THE TANDEM PROJECT
UNITED NATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS,
FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF
Separation of Religion or Belief
& State
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GOD GENE
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Issue: Evolutionary Perspective on Religion – Détente between
Religion and Science.
For: United Nations, Governments, Religions or Beliefs,
Academia, NGOs, Media, Civil Society
Review: The Evolution of the God Gene, by Nicholas Wade,
This article makes the
case for human rights and freedom of religion or belief as a common bond for
the protection of theistic, non-theistic and atheistic
beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief. The
1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief may be a unique one of a kind Human
Rights Concordat between nations and all religions or beliefs
Excerpts: The Evolution of the God Gene.
“Could the evolutionary perspective on religion become
the basis for some kind of détente between religion and science?”
“For atheists,
it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion evolved because it
conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. If
religion is a lifebelt, it is hard to portray it as useless. For believers, it
may seem threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believer in
gods, since the actual existence of the divine then seems less likely.”
“But the evolutionary perspective on religion does not
necessarily threaten the central position of either side. That religious
behavior was favored by natural selection neither proves nor disproves the
existence of gods. For believers, if one accepts that evolution has shaped the
human body, why not the mind too? What evolution has done is to endow people
with a genetic predisposition to learn the religion of their community, just as
they are predisposed to learn its language.”
Article 18: International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have a
religion or whatever belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or
in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or
belief in worship, observance, practices and teaching.
General Comment 22 on
Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/9a30112c27d1167cc12563ed004d8f15?Opendocument
The right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion (which includes the freedom to hold beliefs) in article
18.1 is far-reaching and profound; it encompasses freedom of thought on all
matters, personal conviction and the commitment to religion or belief, whether
manifested individually or in community with others. The Committee draws
attention of States parties to the fact that freedom of thought and the freedom
of conscience are protected equally with the freedom of religion or belief. The
fundamental character of these freedoms is also reflected in the fact that this
provision cannot be derogated from, even in time of public emergency, as stated
in article 4.2 of the Covenant.”
Article 18 protects theistic,
non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any
religion or belief. The terms “belief” and “religion” are to be broadly
construed. Article 18 is not limited in its application to traditional
religions or to religions or beliefs with institutional characteristics or
practices analogous to those of traditional religions. The Committee therefore
views with concern any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief
for any reason, including the fact that they are newly established, or
represent religious minorities that may be the subject of hostility on the part
of a predominant religious community.”
IN the
During 15 years of excavation
they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical
transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing
floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in
about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the
beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with
the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.
This and other research is
pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why
religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and
in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved
behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection.
It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the
ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.
For atheists, it is not a particularly
welcome thought that religion evolved because it conferred essential benefits
on early human societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is
hard to portray it as useless.
For believers, it may seem
threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believe in gods, since
the actual existence of the divine may then seem less likely.
But the evolutionary
perspective on religion does not necessarily threaten the central position of
either side. That religious behavior was favored by natural selection neither
proves nor disproves the existence of gods. For believers, if one accepts that
evolution has shaped the human body, why not the mind too? What evolution has
done is to endow people with a genetic predisposition to learn the religion of
their community, just as they are predisposed to learn its language. With both
religion and language, it is culture, not genetics that then supplies the
content of what is learned.
It is easier to see from
hunter-gatherer societies how religion may have conferred compelling advantages
in the struggle for survival. Their rituals emphasize not theology but intense
communal dancing that may last through the night. The sustained rhythmic
movement induces strong feelings of exaltation and emotional commitment to the
group. Rituals also resolve quarrels and patch up the social fabric.
The ancestral human
population of 50,000 years ago, to judge from living hunter-gatherers, would
have lived in small, egalitarian groups without chiefs or headmen. Religion
served them as an invisible government. It bound people together, committing
them to put their community’s needs ahead of their own self-interest. For fear
of divine punishment, people followed rules of self-restraint toward members of
the community. Religion also emboldened them to give their lives in battle
against outsiders. Groups fortified by religious belief would have prevailed
over those that lacked it, and genes that prompted the mind toward ritual would
eventually have become universal.
In natural selection, it
is genes that enable their owners to leave more surviving progeny that become more
common. The idea that natural selection can favor groups, instead of acting
directly on individuals, is highly controversial. Though
But group selection has
recently gained two powerful champions, the biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, who argued
that two special circumstances in recent human evolution would have given group
selection much more of an edge than usual. One is the highly egalitarian nature
of hunter-gatherer societies, which makes everyone behave alike and gives
individual altruists a better chance of passing on their genes. The other is
intense warfare between groups, which enhances group-level selection in favor
of community-benefiting behaviors such as altruism and religion.
A propensity to learn the
religion of one’s community became so firmly implanted in the human neural
circuitry, according to this new view, that religion was retained when
hunter-gatherers, starting from 15,000 years ago, began to settle in fixed
communities. In the larger, hierarchical societies made possible by settled
living, rulers co-opted religion as their source of authority. Roman emperors
made themselves chief priest or even a living god, though most had the taste to
wait till after death for deification. “Drat, I think I’m becoming a god!”
Vespasian joked on his deathbed.
Religion was also
harnessed to vital practical tasks such as agriculture, which in the first
societies to practice it required quite unaccustomed forms of labor and
organization. Many religions bear traces of the spring and autumn festivals
that helped get crops planted and harvested at the right time. Passover once marked the beginning of
the barley festival; Easter, linked to the date of Passover, is a spring
festival.
Could the evolutionary
perspective on religion become the basis for some kind of detente between
religion and science? Biologists and many atheists have a lot of respect for
evolution and its workings, and if they regarded religious behavior as an
evolved instinct they might see religion more favorably, or at least recognize
its constructive roles. Religion is often blamed for its spectacular excesses,
whether in promoting persecution or warfare, but gets less credit for its staple
function of patching up the moral fabric of society. But perhaps it doesn’t
deserve either blame or credit. If religion is seen as a means of generating
social cohesion, it is a society and its leaders that put that cohesion to good
or bad ends.
Nicholas Wade, a science reporter for The New York Times, is
the author of “The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Documents Attached:
Looking to Other Faiths and to Atheism for Clarity
Who is a Jew - Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question
United Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon, at the Alliance of Civilizations Madrid Forum said; “never
in our lifetime has there been a more desperate need for constructive and
committed dialogue, among individuals, among communities, among cultures, among
and between nations.”
Genuine dialogue on human
rights and freedom of religion or belief calls for respectful discourse,
discussion of taboos and clarity by persons of diverse beliefs. Inclusive
dialogue includes people of theistic, non-theistic and
atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief.
The warning signs are clear, unless there is genuine dialogue ranging from
religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism; conflicts in the future will
probably be even more deadly.
In 1968 the UN deferred
work on an International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Religious Intolerance because of its complexity and sensitivity. In forty years
violence, suffering and discrimination based on religion or belief has
dramatically increased. It is time for
a UN Working Group to draft what they deferred in 1968, a comprehensive core
international human rights treaty- a United Nations Convention on Freedom of
Religion or Belief: United
Nations History – Freedom of Religion or Belief.
In 1981 the UN
Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief http://www.tandemproject.com/program/81_dec.htm
was adopted by the UN General Assembly after due to complexity and sensitivity
they deferred work in 1968 on a UN Convention on Elimination of all Forms of
Religious Intolerance. The 1981 UN Declaration is a unique Human Rights
Concordat between nations and all religions or beliefs.
The challenge to
religions or beliefs at all levels is awareness, understanding
and acceptance of international human rights standards on freedom of
religion or belief. Leaders, teachers and followers of all religions or beliefs,
with governments, are keys to test the viability of inclusive and genuine
dialogue in response to the UN Secretary General’s urgent call for constructive
and committed dialogue.
The Tandem Project title,
Separation of Religion or Belief and State (SOROBAS), reflects the far-reaching scope of
General Comment 22 on Article 18, International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, Human Rights Committee (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4). The Comment is a guide
to international human rights law on religion or belief for peaceful
cooperation, respectful competition and resolution of conflicts:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/9a30112c27d1167cc12563ed004d8f15?Opendocument
Surely one of the best
hopes for humankind is to embrace a culture in which religions and other
beliefs accept one another, in which wars and violence are not tolerated in the
name of an exclusive right to truth, in which children are raised to solve
conflicts with mediation, compassion and understanding.
The Tandem Project is a non-governmental organization (NGO)
founded in 1986 to build understanding, tolerance and respect for diversity,
and to prevent discrimination in matters relating to freedom of religion
or belief. The Tandem
Project has sponsored multiple conferences, curricula, reference materials and
programs on Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights – Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion - and 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms
of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.
The Tandem Project is a UN NGO in
Special Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council of
the United Nations