religion would be so ubiquitous across humanity, unless it was something that was (on a social level at any rate) selected for. The only thing is, I cannot for the life of me figure out why: what advantage does religion confer to the social group?
Richard Dawkins discussed it in The God Delusion. To paraphrase, he said that there seemed to be a god-shaped hole in the human psyche, and that churches and shamans and charlatans had attempted to fill that hole with all sorts of belief systems. Then he tried to hammer the square peg of science into the round god-shaped hole in the human psyche. It did not fit to my satisfaction, I have to say.
But it did get me thinking: religions are never that dissimilar, they all steal bits of each others' mythology, like Christmas and Yule being at the same time, like bunnies and eggs being symbolic of Easter (instead of naked men with nails hammered into them). The Roman gods bear more than a little resemblance to their Greek precursors. The need, the gap that they fill, does seem to be fairly consistent across the whole of the human race; and much like modern politicians and political parties they all seem to be fighting over the same ideological or theological ground (ie the god-shaped hole in our psyches).
Indeed, when you remove religion, make it illegal or frowned upon as it was in the Soviet Union or Communist China, it is often replaced by a personality cult, a deification of the individual if you like, for example Lenin, Mao or Castro. The human 'need', or desire to worship something or someone, always seems to find a way to be expressed even when it is suppressed. People seem to derive satistaction from it: it seems to help them make sense of their lives; and without it they sense a lack.
As an atheist, I am aware that I have nothing to fill that particular gap in my human psyche. I have no higher power to fall back on when I am troubled, I have no way of rationalising the random and chaotic things that life throws at me. There are no cathedrals to atheism, there is no great social gathering of atheists, nowhere that we explore our common ground and our differences. I do not deify Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan or Brian Cox. I like them, I think they are smart and entertaining, but I don't think they are gods. I think that some people do put people like that on a pedestal, but that is not a trap I am about to fall into.
If we accept (as I do) that there is no god, and that religion has no basis in reality, the gap that religion fills does not go away. So my question is this: what can we do to fill that gap in our collective psyche, and make ourselves more whole and rounded individuals as part of an atheist society / community / whatever, without giving in to superstition and irrationality?
I have a funny feeling this might be a very big question.
Language and communication are also really useful. Not so much for the individual, but for the family and social group. It enables better hunting and gathering, dealing with crises and situations by allowing people to share experience and expertise. It probably goes hand-in-hand with extra brain capacity and memory, and I am not trying to argue which caused which, I am just using it as an example of an evolutionary trait that is selected for because it confers an advantage on a group.
Almost every culture or society has, or had, a religion of some sort. Some worship the sun, some revere trees; others believe in a coffin suspended halfway between heaven and earth, or a cosmic Jewish zombie. Presumably, such a ubiquitous piece of social behaviour is also selected for, evolutionarily. I cannot think of any other reason that religion would be so ubiquitous across humanity, unless it was something that was (on a social level at any rate) selected for. The only thing is, I cannot for the life of me figure out why: what advantage does religion confer to the social group?
Richard Dawkins discussed it in The God Delusion. To paraphrase, he said that there seemed to be a god-shaped hole in the human psyche, and that churches and shamans and charlatans had attempted to fill that hole with all sorts of belief systems. Then he tried to hammer the square peg of science into the round god-shaped hole in the human psyche. It did not fit to my satisfaction, I have to say.
But it did get me thinking: religions are never that dissimilar, they all steal bits of each others' mythology, like Christmas and Yule being at the same time, like bunnies and eggs being symbolic of Easter (instead of naked men with nails hammered into them). The Roman gods bear more than a little resemblance to their Greek precursors. The need, the gap that they fill, does seem to be fairly consistent across the whole of the human race; and much like modern politicians and political parties they all seem to be fighting over the same ideological or theological ground (ie the god-shaped hole in our psyches).
Indeed, when you remove religion, make it illegal or frowned upon as it was in the Soviet Union or Communist China, it is often replaced by a personality cult, a deification of the individual if you like, for example Lenin, Mao or Castro. The human 'need', or desire to worship something or someone, always seems to find a way to be expressed even when it is suppressed. People seem to derive satistaction from it: it seems to help them make sense of their lives; and without it they sense a lack.
As an atheist, I am aware that I have nothing to fill that particular gap in my human psyche. I have no higher power to fall back on when I am troubled, I have no way of rationalising the random and chaotic things that life throws at me. There are no cathedrals to atheism, there is no great social gathering of atheists, nowhere that we explore our common ground and our differences. I do not deify Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan or Brian Cox. I like them, I think they are smart and entertaining, but I don't think they are gods. I think that some people do put people like that on a pedestal, but that is not a trap I am about to fall into.
If we accept (as I do) that there is no god, and that religion has no basis in reality, the gap that religion fills does not go away. So my question is this: what can we do to fill that gap in our collective psyche, and make ourselves more whole and rounded individuals as part of an atheist society / community / whatever, without giving in to superstition and irrationality?
I have a funny feeling this might be a very big question.
"I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." ~ Hamlet, Act II, Scene II.
"I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel; but I am, so that's how it comes out." ~ Bill Hicks.
"I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel; but I am, so that's how it comes out." ~ Bill Hicks.
