Natural Religion

Reviewed by Tom Kennedy on 24 Feb 2009

Lef to our own devices, set free to run wild, how would we all behave? Would we become like those nasty children in Golding's Lord of the Flies, or would be rise above it all, never lie, never cheat, never steal, and never ever kill? Hard questions and not much except for guesswork by way of answers.

Consider what's going on around the world. Is genocide natural, or is it, like paedophilia, some kind of sick aberation from the norm, and before some smart alec pipes up "what's the norm?" lets consider that the world is full of those who feel a deep abhorrence for those darker sides of human behaviour. It is hard to escape the conclusion that those feelings are rooted in natural laws that you could almost say are hard wired into our make up.

Even so, we still bomb civilians back into the stone age, arms dealers get rich on other people's misery, and look at all those public posters telling us that husbands beat their wives -- again. So, things go wrong, and for a long time, biologist Brendan Connolly wondered why this should be so. Brendan, who studied zoology and psychology at TCD and works as a scientist with the Fisheries Board, spend ten years pondering these and other questions, which he attempts to answer in his book, The Natural Religion.

His contention is that the traditional rules, enshrined in religions, have failed, and are out of step with how we actually live now. The reason they have failed, he maintains, is that they are faith-based, and blind faith, as we all know, has often led us astray. It is indeed sad to see how the faithful can inflict such savagery on neighbours without showing the slightest qualms of conscience. Brendan might indeed point out that if God is telling people to be brutish and nasty, we should depose him, it, or her. In the place of faith, Brendan would have science, and if I am not mistaken, is that nat what the rationalists of old were at.

Brendan, who seeks to rationalise a whole range of behaviour, goes as far as advocating The Natural Religion, and I must confess to having serious reservations about that idea. The repeated use of the uncompromising word "The" sets off alarm bells. In effect we are being told to substitute one type of faith for another. Black is out, and the white lab coats are in. Science, as we know, does not have all the answers, in fact, the great thing about science is that it asks a lot of questions.

True, we can have a lot more confidence in the truth revealed in Gray's Anatomy than in the rantings of a soothsayer untangling the entrails of an unfortunate chicken. Facts, however, can turn out to be quite elastic, and if you look for certainty in numbers just think of the calculating Aztecs who would rather rip out a bleeding heart than risk a return of numbers to zero. As a former American president realised, it is actually quite easy to manipulate the facts, and just look at how the leading lights of science are so often like fighting dogs, eager to fly at each others' throats. Dare I question all those wild assumptions about climate change? Absolutely not!!! Jumping genes and tectonic plates were being scoffed at until quite recently, so I for one, would hesitate to kiss the ring of a Nobel Laureate.

Perhaps Brendan should have dropped the loaded word, Religion, and as a biologist concentrated on uncovering the roots of our behaviour. He certainly has a point to make that something is amiss. We no longer live in small, isolated communities, and that the combination of science and technology has led us into very unfamiliar territory. We have only to consider stem cell research and genetic engineering to realise that we no longer have such a crystal clear idea of what is right and what is wrong. Humanity does have a serious problem, we are out of our depth, and by discarding the old belief-based rules, we are in danger of being cast further adrift into a moral vacuum.

Even so, are we really smart enough to fill that void? A few brief visits to our miserable courts of law should be enough to convince anybody that synthesised rules can be anything but natural, or indeed just. Another visit, this time, to one of those dreary "non-denominational" folksy services, would suggest that far from looking for something bland and scientifically rational people are actually crying out for a return to the old style certainties. By all means, lets get a deeper understanding of what we are at, but heaven help us if scientists start to think that they have a natural right to shout down the other preachers. Mind you, that would give a novel twist to our religious wars.