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Science deals with how things happen, not why in terms of meaning or metaphysics. Harari is by no means the first to propose cooperation and group selection as an explanation for the origin of religion. To insist that such sublime or devilish beings are no more than glorified apes is to ignore the elephant in the room: the small differences in our genetic codes are the very differences that may reasonably point to divine intervention because the result is so shockingly disproportionate between ourselves and our nearest relatives. Much of it involves uncontroversial accounts of humanity that you learned about in your eighth-grade history class i.e., the transition from small hunter-gatherer foraging tribes, to agriculture-based civilizations, to the modern day global industrial society. One surviving example of this is the fascinating library of the Benedictines at San Marco in Florence. Yuval Noah Harari's wide-ranging book offers fascinating insights. Why must we religious peons be the ones whose entire lives are manipulated by lies? B. S. Haldane who acknowledged this problem: If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . What gives them privileged access to the truth that the rest of us dont have? The use of the word "man" is ambiguous, sometimes referring to Homo sapiens as a whole, sometimes in reference to males only, and sometimes in reference to both simultaneously. Come, let us bind ourselves to them by an oath, so that they will let us pass. Then they covenanted with the Maran Buru (spirits of the great mountains), saying, O, Maran Buru, if you release the pathways for us, we will practice spirit appeasement when we reach the other side.. Though anecdotal, consider this striking account from the bookEternity in Their Heartsby missionary Don Richardson: In 1867, a bearded Norwegian missionary named Lars Skrefsrud and his Danish colleague, a layman named Hans Brreson, found two-and-a-half million people called the Santal living in a region north of Calcutta, India. No big deal there. Women, crime, and criminology: A feminist critique. Thus Harari explores the implications of his materialistic evolutionary view for ethics, morality, and human value. Humans are the only species that uses fire and technology. The fact that (he says) Sapiens has been around for a long time, emerged by conquest of the Neanderthals and has a bloody and violent history has no logical connection to whether or not God made him (her for Harari) into a being capable of knowing right from wrong, perceiving God in the world and developing into Michelangelo, Mozart and Mother Teresa as well as into Nero and Hitler. "I've never liked Harry Potter," wrote the lawyer, who runs the Right to Equality project, on social media, in reference to the popular children's character . Which selfish genes drive young males into monasteries to avoid sexual relationships and pray? Harari is unable to explain why Christianity took over the mighty Roman Empire'. The Church also set up schools throughout much of Europe, so as more people became literate there was a corresponding increase in debate among the laity as well as among clerics. The book covers a mind-boggling 13.5 billion years of pre-history and history. But do we really think that because everyone in Europe was labelled Catholic or Protestant (cuius regio, eius religio) that the wars they fought were about religion? For that theory would itself have been reached by our thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It doesnt happen. And what about that commandment about taking a weekly day off, with no fire or work, to worship God? Here are some key lines of evidence evidence from nature which supports intelligent design, and provide what Sam Devis requested when he sought some kind of independent evidence pointing to the existence of God: If Sam Devis or others seek independent evidence that life didnt evolve by Hararis blind evolutionary scheme, but rather was designed, there is an abundance. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. Harari forgets to mention him today, as all know, designated a saint in the Roman Catholic church. He mentioned a former Christian who had lost his faith after readingSapiens, and thentold the storyon Justin Brierleys excellent showUnbelievable? But he then proceeds to confidently assert that human cognitive abilities arose via accidental genetic mutations that changed the inner wiring of the brains ofSapiens. No discussion is attempted and no citation is given for exactly what these mutations were, what exactly they did, how many mutations were necessary, and whether they would be likely to arise via the neo-Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection in the available time periods. While human evolution was crawling at its usual snails pace, the human imagination was building astounding networks of mass cooperation, unlike any other ever seen on earth. Its one of the biggest holes in our understanding of human history. His concept of what really exists seems to be anything material but, in his opinion, nothing beyond this does exist (his word). Peter, Paul, the early church in general were convinced that Jesus was alive and they knew as well as we do that dead men are dead and they knew better than us that us that crucified men are especially dead! What convinces one person to come to faith may be quite uncompelling to another. That was never very good for cooperation and productivity. So, historically Harari tends to draw too firm a dividing line between the medieval and modern eras (p285). Life, certainly. With little explanation, he finally asserts that humanitys polytheistic religious culture at last evolved into monotheism: With time some followers of polytheist gods became so fond of their particular patron that they began to believe that their god was the only god, and that He was in fact the supreme power of the universe. Another famous expositor of this argument is Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who writes: Even if you think Darwinian selection would make it probable that certain belief-producing mechanisms those involved in the production of beliefs relevant to survival are reliable, that would not hold for the mechanisms involved in the production of the theoretical claims of science such beliefs, for example as E, the evolutionary story itself. But if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats who could do calculus, and frogs would by now have launched their own space program. ; Regrettably, it's out of print, but you canand mustread it here.I first read the book soon after it was first published, and it remains an inspiring analysis, addressing the topic with dispassionate philosophical clarity. It follows therefore that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. It would be no exaggeration, in fact, to say that A Room of One's Own is the founding text of feminist criticism. Feminist literary criticism (also known as feminist criticism) is the literary analysis that arises from the viewpoint of feminism, feminist theory, and/or feminist politics. His main argument for the initial origin of religion is that it fostered cooperation. That is, he assumes from the start what his contention requires him to prove namely that mankind is on its own and without any sort of divine direction. Heres what he says: The appearance of new ways of thinking and communicating, between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, constitutes the Cognitive Revolution. To say that our subjective well-being is not determined by external parameters (p432) but by serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin is to take the behaviourist view to the exclusion of all other biochemical/psychiatric science. Apes dont do anything like what we do. Then the person contacts the essay writing site, where the managers tell him about the . And what dissuades one person from belief in God may seem entirely weak and unconvincing to someone else. Feminist critics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries included, among many others, Lynda Boose, Lisa Jardine, Gail Paster, Jean Howard, Karen Newman, Carol Neely, Peter Erickson, and Madelon Sprengnether. I found the very last page of the book curiously encouraging: We are more powerful than ever beforeWorse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Harari is not good on the medieval world, or at least the medieval church. His whole contention is predicated on the idea that humankind is merely the product of accidental evolutionary forces and this means he is blind to seeing any real intentionality in history. No wonder Harari feels this way, since he admits his worldview that There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. As a monotheist, Im skeptical of these accounts of religious evolution, especially since Im accustomed to evolutionary arguments often leaving out important data points. A lion! Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution,Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe. This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language. Actually, humans are mostly sure that immaterial things certainly exist: love, jealousy, rage, poverty, wealth, for starters. I have written at length about this elsewhere, as have far more able people. He also doesnt know his Thomas Hardy who believed (some of the time!) He gives the (imagined) example of a thirteenth-century peasant asking a priest about spiders and being rebuffed because such knowledge was not in the Bible. Or to put it differently, as I did, You could imagine a meaning to life. The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Sapienspurports to explain the origin of virtually all major aspects of humanity religion, human social groups, and civilization in evolutionary terms. In the animist world, objects and living things are not the only animated beings. Yet for Harari and so many others, the unquestioned answer is that human cognitive abilities arose due to pure chance. This is an extremely important claim that he confidently asserts and it sets the stage for the rest of the book, which purports to give an entirely materialistic account of human history. There are similar accounts of other groups inEternity in Their Hearts:peoples that started as monotheists and later turned to other forms of religion. Again, if everything is predetermined then so is the opinion I have just expressed. To translate it as he does into a statement about evolution is like translating a rainbow into a mere geometric arc, or better, translating a landscape into a map. For example, Harari admits, We dont know exactly where and when animals that can be classified asHomo sapiensfirst evolved from some earlier type of humans, but most scientists agree that by 150,000 years ago, East Africa was populated bySapiensthat looked just like us. (p. 14) Harari is right, and this lack of evidence for the evolutionary origin of modern humans isconsistent withthe admissions of many mainstream evolutionary paleoanthropologists. Harari divides beliefs into those that are objective things that exist independently of human consciousness and human beliefs subjective things that exist only in the consciousness and beliefs of a single individual and inter-subjective things that exist within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. (p. 117) In Hararis evolutionary view, beliefs about the rights of man fall into the subjective categories. He suggests that premodern religion asserted that everything important to know about the world was already known (p279) so there was no curiosity or expansion of learning. It fails to explain too many crucial aspects of the human experience, contradicts too much data, and is too dark and hopeless as regards human rights and equality. Site Policy & Cookies Contact us, https://www.bethinking.org/human-life/sapiens-review, accidental genetic mutationsit was pure chance (p23), no justice outside the common imagination of human beings (p31). This is especially difficult to explain if the main imperatives that drove our evolution were merely that we survive and reproduce on the African savannah. Created equal should therefore be translated into evolved differently. He said it, not me: Frankly, we dont know.. As noted, Sam Devis said that after reading Hararis book he sought some independent way to prove that God was real, but he saw no way to do that. If you dont see that, then go to the chimp or gorilla exhibit at your local zoo, and bring a bucket of cold water with you.