Religions evolve like genes, says atheist

The recent debate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary was titled “The Future of Atheism.” But it explored a related question: Can mankind’s age-old belief in God be explained purely as a stubbornly recurring natural phenomenon, not much different than the common cold?

There is provocative evidence that’s so, argued Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University philosopher, atheist and author of “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.”

Dennett’s basic argument is that some ideas – including religion – are like genes or viruses with their own evolutionary history. They jump from generation to generation. Weak ones die; strong ones survive.

Consider that Christianity, Islam and Judaism have endured for thousands of years, Dennett said.

“They can’t all be true,” he said. “So if your religion has survived because it is true, the other religions that are robust and well today have survived for other reasons.”

But that theory is suspect in terms of good science, countered Alister McGrath, an Oxford University biophysicist-turned-Christian theologian.

It might be true, he acknowledged, that mankind has a “God-center” in the brain, “a so-called mystical gene favored by natural selection.”

“But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – I wonder where the science is? Where is the rigorous evidence for this?” he said. “It’s a huge way from ‘might’ to ‘is.’ “