Atheism

Evolutionary characteristics

In individual caves not all the numerous cavernicol insects, the most conspicuous and perhaps also universally met with peculiarity is the reduction in body pigmentation. This is particularly marked in Coleoptera. The reduction or total loss body pigmentation are without doubt correlated with the absence of sunlight. This is demonstrated by the fact that all these unpigmented cave beetles readily develop the characteristic pigment when they are exposed to sunlight. A second peculiarity is the more or less pronounced reduction of eyes in all caverniculous species. Nearly all cave insects are characterized by an abnormal elongation of appendages, especially the antennae, as compensation for loss of eyes. There is also increase and elongation of sensory setae, as for example, in the beetle Scotoplanetes arenstorffianus from Herzegovina. In contrast, none of the free-living related carabids have such sensory setae on the elytra. True cave insects are generally all characterized by wing reduction. Among the cave beetles the hind wings are reduced or even lost.

The general appearance and attitude of body of cave insects often differ conspicuously from those of free-living relatives. This is particularly observed in Silphidae, through nearly every other cave insect also exhibits this peculiarity. All these are evidence not of selection, as commonly assumed, but of direct functional adaptation and correlation to the immediate environment.

av­ing lived in Cam­bo­di­a and Chi­na, and trav­eled in Thai­land, Laos, Viet­nam, and Af­ri­ca, I have come to ap­pre­ci­ate how re­li­gion func­tions quite dif­fer­ent­ly in the de­vel­op­ing world—where the ma­jor­ity of be­liev­ers ac­tu­al­ly live. The Four Horse­men, their fans, and their en­e­mies all fail to fac­tor in their own pros­per­i­ty when they think a­bout the uses and a­buses of re­li­gion.

Har­ris and his colleagues think that re­li­gion is most­ly con­cerned with two jobs—explain­ing na­ture and guid­ing mo­ral­ity. Their sug­ges­tion that sci­ence does these jobs bet­ter is pret­ty con­vinc­ing. As Har­ris puts it, "I am ar­gu­ing that sci­ence can, in prin­ci­ple, help us un­der­stand what we should do and should want—and, there­fore, what oth­er people should do and should want in or­der to live the best lives pos­si­ble." I a­gree with Har­ris here and even spilled sig­nif­i­cant ink my­self, back in 2001, to show that Ste­phen Jay Gould's pop­u­lar sci­ence/re­li­gion di­plo­ma­cy of "nonoverlapping mag­is­te­ri­a" (what many call the fact/val­ue dis­tinc­tion) is in­co­her­ent. The horse­men's mis­take is not their claim that sci­ence can guide mo­ral­ity. Rather, they're wrong in imag­in­ing that the pri­ma­ry job of re­li­gion is mo­ral­ity. Like cos­mol­o­gy, eth­ics is bare­ly rel­e­vant in non-West­ern re­li­gions. It is cer­tain­ly not the main func­tion or lure of de­vo­tion­al life. Science could take over the "mo­ral­ity job" to­mor­row in the de­vel­op­ing world, and very few re­li­gious prac­ti­tioners would even no­tice.

Religion is not real­ly a path to mo­ral­ity, nor can it sub­sti­tute for a sci­en­tif­ic un­der­stand­ing of na­ture. Its chief vir­tue is as a "cop­ing mech­a­nism" for our trou­bles. Pow­er­less peo­ple turn to religion and find a sense of re­lief, which helps them psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly to stay afloat. Those who wish to a­bol­ish religion seek to pull away the life pre­serv­er, mis­tak­en­ly blam­ing the de­vice for the drown­ing.

More im­por­tant­, my ar­gu­ment—that re­li­gion soothes emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty—can't be "conde­scend­ing" if I'm also ap­ply­ing it to my­self. Like Sam Har­ris, I know a fair share of neu­ro­sci­ence, but that didn't al­le­vi­ate my an­guish and des­per­a­tion in the emer­gen­cy room with my son. The old saw "there are no athe­ists in fox­holes" ob­vi­ous­ly doesn't prove that there is a God. It just proves that high­ly emo­tion­al be­ings (i.e., hu­mans) are also high­ly vul­ner­a­ble be­ings. Our emotional limbic system seeks homeostasis—it tries to reset to calmer functional defaults when it's been riled up. I suspect there are aspects of religion (and art) that go straight into the limbic system and quell the adrenalin-based metabolic overdrive of stress.

In 2009, in Bra­zil, the arch­bish­op ex­com­mu­ni­cat­ed doc­tors for per­form­ing an a­bor­tion on a 9-year-old girl who had been re­peat­ed­ly raped by her step­fa­ther. The step­fa­ther had impregnated her with twins. The girl's moth­er, too, was kicked out of the church, but the rap­ist was not. That is the kind of de­hu­man­iz­ing and dog­mat­ic re­li­gion that should be elim­i­nat­ed. Cath­olics de­serve a better re­li­gion than that. But there are still as­pects of Ca­thol­i­cism that are hu­man­iz­ing, consol­ing, and in­spi­ra­tion­al. Wheth­er it is Ca­thol­i­cism, Protestantism, Is­lam, Bud­dhism, or animism, the vir­tues can be re­tained while the vices are mod­er­at­ed. In short, the re­duc­tion of human suf­fer­ing should be the stand­ard by which we meas­ure ev­ery re­li­gion.

All these are evidence not of selection, as commonly assumed, but of direct functional adaptation and correlation to the immediate environment.

I'm trying to get a handle on what positive things atheism brings to life.