HBD and Atheism
As some of you know, and probably most of you don’t, I am an atheist.
It is the only logical conclusion based on the principle of demanding proof before regarding things as true, as many would tell you (also here).
That said, some intellectuals would argue that not believing in any sort of creative force leaves a gaping hole in understanding existence, because if so were the case, then how did the universe get into motion (the First Cause problem)? But there are plenty of good reasons to believe that no creator of any sort is necessary for reality to exist.
Many proponents of atheism, like Richard Dawkins (seen here), the late Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher have been actively promoting atheism. They claim that religion has undue influence over society and public policy, which leads to disastrous results. Hence they strive to reduce the influence of religion on politics and public life.
Reformed Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been leading a campaign against Islam’s brutal subordination of women, which includes practices such as forced marriage and honor killings. These pundits conclude that religion is a greatly destructive force upon humanity, and if people could leave it behind and embrace reason—as they have—the world would be a much better place.
Of course, (most?) HBD’ers know better. The deleterious consequences of religion, especially Christianity and Islam, stem not from the religion in and of themselves, but from the traits of the people who embrace the religion. Of course, as we saw, these religions were instrumental in crafting many of these traits, but it’s not like these traits would suddenly go away if believers were to hypothetically abandon their religion (honor killings exist among Arab Christians, for example).
But then, for the vast majority of believers, abandoning belief isn’t really possible. Religiosity is highly heritable, being highly correlated between twins. As well, religiosity is negatively correlated with IQ, both in individuals and in groups. Believers essentially have “God on the brain”, and most simply can’t help but believe; it’s how their brains are wired. Granted, what, specifically, that is believed likely can hypothetically be replaced, but for most of these individuals, some sort of spiritual belief system is necessary. This includes many intellectuals, who—despite being quite intelligent and pretty damned rational—still are religious, in defiance of the rationality they use to such great effect otherwise. Being an atheist is really a temperament then, something that comes only to people who are so minded.
As such, it is really pointless to try to “convert” people en mass to atheism, or try to convince someone who holds religious convictions to abandon them; in some cases this is true even for those who seem loosely attached to such beliefs.
Hence, I personally, no longer try. I know that for believers, God is as real as if he was plainly in front us like the Sun in the sky. Their brains simply cannot perceive the world any other way.
Sam Harris seems to realize this. As a neuroscientist, he knows quite a bit about the “brain high on God”. He’s recently written a book, titled Free Will (which I have yet to read), which discusses what I’ve discussed before, where I presume he expands on this notion.
Furthermore, losing belief in God isn’t a solution to any sort of problem that the world currently faces. Charles Murray’s much talked about latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (which I promise to discuss in depth soon), notes that among the White underclass, church participation is minimal. Now this is involvement in organized institutions, not necessarily belief, which I believe is still quite strong and probably irrevocable.
My earlier post included a map of dominant religious groups in the U.S., and the deeply fundamental strongholds appeared clearly. Fundamental Christianity does seem to be involved in a lot of the inane discussion in American politics as of late, as seen quite evidently during the Republican Presidential primary (which, as Steve Sailer points out, is not completely irrational—more on that in a future post). But the attitudes and ideologies adherents hold don’t necessarily stem from their religion, but from their innate biases shaped by the selective forces their ancestors encountered. The “God” part is secondary.
But what then is religious belief good for exactly, evolutionarily speaking? Why do people continue to believe in invisible beings, which is tantamount to having an invisible friend? The secret is that a lot of other people have the same invisible friend.
Religion is first a way of filling in blanks in understanding, answering unanswerable questions, which may be necessary for a species capable of comprehending its environment, for the purposes of mental “completeness” in relating to the world as perceived. It likely served this purpose for most of our species’ evolutionary history. However, it was likely quickly exploited by those who realized that they could use others’ beliefs to their advantage (which is probably as old the first spiritual “healer”). Second, and more importantly, religion is a badge of groupness, a symbol of belonging even better than a facial tattoo. What better way to announce that you’re a committed member of your group than to ascribe to, and truly have faith in, the same intangible beliefs as your compatriots? However, I think this purpose got started much later, since as far as I know, no hunter-gatherer groups fight over differing tribal superstitions.
Rather, the groupness aspect of religion and modest degrees of organization probably appeared, or at least took off, with agriculture, which allowed the growth of permanent settlements and organized leadership. Then, having the correct pantheon of deities could have been an important identifier, especially during regime changes and other shake-ups. We see something like this after the Indo-Europeanization of Bronze Age Greece. The Minoans of Crete seemed to have a fundamentally different sort of beliefs than the much more aggressive Mycenaeans who appeared later.
However, no religion seems to have taken this aspect to the extremes the two most widespread religions, Christianity and Islam, have. Having the right beliefs has been and remains a matter of life and death, and indeed, differences—even fairly minor variations—of religious belief seems to have served as a way of establishing ethnic distinction and solidarity (also see here and here by Steve Sailer). Both of these religions stress the importance of (regardless of what they profess to preach) believing—believing the right beliefs, which are symbolized by the right forbidden and approved foods, the right dress….
…and the implicit or explicit inferiority of non-believers. Mind you, neither of these religions are unique in this aspect, as this is true with many group affiliations, including political ones. Groupness is an aspect of human nature; it’s just that religion has discovered an excellent way of solidifying this through the use of irrevocable beliefs (one can say that this is also true of political beliefs). Atheists, who sometimes use fairly loud tactics such as this:
…are seen by the religious as The Enemy, a rival group challenging their faith with another set of beliefs, ironically the lack of belief (which I know is debatable, there is the anti-HBD aspect to most atheism).
This brings us back to the goal the “New Atheists” advocate, which I mentioned at the beginning of this entry. Their goal—hoping for a better society by getting people to give up their irrational religious beliefs and embrace reason—while a highly noble one, is an utterly futile one. Sure, we would be all better off if the world were full of rational, intelligent, irreligious folks that approached policy in a much more logical manner, like the atheist scholars featured here (and presumably were not like Nazis or Marxists), but simply getting people to give up God isn’t going to do the trick. Even assuming that that were possible, these turned believers would still be the same people and would have some other deity or superstition guiding their behavior. Only the forces of evolution, which produced the scholars and accomplished people modern atheists extol, could do the job. Ironically, this occurred in good part because of the influence of Christianity in Northern Europe (as well as in East Asia thanks to somewhat similar forces), as we’ve seen.
JayMan's Blog 
yay! as an HBDer i see environmental-sociocultural arguments as an elaborate defense/sham — because simple biology explains most of intelligence & individual differences & group differences — this is analogous to the elaborate god-psychosocial-supernatural explanation of the world vs. what Sir William of Occam would say: God is superfluous. God needlessly over-complicates perfectly reasonable & simpler explanations. HBD is about empiricism over wacky elaborately constructed psycho-social hypotheses. Religion (like “white-privilege/institutional-racism-lingering-effects-of-slavery”) is just another elaborate hypothesis better explained without all the made-up hoo-ha. cheers! panjoomby
i agree! i think it’s nuts of dawkins, et. al., to go around preaching atheism in the hopes of converting the religious. ain’t gonna happen. oh, maybe they’ll wake up a few agnostics/atheists who, for some reason, hadn’t given it enough thought yet, but really … what are they thinking?
i disagree with you on this part, tho:
“It is the only logical conclusion based on the principle of demanding proof before regarding things as true….”
heh. (^_^) i think us irreligious folks are irreligious for the same reason that religious folks are religious. it might feeeel like logic, but i doubt it is. (~_^)
Indeed. American Atheists has stated that their main goal is to get “closeted” atheists to “come out”. As well, Dawkins has stated that he’s had most success with those who were sitting on the fence about religion and haven’t really thought about it. But yeah, they have to content themselves with only getting that far. I think they are encouraged by how irreligious Europe is compared to the U.S. (this vs this). They see that and take it to mean that it is possible for Americans to lose their religion. Too bad they don’t know a little HBD, and see what happens when you compare religiousness in the U.S. to only its source countries. (I would go as far to add that Americans are more religious than their ancestral peoples. The empty frontier the colonists settled boosted their fertility, but it may have been even more so with the highly religious.)
Ultimately yes. Being irreligious really is a way of thinking about the world.
Well there’s my truth, your truth, their truth, and the actual truth. Hopefully one of us has gotten it. 😉 The methods of reason is merely one way to look at reality and the way that most analytic minds are inclined to view the world. We have no way of knowing if anything we think we know is correct on any ultimate sense. But considering how the methods of reason and scientific analysis seems to have been the most successful at discovering truths, it is seem to be the best course to apply to existence of any creator God/gods/intelligences or whatever. When we do so, it doesn’t seem that one is necessitated by the facts or even exists. Maybe one day we’ll discover something that will change that, and I’m always open to that possibility. 🙂
Hi Jayman,
If this is true, what’s your take on the great rise in atheism in the US? And on the fact that ethnically Scandinavian and Lithuanian Americans are quite religious, while these are the least religious countries on the planet?
Might it not be that the same, Japanese genotype can express itself as an emperor-worshipping kamikaze pilot, or as a Zaibatsu corporate technocrat, depending on what signals they are given by the surrounding culture for what is honorable behavior? In the US, people are told that piety is the “honorable” thing to be, and the genotype gets funneled into that phenotype.
This is because individuals that were only loosely attached to religion are (thanks in large part to Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, etc) choosing to identify as atheist/non-religious. Our society (and do many other high-IQ societies) contains many such people.
Because of this (the “pioneer effect”). White Americans are far more religious than their European brethren.
Sounds about right to me, for better or worse…
I am an EXChristian and a Libertarian. I found your link from an article about the same. Truthfully, I agree >>>TO A POINT>>> with your idea that the flotsam that Richard Dawkins may count as “converts” were really just loosely committed Christians. My personal deconversion happened suddenly when I reached a “certain age” where people become naturally introspective—around the mid-life time. But the kernel of doubt was decades old—BURIED—sublimated by religious fervor of the culture I was born into–the South. I will argue that it was only suspended.
If one looks at the science of development and self actualization —Maslow—Piaget–some of those types who map the stages of life and development, it is easy to see why the church targets children for early indoctrination. Tell a child that the Babble is true BEFORE THEY CAN READ IT FOR THEMSELVES and you have them hooked for life. BUT….this is where I will argue we diverge a bit in opinion… since “Evolution” is in real time in all living things…my sudden “awakening” at middle age was itself the expression of a gradual (little “e”) evolutionary event.
SO>>> I propose>>> many CHILDREN actually DO see the light of Truth of their own accord. BUT we never REALLY know what their brains are capable of since SOCIETY IS SO BIBLE SOAKED that natural inclinations for curiosity are stifled by religious culture, parents, etc. We may never know who truly has the “freethinker” gene because >>perhaps>>> ISN’T EXPRESSED SOMETIMES UNTIL MIDDLE AGE when events ….evolutionary forces… allow for its rediscovery.
I was very doubtful as a child, then I was sucked into the Bible Machine. But somehow I emerged on the other side. It is my type of EXChristian “survival of the smartest” that perhaps you should not so readily dismiss as Dawkins merely scooping up the backslid. It may just take this long to see the full expression of the Freethinker trait, if you will.
I procreated only after I found my Freethinking voice and before all of them were old enough to indoctrinate. I am all for putting off having children, if for no other reason than you are a fuller, more Actualized human. So my Freethinker Trait will be developed in the children I have and expressed earlier in their lives by skipping the Indoctrination stage, thereby supporting a more Enlightened culture sooner.
So I think this Evolution of species with regard to the Freethinker Trait is happening faster than you might think–and that is a very good thing.
Unfortunately, current breeding patterns show that evolutionary trends are not favoring free-thinking atheists, since their fertility these days is very poor.
Religion is not primarily about explaining stuff. Using a god as an explanation doesn’t make sense unless you already believe in such things. Instead religion is a bias towards personal causation. Read Guthrie, Boyer, Atran, Paul Bloom et al.
I think god pressured out of the requirements of in-group conformity, which is required for groups to be able to compete with other groups (love thy neighbour and slaughter thy stranger). Typically some leading figures would have done important things for the group and set the group rules and police them. Then these people die but the stories, lessons, rules are passed orally to the next generation than has never seen these people.If you keep that up a couple of generations the stories become more fanciful and the acts more unlikely to have been performed by a human being. So…these beings must have been supernatural, they are gods!. Later phases would strip these abstract beings more and more of their human flaws. Which is logical; if these abstractions are supernatural and to be worshiped they cannot have imperfections like we have or we will not hold them in such high regard. Conservative religious people are agents of group solidarity their individual thought is overruled in service of the group and as long as the religious group overlaps with the ethnic group (which often is the case) this is adaptive.
The religious mind is the hive mind.
I can’t really accept this constantly defaulting to genes as an explanation for everything. I would pretty much consider myself a secular rationalist at this point. I guess I’d say agnostic more than atheist because I leave the possibility open. But I don’t have any strong conclusion one way or another on the existence of a god. However in my younger years I was a very strong believer. I truly believed in the idea that I was being constantly watched and judged by god. What changed my mind? Simply exposure to alternative viewpoints. Nothing more than that. It had nothing to do with biology.
Europe is much more atheist now than the USA. But there was a time in the not distant past that most Europeans were religious. Look at the great churches that dot the European continent. And we are to believe that the rise of atheism can be attributed to genes? No. It’s due to cultural evolution. Nobody is hardwired to believe in god. Drop any infant off on a desert island and never introduce religion to him and that kid will grow up an atheist.
Religion goes back to our very origins as humans and was most likely a way for man to try and explain natural phenomena he couldn’t explain since he was lacking in scientific knowledge. I can see why Vikings though the aurora borealis was the work of a pleased god. They could have no idea that they were simply looking at solar wind interacting with the Earth’s magnetosphere.
If intelligent people are more likely to be atheist, it’s only because they’re more likely to understand complex scientific principles and reasoning.
@Tulio:
And if you had an identical twin that followed much the same trajectory, would you still feel that way?
Secular (so to speak) changes stem from broad environmental changes (partly, because it’s now “cool” to be an atheist). The temperaments remained constant. That said, don’t think these changes come from nowhere. Why have some countries embraced atheism more than others. See my post here to understand a thing or two about genetic potential:
Why HBD
That said, don’t be so sure those self-professed modern atheists are as atheistic as they claim.
Too bad the evidence disagrees with you.
Perhaps. But where does intelligence come from?