Beyond Disbelief: Religion as Human Invention

[Mr Spinkles]

Introduction: The "Human Invention" Theory of Religion

My views on revealed religions (Christianity, Islam, many pagan religions past and present) go beyond mere disbelief in their dogmas. I actively believe that these religions are products of the evolution of ideas and rituals over time--ideas and rituals originally inspired in the human imagination by culture and natural phenomena.

This is not to say that there is nothing extraordinary about religions, or that there are not religions which stand out from the rest. Rather, it is to say that the things which are extraordinary or unique about religions can be explained without appealing to the supernatural. Countless new cults, or new versions of old religions, spring up all the time, and the vast majority of them die out. The fact that a few religions will occasionally spread like wildfire--even after the leader has died, leaving a handful of followers--does not require supernatural explanation. At various periods in history, the religions of Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammad came to dominate the largest and most advanced civilizations on Earth. The teachings of countless more would-be prophets, meanwhile, fell into obscurity, or became only somewhat successful, or found themselves in isolated corners of the world, doomed to be overtaken by the religions of more technologically/politically advanced cultures. Again, this is not to say there isn't anything distinguishing about the major religions--their leaders may have been very wise and charismatic, and their dogmas may have been especially sophisticated or useful or attractive for any number of reasons--but none of these things demand supernatural explanation.

How does a religion/cult spread, survive, and change over time? Other than through the help of divine revelations or miracles, there are many possibilities:
· Conquest/force/oppression of other religions
· Psychological methods (promise of heaven for obedience, hell for disobedience or apostasy; parental indoctrination; communal rituals exclusive of non-believers or those of other faiths; repeated singing and chanting; appeals to emotion, such as 'mood-setting' through lighting, imagery, silence, etc.)
· Integration with indigenous beliefs and adaptation to counter or incorporate competing beliefs (science, other faiths, culture)

I submit that the theory of religion as a natural human invention makes numerous, empirically falsifiable predictions, and is therefore within the domain of science.

Predictions of the Human Invention Theory

Obviously, if religious rituals were demonstrably proved to have non-physical effects on the world significantly beyond what one would expect by chance (e.g. controlled studies show that rain dances increase the chances of rain, or intercessory prayer heals amputees), that would falsify the human invention theory of religion.

But there are many other ways the theory could be falsified. According to this theory, in the absence of divine intervention it is virtually impossible for two civilizations who have no contact with each other (say, the ancient Hebrews and the ancient Aztecs) to produce identical books of ancient scriptures with identical proper names and commandents (say, they both receive an identical Ten Commandments from YHWH as brought by Moses). If it were conclusively shown that such an event has occurred (either historically or in the present day), this would be very damaging to the theory.

Alternatively, the theory predicts that any time we see the spread of a specific belief set between groups of people, we should look for evidence of contact between those groups--and we should look for culturally-specific ways in which the newly-spread beliefs differ from the "original" beliefs. If two cultures have similar but not identical myth stories, and there is no evidence of contact between them, we should look for natural phenomena common to both cultures, such as floods, as such commonalities may have independently inspired similar stories.

I don't know this for a fact, but it would not surprise me if this very assumption has lead to the search for, and discovery of, previously unknown natural disasters or contacts between peoples in ancient times.

Here is another way that the human invention theory could be falsified: if it were shown that an ancient people had knowledge, which they claimed to be revealed by the divine, of something that they could not have possibly known with their technology, then the theory would be falsified. Now, we expect any religious claim to occasionally get some details right (e.g. the Orok creation myth, which correctly says the formative Earth was 'completely liquid, but the liquid was slowly diminishing and the earth was hardening. Under the heat, cliffs and stones boiled'). And we may expect a religion to have many non-specific beliefs that are not wrong per se (e.g. the Genesis story’s claim that humans were created from ‘dust’). But a religious text/prophesy/creation story should never have many specific, correct beliefs about things that could not have been known by natural means--especially for things as specific as numbers, dates, and pronouns (e.g. the universe is 14 billion years old, on Sept. 11 2001 19 men will crash four planes to kill 2,974 people in the United States, etc.).

An Alternative: The "Real Deal" Theory

For a given religion--whether it is the cult of Dionysus or the Amish--the primary alternative theory is that the salient features of the religion result from the special access that believers have to the knowledge/will/intervention of the supernatural. Let's call this the "real deal" theory.

The questions raised by the real deal theory are numerous: If one particular religion is the real deal, how can all the other religions be explained, if not by the human invention theory? If other religions can be explained by human invention, why can't this one? Why do gods reveal themselves to only certain tribes/peoples? Why are various scriptures/decrees contradicted by or incompatible with modern science? Why do gods reveal themselves through a few individuals, rather than appear in the sky before everyone simultaneously, regularly—on video? Why are many myths from seemingly disparate religions so similar? Why does the religion change so much depending on culture and time period? Why does a spread in belief coincide with the spread of conquerors and missionaries? Why are religions distributed the way they are geographically? Why are some prayers answered, but not others? Where do the gods come from, how did they acquire their powers and personalities, and why are they so concerned with human affairs? The "real-deal" theory doesn't answer these questions, but merely appeals to the will/mystery/incomprehensibility of the supernatural.

The human invention theory, on the other hand, can actually make sense of all these questions and more. This theory harmonizes vast quantities of our knowledge, such as the tendency of people to unwittingly accept the views of those around them (geographic distribution of religions), to project patterns and intelligent agency onto randomness or natural forces (planets and patterns of stars assigned god or spirit status), and so on, and those are just a few salient facts from the field of psychology. Countless more facts from many fields fit into a coherent picture via the human invention theory of religion.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Not Just One Man's Theory

Of course, this is not just my theory. This is the operative--sometimes unspoken--theory of every grounded academic and scholar who investigates or deals with topics that touch religious beliefs, from doctors to psychologists, neuroscientists, historians, archeologists, anthropologists, and others. Although I have not read his book Breaking the Spell, this is also the theory proposed (more eloquently, I presume) by philosopher Daniel Dennett, and many philosophers before him, I'm sure.

Does This Scientifically Disprove God?

The validity of the human invention theory does not disprove the existenceof any supernatural entity, from Ahura Mazda to Zeus. Technically, no scientific theory can categorically disprove anything, especially not vaguely-defined supernatural beings.

However, what the theory does imply is this: belief in Zeus, Thor, and all supernatural entities, has nothing to do with the existence of said entities. Any previously unknown natural process, or fact about the universe, or inter-dimensional/extraterrestrial beings discovered by science bearing any resemblance to Zeus or Thor would be a coincidence. Evidence for the human invention theory of religion thus constitutes scientific evidence for the following: if Zeus or Thor exist precisely as believers have described them, it would be a coincidence only slightly less extraordinary than if it were discovered that the Easter Bunny exists. Zeus and Thor are merely two examples but, if the human invention theory is correct, the same reasoning applies to all religious beliefs.

In Anticipation of Tu Quoque

I suspect some people will object that scientific knowledge could be criticized in the same way. Aren't scientists influenced by the same psychological/cultural factors as religious people? As a matter of fact, aren't most practicing scientists, past and present, religious? Therefore, isn't the actual existence of anything like atoms or gravity a "coincidence as extraordinary as the existence of the Easter Bunny"? Take that!

It is true, the same principles of psychology and culture and natural phenomena are at work even with regards to science-based beliefs. Scientists are humans, too.

However, when it comes to things like the atom, we have access to direct, experimental evidence on the question of its existence. Scientifically, the issue of belief in the atom and the existence of the atom are best answered in two different ways: the existence of atoms is answered by data from physics experiments alone, while belief in the atom is answered by sociological, psychological, and other data as well. The evidence of the timing and results of old experiments, and their subsequent publication, strongly suggests that the spread of belief in atoms amongst 20th-century scientists was caused by the results of physics experiments. Thousands of years ago there were, in fact, a few philosophers (such as Democritus) who believed that matter was composed of inseparable chunks. The evidence suggests that, since those philosophers could not have had made this distinction scientifically with their technology, it is a coincidence that a few philosophers got some of it right; but they got most if it wrong, by a wide margin. However they came to their beliefs, it was by natural (not supernatural) means.

On the entirely separate issue of the existence of atoms, the results of many physics experiments constitute direct scientific evidence for atoms, irrespective of belief in them or how that belief has spread.

The existence of gods/spirits/supernatural realms, on the other hand, is not empirically testable (or, in cases where it is testable, it is falsified or can be replaced by a natural explanation). I have implicitly included this inability to be empirically falsified in my definition of "religious" ideas. Unlike the atom in the 20th century, the data shows that the ideas of Zeus and Thor and the like are human inventions which gained acceptance by natural means other than sound empirical evidence. Scientific study in many fields shows that—in sharp contrast to the atom—all religious concepts come exclusively from unreliable sources (human imagination, unempirical observation, oral tradition, etc.).

The thing that distinguishes science in general from religion in general is that the same natural factors which cause the spread of belief in a scientific claim--namely, the results of scientific studies--also serve as evidence for the validity of the claims themselves.

A Concluding Thought

I think most people would agree with the human invention theory as it applies to every single religion, past and present, sophisticated and primitive, that has ever existed--every religion, that is, except for their own.

Comments, criticism welcome!

 

[Aasimar]

Quite well stated. Of course, you could just get around all this crap by bending.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The problem I see is 3-fold:

1. It speaks to "revealed religion" rather than religion and, therefore, does no more than reveal characteristics of human understanding and transmission.
2. What is offered as falsification is no more than argument from absence. To suggest that 'my theory can be falsified by proving an opposing theory' is trivially 'true' of even the wildest speculation. From this perspective all opinion is falsifiable.
3. It simply ignores the current work on the topic.

As in the past, I strongly recommend Atran's In God's We Trust.

 

[sandandfoam]

Good post.
I think that you see matter as the essence of life and hold the view that this matter may or may not give rise to spirituality. I am inclined to come at it from a different angle. I think that spirituality is at the heart of life and that the closer we examine and understand matter the nearer we are to God because God is within all matter.
Regarding the 'real deal' theory, I only claim that my religion is the real deal for me. It seems rational to me that the essence of God can be conceptualised in an infinity of ways resulting in different people possessing complete knowledge of the fundamental nature of God and yet give different accounts of that God. A bit like an infinite version of Descartes ball of wax. So the statement:-" I think most people would agree with the human invention theory as it applies to every single religion, past and present, sophisticated and primitive, that has ever existed--every religion, that is, except for their own." is one with which I disagree.
I like Spinoza's 'religion of disenchantment' where through the process that disenchants the world i.e. science, we come to the new enchantment of recognizing that God is in everything through discovering his works by way of science.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I think that spirituality is at the heart of life and that the closer we examine and understand matter the nearer we are to God because God is within all matter.

I would be interested in reading your definition of 'spirituality' and 'life'.

As I've noted in the past, Yi Fu Tuan suggests that religion can be "broadly defined as the impulse for coherence and meaning". I've found that the best lens through which to read Spinoza and others - including the Torah.

 

[sandandfoam]

I would be interested in reading your definition of 'spirituality' and 'life'.

As I've noted in the past, Yi Fu Tuan suggests that religion can be "broadly defined as the impulse for coherence and meaning". I've found that the best lens through which to read Spinoza and others - including the Torah.

I'll try. My spirituality is:- My will to understanding God who I think is everywhere and everything. It relates to the 'feel' I get on a mountain or beside the sea. I can 'see' but I don't understand. I want to understand - That's my spirituality.
Life is smiliar, it's in us, it's also the sea the mountains, stars, everywhere. I think it's the God that I can see but not understand. Life, spirituality, God - All the same thing? I'd love to lift the fog from my understanding. That's why I see spirituality including the will to understand at the heart of life.
There you go, clear as mud..

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There you go, clear as mud..

I'm told that mud bathes can rejuvenate ...

 

[Guitar's Cry]

As I've noted in the past, Yi Fu Tuan suggests that religion can be "broadly defined as the impulse for coherence and meaning". I've found that the best lens through which to read Spinoza and others - including the Torah.

I agree. The search for spirituality is the search for meaning in a seemingly complex existence.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I agree. The search for spirituality is the search for meaning in a seemingly complex existence.

Tuan says more: he suggests it to be a search for meaning and place, in effect a quest for wholeness integrating one's sense of cosmos with one's sense of ethos.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Tuan says more: he suggests it to be a search for meaning and place, in effect a quest for wholeness integrating one's sense of cosmos with one's sense of ethos.

I'll have to look more into Tuan.

While religious dogma can be empirically studied, but harder is the individual's experience of it. This becomes an issue for philosophy and psychology.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The problem I see is 3-fold:

1. It speaks to "revealed religion" rather than religion and, therefore, does no more than reveal characteristics of human understanding and transmission.
2. What is offered as falsification is no more than argument from absence. To suggest that 'my theory can be falsified by proving an opposing theory' is trivially 'true' of even the wildest speculation. From this perspective all opinion is falsifiable.
3. It simply ignores the current work on the topic.

As in the past, I strongly recommend Atran's In God's We Trust.

Thanks. Considering each point in turn,

1. There are those whose understanding of science leads them to believe that "science can't disprove God" is all science has to say on the subject of religious belief. The perspective in the OP, while it may simply be revealing 'characteristics of human understanding and transmission', is offering something that many people have never properly considered.
2. I don't understand your objection. What is offered as falsification is empirical prediction: prediction of what we should, and should not, find. Does your objection not apply equally well to Darwin? "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."
3. Admittedly, I am ignorant of current work on the topic.

I should point out that this OP itself "evolved" as I was writing it. My original purpose was simply to state a positive belief about how religions have come about and changed--a belief which I think is supported by scientific inquiry--and see what others have to say. I ended up writing a lot more than I intended. The reason I broke the OP down into sections, and introduced the term 'human invention theory', was for clarity.

 

[michel]

Say what you will (and the arguments are good and convicing) - I'll grant you that; you are still trying to prove the non-existance of something because you can apply a theory to adequately explain why it might not exist.

As Shakespeare's Hamlet said :- "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Say what you will (and the arguments are good and convicing) - I'll grant you that; you are still trying to prove the non-existance of something because you can apply a theory to adequately explain why it might not exist.

I didn't get that Mr. Spinkles' post was supposed to be a proof, but more a statement of falsifiable claims that could be tested against evidence... it's the start of the exploration, not the end.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Thanks. Considering each point in turn,

2. I don't understand your objection.​

Compare your use of falsifiability with Popper's as found in Science, Pseudo-Science, and Falsifiability.

 

[Storm]

I have a question for you, Mr. Spinkles.

By "invention" do you mean that religion was deliberately created, like fiction, or is it more complicated than that? If more complicated, please summarize as best you can the process by which you think religion develops.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Compare your use of falsifiability with Popper's as found in Science, Pseudo-Science, and Falsifiability.

Thanks for the link...

If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted. The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation—in fact with results which everybody before Einstein would have expected. This is quite different from the situation I have previously described, when it turned out that the theories in question were compatible with the most divergent human behaviour, so that it was practically impossible to describe any human behaviour that might not be claimed to be a verification of these theories.
These considerations led me in the winter of 1919–20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability; some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status.

I still do not understand how what I have offered as falsification is "no more than argument from absence". I note that the prohibition of many observations/outcomes is precisely what Popper demands of any good theory in criterion #3.

The "human invention theory" is also compatible with all the other criteria, including #2. Certainly, if we were unenlightened by the idea that religions are inspired by imagination and culture rather than revelation and miracles, the predictions made in the OP are very risky. Now, the theory may not be very satisfactory at all compared to modern-day theories of religion....however, the OP is offered in the spirit of an incomplete idea. But I would wager that all well-grounded, thorough theories of religion today are within the framework of the OP--that is, they rely on natural causes and prohibit supernatural knowledge or powers.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I have a question for you, Mr. Spinkles.

By "invention" do you mean that religion was deliberately created, like fiction, or is it more complicated than that? If more complicated, please summarize as best you can the process by which you think religion develops.

No, I'm not saying that religions are, in general, "invented" the same way that fiction is invented, although some might be. I am sure that many of the religions we have today resulted from many people making many slight changes to previously-existing myths/rituals over many years, with inspiration from events in the surrounding environment, including human-related events of culture, technology, politics, and economics. The key point is that a given religion was not inspired or guided by the supernatural, a point which some tend to take for granted.

 

[Storm]

No, I'm not saying that religions are, in general, "invented" the same way that fiction is invented, although some might be. I am sure that many of the religions we have today resulted from many people making many slight changes to previously-existing myths/rituals over many years, with inspiration from events in the surrounding environment, including human-related events of culture, technology, politics, and economics. The key point is that a given religion was not inspired or guided by the supernatural, a point which some tend to take for granted.

Would you agree that theophany and mystical experience (in the sense of neurotheology) played a major role as well?

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Would you agree that theophany and mystical experience (in the sense of neurotheology) played a major role as well?

If by theophany you mean a divine disclosure, then no. Certainly mystical experiences have played a role, but unless such experiences lead to something that was prohibited in the OP (e.g. a specific prediction about the future) they are compatible with natural causes.