Religion is a bit like air, so ubiquitous that it is almost unnoticed. We notice the air when there is a storm or some other extreme event. We are prone to notice religion under similar conditions. So Reynolds and Tanner, writing on the social ecology of religion, concentrate their attention on the role of religion at the salient points in the cycle of human life, birth, death, disease and so on. Reynolds & Tanner, 53
Here we give a much broader role to religion. We assume that each of us has a personal religion which is part of the culture we absorb from our environment after birth, spoken and body language, physical and social skills etc etc. Religion thus helps to fit us into the natural and human environment of our birth. From this point of view, religion is the nurture which adds to nature to construct a complete human being.
From a formal point of view, religion is encoded in the space of all possible configurations of the human mind (call this M), just as biology is encoded in the space of all possible genomes (G). Viewed simply as large objects these spaces are not very interesting. But when we observe the distribution of real genomes in G we begin to notice very detailed structure. Genome - Wikipedia
This structure arises from the evolutionary relationships between genomes. These relationships arise, in turn, because genomes are not arbitrary strings of data, they have meaning. When executed by a living organism, a genome controls the growth and life of that organism and determines, at least to some degree, whether it will reproduce successfully and so copy its genome into the next generation.
The evolution of religion has led to similar structure in the space of mind, M. Archaeology and paleontology can tell us very little about what people were thinking long ago. We have to wait for the discovery of writing to read ancient thoughts and feelings and see the evolutionary history of the ideas we entertain now. This leads us into the fascinating area of comparative religion, where we observe the vast array of different human mental adaptations to different places, times and conditions. Comparative religion - Wikipedia
This abstract formulation of religions both explains and overcomes the sectarian problem, since by definition religion is common to us all. The similarities and differences of religions enables them to be classified in a manner analogous to the classification of biological species. As in biology, similarity points either to common descent, or to the evolution of common solutions to common problems.
The detailed study of life on earth shows that all organisms are fundamentally of one flesh, carbon based systems which have shared some common traits for three or four billion years. The history of human religion is very much shorter, and religious evolution is much faster than biological evolution. Nevertheless all religions have a common root in the human ability to communicate, to cooperate and to learn.
The natural religion project
The natural religion project begins with natural theology, where we study the general nature of physically embodied mind, culminating with the biggest imaginable mind, the mind of God. The goal of such science, as of all knowledge, is application. We learn in order to act more effectively. Like other survival oriented activites (eg reproduction), learning can also be a very attractive activity.
The application of theological insight to human action gives us religion. Theology and religion bear the same relationship to one another as science and technology. Our visible industrial technology is concerned with shaping physical objects. Religion is concerned with shaping ourselves.
Natural religion take the conflict out of religion by embracing all religions in a common model of supra-human (supra-individual) structures. Roman Catholics cast themselves as specially created children of God. They see the world as a vale of tears, a testing ground, damaged by original sin, designed to find those worthy of an eterna heavenly reward. Yet biology sees that we are one with all other life on earth, and that every creatures shares the intelligence necessary to survive in its own way. We are no more special than the divine Universe which created us.
This Universe is very special, as divinity is special. As we learn to see ourselves as part of it, rather than as aliens, we are beginning to see just how special it is. Human beings are bound into cooperative organisms by religion. As we shall see, same force is at work at all scales in the Universe, from the bonding of atoms to form molecules to the coalescence of people into groups, groups of groups, and so on. Natural religion is something to be discerned, not constructed. It already exists. We just have to learn to see it. When we do see it, it transplants itself into our own mental world.
(revised 2 January 2012)
