How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science - Michael Shermer Book

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, and director of the Skeptics society, has produced a work attempting to synthesize several academic fields including: anthropology, sociology, and biology to answer the question as to why humans hold to religious beliefs. Divided into two parts the book discusses I. God and Belief, and II. Religion and Science.

Part I begins with a chapter called “Do You Believe in God?” Shermer starts with his own story of conversion to the Christian faith and his subsequent loss of faith. He uses experience and scientific analysis to put forward the difficulty the question of God poses. He concludes by saying, God's existence or nonexistence cannot possibly be understood in human terms. What cannot be understood cannot be proved. What is unprovable is insoluble (15). What he means is that God is essentially irrelevant, because he cannot be known in any modernist scientific sense. However, he will later argue that the question of God is important from at least a sociological and anthropological standpoint.

“Is God Dead?” discusses whether philosophers like Nietzsche were correct in their pronouncement of the death of God. Shermer states that in our modern scientific age, we have begun to answer life’s ultimate questions, which before now were left only to religion. In spite of this scientific trend God is still alive and well in the minds of most people, because he has been the answer to life’s ultimate questions for so long. God is not dead, practically speaking, because he represents these ultimate concepts that have been with us for as long as we have existed (30).

“The Belief Engine,” the third chapter of the book discusses several evolutionary hypotheses attempting to explain how we come to believe things. Shermer states that because we are pattern-seeking animals, always trying to find connections between events and experiences even where there might not be one, we have developed what he calls a “belief engine.” The belief engine is used to explain how various evolutionary factors came together in the human mind to ascribe meaning to events and experiences, to put meaning to the patterns. He then develops several possible histories of how this engine developed. He concludes by saying that it is likely that the purpose of this engine is to deal with questions involving the unknown, pain and most specifically to find comfort in death; the problem for which we have no solution.

“Why People Believe in God,” the fourth chapter, is essentially a continuation of the previous chapter. Shermer gives examples of groups outside of organized religion that hold hope for the future; such as, trans-humanism and the broader category of humanism. He explains that all belief systems, no matter how rational, tend to organize themselves around meta-narratives to explain the hope toward which they are working. He concludes from this that there must be an inherent part of humans that is wired for belief in something or someone bigger than us. He puts for several other possibilities including: God as gap-filler in the brain, genetic predisposition, temporal lobe seizures, and God as meme (theoretical cultural “gene”). Shermer concludes with a general statement admitting that many varied factors play into belief in God, but seeing that many think their personal faith is logical, even though it is assumed to be a crutch for others.

The fact that the author devotes one chapter to all the major arguments for God that he is aware of is quite telling. He gives a brief overview of arguments such as the cosmological, ontological, and the moral argument and gives quite pithy paragraph length responses to each. He then goes on to various scientific arguments and quotes a few noted scientist to disagree with the arguments presented. His assumption of the validity of the scientific method and modernist epistemology throughout the chapter is telling. One gets the feeling that he does not desire to deal with any of the arguments at length, because in his mind they are simply doomed from the start due to a non-naturalistic starting point. From these assumptions he declares the disparity between science and religion.

The book’s second section begins with a chapter entitled, “In a Mirror Dimly, then Face to Face.” This is where Shermer moves from studying the basis for religious belief to attempting to understand the similarities and transcendent ideas all religions share, and their relation to science. In this chapter he puts forth three models used to relate religion to science. The first is called the conflicting worlds model, where science and religion are at war. The second model is called the same-worlds model, where science and religion agree when both are understood rightly. The third is called the separate-worlds model, where science and religion discuss two unrelated spheres of knowledge. Stephen J. Gould popularized this view through his concept of NOMA: non-overlapping magisteria. Shermer feels that this last model is the best for both science and religion, because it allows them both to answer the specific questions they deal with, without interfering with the other. He ends the chapter with a moving story about faith and passion he experienced while at a service of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He concludes that this experience shows that religion is useful, and doesn’t need to deal with questions of science.

Chapter seven, entitled “The Storytelling Animal,” attempts to explain the development of myths and various religious narratives. He quotes neuroscientist Michal Gazzaniga who claims that we are all storytellers, in the sense that we take the facts of our everyday experience and weave them into a narrative, from which we spin-doctor our self-image (143). Shermer then states that the two primary purposes of religion are to: create stories and myths that address our deepest questions, and the production of moral systems to provide social cohesion for the most social of all the social primates (143). He refers back to the concept of humans as pattern-seeking animals and argues that storytelling develops from this instinct. He then argues that stories generally developed into grander myths that attempt to explain reality. He argues that even cosmology and archaeology attempt to answer these ultimate questions, and create narrative forms for them. He points to the dragon as a common character in ancient mythologies and how the values of the culture shape the narrative and the dragons place within them (154). He then tries to close the gap between these stories, modern religion, and morality. He puts forth several theoretic options, concluding it is somehow related to language and the desire to help someone with the hope that they will return the favor. He concludes by saying God is the general framework that allows for religion.

The next chapter, “God and the Ghost Dance,” deals with the development of the idea of messiah, or savior. He begins with a story about a time he answered questions on a radio show related to a UFO cult awaiting the destruction of society, and how this relates to the common hope of a messiah among oppressed peoples. He relates this UFO narrative to a myth developed among Native Americans in the 1800’s that predicted the coming of judgment on the white man and the restoration of their land. He concludes that similar stories throughout history show that history is cyclical and that it is common for oppressed peoples to create “messiah myths” to create hope for a better future.

The second to last chapter, “The Fire that Will Cleanse,” is a continuation of the previous chapter. It deals specifically with the common theme among societal myths of a glorious utopian future achieved either through progressive improvement or apocalyptic judgment of the wicked and vindication of the good. He gives examples of different Christian view of the millennium throughout history and their relation to Revelation 20:1-6. He also discusses several cult and pagan myths of a final rescue or judgment. He concludes that again the pattern-seeking and story-telling impulse merge together in the “millennium myth” to solve the problem of why bad things happen to good people, but these myths give us the hope that in the end good will triumph over evil (212).

The final chapter appears as almost a non-sequiter when compared to the rest of the book. One would expect to read a sort of broad summary and vague philosophical statement about the general helpfulness of myths and religious belief for human society, but that is not what is found. Instead, in a chapter entitled “Glorious Contingency” Shermer gives a summary of a theory of evolution that gives room for human choices to be undetermined, at least in an experiential sense. He encourages his audience by saying that it may be nothing but wishful thinking to desire one’s place in history to be contingently significant, but since we do not know, why not act as if it does (236)? With that he closes by saying that man is now free, when loosed from religion, to experience everything with the freedom his contingent place in the universe has given him (238).

This book attempted to cover a lot of ground in a very short space. Shermer’s writing was clear and concise. He was able to use analogies to explain complex ideas and used short stories to explain the significance of his research. Even with this in mind, the book seemed kind of cobbled together. Certain chapters flowed quite well in terms of hypotheses and research shown, but would then either end abruptly or obscurely. He obviously put a lot of effort into researching for this book, but I don’t feel he was ever able to adequately answer any of the questions he set out to answer. He was able to give statistics and hypotheses for different collections of data, but he seemed unaware that, as Van Til said, there is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact. It felt as though he believed simply presenting the data, and the saying “this is how we might explain this” was proving once and for all his interpretation of that information. This unstated belief on his part seemed most obvious when he discussed arguments for God, his understanding of the relation of science and religion, and his hypotheses in the chapter “The Storytelling Animal.”

His closing chapter, as summarized above, came as quite a surprise. If he had wanted readers to agree with his conclusion regarding the freedom inherent in being the product of random chance, he should have been developing it alongside his religious analysis throughout the entire book. This was also confusing considering his continual nods to the usefulness of religion. While this book had interesting information in parts, I did not find it helpful or persuasive. For a similar book in this same vein I would recommend Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennet.