It would be interesting to see if the following could ever be taught in schools, or what the response would be:

“Early humans were faced with numerous phenomena they did not understand: thunder, lightning, diseases, storms, wildfires, volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors, and so on. In an effort to understand and define their surroundings, they created human-like gods to rule over these forces.

Early human society was probably much like modern chimpanzee society, with a typical alpha-male tribal structure. An angry alpha male was probably a common occurrence, and there are clear rituals for showing submission – the same is true for any social mammalian species, from zebras to wolf packs. Thus, early humans tried to placate these natural forces by offering prayers and gifts to them, and this is probably how the first notion of gods arose.

Other natural forces had a profoundly beneficial nature – rain made the grass grow, and food became abundant. These forces were ones that early humans would have wanted to encourage. These good gods and goddesses brought gifts to humanity, but other, more evil ones brought suffering.

Many different belief systems along these lines (good/evil) came into being as human society developed, and came to be a key part of the cohesiveness of social groups. In many cases, the professions of doctor and priest would overlap; in others the professions of king and priest would become the same. This went on for thousands of years, with varying results.

This really began to change with the rise of scientific explanations for natural phenomenon. First, the basic rules of motion on earth were shown to apply to the heavens as well, and then the universe began to get bigger and bigger, until in the early 20th century Hubble discovered the red-shifted galaxies and the expanding universe.

At the same time, there was a steady increase in knowledge of biological evolution and biochemistry. The unity of all life on earth became clear, as well as the descent of modern species from common ancestors. This all brought on a huge shift in religious attitudes, and a great loss in power for the religious authorities.

As psychology developed, the deadly sins – pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth – were no longer viewed as the temptations of Satan, but rather as hangovers from our animal past – primitive emotional states that could be controlled by the well-adjusted adult human mind, in the rational secularist viewpoint. That viewpoint can easily become its own religion, however, with scientists as the new high priests… but science has built-in defense mechanisms against authoritarian takeover.

The two big problems for traditional religion have been the sheer size of the Universe and the knowledge of our animalistic predecessors. This has led to a new religious interest in Very Big Concepts, such as “the Universe as God” and so on. My own favorite religious take is that God, bored with strictly deterministic universes, decided to create one that would be interesting yet quite unpredictable – thus, quantum mechanics and chaos.

So, that’s what science has done – relegated God to the outer reaches of cosmology, where He or She or It may be lurking quietly, just out of sight. For example, there is no more Vital Essence theory of living systems, in which life can only arise by a divine intervention (thus, no spontaneous generation is allowed).

However, when it comes to social norms and acceptable behavior, it seems that by and large both religious and secular philosophies come to the same basic conclusions about what is moral and ethical and what is not.

I have to ask, though, any of the taxi drivers grill you on “Stephen Hawkins”? Seems about half the taxi drivers I meet in Dublin seem to have recently watched something about black holes on TV. I have had some pretty strange conversations on the way back from a night out. One guy seemed to be particularly up on Schroedinger’s sex life. Weird.

The Church is losing its authority in Ireland just as the nation moves away from being the third world of western Europe. While the Irish Catholics might have hated the British in the island, their presence was a boon for the Catholic Church. The Brits kept people in ignorance and poverty, and consequently gullible to the priest’s mumbo jumbo. As a rule once a people become reasonably educated on average adherence to religion falters. This clearly has not fallen on deaf ears of the religious right in the US, for one of their big points of attack are school boards to bring in faux science education called creationism.

Lawrence B. Crowell

“More often, they believe in God because it serves a purpose in their lives, offering purpose and meaning and structure and guidance that is otherwise hard to come by.”

In my experience (admittedly anecdotal), it seems to me most people believe because their parents believe (starting in childhood, obviously).

Great post, thanks.

It does not provide any moral compass, then again, I was raised without religion entirely. I think I turned out pretty okay in terms of morality.

I should point out though that some contraception was technically legal in Ireland before 1979, but only for married people for “family planning” purposes. It remained a gray area for decades, and many organizations such as the Irish Family Planning Association openly flouted the law. Still, the purchase of condoms over the counter, e.g. from vending machines remained illegal, along with other contraceptive restrictions, until 1993(!) Certainly, that the church’s influence had already begun to lessen on people’s family planning planning decisions was evident by the time of the Pope’s visit in 1979 (which I remember well despite being only 6, because my father was in charge of the satellite TV transmissions, a big deal at the time): when my parents were born in the 1940′s family sizes of 8 – 12 were common. By the 1960s and 1970s, when I and my siblings were born, many family sizes had “magically” dropped to 4 – 6. The revelations of abuse by priests, etc., didn’t surface until the 1990′s, well after Ireland had already embarked on a secular course. (For example, my mother refused to be churched in the 1960s after the birth of my older siblings, because of the implication that woman was somehow unclean after childbirth.) There were also some hard fought referendums on divorce and abortion a few years on either side of the 1990 mark that also had an impact, in which the church was perceived by some to be uncompassionate towards victims of spousal abuse or incest. Similarly, anti-homosexuality laws were dismantled (with out much fuss in the end) after years of lobbying by people like the Jocyean scholar and senator David Norris, who was voted in as the first openly gay person to be elected to office in Ireland in 1987, albeit to a university seat.

The vast majority of people around the world are not aware of the roman empires history, nor the Byzantine empires history, protestant reform, etc. The average person is not aware of terms, such as, secularism. They do not think about the significance of morals, nor question their roots. Philosophy is out of the question. People generally have the idea that if the were no religion at all, there would be chaos… People need a purpose to live their lives.

I totally agree with the “better story” theory, if I may call it so. That’s why I believe books like Sagan’s “Cosmos” or Dawkins’ “Unweaving the rainbow” are probably more efficient to the cause of secularism than “Demon haunted world” or “The god delusion”. They lure people without making them feel attacked.

As for myself, I teach astronomy and put my telescope on busy sidewalks to show people how wonderful science can be. It works!