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Introduction is here.

1) THE NATURE OF HUMAN BELIEF

by Don Cameron

Evolution

The Human species diverged from the other great apes around seven million years ago. Upright walking, freeing the fore limbs for manipulation came early. Much later came the evolution of larger brains and power of speech which allowed information to be shared and passed down the generations. Humans have since become the dominant species all over the world leaving the other apes in small enclaves.

Speech

The power of speech gave an overwhelming advantage for increased knowledge and negotiation of cooperation, but it sadly also gave the possibility of false beliefs. The human brain has certain powers of scepticism and the detection of false claims, but these can never be more than partially successful. Children believe everything at early ages and later, although teenagers often challenge beliefs, they still must accept much on trust. Adults attempt, with only partial success to check what they have been told. Yet most of what we believe is unverifiable and we rely on the status of the source or just that “everybody knows”. Perhaps you are certain that the world is round and not flat, but how do you know that?

Education and Execution

It takes only a little thought to understand how the acceptance of religious belief would have been in the pre-scientific age. Most people had no formal education and spent their entire lives without travelling far from home. The only people who had some education were the priests. In a way that is incomprehensible to us today, belief in religion was total. Most people would never have heard of, or could not even imagine, a voice of dissent. Anyone who dared to challenge the prevailing belief system faced execution. In Christian times this was often by the incredibly cruel method of burning to death.

Absolute Belief

It is in this atmosphere of absolute belief, that the Jewish people believed the story of Exodus; how God had rescued their ancestors from oppression in Egypt. Of course, they had been oppressed later by Babylonians and others and God hadn’t helped, but the priests explained this by saying it was because of their sins. Now they were being oppressed by the Romans. Jesus told them that the Kingdom of God, banishing all ills, would come here on Earth within the lifetime of those present. People were ready to believe it with a confidence that we today cannot visualize. Of course it didn’t happen but, when people began to notice, the Kingdom was rapidly transferred to the afterlife.

In the last few hundred years, things have changed more than the preceding hundred thousand. People began making observations and experiments. Curiously, many of these were clergymen who had the education and leisure. Science began to challenge religion. Beginning with the invention of printing, communication improved and now it has increased beyond all expectations. Even the most devout believer hears many different voices and opinions. In most (but sadly not yet all) parts of the world, dissenters are no longer executed. The total monopoly of any religious orthodoxy is gone forever.

But progress is far from complete. Millions still believe in astrology, homeopathy, water divining, that vaccination is a conspiracy to harm people and countless other categories of rubbish. Humans continue to have difficulty in checking the truth of what comes to them through the power of speech.

[To be continued]