Book Review of Alpha God

Understanding Religiosity as a Product of Darwinian Evolution

Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the wall of separation between church and state, therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - Thomas Jefferson

Alpha God: the Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression, by Hector Garcia, is an anthropological exploration of one of the most dangerous and persistent aspects of human culture in the tradition of both Lucretius’ Liber Qvintvs and of Charles Darwin, with the added benefit that the author cites numerous modern studies, historical accounts, and other anecdotal, statistical and empirical evidence. 

There is at least one other way in which this book echoes Lucretian ideas: it mirrors the gendered values that we find in the opening of De rerum natura, where Venus conquers Mars with her sweetness, and in so doing she tames the belligerent psychological and societal forces he embodies. This is from page 216:

… feminine values foster both religious and political ideals based more on equality than on dominance. Recall that religion based on a dominant male god advises men to have “dominion” over the earth and “subdue” it (Genesis 1:28) and has all other life forms submitting in fear and dread of men (Genesis 9:2).

There’s another way in which Epicurean readers may find this book particularly relevant. Garcia dedicates an entire chapter to the problem of anhedonia (a pathological inability to enjoy natural pleasures), and—with example after example, citing from many instances of ascetic and religious practices that reflect depression and other psychological disorders—he demonstrates a link between anhedonia, poor mental health, and low social status, and then a link between all these problems and many of the religious practices and scriptures of the Abrahamic religions. 

The author addresses violence, sex, resource allotment, and many other issues from the perspective of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, showing time and again a correlation between how religion mediates and offers an outlet for drives and instincts that Garcia ties to our primate origins. 

The Naturalistic Fallacy

Some traditionalists, the likes of Jordan Peterson and Muslim or Christian fundamentalists, might argue that evolved behaviors are natural and therefore—they claim—moral. In evaluating these problems, Garcia reminds us:

… we must avoid the naturalistic fallacy–that is, the idea that because rape is rooted in the evolutionary past it is good, desirable, or tolerable. Like warfare, it is none of these things, and as a morally detestable act it deserves unflinching examination.

The Modern Relevance of This Field of Research

Garcia cites a well-known meta-study (a study that incorporates data from many previous studies, as well as demographic data, etc.) by Paul Gregory. This research deserves to be evaluated separately from the book, as it stands on its own merits to demonstrate many of the points made by Garcia and shows an undeniable and strong correlation between various forms of societal dysfunction and high levels of religiosity in many societies, which he compares. 

Garcia demonstrate the relevance of what he is saying with many case studies. In page 246 we find: 

… there is a cultural history of religious dominance in America in which religious charity was used as a tool for keeping subordinated classes in their social place.

The problem of religious monopoly on charity work has been addressed previously in this blog. In page 236, Garcia sounds prophetic concerning the current rise of Christian fascism in places like Uganda, and even the state of Florida and elsewhere, where an extremist Christian takeover of the education system is taking place, complete with book-banning campaigns that remind us of the Dark Ages.

Censorship stops truths or ideas from emerging, particularly those that draw attention to inequities of power or wealth, or to abuses by those in positions of authority. Most importantly, censorship keeps a population ignorant, which holds great appeal to dictators.

Furthermore, the author acknowledges that the future is likely to involve much religious conflict. In page 229, he says:

Today the world’s fastest growing populations are in the most religious countries.

One of the most worrisome case studies for this is northern Nigeria, where Muslims have seven children on average, and where for many years Muslim extremists have been killing Christians from the south of the country (and each other, AND raping and torturing young girls who have the audacity of going to school), and this has evolved into a slow, long-term genocidal campaign that the government will not address in order to avoid confrontations with fanatical Muslims.

The problem of religious demographics reminds me of the distinction between the bonobos and chimpanzees that I became aware of when I wrote the book review of The Bonobo and the Atheist. Bonobos evolved on a side of the Congo river where there was plenty and did not have to fight for resources, and so their relations are egalitarian, they constantly share resources, and their exchanges are lubricated with sexual exchanges. Chimps evolved on the other side of the Congo river where there was greater scarcity and they had to fight for resources, resulting in a society that constantly fights over resources, is extremely violent, and characterized by alpha male tyranny and strict hierarchical structures. This distinction between scarcity/violence and plenty/liberality with sex and resources can also be seen in human societies, where poor and overcrowded conditions in certain cities are accompanied by much violence, crime, and dysfunction, while plentiful societies tend to be less violent on average. Prosperous societies also tend to be sexually and socially more liberal, like the bonobos. Even within the same society we see that neighborhoods that are wealthy have less violent crime than those that are poorer.

As religions continue to promote irresponsible overbreeding of human populations, particularly without also propagating initiatives that help those same communities to become wealthy, this will result in more violent societies, which is exactly what the Paul Gregory study demonstrates has already happened. Higher religiosity coincides statistically with higher levels of crime and violence in almost every society that has been studied.

Conclusion

The book is pessimistic, but elsewhere is cautiously optimistic and traces paths for possible solutions. In page 223, the author says:

Boldly unveiling the male primate puppeteers of God will be a necessary first step. Such a move, made introspective and honest by the evolutionary sciences, may help us to develop a more just and compassionate set of religious and secular ethics.

In the end, Garcia succeeds in making a strong case linking violence and religiosity, and showing the primal, biological, psychological and social forces that contributed to making the god of the Abrahamic religions, whom he describes as a projection of these forces. The author sees some possibility of redemption in the continued scientific study of religiosity as an expression of these primal forces in order to psycho-analyze, challenge and limit its harmful effects. Towards the end of the book, he concludes:

“The take-home message from this line of research is that less religion is associated with better societal health, which is precisely contrary to the argument made by conservative Christians in America and suggests once more the potential ills of relying too heavily on an ethics based on appeasing the whims of an alpha god.”

This book is a steppingstone to further research. It offers many thought-provoking conversation-starters and much data. The author hopes (as do I) that further studies of religion as a natural phenomenon will continue to cast light on the nature of religiosity.