The Faith Instinct tackles several issues and discusses the history of religion. At its heart it attempts to describe the belief that there is a "God gene". By that i mean that religion is an evolutionary trait that has arisen due to its ability to promote human survival. The book also discusses other cultural phenomenon that might have genetic basis, for example music and dance. There is a substantial part of the book that the describes the author's views on the history of religion and its evolution from being tribal at heart to being large scale encompassing. It discusses the conflicts and power struggles that arise from organized religion and what he sees as its purpose. The author even describes what he sees as the economics of religion and that there is a marketplace for it.
Ill discuss what I think are the major themes. First is the idea that the propensity to be involved in a religion is genetic. It is argued that most people have been religious for human history and the ability to be religious enabled people to have something to sacrifice themselves for. In a sense its argued that religion prevented a tragedy of the commons solution to human behaviour by a)having their actions being judged by an unseen power thus enforcing a reasonable social contract and b) helping groups form that do better in survival than merely a bunch of individuals acting in self interest. That is most likely correct, but that is not any evidence that religion is genetic. The argument should be that humans are joined in rituals and people coordinating in groups is a powerful social glue. Religion is a category of that. To say that something survives generations is not evidence its genetic, furthermore, that a blank slate person born in the jungle might consider spirits to exist is also no evidence that religion is genetic, merely that the world is complicated and people seek to construct a framework in which they see their reality. Had the argument been that people have a natural disposition to feel empathy and reciprocity and form groups and have rituals and then argue that religion is an outgrowth of natural genetic tendencies that cause various cultural phenomenon, that would have been more compelling. Religions take many forms and ancestral religions share very little in common with todays to the extent that its not deity worship that defines religion, then how can one argue that religion is genetic. In anycase, there are interesting ideas, that, at a more foundational level, as described in the trance and music section, seem to hold strong weight, it should have been these that were focused on rather than complex cultural evolutions of more basic building blocks.
The book also describes in detail the authors perspective on religion. I am sure most religious people would not be too fond of the writing, it tends to argue that most religions are based on fairy tales. There is interesting historical analysis, a lot of it can be argued, but i'm not sure the point of a lot of it. It doesnt seem to try to help convince on the fundamental point that there is a natural disposition to believe in god and join organized religion, it mainly seems to attempt to debunk some very deep beliefs of people. Part of the point of it is to set the seeds to discuss religion today and where it is going, ideas about the US and it having a marketplace for religion and how competetive religion sparks higher degree of natural faith is presented. The relationship between uncertainty and religion are pondered and the conclusion is drawn that religions are out of date and need to be adapted.
All in all i recommend reading the book, but I definately would read a lot more than this book to draw real conclusions about the subject matter. Interesting ideas are presented but the breadth of the statements are too wide, there should be much more refined analysis done on what in particular gives rise to the propensity to follow religion. As stated by the author it is a function of uncertainty so clearly its not some religion gene, i guess one could argue that the gene is activated by an environment of uncertainty but then prove it by taking a non-religious person who changed geography and see if their behaviour changed, do a case study. Dont just hypothesize about something so important to so many people. The author stretches and makes conclusions that are not rigorously argued by a long way, but he does present ideas that are interesting and can be built upon, I recommend reading, but with a critical eye.
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 31, 2010
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Daveheart
Unkonzentriert geschriebene Darstellung einer simplen These mit dubioser Bibliographie
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on September 3, 2016Bruno Lumachi
Nicholas WADE, un grande archeologo!
Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on May 24, 2016
Richard Preschel
Its approach is onesided and naïve
Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on July 24, 2014
Kindle Customer
an excellent text that covers a unique phenomenon....
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 10, 2011Anthony Niessen
Extremely informative and basically puts all religions on a similar platform
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 4, 2022
