Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Some of the R & D can be observed by the Martians directly: debates among religious leaders about whether to abandon awkward elements of their orthodoxy, decisions by building committees to accept a winning architectural proposal for a new temple, composers executing commissions for new anthems, theologians writing tracts, televangelists meeting with advertising agencies and other consultants to plan their new season of broadcasts. In the developed world, in addition to the time and energy spent in religious observance, there is a huge enterprise of public and private criticism and defense, interpretation and comparison, of every aspect of religion. If the Martians just focus on this, they will form the impression that religion, like science or music or professional sport, consists of systems of social activity that are designed and redesigned by conscious, deliberate agents who are aware of the points or purposes of the enterprises, the problems that need solving, the risks and costs and benefits. The National Football League was created and designed by identifiable individuals to fulfill a set of human purposes, and so was the World Bank. These institutions show clear evidence of design, but they are not “perfect.” People make mistakes, errors get identified and corrected over time, and when there are substantial disagreements among those who have the power and responsibility for maintaining such a system, compromises are sought and often achieved. Some of the R & D that has shaped and is still shaping religion falls clearly into this category. An extreme case would be Scientology, a whole religion that is unquestionably the deliberately designed brainchild of a single author, L. Ron Hubbard, though of course he borrowed elements that had proved themselves in existing religions.

At the other extreme, there is no doubt that the equally intricate, equally designed folk religions or tribal religions found all over the world have never been subjected by their practitioners to anything like the “design review board” processes exemplified by the Council of Trent or Vatican II. Like folk music and folk art, these religions have acquired their aesthetic properties and other design features by a less self-conscious system of influences. And, whatever these influences are or were, they exhibit deep commonalities and patterns. How deep? As deep as the genes? Are there “genes for” the similarities among religions around the world? Or are the patterns that matter more geographical or ecological than genetic?

The Martians don’t need to invoke genes to explain why people in equatorial climates don’t wear fur coats, or why watercraft all over the world are both elongated and symmetrical around the long axis (aside from Venetian gondolas and a few other specialized craft). The Martians, having mastered the world’s languages, will soon notice that there is huge variation in sophistication among boatbuilders around the world. Some of them can give articulate and accurate explanations of just why they insist that their vessels be symmetrical, explanations that any naval architect with a Ph.D. in engineering would applaud, but others have a simpler answer: we build boats this way because this is the way we have always built them. They copy the designs they learned from their fathers and grandfathers, who did the same in their day. This more or less mindless copying, the Martians will notice, is a tempting parallel with the other transmission medium they have identified, the genes. If boatbuilders or potters or singers are in the habit of copying old designs “religiously,” they may preserve design features over hundreds or even thousands of years. Human copying is variable, so slight variations in the copies will often appear, and although most of these promptly disappear, since they are deemed defective or “seconds” or in any event not popular with the customers, every now and then a variation will engender a new lineage, in some sense an improvement or innovation for which there is a “market niche.” And, lo and behold, without anybody’s realizing it, or intending it, this relatively mindless process over long periods of time can shape designs to an exquisite degree, optimizing them for local conditions.