How We Believe, 2nd Ed. Read online

  “This is an important book, which is at the same time a great read. Michael Shermer digs into the American religious psyche with devastating logic and intensity … . Too often politeness (or cowardice) prevents people from asking questions or from expressing dissent. No such barriers stand in the way of Shermer’s acute intellect, the more powerful since he so obviously cares about the issues on which he writes. I love his discussions of God and morality and when I disagree, I simply want to argue the more.”

  —Michael Ruse, author of Taking Darwin Seriously and professor of philosophy and zoology, University of Guelph

  “Those who approach this intriguing and informative book with a receptive mind will come away with a much deeper appreciation for the wonderful interplay of biology and culture that makes us who we are—perhaps unique creatures in the universe.”

  —Donald Johanson, director of the Institute of Human Origins and author of From Lucy to Language

  “The book will convince and delight all who are not chronically averse to opening their minds and thinking for themselves.”

  —Richard Dawkins, author of Unweaving the Rainbow

  To Stephen Jay Gould

  For examining God, religion, and myth as Spinoza would have it: not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn, but to understand.

  Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, for the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

  —Proverbs 3:13-18

  Table of Contents

  Epigraph

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  PREFACE - The God Question

  INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION - The Gradual Illumination of the Mind

  Part I - GOD AND BELIEF

  Chapter 1 - DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?

  A LEAP OF FAITH

  A BREACH IN THE FAITH

  THE ART OF THE INSOLUBLE

  WHAT IS GOD?

  THE FAITH OF THE FLATLANDERS

  Chapter 2 - IS GOD DEAD?

  GOD IN THE 1960s

  TIME AND GOD

  GOD’S RESURRECTION

  SUPPLY-SIDE RELIGION AND THE SECULARIZATION OF THE WORLD

  SOCIAL INDICATORS OF GOD

  SACRED SCIENCE

  Chapter 3 - THE BELIEF ENGINE

  THE PATTERN-SEEKING ANIMAL

  THE MEDIEVAL BELIEF ENGINE

  THE MODERN BELIEF ENGINE

  TALKING TWADDLE WITH THE DEAD

  Chapter 4 - WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD

  SEEING THE PATTERN OF GOD

  IS BELIEF IN GOD GENETICALLY PROGRAMMED?

  IS THERE A GOD MODULE IN THE BRAIN?

  GOD AS MEME

  SCIENTISTS’ BELIEF IN GOD

  WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD

  INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL REASONS TO BELIEVE

  ALL’S RIGHT WITH GOD IN HIS HEAVEN

  Chapter 5 - O YE OF LITTLE FAITH

  PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS FOR GOD

  SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS FOR GOD

  THE NEW COSMOLOGY

  THE NEW CREATIONISM

  THE BIBLE CODE

  THE REAL MEANING OF ARGUMENTS FOR GOD

  Part II - RELIGION AND SCIENCE

  Chapter 6 - IN A MIRROR DIMLY, THEN FACE TO FACE

  A THREE-TIERED MODEL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

  MORAL COURAGE AND NOBILITY OF SPIRIT

  Chapter 7 - THE STORYTELLING ANIMAL

  THE HOW AND THE WHY: IN SEARCH OF DEEPER ANSWERS

  FROM PATTERN-SEEKING TO STORYTELLING

  FROM STORYTELLING TO MYTHMAKING

  FROM MYTHMAKING TO MORALITY

  FROM MORALITY TO RELIGION

  FROM RELIGION TO GOD

  Chapter 8 - GOD AND THE GHOST DANCE

  THE GHOST DANCE AS MYTHMAKING

  THE 1890 GHOST DANCE

  THE ETERNAL, RETURN OF THE GHOST DANCE

  THE CARGO CULT GHOST DANCE

  JESUS AS MESSIAH MYTH

  WHY THE MESSIAH MYTH RETURNS

  Chapter 9 - THE FIRE THAT WILL CLEANSE

  WHAT IS THE MILLENNIUM?

  WHEN PROPHECY FAILS—A.D. 1000

  WHEN PROPHECY FAILS—A.D. 2000

  THE LURE OF THE MILLENNIUM

  HEAVEN ON EARTH

  SECULAR HEAVENS

  HOLDING THE CENTER

  Chapter 10 - GLORIOUS CONTINGENCY

  IF THE TAPE WERE PLAYED TWICE

  THE MISMEASURE OF CONTINGENCY

  CONTINGENT-NECESSITY

  GLORIOUS CONTINGENCY: A LITTLE TWIG CALLED HOMO SAPIENS

  THE FULL IMPACT OF CONTINGENCY

  CONTINGENCY AND FREEDOM

  IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

  FINDING MEANING IN A CONTINGENT UNIVERSE

  AFTERWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION - God on the Brain

  APPENDIX I - What Does It Mean to Study Religion Scientifically? Or, How Social Scientists “Do” Science

  APPENDIX II - Why People Believe in God—The Data and Statistics

  A Bibliographic Essay on Theism, Atheism, and Why People Believe in God

  NOTES

  CREDITS

  INDEX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  PREFACE

  The God Question

  A Moral Dilemma for Dr. Laura

  Not long after I set out to write this book, I received a fax from a subscriber to the magazine I publish. Skeptic, who had just finished reading the most recent issue (Vol. 5, No. 2) devoted to “The God Question.” This volume of the magazine addressed the various theological, philosophical, and scientific arguments for God’s existence, Einstein’s views on God, skeptic Martin Gardner’s belief in God, arguments for and against immortality, and the decline of atheism in America. The correspondent, however, was not writing about any specific article, but about the qualifications of one of the members of Skeptic’s board of advisors. “I would love to know what qualifies a person to be on your editorial board,” the letter began. “If he were interested would Rev. Pat Robertson qualify? I consider myself to be an atheist, a skeptic, and a semiprofessional talk show listener. In the latter capacity I have had many occasions to listen to one Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a member of your board.” The letter went on to chronicle Schlessinger’s reliance on the Bible as her authority for resolving moral dilemmas presented to her by her callers on her radio program. “I didn’t know that skeptics relied on authority to settle disagreements over morality,” the letter concluded.

  This was not the first correspondence we received concerning Laura Schlessinger’s position on our board of advisors. Throughout 1996 and 1997 we were sent a couple of dozen critical letters, faxes, and e-mails, and for a couple of weeks in mid-1997, on a skeptics Internet discussion group, a debate ensued about Schlessinger’s involvement in the skeptical movement. We explained that membership or involvement in any capacity with the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine is not exclusionary. We could not care less what anyone’s religious beliefs are. In fact, at least two of our more prominent supporters—the comedian and songwriter Steve Allen and the mathematician and essayist Martin Gardner—are believers in God. Other members of the board may believe in God as well. I do not know. I have never asked.

  The primary mission of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine is the investigation of science and pseudoscience controversies, and the promotion of critical thinking. We investigate claims that are testable or examinable. If someone says she believes in God b
ased on faith, then we do not have much to say about it. If someone says he believes in God and he can prove it through rational arguments or empirical evidence, then, like Harry Truman, we say “show me.” Some Christians claim that the Shroud of Turin proves that Jesus lived and was crucified and resurrected. But the shroud was carbon-14 dated and found to be a fourteenth-century hoax (some are now claiming that the dating process was contaminated and that the shroud may be older still, but these claims have never been corroborated in peer-reviewed journals). Some creationists claim that geology proves that the Earth was created only 10,000 years ago. But strict scientific dating techniques show that the Earth is billions of years old. Similarly, some physicists and cosmologists claim that the laws of nature, the configuration of atoms, and the structure of the universe prove it was all created by a supernatural being. But science continues to show that everything from the simplest atoms to the most complex galaxies is explicable by natural laws, historical contingencies, and rules of self-organized complexity.

  If, in the process of learning how to think scientifically and critically, someone comes to the conclusion that there is no God, so be it—but it is not our goal to convert believers into nonbelievers. From considerable personal experience I can attest to the futility of trying to either prove or disprove God (see Chapter 5). In any case, the process would seem inherently impossible since, by admission of nearly all religions, belief in God rests on faith and means suspending the requirements of proof and logic. When people say they believe in God because it comforts them, because they have faith, because of personal revelation, or just because it “works” for them, I have no qualms with these reasons. But when others say they can prove God, prove that their religion is the right one, prove that we cannot be moral without God, and so forth, such claims demand a scientific and rational analysis. Of course, if the answers to these arguments are as obvious and clear-cut as both theists and atheists think, then why do such debates continue, even in the hallowed halls of theological seminaries and universities, where presumably the question of God’s existence would have been resolved by now? It has not. That fact alone tells us something about the nature of the subject. So, I would have thought that any member of the Skeptics Society would be aware that God’s existence, from a scientific and rational perspective, remains an open question—it cannot be “proved” one way or the other. But I also would have imagined that Schlessinger, who is both highly intelligent and well educated, would have been equally aware and sensitive to this issue.

  For those who may still be unfamiliar with her, Laura Schlessinger, best known as “Dr. Laura,” is the star and host of the top-rated nationally syndicated radio talk show program, running neck and neck with Rush Limbaugh for the number-one spot. She is in virtually every radio market in America, has millions of listeners, receives on average upwards of 60,000 calls per day, and in 1997 her program was sold for a staggering $71 million. Her books, Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives, How Could You Do That?, and The Ten Commandments, were all national bestsellers in both hardback and paperback. She draws huge crowds for her speaking engagements. “Dr. Laura” mugs, T-shirts, and newsletters are promoted daily through the radio program and an ever-growing mailing list of fans. She has been featured on several national newsmagazine and morning programs, and was even satirized in Playboy magazine. This is all to say that Laura Schlessinger is hugely influential. When she speaks, people listen.

  We invited Laura to be on our board of advisors in 1994 when she took a skeptical stance about the recovered-memory movement and other “victimization” groups. We admired her courage to make a public statement against what in hindsight turned out to be a bad chapter in the history of psychology. At the time it was a very dangerous thing to denounce. (The “recovery” of distant memories of childhood sexual abuse usually turns out to be nothing more than the planting of “false” memories in patients by well-meaning but irresponsible therapists.) We invited Laura to speak for the Skeptics Society at Caltech. For nearly three hours (and without notes) she paced back and forth across the stage, educating and entertaining a sizeable audience. She was brilliant and funny. Most of all she was controversial. Schlessinger promotes critical thinking, independence of thought, self-reliance, and other attributes certainly admired by most free thinkers, humanists, and skeptics. Although she publicly ratcheted up the intensity of her religious convictions through 1996 and 1997 (when she converted to Judaism), and critical letters came pouring into Skeptic’s office, we continued to defend her because as a general principle we do not believe in excluding people from organizations based on their religious beliefs.

  Imagine my surprise, then, when we received another fax four days later from Laura Schlessinger herself, who had just finished reading the issue of Skeptic entitled “The God Question.” The fax read:

  Please remove my name from your Editorial Board list published in each of your Skeptic Magazine issues immediately. Science can only describe what; guess at why; but cannot offer ultimate meaning. When man’s limited intellect has the arrogance to pretend an ability to analyze God, it’s time for me to get off that train.

  A voice-mail message followed, reinforcing the seriousness of her resignation. Amazed at this conjunction of ironic events, I called Laura at her home that same morning and spoke with her at length. She made it clear and in no uncertain terms (as Laura does with such effectiveness on her radio show) that she was “offended” by our issue and that God was off limits to human reason and inquiry. There is a God. Period. End of discussion. I pointed out that we had gone out of our way not to offend, and that, in fact, the arguments and critiques that we presented came from some of the greatest theologians and philosophers over the past two thousand years. Arrogant all, she responded. God is not open for analysis. But Which God, I inquired? There is only one God, she explained—the God of Abraham (she clarified this to mean monotheism—Christianity and Islam included—not just Judaism). But what about the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Free Will, I asked. Laura’s rapid-fire answers to these timeless problems of theology told me that this was not the first time she had spoken about them.

  Our conversation wove in and out of a number of deep philosophical and moral issues—issues Laura had clearly contemplated for much of her adult life. In her twenties, she admitted, she was an atheist, not unhappy but certainly not a fulfilled individual. But now she is a theist and claims to have found not only greater happiness but also completeness as an individual. She said she can now stand on moral terra firma, the very basis of her radio success. In fact, she has essentially shifted her radio show emphasis from psychological advice to moral counseling—callers are now instructed to preface their question with “my moral dilemma is this … .” Laura then helps them resolve the dilemma, often with sage advice from the good book.

  Dr. Laura believes in God. More than that, she knows God exists. Her level of doubt must be as close to zero as a belief system can get. And she is not alone. In fact, most believers in God stand very firm in the conviction of their belief. Why?

  GENESIS TO REVELATION

  Why people believe in God is a specific subject I address to get at a deeper one: how we believe. If this were just a generic book on the psychology of belief systems, however, there would be little concern for controversy or emotional reaction. But this book is more than that, a lot more. So my moral dilemma is this: How can we have a dialogue about the God Question and keep our emotions in check? As I will explain in the next chapter, I am an agnostic who has no ax to grind with believers, and I hold no grudge against religion. My only beef with believers is when they claim they can use science and reason to prove God’s existence, or that theirs is the One True Belief; my only gripe with religion is when it becomes intolerant of other peoples’ beliefs, or when it becomes a tool of political oppression, ideological extremism, or the cultural suppression of diversity. I am unabashedly interested in understanding how and why any
of us come to our beliefs, how and why religion evolved as the most powerful institution in human history, and how and why belief (or lack of) in God develops and shapes our thoughts and actions. One prominent scientist told me “you have a rather conciliatory attitude toward religion,” and after reading an early draft of this book noted: “You seem to be saying it is okay for people to believe in God.” Of course, whether I say it is okay for people to believe in God or not, they will believe (or not) regardless. My primary focus in addressing readers is not whether they believe or disbelieve, but how and why they have made their particular belief choice. Within the larger domain of how we believe, I am mainly interested in three things: (1) Why people believe in God; (2) the relationship of science and religion, reason and faith; and (3) how the search for the sacred came into being and how it can thrive in an age of science.

  The intellectual and spiritual quest to understand the universe and our place in it is the foundation of the God Question, the various answers to which are explored in the first chapter of this book, including theist, agnostic, nontheist, and atheist, along with the differences these positions make in our thinking about the question. At the beginning of the twentieth century social scientists predicted that belief in God would decrease by the end of the century because of the secularization of society. In fact, as the second chapter shows, the opposite has occurred. Never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the population, believed in God. Not only is God not dead, as Nietzsche proclaimed, but he has never been more alive. To find out why, the “Belief Engine” is considered in the third chapter as the mechanism by which any of us come to believe in anything, including and especially the magical thinking that leads millions of people to believe in psychics and mediums who claim that they can talk to the dead in heaven. To get at the core of the God Question and why people believe, the fourth chapter presents the results of an empirical study that asked a random sampling of the population that very question. The results were most enlightening, not only in the reasons people give for belief in God (made especially poignant when contrasted with why we think other people believe in God) but also in the quality and depth of the answers given (often in multipage, single-spaced typed letters), showing that the God Question is one of the most compelling any of us can ask ourselves.