The Evolution of God

The cover story from yesterday's New York Times Sunday Magazine is a lengthy examination of research into the possibly evolutionary bases for religious belief. The issues is not another go-round of the "does God exist" question. Rather, it's an issue of how and why, evolutionarily speaking, the human mind developed the capacity for belief in a higher power. Among the more interesting ideas that get thrown out:

A second mental module that primes us for religion is causal reasoning. The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative, complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic, on whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently random. “We automatically, and often unconsciously, look for an explanation of why things happen to us,” Barrett wrote, “and ‘stuff just happens’ is no explanation. Gods, by virtue of their strange physical properties and their mysterious superpowers, make fine candidates for causes of many of these unusual events.” The ancient Greeks believed thunder was the sound of Zeus’s thunderbolt. Similarly, a contemporary woman whose cancer treatment works despite 10-to-1 odds might look for a story to explain her survival. It fits better with her causal-reasoning tool for her recovery to be a miracle, or a reward for prayer, than for it to be just a lucky roll of the dice.

Put more simply, to quote a Marillion tune:

Finding the answer
It's a human obsession

Our brains are hardwired to find answers. Not the choice of word - "answer," not "truth." In fact, often times we prefer a compelling lie to the truth. Consider conspiracy theories - the appeal to people's desire for an answer when the truth of whatever is at hand is too disturbing or complex to really handle.

Is God just an "answer?" I'll leave that to yourselves to figure out.