Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
--Matthew 23: 27-28
When Robin Hanson’s first book, The Age of Em, came out in 2016, we had an extended debate. Despite his genius and the value and originality of his topic, I saw (and see) this book as deeply mistaken. I’m pleased to report, then, that Robin’s second book, The Elephant in the Brain (co-authored with Kevin Simler), is vastly more convincing. My blurb calls it, “Deeply important, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and fundamentally right” – and I mean every word.
Though Hanson-Simler (HS) scrupulously avoid the word “hypocrisy,” the concept pervades the book. Since my objections are about the details rather than the basics, I thought it would be fun to just stroll through their chapter on an area of life where accusations of hypocrisy have been prevalent for millennia: religion. HS are in blockquotes; I’m not.
Religion. There’s perhaps no better illustration of the elephant in the brain. In few domains are we more deluded, especially about our own agendas, than in matters of faith and worship. When Henry VIII divorced his first wife under the guise of piety, or when religious leaders launch imperialist crusades, we can be forgiven for questioning their motives. But most of what people do in the name of God isn’t so blatantly opportunistic. And yet, as we’ll see, there’s a self-serving logic to even the most humble and earnest of religious activities.
The last sentence seems like a clear case of overstatement. What about hidden religiosity? Persecuted religiosity?
[R]eligion presents not one but two striking puzzles. In addition to the behaviors, we also have to explain the menagerie of peculiar religious beliefs. A quick tour of the these would include gods, angels, ghosts, demons, talking animals, virgin births, prophecies, possessions, exorcisms, afterlives of all sorts, revelation, reincarnation, transubstantiation, and superaquatic perambulation– to name just a few…
It’s tempting to try to collapse these two puzzles into one, by assuming that the strange supernatural beliefs cause the strange behaviors…
And yet, as we’ve seen throughout the book, beliefs aren’t always in the driver’s seat. Instead, they’re often better modeled as symptoms of the underlying incentives, which are frequently social rather than psychological. This is the religious elephant in the brain: We don’t worship simply because we believe. Instead, we worship (and believe) because it helps us as social creatures.
While this story is plausible, HS don’t really grapple with the strongest counter-arguments. Most obviously, arcane doctrinal disputes seem to be the sparks behind several major historical events. Take the Protestant Reformation. Yes, there’s plenty of realpolitik under the surface. But it’s hard to deny that Luther, Calvin, and other key figures did put beliefs in the driver’s seat: “Sola scriptura!” And without these belief-centric theologians, it’s far from clear that the century of violent realpolitik they inspired would have come to pass.
[W]e engage in a wide variety of activities that have a religious or even cult-like feel to them, but which are entirely devoid of supernatural beliefs. When Muslims face Mecca to pray, we call it “religion,” but when American schoolchildren face the flag and chant the Pledge of Allegiance, that’s just “patriotism.” And when they sing, make T-shirts, and put on parades for homecoming, that’s “school spirit.” Similarly, it’s hard to observe what’s happening in North Korea without comparing it to a religion; Kim Jong-un may not have supernatural powers, but he’s nevertheless worshipped like a god…
The fact that these behavioral patterns are so consistent, and thrive even in the absence of supernatural beliefs, strongly suggests that the beliefs are a secondary factor.
I struggle to see the logic here. Yes, the world’s leading religions have much in common with secular movements. But how does that suggest that what distinguishes these religions from secular movements is “secondary”? Indeed, doesn’t it suggest precisely the opposite conclusion – that supernatural beliefs are what makes leading religions special?
Nevertheless, we think people can generally intuit what’s good for them, even if they don’t have an analytical understanding of why it’s good for them. In particular, they have a keen sense for their concrete self-interest, for when things are working out in their favor versus when they’re getting a raw deal.
Again, this seems like a rash overstatement. For starters, if the religious order is stable and powerful, doubts are dangerous. HS’s own model suggests that the oppressed would develop pronounced Stockholm Syndrome. Why? To avoid social sanctions. The best way to convince your oppressor that you love him is to love him sincerely.
HS acknowledge their broader agenda in this chapter’s footnote 15:
In other words, we’re going to provide a functionalist account of religion…
This raises major ambiguities. Are they saying that religion is functional today – or only that it used to be functional? Are they saying that religion is functional for rank-and-file adherents, religious elites, the whole society, or what? But HS usually sound like they’re talking about current functionality for whoever belongs to the religion. Case in point:
Groups that are chock full of peaceful, rule-following cooperators are ripe for exploitation. In a religious context, cheaters can take many forms. Some people might put on a show of great piety, but then mistreat others whenever it’s convenient– like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, preying on the flock. Others will simply engage in the casual form of cheating known as free-riding. This might entail people taking advantage of church services without giving anything back, or perhaps seeking help from a religious group during their time of need, but then abandoning it as soon as they’re back on their feet. Even something as simple as reading email during a sermon could be construed as cheating.
To lock in the benefits of cooperation, then, a community also needs robust mechanisms to keep cheaters at bay.
Strangely, though, many of the leading religions loudly proclaim that they welcome everyone. And they live up to this rather naive promise to an amazing degree. I was raised Catholic for my first sixteen years, and can’t recall any anti-cheating mechanism more “robust” than collective scolding. Preaching blanket forgiveness swamped efforts to stamp out “exploitation.” Catholicism was plainly stricter before my time, but the modern Church didn’t invent unconditional love in the 1970s. It’s deeply embedded in the New Testament.
Time and energy are perhaps the easiest resources to waste, and we offer them in abundance. Examples include weekly church attendance, sitting shiva, and the Tibetan sand mandalas we saw earlier. This helps explain why people don’t browse the web during church. Yes, you probably have “better things to do” than listen to a sermon, which is precisely why you get loyalty points for listening patiently. In other words, the boredom of
sermons may be a feature rather than a bug.
Or not. Mega-churches led by charismatic preachers and packed with audience participation have been doing very well in the religious marketplace.
Consider the belief in an all-powerful moralizing deity– an authoritarian god, perhaps cast as a stern father, who promises to reward us for good behavior and punish us for bad behavior. An analysis of this kind of belief should proceed in three steps. (1) People who believe they risk punishment for disobeying God are more likely to behave well, relative to nonbelievers. (2) It’s therefore in everyone’s interests to convince others that they believe in God and in the dangers of disobedience. (3) Finally, as we saw in Chapter 5, one of the best ways to convince others of one’s belief is to actually believe it. This is how it ends up being in our best interests to believe in a god that we may not have good evidence for.
I’ve often heard economists make claims like this. But when you look at the real world, it’s far from clear that disobedience and belief in divine punishment are even negatively correlated. Luther and Calvin, the fathers of modern Protestantism, preached predestination with utmost clarity: Your salvation is absolutely beyond your control. Nevertheless, fundamentalist Protestants have long been known for strict adherence to the rules – especially compared to traditional Catholicism.
There’s also a peculiar omission in this chapter. HS barely acknowledge the massive gap between how religious people say they are and how religious they actually are. How many people announce, “God is the most important thing in my life,” yet don’t even bother to attend church or learn the basics of the Bible? On reflection, this is one of the world’s best examples of hidden motives. Since most religious people offer little more than lip service to their own faith, isn’t the simplest explanation is that the world is packed with subconscious atheists? If I were HS, I would have put this stark assertion front and center.
To repeat, Elephant in the Brain is a stellar book. Buy it; read it; live it. But HS could have done even better. They’re so excited about their own theory that they occasionally forget to be curious about the facts. And they’re so eager to show that strange behavior could be functional that they frequently forget to ask, “Functional when?” and “Functional for whom?”
READER COMMENTS
Christopher Fisher
Jan 22 2018 at 2:08pm
In my circle, apparently good use of religious time is debating obscure doctrines like the Trinity, hypostatic union, fatalism, metaphysics, etc. Not much functionality in that.
Roger Sweeny
Jan 22 2018 at 3:01pm
Since most religious people offer little more than lip service to their own faith, isn’t the simplest explanation is that the world is packed with subconscious atheists?
No. The simplest explanation is that most people have inborn religious feelings/desires, the same way they have sexual feelings, and that those feelings find socially acceptable form in one of the local religions, in many cases the one they were born into.
I think of Razib Khan:
“… New Atheism seems to posit a religious “Blank Slate. That is, children are indoctrinated in religion at a small age, previous to which they had been atheists. Part of this is due to the fact that the philosophical-metaphysical aspect of religion is quite clearly indoctrination, and often of a superficial sort at that (judging by how weak most believer’s grasp of theology is). But the communal and psychological aspects are not indoctrination, as much as specific instantiations of general human sentiments, dispositions, and intuitions. [bold in original]
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/01/12/what-religion-is/
Rebes
Jan 23 2018 at 1:11pm
… the massive gap between how religious people say they are and how religious they actually are. How many people announce, “God is the most important thing in my life,” yet don’t even bother to attend church or learn the basics of the Bible?
Why is church attendance or reading the bible the true test of religious beliefs? If somebody says that they are religious but don’t attend church, they are not necessarily hypocritical, they may just find the service lacking in spiritualism.
If somebody claims they believe in God, the true test whether they really mean it is how they behave towards other people.
Bob Murphy
Jan 23 2018 at 2:02pm
Another hypothesis is that God exists.
David S
Jan 23 2018 at 6:34pm
I think there are two options:
1) Religion is false, but evolutionarily so valuable that the vast majority of people are hardwired to either accept it or create it. In this case, preaching Atheism is likely to be harmful, possibly disastrous.
2) Religion is true, or close enough that makes no difference. In this case, preaching Atheism is likely to be harmful, possibly disastrous.
Result: preaching Atheism is not a friendly activity to engage in.
Somewhat in jest, but I don’t really see the upside in pushing Atheism.
Steve J
Jan 23 2018 at 8:08pm
@David S
You need to rank religions and throw atheism in there as well. Surely atheism is better than some religions.
SDB
Jan 23 2018 at 9:29pm
The Baptist preacher, John Piper, is a prolific author that I suspect has flown under the radar screen of most people who move in your circles. In a book titled “Desiring God” he has put forth what he calls Christian Hedonism. His work has been hugely influential in Christian circles leading to a resurgence of reformed/Puritan thought. In essence, he argues (building on Jonathan Edwards) that Christianity is necessarily functionalist. Piper’s motto is “God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him“. You can get a sense of where he is coming from here.
David S
Jan 23 2018 at 10:24pm
@Steve J
Certainly so! I can’t think of any modern religion (or non-religion, as it were) worse than the Thuggee religion, for example. Even the Soviet Union at least wasn’t actually trying to cause harm when it killed it’s millions.
I was more saying that pushing Atheism is probably no more rational than pushing any other religious preference.
Nathan Smith
Jan 24 2018 at 7:32am
It’s amazing how silly smart people suddenly tend to become when they start to argue against Christianity. I remember reading Bertrand Russell’s *Why I am Not a Christian* and was amazed that such a brilliant mean could write such a stupid book, so packed with obvious errors and fallacies. Christopher Hitchens’ *God is Not Great* is fairly silly, too, and if it’s not quite so packed with fallacies, it’s so grumpy and miserable that I have to guess it makes net converts to Christianity by making readers not to want end up like Hitchens.
Tyler Cowen’s recent post on why he doesn’t believe in God is an exception. He doesn’t suddenly lose his mind, but stays within the parameters of reasonable argument.
From these quotes, Robin Hanson seems nearer the Russell end of the spectrum, for all the reasons you say. But I can’t REALLY judge without having read the chapter. That SOME religiosity is just functional, or at least was in the past when the Church had more temporal power, I don’t doubt. But if you can’t explain the martyrs, your theory of religion is lame, and their faith was clearly not functional in a worldly sense.
Michael Caton
Jan 24 2018 at 2:46pm
If HS really are arguing that the claimed beliefs are ENTIRELY hot air, not motivating or affecting behavior of claimants at all, then that’s on its face not true. (Don’t know, haven’t read it yet, but hard to believe that.) But from what I understand from reviews, HS are emphasizing that most of the time, the explicit content of claimed beliefs is not the purpose of the belief, and I don’t think anything Caplan points out anything which undermines that strong but not absolute claim. In fact I would assume that there is a distribution of people in terms of how much they pay attention to and are motivated by the contents of claimed belief, and certainly people behind doctrinal movements like the Luthers and Calvins are more likely to be on one end of that spectrum. Oddly enough though, beliefs which have EVEN MORE direct, immediately actionable consequences (germ theory of disease, nuclear fission) are not associated with such inspirational figures or social movements, which I think also supports HS.
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