What an interesting discussion about the evolution of religion (and oh, I love the juicy irony implicit in that phrase). Author Robert Wright’s new book, “The Evolution of God” takes a look at how religion has “tracked” along with society and culture, and he asserts that it has “aided and abetted” the growth of civilization.
Atlantic Monthly’s Andrew Sullivan reviews the book here (in the Times Online), but I really enjoyed their conversation, too.
I’m still not sure that any religion has the right answer, and if I had to argue with Wright, I would argue that religion’s influence tends to diminsh as the rest of our civilization’s cultural appartus picks up the slack (ie. religion was much more important before we had science and government). But the debate is fun!
Aside: although they don’t delve too much into it, I was struck by the quote I chose for the title of this post, that atheism is a reaction to fundamentalism. The argument seems to be that people who are turned off by fundamentalists choose to disbelieve in religion in general. Wright calls this new atheism “premised on a misconception,” which is exactly what atheists say to believers.
Grant Hamilton
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MPot