God and /dev/null

Photo by Lukas Meier on Unsplash

In Linux and Unix systems there is a file called /dev/null. This is a file in which you write any non-essential output of your program so as to keep your logs clean. Basically, any unwanted stream of data is dumped here. That is the only purpose of this file.

I find the idea behind the existence of this inconsequential file analogous to the idea of psychological existence of the concept of God. It’s inculcated in us that the way to feel better psychologically is to divert negative thoughts to somewhere by praying to God. In the same way, we just write our negative thoughts to this file called God (/dev/null) and hence keep our mind (the log file) clean.

But basing the existence of a consequential part of our society in God and religion in an inconsequential file does not make sense. In fact, this argument, like many others, does not hold any ground for reason.

People make evolutionary arguments to support the existence of religion but I don’t find merits in them. The argument usually goes like, evolution makes sure that things that contribute towards the survival of the gene pool of a species are passed down as traits to the subsequent generations. The problem with this argument is that it is fifty percent right and hundred percent wrong.

1. It is right in the sense that yes, traits that help in the survival of a species are passed on but these traits need not necessarily be intelligent solutions. For instance, consider the case of the giraffe. As we all know all animal species can be linked to a fish that decided to explore the territory outside water. Fishes have a different biology as they breathe using gills and gills do not intake air directly like lungs. Instead, their respiratory chords are wrapped around their gills which absorb the oxygen. This same design can be found in the giraffes. Giraffes’ laryngeal nerve goes all the way from the brain to the heart and then back to the larynx. A classic example of a non-intelligent design has been passed down generations. https://www.fossilhunters.xyz/evolutionary-theodicy/unintelligent-design.html
2. Secondly, evolutionary traits are something that organisms are born with, like skin color, hair color, height etc. But religion is a social concept and cannot be passed through genes. Chromosomes do not contain the code for religion. They don’t choose whether the offspring will be Christian, Hindu or Muslim. It is only after the birth that a religion is assigned to a child. In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the word meme to define cultural and social traits that are passed down from generation to generation not by biology but by inculcating them into the malleable minds of children. Religion is a meme, not a gene.
3. Finally, people argue that religion is essential because it plays a part in society as it helps to bind people together. There might be some merit to this argument only if you also support the second point that religion is passed down by genes. Because societies are becoming bigger and so, following this argument, the gene for “religion” should also be increasing in count. But contrary to this, as societies are advancing and people are connecting more and more, the number of atheists in the world is rising. This does not bear any correlation to religion being an evolutionary trait. So this argument fails here.
4. I agree to many things that Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of my favourite modern time philosophers and whom I respect a lot, makes but not when it comes to religion. Taleb makes Steven Jay Gould’s NOMA kind of argument that religion exists to reach a consensus on rationality among masses. It’s like if people are blocks in a blockchain, religion is a consensus protocol in this distributed system. But take religions throughout the world and it has on many occasions led to corruption of power. Buddhism is one of the most peaceful religion and yet Japan massacred people of Asia mercilessly during World War 2, China is commiting genocide of Uighurs. Taleb’s argument and Staven Jay Gould’s NOMA argument fail here. They say that religion helps to normalize rationality in a population because what is rational to you might not be rational to someone else. But this argument does not hold true for WW2 Japan and current China.
5. Coming to religion as a consensus mechanism, societies can be imagined like a distributed system. People imagine that religion, because it is an idea, has no physical boundation to hinder its spread and is therefore a natural way that humans decided to reach mass consensus. I disagree and I don’t need to explain my reason for that. Just pick any corner of the world with a healthy number of population and zoom in there and tell if you can find any consensus. You won’t. Every single city of Extreme Islamic states is at war with each other; take Taiwan and China; take revolutions in South Americas. The list just goes on.
6. Another somewhat powerful argument is that religion and festivals help to foster connection. This doesn’t hold base because it is a common human tendency that when people do stuff together they tend to bond but is religion necessary for this? We have a new year celebration, La tomatina, sports, etc. They bind societies together. Take football — it binds the whole world together. All these are festivals that are atheistic in their philosophy and you can argue that their effect is more pervasive than religious festivals. The whole foundation of HR activities in companies is based on this principle. Religion is just a HR activity that went too far.

Taleb places undue importance on religion. He argues that if the economic system fails then the bankers of Wall Street should be stripped of their titles and fired from the industry. But the religion of the world has also failed many times. The Crusades happened and Pope supported it but still Pope is the religious leader; Martin Luther’s Prostestant Church of Germany decided to alleviate Germanic tribes and Hitler followed in his footsteps and we know what happened. If we call for a change in the economic system because of the collapsing firms that are too-big-to-fail, then he should also support the change of religious leaders and ideals because they have also become too-big-to-fail and constantly result in bloody wars. It’s a call that we have to make and so far we seem to like tensions and wars — that is the general consensus we have reached in 100 thousand years.