What Does Religion Give Us That Science Cannot?

Religion gives us something that science cannot: religion is the most powerful response to the global emotional life that connects us all to one another. This is despite the fact that defending religion has become a difficult task in this era.

Respect for religion has vanished from every corner of modern life, not only among atheists and intellectuals but also among many of the general public. It is not unlikely that the next generation of young people will have the least connection to religion compared to the past. There are justified reasons for this discontent: the continuous revelations of misconduct by priests and clergy, the jihadists' war against "infidels," and the promotion of hostility toward multiculturalism and secular culture. This coincidence of bad behavior and bad news has led many people to accept the view of that evolutionary biologist (Richard Dawkins) who says: "For human progress, the best thing we can do is to weaken religious faith so much that it completely disappears."

Despite the fact that many of the objections raised against religion are correct, and despite the fact that I myself have a critical view of the history of religions, I oppose such an anti-religion perspective. In my opinion, we still need religion. Perhaps it is better to begin my argument by recounting an incident. One day, after I had elaborately lectured in a class about the logical flaws of monotheistic religions, a shy student approached me as I was leaving the classroom. Anxiously, he recounted a tragic story, a story that gradually transformed some of my judgments and theories about religion. That student said that five years earlier, his teenage brother had been brutally murdered by stabbing. The killer had stalked him, attacked him, mercilessly mutilated him, and fled. My student, his mother, and his sister were severely devastated. After the incident, his mother suffered from a mental illness and, had she not had faith that in the next life she would see her slaughtered son again with a whole and healthy body and that they would be reunited there, she would certainly have been hospitalized due to the severity of her illness. These supportive beliefs, as well as the church ceremonies that occupied her after her son's death, brought that mother back from the edge of the abyss of sorrow and grief, and gave her the strength to carry on and raise her two other children, namely my student and his sister.

From an atheist's perspective, all of this seems irrational and unacceptable. We are told that beliefs must conform to evidence and proof, not merely to wishes and desires. Without rational standards, standards like those established in science, we will all be dragged toward chaos and ultimately return to the darkness before the "Age of Enlightenment."

I do not intend to rescue religion by claiming it is logical and well-reasoned; religion is not all that logical and well-reasoned. But I want to demonstrate that its being illogical and unreasoned does not make it unacceptable, worthless, or abject. Perhaps religion's illogical and unreasoned nature could even be considered the source of its power. The human brain is an amalgam of different operating systems: the primitive reptilian brain (drive functions, the fight-or-flight instinct), the limbic or mammalian brain (emotions), and the later-evolving cortex (reasoning and rationality). Religion angers the rational brain because it values trans-rational ideas without evidence. But it pleases the emotional brain because it dispels fear, answers desires, and strengthens the sense of duty. According to neuroscientists like Jaak Panksepp, Antonio Damasio, and Kent Berridge, as well as neuropsychologists like Mark Solms, our minds are primarily influenced by ancient emotional systems, such as fear, anger, lust, love, and grief. These forces are flexible and, if properly managed (that is, if their power is directed toward fulfilling survival goals rather than overwhelming us and dragging us toward mental disorder and behavioral abnormality), they can aid our survival.

In my view, religion has direct ways of accessing this emotional life that science does not. Yes, science can stir our emotional feelings toward the wonders of nature, but humans experience a range of intense emotions that science cannot reach to find a scientific solace for them. Different emotional wounds require different salves. Although secularists have previously admired religion for its moral and civic aspects, I think we need religion because it has proven to be an effective path for managing our emotions.

Of course, there is also evidence showing that spiritual and religious feelings have negative aspects. Religious emotional life tends toward melodramatic emotions. Religion still has the readiness to fall into the trap of good-and-evil narratives and become a customer of fantasies and enmities inflamed by vengeful, patriarchal sentiments. Such prejudices are undoubtedly dangerous, but most aspects of religion are actually beneficial for the majority of families striving to get through life's difficult periods. For example, religious ceremonies pay special attention to afflicted individuals and gather around them their most important resources, which are other human beings. Humans, even more than other mammals, are dependent on their fellow beings, and this dependency is created not only by motives for acquiring resources, profit, and skills but also by emotional motives.

For my survival, feeling good is more essential than thinking well. Religious rites are a form of social connection that is beneficial for mental health. When someone loses a loved one, religion offers them psychotherapeutic rituals and beliefs that produce oxytocin, opioids, dopamine, and other calming effects that aid a person's adaptability and survival. Faith and belief play an important role, although they are not the only mechanism available for activating these healing forces. Instead, religious rites (such as rituals, worship ceremonies, chants, prayers, supplications, and narratives) manage our emotions, because they give us the opportunity to console one another in times of suffering, to emerge from pressure and anxiety, and to find a proper path for channeling or discharging our anger.

Atheists like Richard Dawkins, E. O. Wilson, and Sam Harris evaluate religion on a superficial level. Their criterion for evaluating religion is rational, scientific methods. I agree with them that if we measure religion by rational standards, it is rejected, but this approach is mistaken. The primitive, reptilian brain was built by natural selection to overcome survival challenges, not for wisdom and rationality. But emotions such as fear, love, anger, and even hope and expectation were selected by mammals because they helped them thrive. In many cases, emotional faculties (compared to cognitive faculties) offer faster methods of problem-solving.

For us humans, the remarkable issue is how the operating system of those ancient organisms (reptiles) communicates with the modern cognitive and operating system (mammals). The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has shown that emotions influence even our purest rational thinking. Therefore, when the mother of my student remembers her lost son, she finds a place for him in a religious narrative, in such a way that she can draw strength to continue striving and struggling with her suffering. No scientific explanation or socio-political speculation can console a mother whose son has been mutilated. If Bill Nye, known as "The Science Guy," and Neil deGrasse Tyson were to visit this mother and offer explanations about the psychology of suffering and the sociology of crime, these would still be of no use to her. But the magical and supra-rational notion that she can meet her murdered son again, along with the embrace of those around her and singing together with fellow believers, gives her strength. If this hope, rooted in emotion, gives this mother the power and spirit to care for her other children, it can be useful for others as well. And in this way, we understand why religion persists.

Those in the secular world who object to such emotional reactions and strategies and ask, “But is it true?” miss the point. Most religious beliefs are not true, but the real issue lies elsewhere. The emotional brain does not care about this; it does not operate on the basis of right and wrong. Emotions are neither right nor wrong. Terror, even if in a dream, is still terror. This means the correct criterion for evaluating a sound theory cannot be the correct criterion for evaluating sound emotions. Unlike a sound theory, which must correspond to solid empirical facts, a sound feeling is one that contributes to neural equilibrium and other emotional states that bring about biological flourishing.

Finally, a few words need to be said about the “opium.” The condemnation of religion in the modern era has followed Marx’s gibe that religion is opium, an opium supplied indirectly by the power of the state to maintain the obedience of the people, an obedience that leads to the acceptance of poverty and political impotence, in the hope of a supernatural, otherworldly reward. Marx claimed that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Marx, Mao, and even Malcolm X leveled this criticism against traditional religion, and the label is still hurled as a hateful insult at believers. I myself have used it as a devastating weapon a few times, but in recent years my view of this criticism has changed.

First, religion is as much invigorating as it is narcotic; as much as it is numbing and soothing, it excites and empowers the believer. This variable quality of religion can be more dangerous than reassuring for governments. Also, religion can promote humanism and altruism. Second, what is wrong with pain relief? If my view of religion is primarily therapeutic, why should I abandon treatments that constitute pain management? If atheists think that leaving the believer defenseless against the pains of life is beneficial, then I gather that an atheist has no resources for managing pain in their own life. This is where I envy their good fortune. Some other human beings place their hopes in things like aspirin, alcohol, religion, entertainment, work, love, and friendship. After all, opiates (like endorphins) have been natural chemical substances in the human body and brain and have evolved, to some extent, to soothe the body against pain. As the famous German satirist Wilhelm Busch said: “He who has cares and worries also has wine.”

We need to wash our eyes and see the value of the role of cultural painkillers. There is no benefit in rejecting religion based on some puritanical moral judgments about the weaknesses of believers. Religion is the most powerful response to the universal emotional life that connects us all.

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What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t)

By Stephen T. Asma

Five years ago, he explained, his older teenage brother had been brutally stabbed to death, viciously attacked and mutilated by a perpetrator who was never caught. My student, his mother and his sister were shattered. His mother suffered a mental breakdown soon afterward and would have been institutionalized if not for the fact that she expected to see her slain son again, to be reunited with him in the afterlife where she was certain his body would be made whole. These bolstering beliefs, along with the church rituals she engaged in after her son’s murder, dragged her back from the brink of debilitating sorrow, and gave her the strength to continue raising her other two children — my student and his sister.

To the typical atheist, all this looks irrational, and therefore unacceptable. Beliefs, we are told, must be aligned with evidence, not mere yearning. Without rational standards, like those entrenched in science, we will all slouch toward chaos and end up in pre-Enlightenment darkness.

I do not intend to try to rescue religion as reasonable. It isn’t terribly reasonable. But I do want to argue that its irrationality does not render it unacceptable, valueless or cowardly. Its irrationality may even be the source of its power.

The human brain is a kludge of different operating systems: the ancient reptilian brain (motor functions, fight-or-flight instincts), the limbic or mammalian brain (emotions) and the more recently evolved neocortex (rationality). Religion irritates the rational brain because it trades in magical thinking and no proof, but it nourishes the emotional brain because it calms fears, answers to yearnings and strengthens feelings of loyalty.

According to prominent neuroscientists like Jaak Panksepp, Antonio Damasio and Kent Berridge, as well as neuropsychoanalysts like Mark Solms, our minds are motivated primarily by ancient emotional systems, like fear, rage, lust, love and grief. These forces are adaptive and help us survive if they are managed properly — that is if they are made strong enough to accomplish goals of survival, but not so strong as to overpower us and lead to neuroses and maladaptive behavior.

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What Does Religion Give Us That Science Cannot?

Author: Stephen T. Asma is a professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago in the United States. What you read is a translation of this piece by him:

Stephen T. Asma, ‘What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t),’ New York Times, 3 June 2018.

Translation: Parvaneh Hosseini

This translation was first published in Aasoo.

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