Rabbi Sacks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, December 24, 2012, 14:44 (4353 days ago)

The Lord Rabbi of Britain explains why religion survives:-http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/opinion/the-moral-animal.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121224&_r=0-Read this and then read the entire article.-"Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion's imminent demise. Yet after a series of withering attacks, most recently by the new atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, still in Britain three in four people, and in America four in five, declare allegiance to a religious faith. That, in an age of science, is what is truly surprising. -The irony is that many of the new atheists are followers of Charles Darwin. We are what we are, they say, because it has allowed us to survive and pass on our genes to the next generation. Our biological and cultural makeup constitutes our "adaptive fitness." Yet religion is the greatest survivor of them all. Superpowers tend to last a century; the great faiths last millenniums. The question is why. -Darwin himself suggested what is almost certainly the correct answer. He was puzzled by a phenomenon that seemed to contradict his most basic thesis, that natural selection should favor the ruthless. Altruists, who risk their lives for others, should therefore usually die before passing on their genes to the next generation. Yet all societies value altruism, and something similar can be found among social animals, from chimpanzees to dolphins to leafcutter ants. -Neuroscientists have shown how this works. We have mirror neurons that lead us to feel pain when we see others suffering. We are hard-wired for empathy. We are moral animals."