Scourging the Statues

For the committed believer in modern nihilism, there is no better whipping boy—or whipping girl, for that matter—than the religious statue. No really educated person can possibly believe that this stone thing, this rain-bleached Madonna on its pedestal here, is really there. But I see people standing there, head bowed, and I can see their lips moving in prayer. But, of course, people actually do that, so we must explain it. And we must also explain the wider context, Religion, the whole nine yards. It’s been around, why—forever it seems. So something must explain it. And we all know, we the knowledgeable few, that religion doesn’t work. That in turn means that Natural Selection couldn’t have produced it. But then what is the source of it? Because nothing exists if Natural Selection hasn’t selected it. Does it? No. You’ve got it. — Therefore? Therefore it must be some kind of misfiring, some kind of flaw, some kind of glitch, a kind of aberration in something genuinely useful, something that really has been selected by relentless nature for retention, something valued. Oh! I’ve got it. It’s a spandrel, a non-adaptive trait that happens to be the byproduct of an adaptive trait. Hhm... But why would that byproduct persist for endless ages? Wouldn’t Natural Selection eventually get rid of it? Especially if it doesn’t work? If it costs money? Those statues cost money. So does going on pilgrimages. Nature is efficient. All kinds of creatures other than humans enjoy the useful function of which religion is the byproduct—the agent detection subroutine in our blessed brain—and theirs. That came about by accident and it was selected for—because it’s useful. So why don’t squirrels worship, build temples and statues, go to church, and bow their little heads? Ah, problems. Science is long and time is short. Add it to the list of things to do. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

This brief meditation was inspired by a post on Siris dated January 3 of this year. I invite you to read it here.

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“Agent detection” is defined by Wikipedia here.