After reading In Gods We Trust, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained (in that order), I have to recommend my favorite on this topic, Religion Explained. Boyer covers a lot of the same territory as Atran, but Boyer's explanations are easier to understand, more compelling, and overall I'd say that book was a more enjoyable read. If you are only going to read one book on the topic I'd recommend Religion Explained. That's not to say, however, that In Gods We Trust is not a worthwhile read.
In Gods We Trust is a highly technical and thoroughly scientific book whose aim is to explain how humans have evolved to invent and practice religions. With nearly 1,000 references, Atran has encyclopedic knowledge of the literature on his subject and supports every argument with studies and experiments. In Gods We Trust is exemplary of the rigid objective scrutiny of the scientific method.
This is by no means an introductory book, nor is it easily accessible to the general reader. The language is technical and the vocabulary obscure; I was constantly consulting a dictionary for definitions of words like autochthonous, epiphenomenon, nomological, internecine, tendentious, profligacy, endogenous, fecundity, and pedagogic, to name a few. But those willing to make the effort will find a sophisticated objective analysis and striking insights into religious origins and behaviors.
Humans' religiosity presents an evolutionary riddle: all human cultures practice religions and religious practice is materially costly and always includes sacrifice on the part of believers. But natural selection tends to stamp out waste and produce highly efficient organisms, so how did the human race evolve to habitually form and practice religions? Atran rejects various previously proposed explanations for religion, while also denying that it is naturally selected as an adaptation with benefits which outweigh its costs. Instead, he suggests that some aspects are byproducts of adaptations while other aspects are plausibly adaptive; "both adaptations and by-products, in turn, have been culturally co opted...by religion to new functions."
The evolutionary byproduct I thought was most striking and explanatory is that of hyperactive agency detection. An agent is an entity that "instigates and controls its own actions," such as a person or an animal. Atran explains that humans have evolved generally advantageous abilities to recognize that other people and animals are agents as opposed to inanimate objects, which helps us to predict what they will do (IE a predator might attack us, prey will run away when attacked, a person could be a friend or foe). It makes sense that we would evolve this trait, since if you hear a rustle in a bush and you think there is an animal there but it turns out to just be the wind, then no harm done. But if there is a predator in the bush and you think nothing of the noise, you may not survive. Thus, there is little penalty for over-detecting agency but sometimes severe penalties for under-detecting agency, which leads to a "hair-trigger" on our agency detection abilities.
Uncertain and "emotionally eruptive" events such as earthquakes, floods, disease, and death prompt humans to search for a reason or purpose behind them. But since these important events have no apparent controlling force, they are quickly associated with supernatural agents. "In all cultures, supernatural agents are readily conjured up because natural selection has trip-wired cognitive schema for agency detection in the face of uncertainty." There is much, much more to religion than hyperactive agency detection, and Atran gives compelling explanations for a wide variety of other aspects as well.
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Top reviews from other countries
- dghawkReviewed in Canada on June 15, 2015
I really enjoyed this one by Scott Atran
- Adam CarltonReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2013
Compellingly argued but unfocussed
