From Neanderthal
to Atheist : In search of a Religious belief
(Reflection From
MuktoMona)
By-
Avijit
Roy
“Shobaar uporey Manush shotto, taahar
uporey naai”
Aparthib Zaman really did a good job for us (he always
does, I must say) to search the origin of religious belief. He enlightened us
by providing some valuable information in one of his famous article “origin
of Religious belief” (http://humanists.net/avijit/article/origin_of_religious_belief.htm).
He explained in with an enchanting way about the possible root causes for
belief in religion and God.
The main reasons that can be summarized from his
analysis are listed below--
-
Reasons rooted in wishful
thinking and personal needs (Fear of death and loss of my loved
ones etc.)
-
Reasons rooted in illogical
conclusions drawn from normal events in life (Suddenly I got a
10000000$ lottery or Recovering from a serious illness or problem etc.
lead me to believe as an act of a divine power)
-
Reasons rooted in Social
Needs (Shlomi Tal gave a most logical cause in one of his
e-mail in Muktomona (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/209)
that from his very childhood man wants a heavenly father or helping king,
who will be watching my missteps and helping me out from the danger? When
you're wronged and no help is in sight, we always want somebody as a
heavenly father who is sitting on a throne to give me a justice by his
mighty hand.
-
Reasons rooted in the
evolutionary history and neuro-physiology of Humans.
This last point Mr. Aparthib discussed more elaborately
and clearly in one of his e-mail in Muktomona ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/180
)from the Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists/psychologists point of
view which more scientifically focused that religious belief is (more or less)
rooted in biology. Each human being is carrying a religious gene with him
unconsciously from the time of his creation. Of course, this fatal
“religious gene” is highly flexible and can be modulated by environment (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/199
) . Interested readers (and specially the new subscribers) may also read the
following related e-mails for their reference.
Ali Sina: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/205
Eshon Waheed : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/206
Today the world’s population is about 6 billion. How
many people among them are
agonistics/atheists/non-religious/non-believers/infidels ?
Not that much if you want to compare with the huge number of believers.
The ratio of believers: non-believers are about 4:1. (Dear Believers, no
reason for you to get excited; remember – “quantity” does not
necessarily implies “quality” !) Yes, most of the people of today’s
world still believe in personal god; but that does not necessarily mean that
god exists. Scientific truth does not depend on majority peoples’
belief, it is only dependent on scientific unanimous proof. We all know that
there was a time when most of the people of the world believed that it is not
earth but sun moves (rotates). Only some scientists like Galileo Galilei,
Copernicus, Bruno conceptualized the real fact. Most of the people of
today’s world still believe in Astrology, para-psychology, jeen, bhut
(ghosts), miracles of godman etc. But does it literally mean that those are
scientific facts? No. Those
statistics rather rigidly prove that most of the people even in advanced 21st
century are yet to free from narrow superstition and prejudice.
Anyway, why most of the people rigorously believe in
those “non-sense” ? It may be a good area of research, indeed. By our
human nature (because of our fatal religious gene as Aparthib quoted ?), we
know that average people like to believe dogmatically those fancy and
supernatural stories. We like to see X-files, love to believe in
“Barmuda-Triangle” stories, fascinated by the miracles of Uri Gellar, Shai
Baba or even Hujur Saaidabadi or believe meticulously in Nostradamus’s
miracles of foretelling. On the contrary, how many people you found in your
entire life who have rejected those narrow prejudice ? Through out the whole
world how many Prabir Ghoshs (http://humanists.net/avijit/prabir/
), Aroj Ali Matubbars (http://humanists.net/avijit/aroj_ali
), Abraham Kovoors (http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/kovoor.htm
), James Randis (http://www.randi.org/jr/index.html
) you have found who are very eager to solve the miracles, tireless
investigator / demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims ?
Human (by nature) loves miracle; loves to hear
miraculous/astonishing stories. Haven’t you read in newspapers or heard in
rumor that some charming child dying of some irremediable disease who was
marvelously/miraculously cured by paani-pora, talisman or amulet of god man (dhormo-guru/peer/hujur)
? Haven’t you got those mass-mails claiming that if you spread the mail to
at least 20 person, it will bring good fortune – if you ignore it will bring
havoc? People are really believing those mails and spreading to each-other
without knowing any fact or reason behind.
But do they ever try to mention of the failure cases in
which equally fervent that talisman or amulet could not save the lives of
equally such many unfortunate children. Nobody wants to investigate about the
origin of those fateful e-mails or search about how many people is actually
benefited in real life by spreading those non-sense mails. Nobody wants to remind those stories or remembers them, because
human beings have a tendency toward "confirmation bias," as
psychologists call it - we remember events that confirm our beliefs but forget
those that do not, which is probably why 69% of adults in a recent poll said
they believe in miracles (Ref. http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html
article of Morton Hunt) .
Anyway, keeping aside any kind of comparison with the
believers, we rationalists can conclude from the interaction of our society
that all the prevalent religions sustaining in our world are nothing but an
artificial system of discrimination between mankind. And it should also be
noted that there is no reason to “believe” that without religion all
ethic, morality, mores and righteousness
of human life will be extinguished. From Encyclopedia Britannica (Book of
the Year 1996 ) we came to know that more than 1 billion people some how
rejected to believe the sustaining prevalent religion (Ref. http://home.att.net/~s.a.joyce/issues/d_rel_world.htm
). Among them there are atheists, apostates, agnostics, skeptics,
non-believers, indifferent, infidels, freethinkers and secular humanists. Dear
readers, imagine the figure. More than O-N-E
B-I-L-L-I-O-N ! They
are scattered in each and every country all over the world (they exists even
in those hard-core religious states). Are those
people immoral? Are they insisting for murder, rape, plunder or genocide all
over the world? No. They are the
same human being and came from the same biological root like the other
believers – the only difference is that they have courage and spirit to
protest against religious bigotry that they inherited from their parents or
society. Many of those people became apostates just facing or
observing the brutal rituals, customs and culture of their own religion. Many
of them rejected their faith of their own religion just reading the cruel
brutal verses and slokes of their divine scriptures.
Begum Rokeya, Omer Kayiaam, Talima
Nasrin, Anwar Shaikh, Dr. Ali
Sina, Ibn Warraq are among those few examples of freethinkers in Muslim world.
One of the quotation of Begum Rokeya for the readers--- "We are not
sure whether those religious Scriptures are really the revelation of God. Men
has created those religious rules and advertised them as the revelation of God
to keep the womankind in dark" [(Ror: Shompadoker Nibedon (11-13)]
(Ref. http://humanists.net/avijit/article/nadia_why.htm
Article of Nadia Islam : I waana asking them “why ?”) .
The question to ponder - don’t those apostates face the similar
problem or uncertainties like all the believers are facing in their every day
life? Definitely. They also have to fight against the odds of the society;
they definitely face personal problems or loss, economic or social
discrimination, exploitation, egocentricity, intolerance - everything. But
their main strength is that they do not need to search for the shelter of god
for mundane matters. They do not need to dope themselves in religious ganja (thanks to
Narayan babu) or opium. They do not need to pray or indulge god for
solving their problems. They know
that praying and worship are nothing but mere superstitions. Praying will not
help to solve any of their problems, neither god will come down to our mundane
world to solve any of their problems. Therefore, rather
than worshiping or praying, an atheist/agnostic/ non-believer/freethinker try
to solve problem by strengthening himself with scientific outlook and rational analysis of the
problem, with co-operative conduct and with humanist objectives, in contrast
with his superstitions, fanatical tribalism and other-worldly ideals.
Anyway, I wish to focus in this article on the origin –
root of religious belief in general – a brief religious history of time! We
know that all of these prevalent religions existing in this world are not more
than two to four thousand years old. There is no eternal religion – no
religion can claim for that whether it is Islam, Hinduism or Christianity.
Eternal religion is nothing but a fancy religious myth. So far according to
the anthropological data we have, religious faith of human being evolved from
our ancient ancestor Neanderthal man who used to live in this world about
40-50 thousand to 250 thousand years ago in Mousterian period which was a part
of Pleistocene epoch (Ref. “Dhormer Utsho shondhaney” : B.P. Sahu).
There is no evidence of any ritual or religious belief or any example
of any religious custom is found in earlier stages of hominids (like
Pithecanthropus erectus or Sinanthropous pekinensis)
before Neanderthals. It is
because their brain (for e.g Java man had a brain size of 940 cc which is only
about two-third of modern homo sapience) was not so advanced to imagine such
complex entity. It is the same
reason behind that cows, goats, tigers or even gorillas or chimpanzees cannot
imagine any god.
Some of the significant steps (Quantum Jump !!) for the
readers to conceive the origin of religious belief (a brief history of
time) are enlisted below:
-
Fifteen billion years ago, the entirety of our
universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a
singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did
not exist. About 15 billion years ago our Universe began in a violent
explosive event.
-
For each billion pairs of many heavy particles
(hadrons) that were created, one was spared annihilation due to
particle-antiparticle collisions. When the universe aged to one hundredth
of a second old neutrons begin to decay on a massive scale. Eventually
the remaining neutrons combine with protons to form heavy hydrogen
(deuterium). These deuterium nuclei combine in pairs and form helium
nuclei.
-
570 million – 225 million -rages of these years is
called as “Paleozoic era”. Fossils of Ediacaran organisms are
made. Cambrian explosion of hard-bodied organisms are formed. Rise of the fish--first
vertebrates appeared. Waxy-coated algae begin to live on land;
primitive sharks, amphibians and primitive insects are also evolved. In
this period primitive ferns also evolved--first plants with roots.
-
225-65 million – ranges of these years is called
“Mesozoic era”. In this period rise of the reptiles occurred. Winged
insects, Beetles and weevils, Modern ferns, Bees and primitive crocodiles
also evolved. At the last part of this era, which is termed as
“Cretaceous period”, the dinosaurs came into this world and it
was the beginning of the reign of mammals.
-
65 million years to 2.5 million years from now –
some significant development occurred in reign of mammals. Rats, mice,
squirrels, herons, rabbits and primitive monkeys evolved. The chimpanzee
and hominid lines evolved in this epoch. The early hominids are
evolved from this trunk. 10.4 million years ago Ramapithecus and
3.5 million years ago Australopithecus came (evolved) into earth
who are considered as the primitive species of modern homo sapience.
-
2.5 million years to 10,000 years from now – this
period is considered as “Pleistocene epoch” and from 10, 000 years to
now – this period is called "Holocene epoch". In Pleistocene
epoch, 1.6-0.2 years, Homo
erectus like Java man (Pithecanthropus erectus) came into the world.
Homo erectuses were the previous form of modern homo sapience.
-
Between this tertiary period of transformation from
Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon… the concept of god, soul came into
their mind while they were unable to solve the mystery of nature,
astonished by some common natural events such as storm, forest fire,
volcanic eruption or fear of death and/or other social uncertainties. As
time passed by, the other rituals and superstition also added in their
social life.
It is quite clear from the historical facts and
anthropological evidence that –
-
Nobody
gave the idea of god or religion to the common people. The
concept of god arose in the mind of primitive people (started form
Neanderthal) in response to the needs of curiosity to know the
nature, from social uncertainties and events around and also to the need
to express their aesthetic cravings.
-
God did not create mankind
with his own image, rather it is man who created god with his
own imagination.
-
There is no scientific
correlation with life, death and soul. The concept of soul is
as much a falsehood (imaginary) as god is.
From early stages while being unable to figure out the real cause behind
death , people wishfully imagined the existence of soul in the body, which
survived even after death. In order to find a place for the soul that left
the body after death, heaven, hell, salvation or rebirth was also
irrationally and unscientifically imagined.
I would like to end my article by quoting some few
lines from a nice poem of Sunil Gongopadhay [ekta gaas toley dariye]:
“Etogulo
shotaabdi goriye gelo
Tobu maanush cheley maanush thekey gelo….
Ekhono bujlo na “Akaash” shobdotaar maney
Chottogram othoba Bakura jelaar akash noy
“Manush” shobdotatey kono katataar er bera nei
Iswar namey kono boro-babu ei bissho shongshar chalacchen na
Dhormogulo shob rupkotha
Jara Rupkothay bibhor hoye thakey –
Tara protibeshir uthoner dhulo-makha shishutir kanna shuntey pay na
Tara gorjon bilaashi ….”
I apologize to the
readers for my incapable translation of the above poem -.
So many centuries have passed by
But man still love to remain as a child
Still he cannot understand the meaning of the word “sky”.
It is not that sky over Chittagong or Bakura district.
There is no boundary surrounding the word “Human”.
No Head clerk named "God" is controlling our universe..
All religions are nothing but mere fairy tales.
Those who dope themselves in fairy tales –
They cannot hear the the fiddle baby crying in neighbor’s yard.
They are nothing but wanton-howlers….
[Standing underneath a tree - Sunil Gongopadhay]
Reference :
1. Mukto-mona Articles of
my secular friends (http://humanists.net/avijit/article)
2. Origin
of Religious Belief : Aparthib Zaman.
3. Dhormer Utsho
Shondhaney: Bhabani Prasad Sahu
4. Encyclopedia Britannica,
Book of the Year 1996.
5. Bharotey Bostubaad Proshongey : Debi Prasad
Chattapadhay
6. Religion in primitive culture: Sir Edward Burnett
Taylor.
7. ATHEISM :Questions and Answers : Gora
8. Evolutionary
and Geological Timelines: Niel Brandt
9. Creation
of a Cosmology: Big Bang Theory
10. The
Talk.Origin Archaive: Exploring creation/evolution controversy.
11. The
Big Bang model of the Universe.
12. Mukto-mona
: Discussion Group