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At the core of each religion is a creation myth, which explains how the world began and how the chosen people—those subscribing to the belief system—
They harshly resist the dismissal of their beliefs by
Religion arose on an ethical foundation, and it has probably always been used in one manner or another to justify moral codes. The formidable influence of the religious
than just the validation of morals. A
Foremost among them is the survival instinct. “Fear,” as the Roman poet Lucretius said, “was the first thing on earth to make gods.”
extraction of order
Religion is also empowered mightily by its principal ally, tribalism. The shamans and priests implore us, in somber cadence,
history. Such inevitability is the mark
it is guided toward certain states by emotion-driven
with the added twist of tribalism.
Even when individuals subordinate themselves and risk death in common cause, their genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generation than are those of competing groups who lack equivalent resolve.
altruism.
The individual pays, his genes and tribe gain, altruism spreads.
of the empiricist theory of the origin of ethics and religion.
At least one form of brain disorder is associated with hyperreligiosity, in which cosmic significance is given to almost everything, including trivial everyday events.
They are one kind of a dominance hierarchy,
anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure.
They ask this question: When the real world of space, time, and matter is well enough known, will that knowledge reveal the Creator’s presence?
Dreams of a Final Theory.
A Brief History of Time
THE ESSENCE OF humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another.
one code of ethics is not as good—at least, not as durable—as another.
only a narrow range of ethical precepts. They flourish within certain belief systems, and wither under others. We need to know exactly why.
will be further supported by verification of gene-culture coevolution,
transcendentalist explanation accepted.
People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or other, however intellectualized.
If the sacred narrative cannot be in the form of a religious cosmology, it will be taken from the material history of the universe and the human species.
will make a great difference in the way humanity claims the future.
while religion must somehow find the way to incorporate the discoveries of science in order to retain credibility. Religion will possess strength to the extent that it codifies
evolutionary biology, the disciplines best poised to serve in turn as bridges to the social sciences and humanities.
are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible,
sequences, to the laws of physics.
The main thrust of the consilience world view instead is that culture and hence the unique qualities of the human species will make complete sense only when linked in causal explanation to the natural sciences.
the focus of the natural sciences has begun to shift away from the search for new fundamental laws and toward new kinds of synthesis—“holism,”
coherent cause-and-effect explanations across levels of organization.
magnitude of the problem,
The human condition is the most important frontier of the natural sciences.
The two frontiers are the same. The map of the material world, including
We are still Paleolithic thrill seekers, preferring Jurassic Park to the Jurassic Era, and UFOs to astrophysics.
Profession-bent students should be helped to understand that in the twenty-first century the world will not be run by those who possess mere information alone.
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.
people able to put together the right information at the right time,
are the meaning and purpose of all our idiosyncratic frenetic activity:
Western philosophy offers no promising substitute.
find it hard to conceive of an adequate core curriculum in colleges and universities that avoids the cause-and-effect connections among the great branches of learning—
but material cause and effect.
Then there were the differences. Marlowe’s Faust was irrevocably damned when he made the wrong choice; Goethe’s Faust was saved because he could not feel the happiness promised him through material gain. Marlowe upheld Protestant piety, Goethe the ideals of humanism. In our perception of the human condition we have
Today not one but two Mephistophelean bargains can be distinguished.
Ratchet of Progress:
