Abstract
Shermer’s 2011 The Believing Brain provides several illustrative examples of how teleology, and in particular our tendency to try to look for a meaning and for meaningful patterns even when the data is actually meaningless. This chapter will thus include some excerpts from that book, particularly concerning how such tendency affects our daily life. In his chapter about the afterlife, he noted that in a 2009 Harris Poll on religious beliefs among Americans, 71% answered that they believe in soul survival. Shermer listed six major reasons why so many people believe in afterlife, which are profoundly connected with the tendency of our brains to build teleological narratives and then accept them as true:
War: a massacre of people who don’t know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don’t massacre each other.
(Paul Valery)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
(Epicurus)
References
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
(Epicurus)
Asma ST (2009) On monsters—an unnatural history of our worst fears. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Blumberg MS (2009) Freaks of nature: what anomalies tell us about development and evolution. Oxford University Press, New York
Bondeson J (1997) A cabinet of medical curiosities. W. W. Norton, New York
DeSesso JM (2019) The arrogance of teratology: a brief chronology of attitudes throughout history. Birth Defects Res 111:123–141
Diamond J (2005) Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. Viking Press, New York
Epstein GM (2010) Good without God—what a billion nonreligious people do believe. Harper, New York
Freedland J (2017) Terror attacks are not just about us. The Guardian. Accessed 26 May 2017
Hutton R (2017) The witch—a history of fear from ancient times to the present. Yale University Press, New Haven
Kasperbauer TJ (2018) Subhuman—the moral psychology of human attitudes to animals. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Kirkham D (2019) Our shadowed world—reflections on civilization, conflict, and belief. Cascade Books, Eugene
Leroi AM (2003) Mutants: on the form, varieties and errors of the human body. Harper Collins, London
Marshall JM (2007) The day the world ended at Little Bighorn—a Lakota history. Penguin Books, London
Meral Z (2018) How violence shapes religion—belief and conflict in the Middle East and Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Nixey C (2017) The Darkening age—the Christian destruction of the classic world. Macmillan, London
Shermer M (2011) The believing brain—from ghosts and gods to politics and conspiracies, how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths. Times Books, New York
Sproul B (1991) Primal myths—creation myths around the world. HarperCollins, New York
Taleb NN (2010) The black swan—the impact of the highly improbable, 2nd edn. Trader House Trade Paperback, New York
Thomas K (1983) Man and the natural world—changing attitudes in England 1500–1800. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Van Schaik C, Michel K (2016) The good book of human nature—an evolutionary reading of the bible. Basic Books, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Diogo, R. (2022). Brains, Conspiracies, Witches, and Animal Abuse. In: Meaning of Life, Human Nature, and Delusions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70401-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70401-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70400-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70401-2
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)