Christian Belief Through The Lens of Cognitive Science: Part 6 of 6

"I had no need of that hypothesis."

Over the course of the summer I wrote a series of articles about brain science and Christianity, and I promised a final installment that never came.  This is it. The series asked and--within the limits of present knowledge--answered a set of questions that fascinate students at the intersection of religion and psychology. 

How does the structure of human information processing pre-dispose us to religious thinking?  Given how our minds work, what kinds of religious beliefs are possible and what kinds are we immune to?

How do we know what we know? What gives us a feeling of certainty?  What is the relation between reason, evidence, and our sense of knowing?

How do conversion experiences work?  What makes religious conversion transformative?

 How do beliefs get transmitted from one person to another?  How does our social context influence or even control our religious beliefs?  How does religious identity develop in childhood? 

What makes beliefs resistant to change?  What causes people to lose belief?  When are people open to reexamining religious assumptions?

If you followed the series, or better yet the rabbit trails of imbedded references, you would have found that they distilled an exciting set of discoveries.  Brain science is remarkably close to offering a full naturalistic explanation of individual religious experiences, everything from certain belief to moral indignation to mystical rapture to spiritual transformation.

As theists are quick to point out, understanding the psychology of religion doesn’t tell us whether any specific set of beliefs is true.  I might believe in a pantheon of supernatural beings for all the wrong reasons (childhood credulity, hyperactive agency detection, theory of mind, group hypnotic processes, misattributed transcendence hallucination, viral transmission, cognitive dissonance reduction) and they might still might exist. Brain scientists can’t address the truth value of otherworldly assertions, only the mechanisms and patterns through which they occur in this the human mind. 

In a similar way, all scholars of religion are bound by the methods and focus of their respective fields.  Many fields can illuminate some aspect of the religious enterprise, and each has its limits.  Hard scientists are limited to addressing the testable assertions religions make about natural phenomena, such as the origins of species or the causes of epilepsy or the power of intercessory prayer.  Historians, aided by linguists and archeologists, can excavate the history of a set of ideas, but – except where theologians make historical assertions-- they too cannot answer definitively whether these ideas are factually correct.  Sociologists and anthropologists can examine the patterns and impact of belief on a collective.  They are uniquely able to assess claims that religious belief increases love and joy, or decreases crime.   It remains the domain of philosophers and ethicists to examine the rational and moral qualities of religious beliefs—to examine internal coherence or the virtue of a belief system as it relates to a set of universal ethical principles.   All of these are questions that lay outside the domain of brain science which, as I said earlier limits itself to the subjective experience of the individual and the correlates of that experience in neurological phenomena.

Despite its boundaries, cognitive science, does offer what is rapidly becoming a sufficient explanation for the supernaturalism that underlies organized religion.  If we are particularly concerned with Christianity, then we are particularly concerned with belief.  And more and more, we can explain Christian belief with the same set of principles that explain supernaturalism generally.  This is a serious blow to orthodoxy, meaning any religion based on right belief, and that includes most traditional forms of Christianity.

 In the past, one of the arguments put forward by believers was that there simply was no explanation for the born again experience, the healing power of Christianity, the vast agreement among believers, or the joy and wonder of mysticism, save that these came from God himself.  These experiences, they insisted, justified or even demanded belief in the Christian God including a personal, present resurrected Jesus. We now know this not to be the case.   Humans are capable of having transcendent, transformative experiences in the absence of any given dogma.  We are capable of sustaining elaborate systems of false belief and transmitting them to our children.  We are capable of feeling so certain about our false beliefs that we are willing to kill or die for them.

It possible, absolutely, to assert the truth of Christian beliefs even knowing that there are now other explanations for the Christian experience.  Claims about the afterlife or the spiritual realm are, after all, untestable.  They cannot be proven, and they cannot be refuted.  When it comes to beliefs about the “world to come,” literally anything goes. 

It also is quite possible to assert that the Christian experience has unique supernatural causes.  One could say, for example, that Christian joy is somehow different from the joy experienced by other religious people: It alone has both material causes (social/physiological/psychological) and a supernatural cause (e.g the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit).  But this kind of claim puts a defender of faith in an awkward position, one that is at odds with how cause and effect explanations usually work.

One general principle that has worked well for humans seeking to advance or refine knowledge is called “parsimony,” also known as Occam’s Razor.  It can be paraphrased thus:  “Usually the simplest explanation is the best one.” or “Don’t multiply entities unnecessarily.”  If we can predict storms by looking at barometric pressure and cloud formations, then there is no need to posit the existence of storm spirits or angry ancestors causing us trouble.  If we can predict that an electric light will come on when a circuit is completed, we don’t talk about the additional but undetectable flow of magic that makes the whole thing function.  When a scholar adheres to the principle of parsimony, explanatory factors get added only when they allow us to control or predict with greater accuracy.

In every field of human knowledge except theology, if we can find a sufficient explanation within nature’s matrix, we don’t look outside. We no longer, for example, posit that demons are involved in seizures or bubonic plague.  It’s not that we know for sure that the demon explanation is wrong, simply that it is unnecessary for predicting or treating seizures. 

What does all of this imply for the future of religious studies?  Simply that supernatural explanations for religious experience are becoming unnecessary.  Eighteenth Century French mathematician and astronomer, Pierre Simone Laplace, wrote a volume on the movements of the heavenly bodies.  When asked by Emperor Napoleon I why he had not mentioned God in his treatise, he replied, “je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse.”  I had no need of that hypothesis.  Modern scholars of religion, more and more, find themselves echoing the words of Laplace.   We have no need of that hypothesis.

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Comments

[kwinter]

Valerie, Thanks for writing such an informative series!
I don't know why it just showed up today on the religion page, 48 hours late.

You might want to check out "The Non-Prophets" podcast on iTunes (show 8.15), you are referenced, and it's an interesting show. I'd also like to hear you as a guest on the show sometime ... I know they'd love to have you!

Looking forward to your next offering! ..... K

[Valkyrie Ice]

From the most basic sub atomic particle to the largest super Galactic cluster, everything uses the same patterned energy. The complexity of these patterns and their interactions grows ever greater as you go up the scale, leading to the complex interactions of chemistry, the even more complex interplay of chemistry into biology, the complex interplay of biology into Sentience and the complex interplay of an entire world into a sort of collective superorganism

I have no problem believing that sentient beings composed of different patterns are possible. It is even possible such beings could have given rise to "gods" however, until we become able to explore such "levels of reality" it's a moot point.

That stated, I also have no problem envisioning a "supreme being' of infinite complexity composed of the sum total of all patterned energy, in other word Unity. However, I also see no reason to assume such a being would even posses anything remotely like what we would consider "sentience"

To put it another way: Why would such a being even be aware of your existence as a discrete individual? Are you aware of any of the millions of cells that just divided in your body, or the several million skin cells that just flaked off you?

In a quantum universe, EVERYTHING HAPPENS. You stepped on/didn't step on that ant. You turned left/right at that intersection.

Unity is neutral. The clockwork of the universe is perfect, and needs no adjustment from it's "maker"

[lemonyashes]

Well I consider myself a human being and I diferentiate myself from those who claim "they are only human". A human being is half human half spirit, half mortal and half immortal, the mortal (human) half is "never perfect" the immortal (spirit) half is always perfect. In that sense it is that I am completely irreligious, in that I don't consider my spirit half as anything religious but as simply natural ability to ask the questions "Who am I? What is this world I find myself in at this time? What is beyond this world and what is that to me, etc...? I can survive as a mere human without ever asking these questions much less wondering or pondering them, however my spirit half cannot survive here without.

[RMankovitz]

Our homo genus has been around for about 2.5 million years, beginning in Sub-Saharan Africa. The best guess for the origin of language and recorded word (and civilization) is about10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of religion (Hindu) dates from about 5000 years ago. If we use a 24 hour clock to represent 2.5 million years, language and recorded history took place about 6 minutes ago, and religion developed about 3 minutes ago. It is somewhat unlikely that any significant human population existed anywhere in the world other than Africa until about an hour ago.

What is known about our ancestry, and that of every other living thing, is that there was one entity that was revered (honored profoundly and respectfully) - to do otherwise meant extinction. We call it (her) nature, and I have written several books extolling her virtues.

It is our outrageous arrogance and ignorance that presumes we are somehow special in the grander scheme of things. I believe nature has a very different view of our place among living things, and it is certainly not at the top.

The beauty of revering nature is that she provides the same guidance to all living things, and we don't need self-appointed paid intermediaries. We do not have to suspend reality or have an unrealistic belief system. We just have to look out the window at the plants, animals, and soil, and there she is in all her beauty.

Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

I absolutely agree with you but would say that she is there in all of her beauty and all of her horror--in her absolute indifference to which of the two we ourselves are experiencing.

[willowranch]

Having experienced both the beauty and absolute terror of nature a number of times including several when I thought for sure I wouldn't survive either one, I still nevertheless feel a real sacredness or holiness in nature--nothing like an anthropomorphic god. I felt as a person and a representative of a species totally insignificant and vulnerable yet somehow connected to it all in a profound way--a true paradox. I find others have intutited or experienced this as well as revealed via poetry, art, science and even transcendent personal experience. No finding of cognitive science or neurology or theology is ever going to convince me that this sacredness does not exist. It doesn't need to pass any logical test or proof because such a proof seems irrelevant. If people want to label this delusional, be my guest.

[RMankovitz]

I only find that nature has a "horror side" when she is viewed through the eyes of an arrogant and ignorant species - us.

Let's look at some of nature's "horrors" through the eyes of a puzzled human, where I will take the presumptive position of speaking for nature:

A hurricane devastates a city built below sea level. Nature: I gave you years of warning and yet you continued the arrogance (and ignorance) to believe you could fool with me and win. Moral of the story; do not build cities below sea level in hurricane areas.

An earthquake destroys a village. Nature: I can unleash earthquakes anywhere, and you should know that by now. If you live in a weak structure, be prepare to suffer.

A forest fire destroys homes built in a forest area. Nature: how dumb can you get.

People become incapacitated with chronic illnesses. Nature: I gave you clues as to what to eat, how to remove toxins from your body, and live in a clean environment. If you don't listen, your species will eventually become extinct.

Get the picture? Nature gives us many clues as to how to live, and we, in arrogance and ignorance, ignore her and then call foul. We create so called benevolent deities in a pathetic attempt to convince ourselves we are somehow special - not.

I have written several books on how to live a healthy life by paying attention to nature's clues, including "The Wellness Project."

[khanti]

Things come to be due to many causes and conditions. Understand this very simply sentence and you will understand the underlying reasons for all that you described and all the curiousity comments here.

[JohnFromCensornati]

D'Souza's afterlife campaign and a kabbala series here on HP had me thinking about your series lately.

I am interested in this whole "oneness" of the universe stuff. People who say that always seem to be certain that this "experience" is "god". Do they believe that because they've been set up to think that by their spiritual mentors? They can't even describe it, but they're sure it's god.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

This may be another application of the principle of parsimony or of Occam's razor. But it's a very delicate one, certainly not free of 'speculation'.

It's probably wise to acknowledge various (different) limits of our knowledge, and some of them may even be permanent or structural (i.e. cannot be overcome). Whatever partial experience we have of phenomena beyond those limits - which we are unable to explain - can then be called a manifestation of the divine.

But then the big step occurs: to claim (by some kind of parsimony) that all of these limit-experiences (which may involve things as different as aesthetic, moral or human experience) are somehow expressions of the same.

Since the experiences are mutable and non-predictable, however, it seems at the very least that such a god would have to be mutable and non-predictable as well. So it's clearly not for everyone.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

a little correction or clarification: the reason such a god would have to be mutable is because it (or he?) depends on the utterly contingent state of ignorance of the agents at any particular time, being defined in terms of their collective state of ignorance.

As I said, it's not something that's likely to convince a whole lot of people.

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

I think you accurately describe an oversimplification that can only be attributed to our relentless need to project ourselves onto the universe, and incredibly tenacious tendency to circle back to anthropomorphism. That "unity" however abstracted, somehow always reflects our own notions of goodness. It allows our value judgements or preferences (which I believe to have been created by survival needs) to be profoundly, uniquely relevant to the structure of the universe.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Hey Valerie. Minimal Sin Tax abruptly decided to stop posting to HP the other day. She mentioned you in her last post. Said she'd miss you.

wondering also said he had to get away. Too many crazy new age blogs for him.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Maybe I was able to save myself from too many new age blogs by following your advice and using the table of contents at huffpo. :-)

But seriously, sometimes I think those on sabbatical have made a wise choice.

On the one hand, there's no doubt that things like huffpo are real game changers of modern life and that it profoundly transforms the very notion of public opinion. Somehow it's the wet dreams of all ancient and enlightenment philosophers come true.

On the other hand, there have always been critics who told those same philosophers to get a life.

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

Hello John -

I think of those New Age blogs as reflecting the nexus of our age. The growing recognition that our traditional supernatural notions are untenable bumps up against the very instincts and cognitive structures that caused those notions to emerge in the first place. Traditional religion is deconstructed -- and then an attempt is made to embrace some hazy form of magical thinking that is less obviously falsifiable and false. Human scale relevance gets projected on to quantum mechanics. The universe is thought to be structured around our notions of goodness and love, even though these are obviously species centric. Our wishes become magically powerful.

I have no problem with the quest itself,but it often gets "resolved" with thinking that is as silly or implicitly cruel as the traditional theologies were. I have friends who loved "What the Bleep" but i personally thought it was obvious throughout which contributors had been trained in rigorous thinking and held themselves accountable to the same, and which willing to indulge in intellectually slop that suited our narcissistic yearnings.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

What you put forward may be a real new deck of cards to play with - where the gambling metaphor is freely adopted from Pascal's bet (that you can only win by believing in God, but never lose).

To not deny the reality of religious experience nor its ramifications and consequences in everyday life but at the same time refuse all talk about supernatural powers.

And to top it all off, 'God-talk' can then be re-introduced as a 'facon de parler' because it simplifies certain communications. As a strategic position, I think one should really be able to make quite a lot of headway with this approach, in the sense that it is some kind of 'benchmark' (forgive the term) to be used to measure the precise level of delusion of profoundly irrational views against.

There is of course the fact that cognitive science and evolutionary psychology may not be reducible to biology, let alone physics. And some of those who really want to keep their god may wish to reintroduce him through that backdoor.

I wouldn't mind if they did that, but it would certainly impose a considerable amount of modernization and reinterpretation of religious texts and traditions. Because such a god isn't easily reconciled with the notion of revelation in the gospels.

But why shouldn't theologians have some work left to do? Maybe they're even thankful for it.

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

There are theologians who candidly and humbly describe their theological agreements as provisional, much as scientists recognize our theories as provisional and subject to refinement­/revision. The risk for the theologians I believe, is that unfettered inquiry seems to lead inexhorably to naturalistic explanations of theology itself -- or at least person-gods, who can be seen as a projection of our primate psyches on to the vastness of the universe. In Christianity, the work of Christian theologians John Shelby Spong and Paul Tillich address this by moving toward a nontheistic reconceptualization of the Christian tradition.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Thanks for the references. I favor those approaches very strongly. Actually I wouldn't be so pessimistic (or optimistic?) about the 'erosion' of theology as a result of naturalistic interpretations.

I think it depends very strongly on what theologians want. (Which of course is not something they agree upon. :-))

To save tradition and literal meanings and interpretations or to save the pragmatic applicability in the 'lifeworld'?

It's one of those agonies I wouldn't want to be a part of. But even so, I do care about the results of those struggles. Just like everybody should care about the struggle between God and Lucifer, right?

Well, actually I care a little more about the fate of theology than I care about the Genesis version of the Big Bang. In case that's possible at all. :-)