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This is the third part of a multi-part series. You can also read Part 1 and Part 2.

I used to think i was a christian because christianity was the pinnacle of truth. It was only when i travelled overseas, particularly through countries like Egypt and Jordan, that i stopped to think about how significantly we are shaped by our surroundings. I met wonderful people brought up in muslim homes, to muslim parents, attending muslim synagogues, in muslim societies, and guess what? They were muslim. I looked back on my own life. I grew up in a christian home, with christian parents, attended a christian church, hung out with christian friends, all within the context of a christian society. Was it any surprise i was a christian?

If my beliefs were really founded on truth, surely i could convince the muslim world of their folly? Surely i could present a solid argument to all muslims that would persuade them that christianity was the only path to god? We should expect this to be possible if religion were indeed derived from truth. Just like i could explain to another person that the internal angles of a triangle always sum to 180 degrees, or that the brain is the seat of human consciousness, surely i could demonstrate to people of other faiths that my religion is right and theirs wrong? If only this were possible!

Unfortunately, people of all religions typically use the same reasons to justify their beliefs. The problem is this: if two people of different religions are arriving at different conclusions (e.g. the christian believes in god and the muslim believes in allah), and both use the same arguments to support their mutually exclusive claims (i.e. personal experience, prayer, divine knowledge, etc), then clearly one side must be wrong, as the same set of arguments cannot logically lead to two different conclusions. This of course does not for a moment suggest that both sides are wrong; it is possible that one side is indeed correct. However, the point is this: the arguments cannot be sound, as a sound argument cannot support mutually exclusive outcomes.

There are some people that will point to the near universality of religion throughout human history as if it were clear evidence demonstrating the existence of god. The idea is that we are all born with a god-shaped hole that we are desperately seeking to fill; those that don’t turn to god, turn to fame, sex, drugs, and other unhealthy secular pursuits, as a way of satisfying the void within. This idea, as nice as it sounds, is completely without substance. The human drive to understand the numinous and to embrace the mystical does not for a moment suggest that god exists. As with all broad spectrum human character traits, there is strong reason to suggest that our predilection for religion is rooted in our evolutionary past.

At the heart of the theory of evolution is the principle of “survival of the fittest”. In simple terms, any characteristic that enhances the ability of a species to survive (and produce more of their own kind) will be passed on to subsequent generations. With this in mind, explaining why humans appear to thirst for a “higher order” is somewhat akin to explaining why we have an appendix. All we need to do is provide a reasonable explanation of how the trait aided survival at some point in our evolutionary past. In much the same way that an appendix appears to be a vestigial organ passed on to us from our leaf eating ancestors, so propensity for religious belief may be the byproduct of a once beneficial characteristic of humanity. What survival benefit, you may ask, could be attributed to a belief in a supernatural deity? Well, there are plenty of candidate ideas, such as the notion that religion assisted primitive peoples deal with the anxieties of human consciousness facilitating the formation of cohesive and mutually supportive groups that were better equipped at living in a harsh and always unpredictable prehistoric climate. In fact, Daniel Dennett addresses this question in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Michael Shermer also offers up some ideas in How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God.

I am not suggesting that these ideas are a definitive explanation of why human history records almost a universal belief in god. I’m simply suggesting that there is considerable scope within the bounds of science to provide a rational explanation for the phenomenon. We do not need to invent god to answer this question any more than we need to believe in a supernatural entity to explain why we’re all born with an appendix that appears to serve no practical purpose.

In fact, it could be argued that our propensity for belief, coupled with tight familial ties, and our impressionable human nature, is at least a consistent and not altogether surprising explanation for why we have such universal adoption of religion and yet such regionalised diversity. It certainly appears a rather plausible explanation of why muslims breed muslims, and christians breed christians, when neither can produce any compelling evidence to support their mutually exclusive claims. It certainly appears more compelling to me than the notion that my christian religious experience is valid, but the religious experience of anyone outside of the christian faith is delusional. That’s not an argument. That’s just naiveté.