I have noticed that in almost any discussion of the evolutionary origins of religious behavior, someone is bound to say, “religions originated as pre-scientific attempts to explain nature.”  They will often then go on to explain how the Thunder God is an effort to explain thunder, how the Sun God is an effort to explain the sun, and so forth.

I get so tired of hearing that worn-out 19th Century idea.  Perhaps there is some slight truth to it, but there’s certainly not enough truth to it to make it a remarkable idea.

What aspect of nature does the crucifixion of Jesus attempt to explain?  What aspect of nature does Siddhartha’s enlightenment attempt to explain? How does the Confucian emphasis on cultivating proper relationships attempt to explain nature?  What aspect of nature does Zen meditation attempt to explain?  The notion that “religions originated as pre-scientific attempts to explain nature” simply does not explain crucial aspects of several religions.

I do not subscribe to the notion that religious behavior has only one evolutionary origin.  It seems more likely that it arises from at least three sources.

First, humans have an inherent predisposition to ascribe personalities to things. You see this trait at work even in everyday events.  Someone might think of their car or their computer as having a personality, for instance, and even go so far as to name their machines.   This tendency to ascribe personalities to things — even to inanimate things — seems to me to be the the origin of many supernatural spirits and beings.   It is not much of a step from thinking of the weather as having a personality to conceiving of the weather as a spirit or being.

Another likely origin for at least some religious behavior are mystical experiences.   Mystical experiences are poorly understood, but there are at least several kinds of them.  It is not hard to imagine at least some kinds of mystical experiences giving rise to religious behaviors.  For instance, one has only to think of the experience of satori in Zen.

It seems clear that various psychological disorders might also have given rise to some religious behaviors.  For instance, some passages in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus appear to have been inspired by psychosis.

Those are three possible sources for the origin of religious behavior.  It is also possible that an effort to explain natural phenomena played a roll in the origin of religious behavior.  However, I think that roll was marginal at best when compared to the other three sources.

It’s easy to believe the natural purpose of sex is reproduction.   Offspring, after all, are the single most spectacular result of sex.  Many of us seem bedazzled by that fact.  Consequently, some of us seem to have got the notion the natural purpose of sex is reproduction and that sex without the possibility of reproduction is at best selfish indulgence and at worse perversion.

A Muslim friend tells me Islam forbids birth control on the grounds that sex is divinely ordained for reproduction.  I have heard much the same thing from Catholic friends, and from fundamentalist Protestants.

Even though I think my friends are wrong (and they think I am wrong), I am not going to argue with them in this post because I am concerned here only with the notion that nature has ordained a purpose for sex. The notion some god has ordained a purpose for sex is in some crucial ways quite different from the notion nature has ordained a purpose for sex.

Maybe the best way to approach the question of whether nature has ordained a purpose for sex is to ask what human sex would look like if it’s primary purpose were indeed reproduction.

If that were the case, then I think we might expect human sex to more closely resemble sex in most other mammals.  Mammalian females — including human females — are not always fertile.   In fact, females are more likely to be infertile than they are to be fertile.  Given that fact, if the natural purpose of sex was reproduction, then it would not make sense to have sex when the female was infertile.  It would instead make sense to have sex only when the female was fertile.  And in most mammals, that is the case — sex occurs almost exclusively when the female is in estrus or heat.  That’s the phase during her reproductive cycle when she is most likely to be fertile.

Yet, humans are not like most other mammals.  Instead of mating only when the female is in estrus or heat, humans mate both in and out of estrus.  That one fact, when properly understood, by itself lays to rest the notion that reproduction is the primary natural purpose of sex in humans.  For why would human evolution discard the arrangement of mating only when the female was most likely to be fertile, if the primary natural purpose of human sex was reproduction?

Even though that one fact is all that’s needed here, there are several other facts that also make nonsense of the notion the primary purpose of human sex is reproduction.   Among them in this: Estrus in most mammals is highly marked.  That is, females clearly signal they are fertile.  But in humans, estrus is almost indistinguishable from other, non-fertile, phases of the reproductive cycle.  Why would human females no longer signal when they were fertile if reproduction were the primary purpose of human sex?

Again, post-pubic human females are sexy even when they are not fertile.  It seems that in most mammals, the females undergo changes that make them sexually attractive — or sexy — only during estrus.  However, a case can be made that human females are more or less constantly sexy.  For instance, a female chimp’s rump swells up during estrus.  On the other hand,  a human female’s rump swells up at puberty and remains constantly swollen thereafter, regardless of where she is in her reproductive cycle.  But why would human females be more or less constantly sexy if the primary purpose of sex were reproduction?

Those are three factual reasons for rejecting the notion that nature has ordained reproduction as the primary purpose of human sex.  But there is also a philosophical reason to reject the notion.

The argument that nature has ordained reproduction as the primary purpose of sex rests on the assumption that nature has purposes.  Yet how can nature have purposes?  In order to have a purpose, you must have a will, and nature has no will.   So, instead of speaking of the purpose of sex, one might speak of the function of sex.

It seems pretty obvious that one of the functions of sex in humans is reproduction.  But it is equally obvious that another function of sex in humans is bonding.  And there might be other functions that are less obvious.  But whatever functions there are to human sex,  we should be very clear there are at least three factual reasons and one philosophical reason to refrain from stating that the primary purpose of human sex is reproduction.

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether some religions — some forms of Christianity in particular — retard people’s moral growth.

Of course, it would be ironic if it turned out Christianity retarded people’s moral growth since many Christians seem to believe they have a monopoly on morals.  But nonsense like that aside, I’ve been wondering if some religions don’t for the most part do exactly the opposite of what they boast of doing.  That is, instead of promoting our moral growth, they actually discourage it.

I have a little story that might illustrate the point.  Some long time ago when I was attending university, I had a three or four male friends from the Middle East.  Nothing in their own countries had prepared them for the sight of  “half-naked” American women.  My friends would ask me how I and other American males managed to contain ourselves with so many of our American women walking around “half-naked”.

I was sympathetic to their problem.  It seemed to me the ordeal they were describing was something I myself had gone through.  But not, like them, at 19 and 20.  Instead, I had gone through much the same thing at puberty — that time in the life of males when everything female turns electric.

Yet, there was a difference between myself and my friends.  I had gone through puberty in a culture that told me girls have a right to go around “half-naked”, and that, if there was a problem with it, it was my problem.  My culture forced me to psychologically adapt to the sight of female thighs and cleavage.  And, before I was 19, I was reasonably well adapted.

My friends, though, had lived until the ripe old ages of 19 and 20 in a culture that said the female was to fault for the male’s arousal.  They “knew” they felt flustered because a beautiful girl was showing her legs — not because they couldn’t psychologically handle seeing a beautiful girl’s legs. As a consequence, my friends tended to think American women were callous and uncaring, even heartless, towards American men.

It seemed to me back then the Middle Eastern culture of my friends was less demanding than my own American culture.  While I had to learn to deal with the sight of female thighs and cleavage at puberty, they were never required to deal with the sight.  They could — at least in theory — go their entire lives dumping the burden of their feelings on their womenfolk, rather than handling their feelings themselves.   I thought their culture gave them an out, an escape from personal responsibility and moral growth.

Today, I wonder whether some religions — especially some forms of Christianity — don’t do much the same thing.   Aren’t there ways in which Evangelical Christianity in particular gives its adherents an out, an escape from personal responsibility and moral growth?

For one thing, it seems Evangelical Christianity has a tendency to dump the responsibility for male sexual feelings on females in much the same manner my Middle Eastern friends had been taught to dump the responsibility for their sexual feelings on females.

A couple years ago, I wrote about a Christian youth site that conducted an informal survey, the premise of which was, “Should women and girls dress modestly to help their brothers in Christ avoid lusting for them?” So far as I can see, the very notion that women and girls should dress modestly to help men and boys avoid lusting for them is a recipe for retarding the moral growth of men and boys.

Not all religions, however, pander to the lusts of men and boys as sometimes does the Evangelical religion:

This recalls to me the story of two Zen monks who were travelling when they came to a swollen stream. Standing in the road beside the stream, wondering how she might cross, was a beautiful young woman. Without hesitation, the older monk picked up the woman and carried her across the stream. She thanked him and went on her separate way. The two monks then travelled on together for several hours, until the younger monk, deeply troubled, could no longer remain silent. “Brother, aren’t we forbidden to have any physical contact with women?”, he asked. Replied the older monk, “I put her down several hours ago, but you are still carrying her.”

Learning to deal with your sexual feelings so they neither burden you nor those around you is one of the most moral things you can do.  Surely any religion that makes a claim to lead in moral issues must do more than assign the burden of your sexual feelings to someone else.

There seem to be other ways in which some religions might retard the moral growth of their adherents.  But at this point, I’ve written nearly a thousand words on the subject and most of you are probably asleep.  So, I will save a few ideas for a later post.

There are days when I feel the Italians are close to being the earth’s most civilized people.  I’m sure my feelings have something to do with my never having been to Italy — we only idealize those places and peoples we do not really know.

Nevertheless, something must be said for a country that (1) was responsible for the Renaissance, (2) has some of the finest cuisines in the world, (3) has produced great art and music, and (4) cannot field a military worth a damn.  If those things do not indicate an advanced civilization, I don’t know what things do.

Now, if they could only rid themselves of the Mafia.

My city said it couldn’t afford fireworks this year. So I wrote to the commander of the nearby army base asking him to shell us for 30 minutes tonight. But instead of writing back, he’s sent two MPs and an army psychiatrist. Now I’m wondering whatever happened to the days when the military was actually proud to participate in Fourth of July celebrations?

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

- Richard M. Nixon

“Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.”

- Bob Herbert

Americans have a tendency to conceive of their country as an exception to the rules, or to the laws of human nature, that govern other nations.  This notion is sometimes called the notion of  “American exceptionalism”.

Sometimes, it takes the form of believing Americans are destined to be a free people.  When we see the difficulty so many other peoples have realizing their freedom, it often confirms our notions that what is happening to them cannot happen to us.  We might fully support the Iranian people in their struggle for democratic elections, but our support for them is seldom qualified by the thought, “That could happen here.”

Put differently, we do not learn from others.  Very few Americans think Iran has anything to teach us about our own democracy.  After all, we are an exception to the rules that govern countries like Iran.

Sometimes the notion of American exceptionalism takes the form of believing our leaders can breach with impunity the checks and balances that have traditionally limited their power over us.

Richard Nixon seems to have expressed that opinion when he stated that if the President does it, it’s not illegal.   In any other country, unchecked power soon becomes tyranny.   But not — we think — in America.  In America, only the nut cases warn us against allowing our government to have unchecked powers.

President Obama has declared his intention to indefinitely imprison people without trial.

The notion that a free people can grant their government the power to imprison them indefinitely and without trial is absurd.   There is nothing in the long history of our species to suggest that is at all possible, let alone likely.   Any people who grant their government tyrannical powers will before too long enjoy a tyranny — says history.

“But we are different”,  says the American exceptionalist, “We can get away with it.  Yes, we can.”

This evening, I ran across a post by George, over at Decrepit Old Fool, called “Is Change Even Possible?“  It’s a good post that raises a vital question and I recommend it.

In his post, George first discusses how it has been impossible to get the metric system adopted in this country despite the costs of keeping our own unique system of measurements.  He then goes on to ask:

It’s that reluctance that makes me wonder if we really can limit population growth, cut back on carbon dioxide, stop giving antibiotics to livestock, and move away from a consumption-based culture.  Hell, we can’t even pick up a metric ruler and really learn it, when millions of dollars or even human lives are at stake.  Is change impossible? [emphasis in the original]

I offered an answer to George over on his blog, but I would like to expand on my answer here.

It seems to me that we humans are naturally a very conservative species.  Nowadays, we often overlook that fact because our own age is one of unprecedented change.  But apart from our own age, there is nothing in human history to suggest that we adapt to change often or well.

Consider that the rapid changes we see all around us today actually seem for the most part to be products of one culture — Western culture.  Most of the world’s cultures are still relatively conservative when compared to the West.  Moreover, Western culture wasn’t always such a cauldron of change.   On the contrary, most of Western history shows that the West once changed just as slowly as the rest of the world.   It has only been in the past 500 years — or less — that Western culture has become prone to change.

If you think of humans like an anthropologist, you might get an even stronger impression of how changeless human societies normally are.  For instance, there have been human tool kits that did not change in thousands of years.  Again, paleolithic art remained essentially the same in theme, style and technique for over 25,000 years.  Most cultures in history have gone hundreds of years without significant changes — think, for example, of the ancient Egyptians.  And even today, even during a period of unprecedented change, you can go to many places in the world and see things being done the same way they have been done for thousands of years.

Looked at broadly,  humans are a deeply conservative species.  Moreover, it is this conservatism that has made our cultures possible.   Culture can be defined as the transmission of behaviors from one generation to the next by non-genetic means.  So, by it’s very definition, culture is about the conservation of behaviors.

Now, the preservation and transmission of culture has been extraordinarily important to the survival of humans since before we became a species.  Culture—and not our teeth, not our claws, nor our strength—is among the primary means whereby we adapt to the world.

When you consider how hard it is for most people to think outside of the cultural box they were raised in, you get a sense of how resistant cultures are to change.  What George said in his article about the difficulty in getting Americans to adopt the metric system helps to illustrate that point.  People not only prefer the system of measurements they were raised with, they in many cases come to irrationally feel that the system of measurements they were raised with are somehow more true, more natural, and more appropriate than any other system of measurements.  The importance of those sentiments should not be discounted.

One of the most common responses people have to change — even minor changes that do not really affect them — is to declare the changes offend their gods.  You see that, for instance, in the response of millions of Americans to the proposal to allow gays to marry.  You see it also in the countless religious-based reactionary movements that have sprung up in various countries to oppose the changes brought by Western culture.  People are ever willing to declare their cultural traditions are established by their deities. There is something in our species that wants and desires things to be fixed, unchanging, and predictable. And we will even go to the extent of declaring our customs are part of the natural order of things to help insure that our customs are not changed.

The changes in human cultures that have come about in the past 500 or so years are exceedingly remarkable, but they are not the human norm.  Change is for the most part resisted by humans. Any attempt to change us is an uphill battle.

It seems to me the different marriage customs of the world are all manifestations of an underlying, gene-based instinct or propensity in humans to pair bond. There seems to be no other plausible explanation for the ubiquity of marriage.

Of course, pair-bonding does not preclude polygamy.  Polygamy is merely a condition in which one of the partners has formed multiple pair-bonds.   e.g. J0nes has formed a pair-bond with Smith and Stewart each.

One thing pair-bonding does not imply is group marriage.  That is, marriages of more than two people in which every partner is equally married to every other partner.  Humans now and then try such arrangements.  Yet,  in every documented case of group marriage, the participants reverted to pair bonds within six years.

This instinct to pair bond also seems to be present in both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

So I don’t really understand the notion that marriage is traditionally an exclusively heterosexual institution established by some deity.

On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that marriage is ultimately established by our genes — unless you want to add another layer of explanation and claim our genes were established by some deity.

Furthermore, it seems equally clear that both most heterosexuals and most homosexuals have some desire to pair-bond. So, to argue that marriage is an exclusively heterosexual institution would seem to be factually incorrect.

Now, I would not argue that anyone has a right to pair bond simply and only because it’s in their genes to pair bond. It’s in most people’s genes to go to war, but that by itself doesn’t mean anyone has a right to go to war.

But I would argue that the notion pair-bonding is an exclusively heterosexual tradition is evidently false. And I would also argue that — since pair bonding is the biological basis of marriage — it would seem to be very difficult to argue on the basis of its origins that marriage ought to be limited to heterosexuals.

It’s interesting how Michael Jackson’s death is driving the corporate news media.  Issues like health care and the mess in Iran have been swept under the rug.

I wonder how the decision to do wall to wall coverage of Jackson’s death is made.  Does the market — the news consumers — demand wall to wall coverage of Jackson’s death, or do the news corporations determine what gets viewed — or is it a combination of both?

The Washington Post and ABC News released a poll today that asked, among other things, whether Americans approve of torturing terrorism suspects.

A little less than half of those polled approved of torturing terrorism suspects.

There seem to be three notable arguments about the effectiveness of torture.   The first argument or position holds that torture is ineffective.  This is the position adopted by the United States Army as recently as 1992.

According to that year’s Army Field Manual FM34-52 for Intelligence Interrogation ,  “Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

This is also the position of the U.S. military’s senior interrogator in Iraq in 2006:

…they ["enhanced interrogation techniques"] are neither the most efficient nor reliable methods of achieving cooperation.  There are rare circumstances where force and threats would be more effective and timely than intellectual methods, but in those rare circumstances, if we resort to torture … the actual harm done to us is greater than any benefit that we could obtain.

In contrast to the notion that torture is ineffective when compared to other interrogation techniques is the notion that torture is actually more effective than other interrogation techniques.  The classic example of this argument does not seem based on anyone’s experience, but rather on a hypothetical situation.  The argument begins, “Suppose you had a bomb ticking away somewhere…”.

In 2004,  Senator Charles Schumer presented the hypothetical position that torture is more effective than other means of obtaining information to Congress:

I think there are probably very few people in this [Congressional hearing] room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. Take the hypothetical: if we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believe that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most Senators, maybe all, would do what you have to do. So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the fox hole, it’s a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect the fact that the President’s in the fox-hole every day. So he can hardly be blamed for asking you, or his White House counsel or the Department of Defense, to figure out when it comes to torture, what the law allows and when the law allows it, and what there is permission to do.  [emphasis mine]

An odd thing about Schumer’s argument is that it requires us to to simply accept as a given or forgone conclusion that torture is more effective than other means of obtaining information.  We are not told why we should believe torture in more effective; we are simply told “we believe” torture is more effective.  Perhaps the military is right and it is true that torture is rarely an effective means of obtaining information.

A third position on torture is that it is no more nor any less effective than other means of obtaining information.  Peter Wehner, who once worked in the Bush White House,  seems to argue in this Commentary Magazine article that torture is a reliable means of obtaining information.

Yet, Wehner fails to demonstrate that torture is better than other means of obtaining information.  Consequently, his argument for the use of torture amounts to the confused and morally impoverished argument that torture is a permissible means of obtaining information simply because information can be obtained by torture.

So there you have three positions on the use of torture to obtain information.  It seems only the first position — the position that torture is a largely ineffective means to obtain information — is supported by most interrogators.

The other positions — that torture is more effective than other means or that it is no more nor any less effective than other means — are more likely to be supported by politicians and bureaucrats.  Yet it is these last two positions that popular culture seems to support.

Once again, the American military’s senior interrogator in Iran in 2006 put it this way:

Television shows like 24 incorporate interrogation and the use of torture under the “ticking bomb” scenario because it is dramatic and entertaining and sells commercial space.  The myriad of cop shows, including NYPD Blue, CSI, Law & Order, and The Shield, consistently use harsh and forceful interrogation scenes to build excitement, and it is a favorite topic of talking head political shows, and currently a major topic in political debates.

So why do almost half of all Americans think torture is an acceptable means of obtaining information?  Perhaps because of two things.  First, so many of their leaders — especially certain politicians and bureaucrats — support torture.  And second, because so much of popular culture supports torture.  But whatever the case, Americans who support torture cannot be listening to the interrogators who say that it’s use is rarely effective.