Religion, Nature forces of evil or forces for good?

The mail

I recently had an exchange with my family commenting on an interview of Abdelwahab Meddeb on French Radio France station. The main questions were:
Did Islam became both the religion of the oppressors and the oppressed?
Are violence and exclusion intrinsic to Islam?
Is Islam inconsistent with modernity?

It made me tick and I answered:
"You don't need the interrogation point, and it should be:
Religion is the ground for both the oppressors and the oppressed.
Violence and exclusion are intrinsic to Religion.
Religion is inconsistent with modernity."

I completed the mail with:
"Nature is far too big and beautiful as it is! We do not need the supernatural to be overwhelmed!
Take the trouble to try to understand the world as it is ... You will not be disappointed!"

Since my family is mainly speaking French, they don't read this blog and my strong Atheism took them by surprise! Anyway, I got many answers from my mail, but two of them are interesting me here.
The first one from my uncle: He argues that Nature is cruel, unfair and violent. Nature gave us the "law of the jungle", "the strongest survive" and leaves us in despair in front of our big losses we cannot understand.
The second mail from my aunt argue that without Religion we will not have Soeur Emmanuelle and her great charitable work.

Religion, Nature, Good, Evil

Thinking about it, what amazed me is that the two concepts:

• Nature is a force of Evil
• Religion is a force for Good

are a strong part of our common culture. We take them, like they are, without questioning!

The more I think about it, the more I tend to think the opposite.

This concept of "religion as a force for good" re-appeared in another discussion I had with my family. Fred, you should acknowledge the great moral progress that swept over Europe with the growth of Christianity. The Christian's communities promoted love of each others and a greater respect for women.
In a word, it was barbarian tribes and roman delinquency replaced with loving communities of Roman Catholic Church goers.

The reason for me to write this blog entry, is that these associations Nature = Evil, Religion = Good are hurting me personally.
The more I learn about the Universe, Physics, Astronomy, Biology, the more I'm in awe and amazed by Nature and our ability to understand it. The more I learn about Religion, it's origin, what people do in its name the more I'm disgusted.
Conclusion: I'm becoming a bad person with a tendency to love Evil!

Sorry, I don't feel that way! I feel exactly the opposite!

It's the opposite

So, what are the argument that points to:

• Nature as a force for Good
• Religion as a force of Evil

I did not have to search for long to find amazing list of good ones:

• Youtube video of Intelligence squared "Catholic church as a force for good!"
• Richard Dawkins about the origin of altruism and our morality

Anyway here is how I see it.

Force for Good!

We are one of the social species of this planet. Like all social animals we evolved to take advantages of the great benefits of cooperation. Being together as a coherent social group is a lot better than a collection of pure selfish individuals.
The base for physics (and most forms of life) is achieving the most for less = efficiency. So, Nature is, at its core, selfish and lazy :D
Still, human nature is altruistic and loving, because (and it was proved with game theory mathematics) a social group is more efficient than selfish lazy individuals.
So, nature is a force for good for the human specie, and I will add: Human nature is the only force for good!
What I mean is that the "Zeitgeist" always progress towards better social justice. Once a civilization abolished Men Slavery, Women Slavery, Racism, Gay discrimination, and so on, it is almost impossible to go backwards. It becomes a strong part of our society, and the benefits become so strong and evident that there are no way back.
The Zeitgeist progress experienced during the early christian wave in Europe is not due to Christianity as a religion, but to the acceptance by human nature of a better social environment.
And about Soeur Emmanuelle, I'm certain that she will have been a great charitable women even if she was not a Catholic None!
The proof to this, is the huge amount of non-believers that are participating in all the great NGO and Charity group all around the world. They get no publicity, since saying: "I'm a 'Medecin Sans Frontiere' and I don't believe in God!" will put you on the list of the closest mental hospital.
But if you say: "I'm a religious Catholic Nun saving the poor!" WOW, you are a great woman.
Furthermore, what a pity to think that she helped the poor only because she wants to go to heaven and not to hell! What a selfish person!

It's actually simpler than that:

1. Since there are no evidence of God doing intervention for Good directly, all religious claims for good actions are done by "human beings". So, human nature is actually taking the credits for all of these :)
2. Since there are a lot of good actions done by non-believers, "human nature" is also taking the credits.

Conclusion:
Force for Good: Religion: 0 Nature: 2

Force of Evil!

First I can say that Nature is what it is! Nature has no intentions (contrary to a megalomaniac creator of the Universe), and no goals. If you don't like Nature, well life is a bitch!
It goes back to the point of "The consolation of Religion".
Here Dawkins says "The fact that it offers consolation, does not make it true". True but I think there is a lot to explore and investigate in the process of finding consolation in Nature. I'm spending lately a lot of brain cycles on this, and I love how it makes me feel.
We are on this "pale blue dot" speck of space dust and still everything we do has an influence on the world, forever. Everything we touch, everything we say, the non-sense I write influence the next event.
We are the product of an extraordinary, mind blowing chain of events, and what we do today will influence tomorrow and the far future.
Thinking for example about that great list of stars that exploded to create the atoms in our body, the first unicellular bacteria of earth that polluted the atmosphere with oxygen, the crazy lemur that decided to hide underground while the dinosaurs where dying, and so on.
I'm not the right person to explore and explain this, but I strongly feel that Nature as it is (and as we explore it with Science) can be a great consolation for our fear of death and the unknown. This is how I feel when listening to Neal de Grasse Tyson!

Finally, about the horror of religion (mostly from God Is Not Great of Christopher Hitchens) I will just list my personal favorites:

• Wars that last forever because of Religion: Belfast, Sarayevo, Israel, Soudan, Iran
• September 11
• American Christians created a movie and 3D virtual reality of Hell for their 12 years old children. So, they will know what it will be like! Child abuse?
• Catholic church forbidding the usage of condoms in Africa: 12 millions death! Crime against humanity?
• Catholic church covering the rape of children by their priests. Last judgment asked for $1M per child. Answer of the church: But there are hundreds of them! It will ruin us! can we get a rebate? Should you get a discount if you rape more than 10 children?
• Salman Rushdie. A public order for a hit man done by a state! Christians and Jews answer to the order: You should not write blasphemy! Complicity in murder?
Campaign in Israel when Gaza settlement were removed: A Jew cannot expelled another Jew! Leads to: A Jew can expel and/or kill a christian!

And so on...

Conclusion:
Force for Evil: Religion: 25764 Nature: 0

Sorry guys, for me it's not "God! I have no need for this hypothesis", but "God! The supernatural being that destroys human nature and makes us inhuman"

Creationists and the Big Bang!

It makes total sense that the fact that I descend from a chimpanzee is hard to swallow for religious people. That's why most of the Atheist conflict concentrate around the overwhelming evidences for Evolution by Natural Selection.

So, Richard Dawkins ends up as the scientist at the forefront of the crusade against Faith.

Still, I personally feel that our modern understanding of cosmology does not leave room for a Judeo-Christian God.

Our Universe (Spacetime itself) started as a very small coherent mix of high energy. There is no room in this original soup for any "complex" entity of any kind.
The beginning of our Universe is so smooth and uniform, no "Intelligent Designer" of any kind can be part of it.
So, the argument goes that God is outside our Universe, outside Matter. This were, frankly, my feelings for quite some time. But listening to Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett, the problem is the global belief that "God answers prayers".
If God is outside our Universe he cannot be part of it! Either you are part of our spacetime or you are not. This is forever, you cannot change your decision!

Makes me feel good :)

Why natural selection did not kill the scientists?

There are many scientific facts that are the base of modern thinking: The Earth is not at the center of the Universe, Human race is the result of evolution, The brain is the home of human psyche.
But there is one that I personally love:
The human brain evolved because of social interaction.
The best quote I found about this is in Human Evolution by Roger Lewin book:
"Biologists now believe that the intellectual demands of complex social interaction were an important force of natural selection in the expansion of primate -and ultimately, human- brains."

What it means is that in primal human tribes, the man or woman with big brains have a social advantage. They are more likely to become leaders and have more children.
Sounds logical at first, but what it really means is: it's not the need for technology, tools or engineering that push the human brain evolution, but the difficulty of dealing with our siblings.
There are other technologically capable animals, like birds, and they don't need super brains. You don't need a big brain to invent the wheel!
Trying to outsmart, to manipulate, to understand and to lead other human beings is way more challenging for the neurons network, than shaping a rock into an arrow head.

Politicians and Scientists

So, another way to put it: Politicians need bigger brains than scientists!
Wait a minute...
Something went wrong in my logical flow?
Well, may be not?
In term of genes and natural selection: Scientific nerds are a lot less successful than political leaders!
I didn't do the research about a scientific study that confirms this hypothesis, but I have a gut feeling it is true :)
For fun, I did a small wikipedia survey:

Scientists:

1. Isaac Newton: No children
2. Rene Descartes: One daugther
3. Nicolaus Copernicus: 3 children (poor rate in the family)
4. Galileo Galilei: 3 children (2 daugthers could not get married)

Politicians:

1. Genghis Khan: had many other children with his other wives
2. Napolean Bonaparte: Only 7 are known: "may have had further illegitimate offspring"

Not very scientific, or even a statistical sample, but fun.
In modern times the picture changed a lot since "Scientists" are becoming cool, and "Politicians" dangerous to flirt with...
Basically every where you look, the stereotypes are not totally made out of thin air:

• Scientists are solitary nerds
• Politicians are spreading their genes

This is the funny irony: We have big brain because we need to deal with human behavior.
The people with the lowest social skills are the one we consider having the biggest brain!

Natural selection and scientists

So, I keep having this question: Why natural selection did not kill all the scientists?
Since scientists are really bad at the reproduction game, natural selection should have eliminate them very early on.
If the behavior of finding more interest in things, machines and technology than in other human beings was in our genes: there will be no science. We will not have developed technology.
This is why I love this scientific fact: Being attracted by science is not in our genes!,
It's even more than that. Something in the development of a brain (in ones life), is transforming the original goal (being good social animal) into a logical processing machine (using logic and the scientific method). It feels like this transformation is really stealing the original purpose of the brain.
Scientists become poor social animals because their brain is used to do good logical processing!
I'll really like to know if their was some study on this transformation?
Anyway, the next question is: So, why do we have so many scientists?
My personal answer about this is: The pleasure of logic!
Dealing with logic, mathematics, solving problems is so gratifying, the brain gets hooked. Compared to the complexity and ambiguity of human behavior, the neural network make and easy choice: Logic is satisfying!

Conclusion

Looking at the list of poor scientists above that did not had the chance to spread their genes, I don't feel sorry for a second. Their influence on human history is orders of magnitude bigger than the thousands of humans carrying the Y chromosome of Genghis Khan. So many humans have their psyche influenced by the work of these men!
What's important today is the "natural selection" of idea, knowledge and information that influence the life of so many. Language, writing, printing and now Internet just keeps multiplying the effect of knowledge over genes.
Genes natural selection in modern human society does not mean anything. It has no ground, no reasons and no goal.
What's important is what we think, write and say.
I can see it every day in the eye of my adopted child. He is MY boy, like my other children. And what I communicate to all of them is way more important than their genes.
I never forget the scientific fact: Natural selection did not kill the scientists!