The Evolution of God ( short book review and thoughts)

The following thought was inspired and shaped by a book a friend let me borrow (thanks Gabe) called The Evolution of God. In this book Robert Wright examines the development of morals in religion throughout history. His main focus is on the Abrahamic religions, although he quickly moves through early hunter gatherer societies and their religious evolution in the first few chapters of the book. Now, there are things in this book that will please everyone and piss everyone off at the same time, so basically it's a great book, but the main point he makes is that humans seem to be on this path of morality. When Wright speaks of God he speaks of the concept of God, never really stating whether or not he believes a God actually exists. Wright states that throughout our evolutionary history natural selection has guided people toward acceptance and moral direction, and this can be seen through the scripture of religion and the facts on the ground at the time these works were written. He backs his point up well with his theory of non-zero sum relationships, which is basically that as societies grow it benefits us to rely on each other, so we treat each other well. This gets reflected in religious scriptures. In Wright's words "As the scope of social organization grows , God tends to eventually catch up, drawing a larger expanse of humanity under his protection, or at least a larger expanse of humanity under his toleration."

Is there evidence in a deity in all of this? I would say yes, evidence but certainly not proof. The human race seems to be guided toward moral goodness. There is a solid sense of right and wrong, and due to nonzero sum relationships between the human race through cultural evolution the most beneficial choice is almost always a morally good choice. Unfortunately, of course, we haven't always made the right choices. Still, I think there is a purpose to our progress here, and I think we are on the right track toward moral truth. However, this "moral truth" is likely something we will never reach. The human brain did not evolve to detect and observe universal truths. In one of my favorite parts of the book Wright makes a good point about electrons. In class we all saw the pictures of electrons whirling around an atom, but the fact is we have no idea what an electron looks like because we've never actually observed one. Still, they almost certainly exist because they fit perfectly and necessarily into the make up of an atom. There are numerous things in physics that are not observable but we can see their effect on things that are observable. The moral progression of the human race suggests a driving purpose of some kind. This can be observed in a number of historical scriptures, including religious scriptures. In the Abrahamic faiths God has gone from choosing one society of people to offering the entire world salvation, for example. So, maybe we can't directly observe what is driving us toward this moral purpose but we can observe it's effects, and just maybe it's not unreasonable to call that God.

Other thoughts:

Don't go see Avatar if you care a lot about intellectual value in movies. Basically, the better these blockbuster movies do, the more money movie companies are going to throw at them, leaving less money for up and coming directors with a thoughtful movie. I'm sure that was a waste of two sentences though.

I don't advise watching the movie Little Children when you're already depressed.

Ben Bernanke is far from the person of the year. Time fucked that one up big time. The head of the most evil institution on the planet is our person of the year? Really?




The next blog should be a little more entertaining. Chris wants do drink and co-write one with me. Cheers!