Evolutionary Religion

Every religion proposes a system of morality — a list of actions which are considered right or wrong, good or evil. Evolutionary Religion is similar, but the morality revealed by evolutionary religion is radically different from the man-made religions.

Moses taught that morality consisted of following the laws of the state of Israel, starting with the ten commandments.  Jesus taught that morality consisted of giving yourself complete to your fellow men, saving nothing for yourself.  Bentham and Mill taught that morality consisted of whatever caused to most happiness for the most people. Evolutionary religion is uninterested in laws made by man, it sees self-hatred as waste, and it sees happiness as a lesser goal than progress.

The Submarine Scenario

Two men are trapped on a damaged submarine.  Rescuers will reach the submarine in 36 hours, but there is only enough oxygen on board for both men to live for 24 hours.  One man, however, could live for 48 hours — if the other man died immediately.

In Christian morality, each man should try to give up his life for the other man.  John 15:13 states “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Socialist morality teaches that each man should live for 24 hours and that they should both die together.  Utilitarianism would teach that the man who causes the most happiness for the most people should live and that the other should die.

Evolutionary religion teaches that the man who will most advance the biological or cultural evolution of mankind should live.  This person may be physically or mentally superior, they may possess some piece of knowledge which will benefit mankind, or they may simply possess the influence necessary to spread an idea which will benefit mankind.

If I am on that submarine with Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, or Allen West — evolutionary religion teaches that I should give up my life so that the other man might live.  This is very different from “raw” natural evolution, which would have both men fight to determine who is superior.  In the submarine scenario, that could end with both men dying of their wounds, or with additional damage to the ship, or with the exertion of the fight causing so much oxygen to be used that both men die.  Walter, Tom, and Allen may not be biologically superior to me — but each is in a better position to create positive social evolution than I am currently.  Their value to the social evolution evolution of mankind is simply greater than my own.

In nature, many animal parents give up their lives for their children — because this is the best way for them to perpetuate their genes.  In evolutionary religion, some men must give up their lives to support the perpetuation of their memes.  This is a mirror in social evolution of a trait from biological evolution.

This presentation was given by Daniel C. Dennett, Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, on March 14, 2006. It is part of his Nature of Knowledge series.

This is a good introduction to the question of how religions evolve. By studying the issue of how religious evolve, we can learn how to best design our own synthetic religion.

Humans take significant comfort in their attachment to history.  Religions have long used this component of human nature to motivate and retain their followers.  The Epic of Evolution is an attempt to achieve some of those same benefits for proponents of Atheism.

The Epic of Evolution is a story that defines the fundamental world view of evolutionary religion by beginning with the natural world and delineating how the processes physical, biological, and cultural evolution have naturally created the world in which we live. It then uses this history as a tool to explain the meaning of our lives and to create guidelines for how to best live our lives.

Strangely, the concept of an Epic of Evolution has been hijacked by three ypes of groups:

• Traditional religions seeking to maintain their market share of believers in the face of scientific evidence
• Spiritualist groups who seek to use an Epic of Evolution to promote their anti-scientific agendas
• “Environmentalists” who believe that nature is innately good and that man is separate from nature and innately evil

Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos is probably the closest we have to an Epic of Evolution, but at 504 pages it is a bit unapproachable for the age group of people who have the most to benefit from an understanding of their place in the Universe.

To be truly useful, an epic has to be something which parents in a society use to teach their children.  It has to be as well known as Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood.  In this, we still have considerable progress ahead of us.

Sociobiology is scientific study of the biological basis of social behavior.

Sociobiology teaches us that many behaviors which we think of as learned behaviors are in fact deeply rooted in evolutionary processes. Many of the decisions we make and actions we take are the results of billions of years of natural selection.

One important example of this is religion. All societies have developed some sort of religion. These religions are highly differentiated and yet they share some common features.

Religions exist, and continue to exist, because they fulfill a positive evolutionary purpose. Some religious practices confer biological advantages. As E.O. Wilson stated, “Religious practices that consistently enhance survival and procreation of the practitioners will propagate the physiological controls that favor the acquisition of the practices during single lifetimes.” This also means that some religious practices are more likely to be propagated than others.

Religions can be grouped into several major categories:

• Ancestor and spirit worship
• Polytheism
• Monotheism

In general, religions have evolved from ancestor/spirit worship to polytheism and then to monotheism. This is not to imply that the later forms of religion are superior, except in the sense that they are better able to propagate themselves and displace competing religions.

We are at a point of biological and cultural evolution where it is now possible for religion to evolve into it’s next stage of growth. This stage must take into account the massive explosion of scientific knowledge that we have aquired over the last few centuries, but at the same time it must also provide the same or greater benefits as the existing competing religions.

Designing a religion that meets these criteria is obviously not an easy task, but it has been done many times before in human history. This evolution of religion will happen, no matter what we do. We have an opportunity, however, to guide this process with the goal of producing the best possible next-generation religion.

Moral nihilism is the belief that morality does not inherently exist and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism is often seen in it’s more milquetoast form, moral relativism.

Friedrich Nietzsche foresaw the danger of nihilism:

What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. … For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.

Nihilism destroys the will to live because it denies the existence of a purpose to life.  None of us would check the mail, go to work, put gasoline in our cars, or mow our lawns unless there was a purpose to doing so.  And yet the destruction of Christian values and the mass adoption of moral relativism and moral nihilism tell us that nothing in life actually has a purpose.  With no higher meaning to our lives, why should we continue to live them?  The world is not quite so grand as to provide a purely hedonistic answer.

A study of evolution shows a direction and a purpose to life.  The Universe has evolved from an unthinkably massive singularity of compressed matter to an equally unimaginable number of galaxies, solar systems, and planets.  Biological evolution has produced virii, bacteria, amoeba, fungi, molds, plants, insects, fish, reptiles, mammals, and finally humans.  Cultural evolution has created dance and music, painting and sculpture, poetry and literature. Evolution is very slowly creating a Universe filled with ever more stunning creations.

Physical evolution has led to biological evolution, which has in turn led to cultural evolution.  The purpose of our lives is to play a part in this symphony of creation.  We, the most able of evolutions creations, have the ability to push evolutions creative instincts to levels never before imagined.  This is a far greater purpose than provided by any of mankinds traditional religions.

We can serve physical evolution by making our planet more functional and more beautiful that ever before.  We can serve biological evolution by creating healthy children.  We can serve cultural evolution by spreading knowledge and ideas.  These are real purposes in life — these are tasks which give life meaning and joy.

This same concept also gives us the basis for an absolute morality.  To state it too simply: Anything which enhances evolution is good; anything which retards evolution is bad.  Of course, this leaves much room open for debate.  It can take many generations to determine if a specific action enhances or retards evolution.

Most people are familiar with Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch from Thus Spake Zarathustra.  The Übermensch is Nietzsche’s name for the next phase of the evolution of man.

Far fewer are familiar with the Übermensch’s antithesis, The Last Man.  The Last Man is what Nietzsche fears that man may become. The Last Man is weak willed, tired of life, averse to risk, and desires only comfort in security in life. Nietzsche saw Western civilization declining around him. He saw the strong men who built Western civilization replaced with weak and apathetic men, lacking in passion and courage — focused only on continuing their pathetic existences.

Unfortunately, the trend which Nietzsche saw beginning in the late 1800′s has overtaken so many men as to now become a major risk for all of Western civilization. Western civilization may now lack the strength of will to sustain itself.

Government programs which encourage uselessly weak people to reproduce sap the strength of our species. “Progressive” income taxes sap our capability to dream of greatness. The push for equality of outcomes removes mans motivation to succeed — to make something better of himself. We now encourage the new generations of mankind to sit in school and listen and then to reproduce, all on government or corporate welfare.

We do not encourage humans to make anything better of themselves — to become better men. We are, in effect, short-circuiting the process of evolution. We are destroying the fruits of billions of years of progress with our short-sighted drive for comfort. We are, The Last Men.

The Council for Human Secularism has published a list of the elements and principles of secular humanism:

• A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
• Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
• A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
• A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
• A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
• A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
• A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

Secular humanism is an important intellectual forebear of evolutionary religion. In nature, evolutionary religion predates secular humanism. In intellectual thought, secular humanism predates evolutionary religion.

Secular humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of human nature, and that knowledge of right and wrong is based on our best understanding of our individual and joint interests. Evolutionary Religion endorses universal morality based on the timeless principles of evolution, and that knowledge of right and wrong is based on our best understanding of direction of evolution.

The goal of secular humanism is a search for viable individual, social and political principles of conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility, ultimately eliminating human suffering. The goal of evolutionary religion is a search for viable individual, social and political principles of conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance evolution, ultimately maximizing human potential.

Secular humanists are our friends and allies, but secular humanism does not provide them with the clear vision necessary to create a usable plan for real action. Our “individual and joint interests” don’t give us a direction. “Eliminating human suffering” is an impossibly utopianist goal. The interests of evolution are universal and they give us a clear direction for action. We do not seek to eliminate human suffering, but to maximize human potential. To state our case very clearly, some things are worth suffering for.

The process of enlightenment is different for every individual, but there are many common components.  These components include education, emotional awareness and healing, mental and emotional training exercises, reading literature, dialogue, and contemplation.

The church will develop a database of known enlightenment processes.  Each process will be assigned numerical values which represents it’s estimate effect on different aspects of enlightenment.

“A half hour of meditation”, for example, may be represented by 1 self-awareness point.  Reading a recommended book may be represented by 10 knowledge points.  An hour of dialogue with a mentor may be represented by 2 knowledge points, 1 self-awareness point, and 1 happiness point.

Any church member may suggest a new enlightenment process for addition to the database, and no specific enlightenment processes are mandatory.  We much each chart our own independent paths to enlightenment.

At the completion of each enlightenment process, the church member must engage in the self-reflection necessary to rate the effectiveness and efficiency of each process.  This data will be collated and stored in the database.  The database will slowly increase in terms of both quantity and quality.  Ineffective processes will be identified and will no longer be recommended.  Processes that are found to be effective will be recommended more frequently. This continuous improvement process will allow the slow and steady evolution of our religion over time.

Members will be able to search the database for the value which they wish to maximize (happiness, knowledge, self-awareness, etc…) and view the cumulative ratings of those who have experienced each exercise.

Evolutionary Religion is a culmination of work in many fields spanning several millennium of scientific inquiry.

We obviously depend heavily upon evolutionary theory, but we also learn from ongoing investigations in the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.  We want to help people to be happy and one of the best ways to do that is to learn what made people happy in the past.  Helping people requires understanding people, and these fields of study make that possible.

We base all of our work on naturalized epistemology and accept metaphysical naturalism as a given.

We try not to get tangled up in the debate between positivism, logical positivism, constructive empiricism, scientific realism, instrumentalism, critical rationalism, etc… It’s very exciting intellectually, but it’s outside our scope.

Evolutionary Religion must provide many of the benefits which are provided by traditional deistic religions, while at the same time holding itself above their practice of mysticism.

Evolutionary Religion must provide it’s adherents with a better understanding of how the world works and the inner peace and happiness which comes naturally from that understanding.

This is similar to Illuminism (a belief system whereby a believer makes a claim that he has been illuminated or experienced enlightenment of a spiritual nature), except that the enlightenment claims no spiritual nature.

The enlightenment provided by Evolutionary Religion is a natural result of:

• Education
• Emotional awareness
• Mental and emotional training

These processes must be firmly scientific, but it is not necessary that they be perfect.  These processes should evolve constantly using a continuous improvement process.