A fundamental problem in any attempt to make an argument about the evolutionary origins of any human behavior lies in how one decides what aspect of our evolutionary background to focus upon. As in his earlier book, The Animal Within Us, Glass relies heavily upon observations of chimpanzee behavior in order to gain insights into human behavior.
But why focus on chimpanzees? Why not Bonobos? We are just as closely related to them as chimpanzees, but we don’t see nearly the violence, aggression, or hierarchical systems among them. Why not argue that we are more like Bonobos and talk about our peaceful side to prove it?
Some might claim that we obviously inherit more of our behavior from chimpanzees — after all, look at how violent, aggressive, and hierarchical we are! But that would reduce arguments likes Glass’, that our behavior is violent, aggressive, and hierarchical because we inherit it from the chimpanzees, into a vicious circle of no interest and with no explanatory power.
Not all evolutionary explanations for religious behavior fall prey to such criticisms. Stewart Guthrie’s Faces in the Clouds, for example, doesn’t rely upon comparison with other specific animals and offers a much more general explanation for the evolutionary impetus for religion: rampant anthropomorphization that took us from seeing the faces of possible predators in the grass to the “faces” of possible beings in the sky who were responsible for disasters, rain, etc.
This brings us to another problem with Glass’ book: there has already been quite a lot of work on possible biological and evolutionary explanations for religion and religious beliefs. None of that, however, is really addressed by Glass. I wouldn’t expect him to include a detailed survey on the subject, but the complete absence of any mention of the work of people like Guthrie is odd.
Soldiers of God: Primal Emotions and Religious Terrorists
Nevertheless, that doesn’t detract from the fact that this sort of book is interesting and that more attention should be paid to such research. I don’t agree that Glass has hit up “the” explanation for religious terrorism and readers should definitely read his arguments with a grain of salt. At the same time, though, it’s worthwhile to read them and give them some thought.
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