The future of religion?

The blog article linked to in the title above is a critique of an article in Wilson Quarterly regarding the future of religion. In the WQ article, the author puts forward the claim that religion is likely here to stay, so all the secularists & atheists out there should give up the dream of it eventually fading away. In response, the bright (albeit spelling-challenged) blogster & About.com atheism guide, Austin Cline, points out that there have been a number of institutions which also seemed like they were here to stay but are either well on their way out or gone completely. Racism, segregation, aristocracy, dictatorships, slavery, etc. must have seemed "too big to fail" in their time. Indeed, the fall of the Soviet Union and of communism generally probably was as much a surprise to most Westerners as to those under communist rule.

Still, we can look at the reasons why those other institutions failed and ask if those reasons might also apply to religion. My conclusion is that most of them do not, at least not enough to seriously hurt the institution of religion.

In retrospect (hindsight is, of course, often 20/20), the fall of communism was inevitable; communism substituted doctrine and politics for real economics, which was the economic equivalent of substituting a belief that you can fly for the laws of gravity. It's somewhat remarkable that the Soviet Union didn't implode earlier than it did.

Similarly, humans tend to be moral creatures at our core. Evilness is not just bad in its own right, it's also stupid. Naziism, slavery, and various other forms of ruthless dictatorships are simply not sustainable indefinitely; eventually, something has to give. It may take decades or even more than a century to do so, and cost millions of lives, but it does happen. It also happens all the more quickly if those perpetuating the evil are inflexible and strict in their dogmas.

Such failed institutions also often have another thing in common: they do not make life better for their adherents, at least at the societal level. Many of these institutions result in poverty and/or oppression not just for the targets of the evil they inflict but for their advocates as well. Communism, naziism, and slavery all created hardships (economic and personal) for those who advocated and lived under them.

So where does this leave religion? Religion definitely has its downsides, but it has two qualities which greatly aid its survival and continuation. The first is, religion does provide some benefits, real or perceived, for a sizeable number of people. It fills two deep needs of many people, one being a sense of community and the other a desire to believe in something bigger than oneself. Other factors, such as offering the belief of an afterlife and a sense of authoritative morality and meaning of life, also come into play.

This article has some of the biggest meanings of what a religion is. By understanding just what religion is, we can get a better picture of its lasting qualities.

The other quality religion has is that it is very adaptable. Religion has been often referred to as the ultimate example of a meme, or mind virus, and it actually behaves rather similarly to one. It "mutates" often, adapting itself to its local hosts in the process. It also has several "defense mechanisms" to keep out competing memes/ideas. (See Wiki entry at the previous link.) As there are dozens or hundreds of varieties of a particular virus, so too for religions. Different religions can be regarded as different species, while different denominations within a religion are akin to different variants of a viral species. Religion and local culture very often influence and change one another, just as virii may adapt to a particular host and also change that host's immune profile.

"Varieties" of religion which tend toward killings & oppression, such as theocracies or all-out holy wars, tend to burn themselves out, given enough time. Atheists & heathens generally don't need to fear being burned at the stake in Western countries. I think this is part of the reason why suicide bombings & other religious killings by Muslims are so disturbing to Westerners. (Those who believe in and advocate such killings, unfortunately, seem to realize this.) Even then, though, there are many Muslims who would be more than content to not go around killing non-Muslims. Like Christianity with its Dominionists and Reconstructionists, Islam also has its extreme fundamentalist, angry-nutcase section. Such extremists are generally, however, more the exception than the rule.

It is these two qualities of adaptability and benefits to the believers which will ensure that religion will be around for some time to come. Religion, to be sure, has plenty of negative aspects; many secularists, humanists & atheists would be happy to see it fade into history, and the sooner the better. I would count myself among them. But I don't think it's going to go away on its own until either a suitable institution (or several institutions) arise to fulfill the needs it currently fills, or if it pulls society back into another Dark Age and the great majority of society just gets so fed up with its oppression that they decide to chuck the institution altogether. I think though, that even that latter option will not permanently do away with religion until the former condition is also met.

So what institution(s) could do away with religion? To answer that, it may be helpful to look at what institutions are today eroding away at religion. Three that come to mind are science, education, and, ironically enough, gov't endorsement of religion. All three of these are, if not causing of a decrease in religiousness, at least strongly correlated with it.

The first, science, is perhaps the most obvious. Generally in society, atheists are found in highest concentration in the scientific community. In quite a few fields of study, rates of atheism or agnosticism exceed 90%, with National Academy of Science biologists ranking the highest at around 95%. Despite what a number of creationists choose to believe, science itself is not an "atheistic doctrine." Sometimes, it's just that nonbelievers are naturally attracted to the field. But while science does not preach atheism, logical thinking and the scientific process do give people the mental tools they need to throw off unfounded beliefs and see the world as it really is.

The second institution, education, is also a somewhat obvious "cure" for religion, but I feel that it needs to be distinguished from the study & practice of science. Like science, education can provide one with the mental tools needed to abandon baseless beliefs. And indeed, religiousness often tends to be inversely proportional to education level. Simply being educated, however, is much more general than being a scientist. Not everyone has the mental capacity, or inclination, to study science for a living (or a hobby). And, you can't have an entire society of scientists. It is possible, though, to have a well-educated society. (This will probably be a whole other article for me at some future time.) Also unlike science, it is possible to use indoctrination in schools to achieve an atheistic society; just ask the Chinese or former Soviets. From personal observation, though, I can say that this indoctrination often produces only an artificial sort of atheism; as a number of evangelicals will attest to, these "artificial atheists" are quite susceptible to conversion. Many are atheists only because it is expected of them; religion is the "forbidden fruit," like drugs in America, that only makes them more curious to experience it. Opiate of the masses indeed.... True atheism from education is not achieved through political indoctrination, but by providing young minds with the mental tools they need to be independent thinkers. And for education this includes not just lessons in logic and the scientific process, but also exposure to different cultures, religious beliefs, & modes of thought.

The third institution which can erode the institution of religion, may be counterintuitive. A state-sponsored religion would initially seem like one method for ensuring its continued survival, but in the real world it appears the opposite may actually be the case. At least among Western nations, one can compare rates of religious belief and church attendance to whether that nation has a state-sponsored church or religion. In many European countries like Britain, Norway, Finland, etc. that have official state religions, rates of belief & church attendance are markedly lower than in those countries which don't, such as the US & Canada. There are some exceptions to this rule, of course, including many outright theocracies elsewhere in the world. But generally, it seems like giving the official gov't seal of approval to a religion is one of the quickest ways to empty the pews. The best way to explain this is that it is the opposite of the "forbidden fruit" syndrome. Call it the "eat your veggies" syndrome instead. Make something Establishment, and it becomes a lot less desireable. Religion has so flourished in the US because the gov't has refrained from officially endorsing it. Those who would like to see a theocracy in this country, are as ignorant of history and the world as they are of science and the Constitution.

So what might a country look like that had managed to evolve beyond the need for religions? Such a society would have strong community ties, unlike in many places in modern America where people hardly know their neighbors, thus often necessitating churches as a community glue. This society would also be well-educated and science-friendly. And, it may have had a state religion at some time in its past before disestablishing it.

I think religion will probably be with us for at least several more centuries to come, possibly for millenia. It is my hope that we will someday be able to leave it behind as another part of our more primitive, barbaric past. But I also think we have a long ways to go before our (or anyone's) educational system can consistently turn out graduates of sufficiently high mental integrity and education that they do not need to depend upon the crutch of religion.

And God said, "Whew! I'm pooped."

While reading this article on how necessary it is for evolution to be false for creationists, I got to thinking about the literal translation of Genesis. In it, god created "life, the universe, and everything" in six days, resting on the seventh. But...isn't he supposed to be omnipotent? Why did he need six days? Couldn't he have done everything in the blink of an eye? And what need does an omnipotent being have for rest? A literal reading would then suggest that maybe he's not so omnipotent after all. (Or omniscient, either.)

Careful consideration of the consequences of a literal translation of creation would then reveal that maybe god isn't omnipotent after all. Of course given all the other contradictions and nonsense found in the bible, it is rather obvious that the great majority of literalists give little or no actual, rational thought to the bible. Ergo, it's not a problem for them.

As a heathen unbeliever, biblical contradictions don't weigh on my beliefs. It does bother me, though, that such biblical issues also don't seem to weigh on the beliefs of many self-professed christians. Such is the nature of blind faith, I suppose.

Does god exist?

Does god exist? There are 3 basic possibilities:

1. God exists, and although we don't have any firm evidence for it now, such evidence is obtainable at least in theory.
2. God exists, even if we can't prove his existence (even in theory).
3. God doesn't exist.

Most theists, outside of the intelligent design movement, would opt for the second choice. The first choice--that god exists in a provable manner--would require that god interacts with the natural world in a measurable, verifiable way. This means we could put god under the microscope. Most theists just don't attribute such a property to god. If god's existence could be proven scientifically to anyone and everyone, then such existence necessitates that god be subject to natural laws. (And, such existence likely would have been proven by now, barring some hugely massive conspiracy.) That god is supernatural, and thus outside of natural laws (and thus unobservable in any verifiable manner), is a given for most theistic religions. So, we can safely strike option one.

So either god exists, but his existence is utterly unprovable, or he doesn't exist. The problem for theists here, though, is that both logically and functionally, the two statements are equivalent.

When making any assertive claim, the burden of proof is always on the person making the positive assertion. If person A says, "X exists" and person B says, "X doesn't exist," where X can be anything real or not (gods, the tooth fairy, money, apples, etc.), the burden of proof is on person A. Again, keep in mind that in this statement, X is a variable, and can be anything, real or not. The burden of proof is on person A regardless of what X is. To put the burden of proof on person B, is to say that anything can exist, not just the specific thing represented by X in one particular instance.

If a third person C were to claim that the burden of proof should be on person A for proving some things (e.g. the tooth fairy) but on person B for other things (e.g. proving the non-existence of gods), this would indicate (and indeed, require) that person C have some reason for differentiating between tooth fairies and gods. But the only reason for differentiating between the two would be if person C had some special evidence that favored one over the other--i.e. which would allow A to prove that gods existed, which then would place the burden (disproving the proof) on person B. If this is the case, however, then person C's assertion becomes moot, because person A should then be able to use that evidence to prove that gods exist. So, again, the default should always be that it's up to person A to prove that X exists; if he's right, he has nothing to lose by having this burden.

If there is a situation where the existence of X can neither be proven nor disproven, as is the case with gods, then the statement "X exists" is moot and meaningless. Again, logically, asserting that "X exists" with no evidence to show that that is so, the result is logically and functionally equivalent to "X does not exist."

Now, I don't suppose this proves the non-existence of god; after all, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." (Is it though? See below.) What it does mean, though, is that there is no difference between options 2 & 3 above. Lacking any evidence as to the existence of god, a universe with a god who keeps proof of his existence a secret looks and works exactly the same as one with no god.

(Oh and before you ask, the bible is not evidence for the existence of any god, much less a christian one. If you believe it is, do you also accept the Koran as evidence for the existence of Allah? Or of Hindu holy texts as proof of Vishnu et. al? You can't pick one holy book and dismiss all others, simply because that's the holy book you grew up with or the only one you've bothered to read & study.)

If one were to throw out the burden of proof and accept that anything--anything at all--can exist, then one quickly runs into contradictions. For instance, the existence of a One Singular God is at odds with the existence of, say, infinite gods. You also can't have anti-matter people walking around, or water that freezes at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at 1 ATM of pressure, or a perfectly round square, etc. In fact, for anything one can imagine which can not be proven real (in theory, not in practice), it should be possible to conjure up something else that can negate it which, also having no evidence of its existence, is on equal ground and thus equally valid to the first. So, anything which can not be theoretically proven can not be claimed to exist even beyond theory, as there should always be something else in the same realm of unprovable-existence which could negate it. To put it in math theorem terms, if X can exist without evidence, then there's no reason why -X, "not X", or anti-X can't also exist (again, without evidence).

And finally, there's the odds. If one accepts that some things can exist without any evidence (even in theory) that they existed, there would still be an infinite number of things that could not exist without evidence, and do not exist. The odds that any one of them exists, then, is one out of infinity. And if one recalls his high school math, one divided by infinity is equal to zero. Again, in math theorem terms: if object X_n can exist without evidence, where X is the set of all things that could possibly exist within and beyond our ability to conceive of it without evidence of its existence, then the set X is of infinite size (n=1 to infinity). So the odds that any finite number y of members of that set actually exist, out of the infinite number that for whatever reason can not, is y/infinity, or zero.

To sum it all up, god could exist, but without any evidence, his existence is on equal footing with an infinite number of other possibilities, including ones that would contradict the existence of one particular, or any, god. The odds of his existence then, are infinitesimal.

Addendum: Many more (32, to be precise) "disproofs" of god's existence can be found in this book. Many of those are disproofs against specific versions or qualities of god, but it's all quite strong nonetheless.

$87,836

That's the amount of money that the federal gov't would be spending each second under Bush's proposed 2007 budget. That's a bit more than twice what the average American household makes in a year. Gone. Every second of every day.

The total proposed budget for 2007 comes to a whopping $2.77 trillion. Not so long ago, that was the size of the nation's entire debt, and people were saying that that was too high.

I fear that nowadays, people are becoming numb to the true scale of numbers this high. Million, billion, trillion...they only differ by the first 1 or 2 letters. But how much is $2.77 trillion, really?

One way of looking at it is to say that if you took 2.77 trillion dollar bills and put them end-to-end, it would stretch well over half-way from the sun to Jupiter. (For you astronomy buffs out there, 1 trillion dollar bills are almost exactly [just over] 1 AU in length.) Still, that may not give enough of a picture for some. It may be better to put it into relative terms.

The average American makes a bit over $1 million over the course of his/her lifetime. (Say for the sake of argument an average of $25,000/year times 40 working years.) Now when the gov't taxes us in whatever form to raise the money it spends, it is effectively removing that money from the economy. (Plus a good chunk more, when you factor in opportunity costs, regulatory compliance costs, etc. etc.) So when the gov't decides it needs $2.77 trillion of America's money, that means it is removing from the economy the equivalent total lifetime economic activity of about 2.77 million Americans, a bit under 1% of the total (not just taxpaying) population. Economically, it's as if these people never were born.

Of related interest, the US population growth rate (2005 estimate) is 0.92%, or about roughly the same as the percentage above. This raises an interesting question. What happens when gov't spending equals or exceeds the total lifetime economic output of the growth rate of the country? Such a level of spending would seem to cancel out (or more) any increases in real GDP from population growth, leaving just per-capita productivity increases as a means of growth. Perhaps someone with more of an economic background would care to argue this point with me, but from where I see it, gov't spending at such high levels would seem to put the country in a rather precarious economic position.

In Houston (and Chicago), it's 1984 again

Police cameras in private residences? That's what Houston police chief Harold Hurtt wants. This article details his stated desire to require police surveillance in all new malls and apartment complexes, regardless of pre-existing crime levels (in fact some of the places are in safe neighborhoods), as well as in some private residences of known troublemakers. I wonder if such private-residence cameras would be removed if the person moves, or is found not guilty. My guess is, no friggin' way....

Chief Hurtt's idea to put video surveillance in private residences is not new. As far back as 1948, at least one guy also raised the idea in a novel of his, though most people not in law enforcement generally recognize it as not exactly a good thing. Hurtt must have had an urban public school education, where if such concepts and literature are presented at all, they are often not done so in the negative light they deserve to be in. (Many public schools, especially but not limited to urban ones, seem to be evolving into small models of what an Orwellian police state should look like.)

Addendum: this Yahoo poster pointed out another 1984 parallel, and in hindsight it should have been an obvious one: the use of manufactured wars by gov't to stir up support for itself, both patriotic and financial.

Update: In a case of "fascist see, fascist do," "Hizzoner" Mayor Daley of Chicago seems to be following suit. Daley wants to stick telescreens--er, cameras--into every business that's open for 12 hours or longer, and every bar still open at last call. This article has the details.

An interesting article on Rose & Milton Friedman

Most anyone who knows these champions of smaller gov't & free markets either idolizes them or despises them, depending on the reader's own political & economic leanings. Here is a fairly balanced article on the husband-&-wife economist team, giving a general overview of their long and noteworthy life & accomplishments.

Welcome!

Hi all, this is the personal blog of Andrew, aka "Live.the.Future". I have another blog which I post to on occasion, but that one I'm hoping to keep limited to topics of political science. After a while I realized that there were other things I'd like to write about and comment on, so rather than lose the focus of my first blog, I've created this one as a supplement to it. Here you'll find anything that strikes my fancy.

So enjoy, and feel free to comment on anything I write, even if it's to disagree. And don't worry, I seldom bite. :-)