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Chapter 11, Ethics and Religion

The chapter in the book that would most challenge conservatives, or anyone who thinks morality and religion are handed down from on high.

Key points in this chapter:

On ethics:

• Author summarizes arguments on both sides, the transcendental and the empirical, for the origin of ethical sentiments.
• Theologians see natural law as an expression of God’s will, despite allowing the faithful to justify war, slavery, and genocide.
• Wilson is an empiricist, of course. “The primary origin of the moral instincts is the dynamic relation between cooperation and defection.” That is, our moral instincts arose as rules to solve ethical dilemmas in the primitive environment, e.g. regarding money, status, power. Thus we evolved cooperation, remorse, shame. The dark side of these sentiments is xenophobia.
• “Ethical and religious beliefs are created from the bottom up, from people to their culture. They do not come from the top down, from God or other non-material source to the people by way of culture.”
• And yet moral sentiments can change — as a result of new knowledge and experience; certain rules may be relaxed, others devised. That’s why we find things like slavery unpalatable today.
• Ultimately ancient sentiments will adapt for the conditions of modern life. Wilson sees the result as likely democratic, to the detriment of rival ideologies and religions, though it will be slow.

On religion:

• Religions are born, grow, compete, reproduce, and eventually die. They begin as cults. They involve a creation myth and a mystery only devotees have access to.
• The religious drive arises from the survival instinct, i.e. fear of death. It provides an understanding and control of life, explained via mythic narratives, and the supernatural as evidence of another world so desperately desired.
• Humans are easily seduced by confident, charismatic leaders, especially in religious organizations.
• People are attracted by transcendentalism since empiricism seems sterile and inadequate. But passion and desire are not the same as truth.
• Theology is a history of abstractions: the Hebrews resolved the pantheon into a single person; later philosophers have moved away from God as a literal person.
• “The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another.”
• We’re learning too much about how the world works for this contradiction to remain.
• Yes, people need sacred narratives. And so religion must incorporate the discoveries of science in order to remain credible. The result will be the secularization of the human epic, and of religion itself.

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