Wasabisoft

Part of the reason I don’t begrudge people their religions is that the desire to fill up the gap between the Known and the Unknown is one of the defining characteristics of humans.  We, as a species, don’t have ANY of the traditional “natural weapons”; we don’t have claws, or fangs… we have shitty senses, low physical strength, relatively poor balance… hell, we can’t even climb trees like we used to.  What I wouldn’t give for a prehensile tail nowadays.  No, the only things humans have going for them number three: upright bipedal locomotion, opposable thumbs and a complex frontal lobe.  While the first two enable us to use tools, only the last is unique to humans; it is our intelligence that is our primary survival trait.  Accordingly, our intelligence should be the facet of ourselves about which we feel the most insecurity… this insecurity should be a driving force towards learning survival lessons from the world around us.  And anything that increases our chances of survival should increase our chances of reproducing, which in turn will reinforce the driving behavior in accordance with evolutionary statistics.

SO:  humans, being exclusively dependent upon our intellect for survival (at least in hunter-gatherer times), should be accordingly paranoid about anything of which we perceive we are ignorant.  To quote super-shady ex-SecDef Donald Rumsfeld:

“As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.”

Beautiful, eh?  Inspired.  Eloquent.  Mother fuckin’ poetic, even.  Honestly, Rumsfeld looks like the kind of person who cheats at strip chess and thinks date rape is cool if you can forge the victim’s signature on a Love Contract… but if we could choose anyone to be the Secretary of Defense, I really, really don’t mind if we pick the guy who’s willing to break the rules to ensure victory.  Just don’t play chess with him, you’ll be fine.

You may have noticed I have a propensity to Unnecessarily Capitalize certain Words to add Emphasis.  These capitalized words are – within the Chocolate-Factory-esque workings of my mind – sorted into a big bin labeled “Concepts”.  There is a difference, in the context of my rambling dissertations, between good and Good, truth and Truth, reason and Reason… and pertinent to THIS article, the concepts Known and Unknown.  “Known” (big K) refers to the “known knowns” section: the things that we know we know, such as the chemical composition of capsaicin or how human eyesight works.  “Unknown” (big U) refers to the “unknown unknowns” section: the things we don’t know we don’t know, such as a newborn baby’s knowledge of the chemical composition of capsaicin or what a bat’s echolocation sight looks like.  The gap between, as mentioned in the first sentence of this article, refers to the “known unknowns”: things we know we do not know, such as the existence or nonexistence of the soul, or Luke Skywalker’s favorite ice cream flavor.  It is this space, the gap between the Known and the Unknown, that marks the chosen battlefield of Religion and Science.  Kinda like the battle for Minas Tirith, except all the orcs are right-wing zealots, Sauron doesn’t actually exist, the inhabitants of Gondor all have satellite Internet access and espresso machines and they don’t particularly give a shit whether Mordor agrees with them or not.  Aren’t metaphors fun?

ANYways: it is this gap between the Known (the realm of experience understood by Science) and the Unknown (that which lies truly outside our scope of comprehension) that our evolved sense of our own intellect finds disconcerting; we worry about the things we know we don’t know because these unknown things could, potentially, cause us harm.  For the sake of our discussions, I now choose to designate this “known unknowns” concept with the label “the Uncertain”.  It is this fear of the Uncertain that has historically driven people to Religion; Religion provides an answer to these questions – traditionally referred to as a belief – that can soothe the mind’s innate insecurity, but only at the cost of suborning one’s own intellectual integrity.  While using beliefs to subdue mental anxieties can be an effective means of instilling an individual or group with confidence, doing so leaves the individual or group unable to engage as effectively with real-world problems involving the area addressed by the belief.  For example: the belief that a personal, loving God is looking out for you and guiding your steps can give a person greater confidence in their everyday lives, which can enable them to actually perform better than they may have done in the absence of that confidence… but can also result in mistaking foolhardiness for courage, potentially leading the person into experiencing epic failures in situations where a more rational person (one who knows that only they are responsible for their successes and failures) would have adjusted their choices in a more situationally-appropriate manner.  In extreme situations, belief in divine intervention can lead to Superman Syndrome – a general recklessness in everyday actions and interactions due to the belief that Superman/God will always compensate for dangerous situations caused by your recklessness.  Wow, I drifted just a bit off-topic there.  Recentering.

For people who lack the necessary education or intelligence to learn the scientific reasons behind the Uncertain (or during the vast, vast periods 0f history when Science simply did not know the reasons), Religion provides a plethora of simple answers to questions great and small.  When humanity was still developing from tribal social structures into full-blown civilizations, the Uncertain occupied a great deal more territory than it does today; the Uncertain covered such areas as the origin of lightning and rain, why trees and animals grow, and things float or fall.  This is in addition to the questions that still occupy people’s minds today, things like the nature (or existence) of an afterlife, where humans came from, and whether life exists (or is even possible) on other planets.  Since Religion could provide the answers (or at least an answer) to these questions that Science could not, the Uncertain has always been the realm of Religion and Faith.  This is why Religion has had such power throughout the entirety of human civilization; Religion can provide a feeling of security and community by giving the people a shared “answer” to life’s Uncertainties… belief and Faith derive their powers from the shared acceptance of Religion’s explanations of the mysteries of life.

The (perceived) conflict between Religion and Science is, metaphorically, a turf war: as Science brings more and more of life’s questions from the realm of the Uncertain into the realm of the Known, the realm of the Uncertain shrinks.  With it shrinks the power of Religion, as the less Religion is needed to explain the mysteries of life, the less Religion becomes necessary in the lives of the people to help overcome the biological fear of the unknown.  This impingement of Science upon the traditionally untouchable domain of Religion causes friction between the two philosophies… but it is, for the most part, a unidirectional friction; while Religion perceives its power to be diminished by the efforts of Science, Science does not particularly care about the fate of Religion aside from a sense that Religion is incompatible with reality.  Science observes, measures and extrapolates, nothing more… and confidence, in Science, derives only from observations any person of sufficient education can also make within the scope of reality.  This is the fundamental difference between Science and Religion; Science’s Truth can be built, in its entirety, from reasoned observation of reality; Religion’s Truth depends absolutely upon the acceptance of the facts presented upon the auspices of Religion itself… upon the acceptance of Religion’s authority.

Thus, Religion’s authority, Religion’s power, derives directly from the size of the realm of Uncertainty.  The more Uncertainty exists within a society, the more power the organization of Religion has to wield.  As has been previously posited: the odd, reflexive, circular logic of Religion seats the power of Religion upon overcoming fear of Uncertainty through the mass (mob) acceptance of a Truth supplied by Authority.  Therefore, the more Uncertainty exists within the peoples’ minds, the more valid Religion’s Authority appears to be… and ,due to the force inherent in any mob, the more valid Authority actually is.

This is the fundamental source of conflict between Religion and Science, the ultimate reason why Religious people actually oppose advances in Science that conflict with the teachings of Religion.  Any ground gained by Science (and by extension, Reason) is lost to Religion in the eyes of society… but only so long as society accepts the explanation put forth by Science.  This means that, from Religion’s perspective, they can prevent the loss of religious power concurrent with the loss of Uncertainty if Religion can ensure that either A) Religion’s followers choose to accept the teachings of Religion over the explanations of Science (thus choosing the reign of Authority over Reason); B) Religion can undermine its own followers’ intelligence or education to the point that Religion’s followers cannot understand Science’s explanations (forcefully substituting Authority for Reason); or C) manufacturing sufficient Uncertainty that its followers whom can already understand the teachings of Science have an apparently Reasonable alternative… which enables the follower to – seemingly legitimately – choose the Religious answer over the Scientific, essentially extending Religion’s dominion over both the Uncertain AND the Known (making Authority appear Reasonable; also known as pseudoscience).

The enduring strength of Religion in the face of a rapidly shrinking realm of Uncertainty can be derived from one of these three means of subordinating Reason to Authority.  ALL Religious people, in order to legitimize their use of Religious reasoning for their everyday actions, have to employ a certain amount of self-imposed blindness related to one of these subordinations.  Subordination is necessary AT ALL because Religion is, by definition, derived from the existence of Authority… while Reason is derived from reality itself.  Of the two, reality exists regardless of “belief” or “disbelief” in reality; all peoples operate within the scope reality by definition.  Conversely, people operate within the scope of Religion by choice; if a person can choose to be Religious or not, then Religion cannot, by definition, apply to all peoples.  Authority does not derive from reality; it derives from peoples’ acceptance of Authority.  As such, rules affecting the entirety of society can only be legitimately derived from the realm of the Known, which affects all of society.  Only people choosing to willingly include themselves within the bounds of Religion can be legitimately affected by that Religion’s rules.

So here I attempt to draw this dissertation to a close: I understand and accept that there exist in this world people who prefer Religion to Science because they derive more confidence, more strength, from Religion; in particular, Religious people prefer the conclusions drawn by Authority (and the force of those conclusions) to those merely implied by Science.  This is generally due to one (or more) specific aspects of the Religious person’s personality: either they A) prefer the simple answers of Religion and are too lazy, complacent or content to look further (thus choosing the reign of Authority over Reason); B) lack the ability to choose anything other than the simple answers they are given (Religion) since they cannot comprehend the answers of Science (Authority having been forcefully substituted for Reason); or C) are in a position to directly benefit from the mob force behind Religious conclusions and attempt to bolster that force via aggressive or Reasonable conversion (perpetrating B upon others, cultivating A amongst the Faithful, and being guilty of making Authority appear Reasonable themselves).

But regardless of a person’s reasons for choosing or being Religious, I acknowledge that Religion can have a positive influence upon peoples’ lives.  I feel that people who practice their religion in a benign way deserve the strength and confidence with which Religion can, for whatever reason, provide them.  For these people, I am happy that Religion can enable them to do good in society.  My problem with Religion arises when it is used for things that are blatantly evil (Evil) when considered from a Reasonable perspective.  If people accept the rule of Authority, then they can be considered justified in perpetrating Evil acts endorsed by their Religion so long as they apply those acts only within their religion’s community.  But for people NOT within the Religious community, the rule of Reason holds true, and those acts which appear Evil (such as the outlawing of arbitrary objects, the insistence upon subordination of women, and the persecution of both homosexuality and people of other religions) actually are Evil, and thus have no place becoming laws of society in general.

In final conclusion (I promise): since so much conflict exists between the fundamental natures of Religion and Science exists, I would prefer that people derive their strength and self-assurance in the face of the Uncertain from Reason, as doing so gives a much, much better chance that person will not perpetrate Evil… even with good Religious intent.  It is definately harder to adopt a Reason-based morality and understanding of reality than it is to adopt a Religious one… but again: the benefit of doing so is being able to choose what is both Correct and Right, instead of what is merely Correct.  If you are a Religious person and have done things that are Good even in the eyes of your Reasonable friends, then I applaud you… but wish to make you aware that just as much Good can be done from a Reasonable foundation… more efficiently, too.  And for those of you who live Reasonable lives already, and who probably read my articled for no better reason than to confirm and strengthen your own convictions, I leave you with this warning reminder of the First Rule of Sentience:  never discount the possibility that you could be completely fucking wrong.

Comma Bitches.