Are We Evil?

I totally dropped the ball on this one. My fellow blogger Firefighter posted something about religion and I didn't really read or respond to it... until now.

We've had this discussion before but basically Firefighter thinks that if there were no God, the world, with people being inherently evil, would collapse into a hellish state of rape and pillage. (You mean we're not already there?)

This whole discussion comes at an opportune time because I'm reading this book called "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny" by Robert Wright, which sort of deals with why humans do what they do, where their morals come from etc.

Basically what Wright says is that culture evolves over time as a result of zero-sum games or win-win/lose-lose situations. From the beginning of human hunter-gatherer tribes, it's been easier to survive if we cooperate. It takes more than one man or one family to kill a whale, giraffe, etc. So we team up and help each other out because if I help you out by giving you some of my whale blubber, I can go to you next time I'm out of blubber and you have plenty.

From this basic concept, society has evolved to what it is today, albeit much more complex. So you can see why it is in my best interest to be good to everyone else in society. It all boils down to the "golden rule," do unto others... In the blog Firefighter mentioned, the author actually mentions the Golden Rule but seems to think this is something that God gave us.

Coincidentally, every major religion in the world, if not every religion in general, has an equivalent to the golden rule. Because this rule is almost universal, I think it's easy to argue that it is a product of human social nature and not a product of some God in the sky. I mean, if the Christian God and the Islamic God are at odds and suggesting followers of one kill the other, why do they both use this Golden Rule? Also, most animal communities operate on the same principle, hence packs of dogs, flocks of sheep, etc.

I oversimplified some things there so some of you are probably saying "what about freeloaders?" "If our nature is to be good to each other, why do people kill other people?" Well, this good nature, of course, is not the only one we have. We have other animal instincts too. Just like lions get angry and defend their territory, so do we. Just like some monkeys try to be lazy and cheat the system, so do we.

But you can't live a "lustful life of sex, money and everything else bad" like Firefighter suggests and hope to live long, which after all, is what human nature drives us to do, live and procreate. Sure, if suddenly today it was announced there was no God, Firefighter could run out and rob a bank, rape a few women and get tanked on malt liquor. But society being the way it is, this would be quickly corrected by someone who is bigger and more powerful than him.

So we have morals because it is beneficial for survival, i.e. we can get help harpooning a whale for food. Those morals are enforced by the people to whom we give power. We give that power away, again to protect our own hides. God has nothing to do with it.