BELIEF: a bug or a feature?

How do people start believing in stuff? 

 

My seven-year-old grandson Solomon recently said, ‘Grandpa, did you know that if you stare at a hummingbird for five minutes, it brings good luck?’

‘How do you know this?’ I asked.

‘I stared at a hummingbird for five minutes and after that my friend at school had something good happen to him. I forget what it was.’

‘Okay, I’ll try that sometime.’

 

Solomon had experienced one thing and observed something totally unrelated, put the two together and voila!, he believed that one had caused the other. This belief could stay with him a long time. Good thing something horrible hadn’t happened to his friend or he might have believed he caused it.

 

And so it goes. The human mind links cause and effect in astonishing ways. Have a positive attitude and the sun shines all day (unless it’s rain you want). Think bad thoughts and a tree falls on your car, not your neighbor’s car. Pray for a white Christmas and poof, there’s two feet of snow in the morning. Pray every night to Jesus or Saint fill-in-the-blank and you’ll live forever in heaven or whatever after you’re dead. No proof of concept necessary.

 

Here is the reason: Beliefs are possible entirely because of the abstract thinking capability of the human brain. Belief is a neurological process, an interpretation of one event in relationship to another (cause and effect). Dogs, horses and reptiles don’t do this (that we know). Animals learn to recognize threats and can be trained, but belief and superstition are uniquely human. 

 

Belief often starts with a powerful personality (parent, priest, rabbi, imam) who instills the notions by repeatedly preaching what terrible or wonderful things will happen if we behave a certain way or have certain thoughts.

 

So, is belief good for us? In computer jargon, ‘is belief a bug or a feature of being human?’ After roughly 200,000 years of modern Homo sapiens on earth, the answer remains controversial.

 

And after all those thousands of years of high-level thinking, the neurological origins of belief are not understood at the cellular level. We know where language and ocular vision arise in the brain. In what lobe of the brain does belief originate?  There are mappable neural signals in several lobes that have the potential for shaping beliefs. One personality trait for 'openness', associated with creativity and beliefs, has been mapped to several anatomical structures in the brain. 

It is good there is progress, but much more research is needed before we understand the origin of belief. In the meantime, in the absence of indisputable factual evidence, it might be best to have doubts about even your most cherished beliefs.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Imagine what world history could be without BELIEF: no infidels to decapitate; no flambéed astronomers in the Middle Ages; no Christian Crusaders murdering disbelievers; no witch hunts; no Creation-based ignorance; no saving of relics from schizophrenics thought to be Christian visionaries; no Sunni/Shiite differences; no 40-virgins for killing people; no immaculate conception; no resurrection; no Mohammed on a flying horse; no Kosher kitchens (save big on plates!); no restrictions on eating pork (this could strain world supplies very quickly!); no “you killed Jesus” from anti-Semitic Christians; no molestation of boys by Priests; no clitoral mutilation of powerless hapless girls; no destroying of world heritage Buddhas; no resisting the study of science and evolutionary genetics; no fraudulent hypocrites saving souls on television; no lives  squandered over the Talmud while awaiting the real Messiah; no religion-based resistance to women’s health care; no QAnon. The list is endless.

BELIEF itself, it appears, is the problem. Religious faith (the most shortsighted of all BELIEFS) is the biggest problem of all, but pure BELIEF, defined loosely as accepting something as truth without the benefit of evidence, has caused generations of human misery and closes doors on the advancement of all peaceful endeavors, science, and understanding on any subject.

Believing stuff is a protective neurological function. I get that. But just because Homo sapiens evolved into having the capacity to BELIEVE in stuff doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be challenged in modern times.

Instead of BELIEF, try “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Thomas Jefferson added this secular phrase to the Declaration of Independence. It came from the works of Greek philosopher Epicurus (ref: Greenblatt, S. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern—a must read.) Epicurean (secular) thinking was of course punishable by death once Christianity took over in the western world. For Jefferson to incorporate a snippet of secular humanism into the Declaration of Independence is remarkable.

If an individual’s happiness comes from a lifetime of studying one religion or another, so be it, but if that study or BELIEF results in death, oppression, or the pursuit of subjugation, etc…we have a problem.

The time has come to challenge and reject BELIEF. No longer should BELIEF be sacred, immune to criticism. Use evidence instead of BELIEF. Go with factual truths. Replace “I believe” with “I think” in conversation when there is uncertainty. Change your mind if new evidence comes to light. Grow. Advance. Improve!

Until BELIEF is rejected worldwide and every individual places higher value on humanity, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness than on BELIEFS and BLIND FAITH, there will be blood in the streets. 

Cheers,

January 17, 2015

https://www.jameschanningshaw.com