God and gorillas

When you talk about agency, do you mean God or some supernatural being?

It's all an elaborate evolutionary mistake. Well, I don't think that works very well. When you look at the depth of our evolutionary history, and the fact that we were made to relate, that is where anthropology and theology come together. You have Martin Buber saying, "In the beginning is the relation." And that's what our primate history tells us. Not only is it a survival technique to come together as a social group, but especially to come together around the mysteries of life -- to ask questions and find answers about the afterlife and those mysteries. Yes, I do think it was not just an accident but something that is very much part of us and helped us survive.

You mentioned Martin Buber's classic book "I and Thou." Why is his understanding of religious experience so meaningful to you?

For an ape watcher to take a year, as I did, to read Karen Armstrong and Martin Buber and everyone in between, was an amazing experience. For Buber, you become real through transformation with another being. And I really think the whole process we're talking about is how hominids relating in social groups generated the spiritual.

What science can do that's so fascinating is look at the incredibly close connection between our social practices and the sacred realm. If you ask Native Americans today, they'll tell you that "religion" isn't even a word that computes in their native languages. You live religion. You don't talk about it. Certain questions -- Do you believe in God? Do you have a religion? -- don't necessarily make sense to all people. That's the lens through which I want to look at prehistory. And there's a certain resonance with Buber.

OK, I'm not going to ask whether you believe in God. But I do want to know, do you consider yourself religious?

I consider myself a spiritual person because of the way I feel when I'm around animals in particular, especially apes. The idea that I'm here in this world with other beings who are conscious in different degrees makes me feel part of a very big picture.

Do you think there's a transcendent reality out there?

Define transcendent reality.

Something that might be supernatural. A reality that we can't necessarily experience with our five senses.

I'm always open to that possibility. But that's veering really close to asking whether I believe in God. For me, it's a private question, but even more than that, it's a question that doesn't really reflect the depths of what we are as a species.

Are you saying it's just not an important question, whether there is a transcendent reality?

I think we have evolved to believe in transcendent realities. What we're about as a group of humans on this earth is believing that there's something more than us. It takes many different forms. I don't know that I'd focus on a single transcendent reality. I would say that because we're made to relate, we think and feel that we're in relationship with something bigger.

But isn't that the core question that everyone debates? Did human beings just make up the spirits and gods that they worship? Or is there really some other reality out there?

Yes, in my book I say that's a question I will not take up. I think my stance is rather beautiful because it's about "agnosis"; that means not knowing. That's where I would like to leave that question. But we as human beings have gotten to this certain place because of our evolutionary history.

So where does this whole evolutionary history leave us in today's scientific age? What are the implications for how we can talk about religion?

I'm part of the camp of people who thinks it's perfectly possible to see religion and science as compatible areas of thought and inquiry. In my book, I lay out three choices. You can say you've got to choose one. You can believe in science or you can have faith in God -- the Richard Dawkins school of thought. Or you can say there are "non-overlapping magisteria" -- the famous Stephen Jay Gould answer that religion will help us with meaning, and science will tell us about other things. I'm actually in a third place. If you can avoid being a biblical literalist, and if you can avoid being an arrogant scientist who tells everyone else what to think, you can think on multiple levels at once. There's a lot of beauty in seeing that religion and science are really about the same things. They can be perfectly compatible.

Several books have recently come out about the origins of religion. And you get lots of different theories. There was, for instance, Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell." He seemed to argue that religious belief is a kind of meme, sort of an idea -- like a virus -- that spreads throughout human groups. What do you make of his argument?

Yes, let's not be overly kind to Daniel Dennett because he dishes it out and he can definitely take it. He not only says religion is the product of a virus, a meme, some small bit of culture that replicates and gets passed on, but that we humans are infested with this virus. So what do you do if a person is infected with religion? You'd better start talking rationally to that person. The problem that I see with Daniel Dennett's view is that a meme is this little bit of something that's supposed to live abstracted away from human pairs, groups and individuals. It has a life of its own. For an anthropologist, that just doesn't make sense. It's like taking a gene out of its environment. It's like taking a brain out of its environment. I believe in dynamic relationships with real people having real feelings in real social groups. Sure, we have genes and brains, but we are in a co-creative relationship with all these things. We're not controlled by our genes or our memes or our brains.

Do you think there's much at stake in these questions? Is this just intellectual curiosity, or is there much riding on how we think about religion today?

Oh, I think there's a huge amount riding on it. When I get students coming into my class, they so often feel they have to choose between religion and science. And I find that very distressing. I think it's very important to understand that our heritage has made us religious beings. And this fits very comfortably with our understanding of evolution. Being spiritual and having evolved go hand in hand.

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