How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God

by Michael Shermer

A new edition covering the latest scientific research on how the brain makes us believers or skeptics

Recent polls report that 96 percent of Americans believe in God, and 73 percent believe that angels regularly visit Earth. Why is this? Why, despite the rise of science, technology, and secular education, are people turning to religion in greater numbers than ever before? Why do people believe in God at all?

These provocative questions lie at the heart of How We Believe , an illuminating study of God, faith, and religion. Bestselling author Michael Shermer offers fresh and often startling insights into age-old questions, including how and why humans put their faith in a higher power, even in the face of scientific skepticism. Shermer has updated the book to explore the latest research and theories of psychiatrists, neuroscientists, epidemiologists, and philosophers, as well as the role of faith in our increasingly diverse modern world.

Whether believers or nonbelievers, we are all driven by the need to understand the universe and our place in it. How We Believe is a brilliant scientific tour of this ancient and mysterious desire.

Genres: Science, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Skepticism, Atheism

330 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members.

Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Shermer now describes himself as an agnostic nontheist and an advocate for humanist philosophy.


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Reviews

[Lee Harmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the director of the Skeptics Society, and host of the Skeptics Lecture Series. I don’t need to tell you what sort of direction this book is going to take. But even knowing what to expect, this was a fun book, well worth the read!

Shermer, noting that 96% of Americans believe in God and 73% believe that angels regular visit earth, asks one question: Why? Why do even 40% of scientists proclaim a belief in God? Why do more people believe in paranormal phenomena now than they did 100 years ago? Why do we believe at all, and why must we seek meaning in higher places? What is our fascination with ghosts and séances? Is belief in God genetically programmed? Some kind of “God module” in our brains?

Mankind is a pattern-seeking animal, whether this talent is used to see the Virgin Mary in patterns of light and shadow or to see meaning within the randomness of coincidental events. Mankind is also a storytelling animal. We love our stories, and our stories do more than describe our reality, they help create our realities. So, as we move from pattern-seeking to storytelling, we naturally journey on to mythmaking. Origin myths abound in various cultures. But the journey of humanity doesn’t end there. From mythmaking we jump ahead to morality, from morality to religion, from religion to God. Perhaps we are wired to believe; perhaps there’s a certain inevitability in the way the human experience has evolved.

Shermer presents a number of studies and interviews as he leads us on this journey. One of the most fascinating studies in Shermer’s book compared answers to two questions: “Why do you believe in God,” and “Why do you think other people believe in God?” The answers don’t jibe. Other people believe in God because they were raised that way, or because it brings them comfort to believe, or because people have a need to believe. But what do people answer as to why they believe? Well, because they’ve thought it through, of course; the universe is too orderly, or the experiences they’ve had could only come from God.

Shermer’s approach is scientific, yet controversial. The conclusions are his own; but I guarantee the book will make you think, and I guarantee you’ll enjoy the read.

[David Svihel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, and director of the Skeptics society, has produced a work attempting to synthesize several academic fields including: anthropology, sociology, and biology to answer the question as to why humans hold to religious beliefs. Divided into two parts the book discusses I. God and Belief, and II. Religion and Science.

Part I begins with a chapter called “Do You Believe in God?” Shermer starts with his own story of conversion to the Christian faith and his subsequent loss of faith. He uses experience and scientific analysis to put forward the difficulty the question of God poses. He concludes by saying, God's existence or nonexistence cannot possibly be understood in human terms. What cannot be understood cannot be proved. What is unprovable is insoluble (15). What he means is that God is essentially irrelevant, because he cannot be known in any modernist scientific sense. However, he will later argue that the question of God is important from at least a sociological and anthropological standpoint.

“Is God Dead?” discusses whether philosophers like Nietzsche were correct in their pronouncement of the death of God. Shermer states that in our modern scientific age, we have begun to answer life’s ultimate questions, which before now were left only to religion. In spite of this scientific trend God is still alive and well in the minds of most people, because he has been the answer to life’s ultimate questions for so long. God is not dead, practically speaking, because he represents these ultimate concepts that have been with us for as long as we have existed (30).

“The Belief Engine,” the third chapter of the book discusses several evolutionary hypotheses attempting to explain how we come to believe things. Shermer states that because we are pattern-seeking animals, always trying to find connections between events and experiences even where there might not be one, we have developed what he calls a “belief engine.” The belief engine is used to explain how various evolutionary factors came together in the human mind to ascribe meaning to events and experiences, to put meaning to the patterns. He then develops several possible histories of how this engine developed. He concludes by saying that it is likely that the purpose of this engine is to deal with questions involving the unknown, pain and most specifically to find comfort in death; the problem for which we have no solution.

“Why People Believe in God,” the fourth chapter, is essentially a continuation of the previous chapter. Shermer gives examples of groups outside of organized religion that hold hope for the future; such as, trans-humanism and the broader category of humanism. He explains that all belief systems, no matter how rational, tend to organize themselves around meta-narratives to explain the hope toward which they are working. He concludes from this that there must be an inherent part of humans that is wired for belief in something or someone bigger than us. He puts for several other possibilities including: God as gap-filler in the brain, genetic predisposition, temporal lobe seizures, and God as meme (theoretical cultural “gene”). Shermer concludes with a general statement admitting that many varied factors play into belief in God, but seeing that many think their personal faith is logical, even though it is assumed to be a crutch for others.

The fact that the author devotes one chapter to all the major arguments for God that he is aware of is quite telling. He gives a brief overview of arguments such as the cosmological, ontological, and the moral argument and gives quite pithy paragraph length responses to each. He then goes on to various scientific arguments and quotes a few noted scientist to disagree with the arguments presented. His assumption of the validity of the scientific method and modernist epistemology throughout the chapter is telling. One gets the feeling that he does not desire to deal with any of the arguments at length, because in his mind they are simply doomed from the start due to a non-naturalistic starting point. From these assumptions he declares the disparity between science and religion.

The book’s second section begins with a chapter entitled, “In a Mirror Dimly, then Face to Face.” This is where Shermer moves from studying the basis for religious belief to attempting to understand the similarities and transcendent ideas all religions share, and their relation to science. In this chapter he puts forth three models used to relate religion to science. The first is called the conflicting worlds model, where science and religion are at war. The second model is called the same-worlds model, where science and religion agree when both are understood rightly. The third is called the separate-worlds model, where science and religion discuss two unrelated spheres of knowledge. Stephen J. Gould popularized this view through his concept of NOMA: non-overlapping magisteria. Shermer feels that this last model is the best for both science and religion, because it allows them both to answer the specific questions they deal with, without interfering with the other. He ends the chapter with a moving story about faith and passion he experienced while at a service of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He concludes that this experience shows that religion is useful, and doesn’t need to deal with questions of science.

Chapter seven, entitled “The Storytelling Animal,” attempts to explain the development of myths and various religious narratives. He quotes neuroscientist Michal Gazzaniga who claims that we are all storytellers, in the sense that we take the facts of our everyday experience and weave them into a narrative, from which we spin-doctor our self-image (143). Shermer then states that the two primary purposes of religion are to: create stories and myths that address our deepest questions, and the production of moral systems to provide social cohesion for the most social of all the social primates (143). He refers back to the concept of humans as pattern-seeking animals and argues that storytelling develops from this instinct. He then argues that stories generally developed into grander myths that attempt to explain reality. He argues that even cosmology and archaeology attempt to answer these ultimate questions, and create narrative forms for them. He points to the dragon as a common character in ancient mythologies and how the values of the culture shape the narrative and the dragons place within them (154). He then tries to close the gap between these stories, modern religion, and morality. He puts forth several theoretic options, concluding it is somehow related to language and the desire to help someone with the hope that they will return the favor. He concludes by saying God is the general framework that allows for religion.

The next chapter, “God and the Ghost Dance,” deals with the development of the idea of messiah, or savior. He begins with a story about a time he answered questions on a radio show related to a UFO cult awaiting the destruction of society, and how this relates to the common hope of a messiah among oppressed peoples. He relates this UFO narrative to a myth developed among Native Americans in the 1800’s that predicted the coming of judgment on the white man and the restoration of their land. He concludes that similar stories throughout history show that history is cyclical and that it is common for oppressed peoples to create “messiah myths” to create hope for a better future.

The second to last chapter, “The Fire that Will Cleanse,” is a continuation of the previous chapter. It deals specifically with the common theme among societal myths of a glorious utopian future achieved either through progressive improvement or apocalyptic judgment of the wicked and vindication of the good. He gives examples of different Christian view of the millennium throughout history and their relation to Revelation 20:1-6. He also discusses several cult and pagan myths of a final rescue or judgment. He concludes that again the pattern-seeking and story-telling impulse merge together in the “millennium myth” to solve the problem of why bad things happen to good people, but these myths give us the hope that in the end good will triumph over evil (212).

The final chapter appears as almost a non-sequiter when compared to the rest of the book. One would expect to read a sort of broad summary and vague philosophical statement about the general helpfulness of myths and religious belief for human society, but that is not what is found. Instead, in a chapter entitled “Glorious Contingency” Shermer gives a summary of a theory of evolution that gives room for human choices to be undetermined, at least in an experiential sense. He encourages his audience by saying that it may be nothing but wishful thinking to desire one’s place in history to be contingently significant, but since we do not know, why not act as if it does (236)? With that he closes by saying that man is now free, when loosed from religion, to experience everything with the freedom his contingent place in the universe has given him (238).

This book attempted to cover a lot of ground in a very short space. Shermer’s writing was clear and concise. He was able to use analogies to explain complex ideas and used short stories to explain the significance of his research. Even with this in mind, the book seemed kind of cobbled together. Certain chapters flowed quite well in terms of hypotheses and research shown, but would then either end abruptly or obscurely. He obviously put a lot of effort into researching for this book, but I don’t feel he was ever able to adequately answer any of the questions he set out to answer. He was able to give statistics and hypotheses for different collections of data, but he seemed unaware that, as Van Til said, there is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact. It felt as though he believed simply presenting the data, and the saying “this is how we might explain this” was proving once and for all his interpretation of that information. This unstated belief on his part seemed most obvious when he discussed arguments for God, his understanding of the relation of science and religion, and his hypotheses in the chapter “The Storytelling Animal.”

His closing chapter, as summarized above, came as quite a surprise. If he had wanted readers to agree with his conclusion regarding the freedom inherent in being the product of random chance, he should have been developing it alongside his religious analysis throughout the entire book. This was also confusing considering his continual nods to the usefulness of religion. While this book had interesting information in parts, I did not find it helpful or persuasive. For a similar book in this same vein I would recommend Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennet.

[Noreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book rather boring, maybe because I don't need to be convinced by the arguments he makes. I had already read some excellent books on the subject by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Even as a child, I was called "negative" and "critical" perhaps because I saw through people's self-delusions. However as a speaker, Dr. Shermer is excellent -- funny, relevant, concise.

I saw him give a talk at a university a couple of months ago. The event was listed in a Meetup group of which I am a member, and prior to it, another member revealed himself in a comment to the Meetup event page to be a nine eleven "truther." (The Meetup group is for atheists, who are usually skeptics as well.)

Some members of the group disputed the truther, and their posts weren't all nice. I feel partly responsible for starting the argument: I misunderstood the truther's post to say he thought SHERMER is a conspiracy theorist. After four readings of his poorly written post, in which he had linked to the "Rethink 9-11" website, I realized that HE was the conspiracy theorist, but by then I had opened a can of worms.

I kept thinking about what I would LIKE to post, but will not, because even though the truther left that Meetup group, he is still a member of another atheist Meetup group I am in and he would see it. So I will post my draft messages here instead.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SAY TO THE MEETUP GROUP AND/OR THE TRUTHER

Dear ACSJ: I apologize for using the term "crank" in my message. This forum was the last place I expected to encounter a conspiracy theorist, so forgive me for making what could be conceived as a personal attack. Just in case there are other people in the meetup group that I may have offended, I want to apologize to the alien abductees, JFK conspiracy theorists, Sasquatch believers, crop-circlers, moon landing hoaxers, tooth-fairyists, etc. Let me know if I've missed anyone. (That's a joke; just check RationalWiki for a list of weird beliefs.)

Dear Terry, my deepest apologies for calling you a crank. Believing that the events on September 11, 2001 were engineered by the Bush administration is totally understandable! It's just as believable as an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent god who created the universe, yet cares about each of us personally and listens to our prayers! May I suggest that while you are rejecting one indefensible belief yet harboring another one that you are f***ng crazy? There are meetup groups for people such as you, but I think a doctor could help you more.

Dear Brian, I understand that part of ACSJ's mission is diplomacy toward, if not tolerance of, those with extreme religious viewpoints, perhaps in the hope that they can be won to the rational side. Does this diplomacy extend, however, to people who hold other indefensible and extreme beliefs as well, such as conspiracy theories? Religions have been enjoying special status and sanctity for centuries, but what reason do we have for treating the beliefs of cranks with respect? Yes, we should respect the person, but I see no reason to tolerate someone who sows seeds of discord by posting a message to the group to further his own personal beliefs that have nothing to do with atheism (except I think most atheists are by nature skeptics as well -- why would one reject one set of delusions while clinging to another?). I feel like ACSJ is an island of sanity in an insane world, and it just got violated by this Terry.

Skeptics Society video "You Can't Handle the Truther" http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Nf3Blm...

[Celia Sánchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In her left hand are riches and honor
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace;
She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy .
(Proverbs :3:13 -18)
.
The Hubble Telescope Deep feild photograph revelas as never before the rich density of galaxies in our neck of the universe,is as grand a statement about the sacred as any medieval cathedral.How vast is the cosmos.How contingent is our place.Yet out of this apparent insignificance emerges a glorious contingency -the recognition that we did not have to be , but here we are ...
(Michel shermer)

Finding meaning in a contingent Universe ---

-Shermer in this book brilliantly explores our propensity to be story telling animals ....He describes evolutionary forces that might affect group selection and community identity. This book taught me a great deal about the origins of religious thought, as well as how people think in general,well-researched book on religion and belief ....5 stars for the topic ..contingency and necessity .. shermer quotes Daniel dennets Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life and Stepeh J goulds Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History ..when talking about role played by contingent events in Human Origins ...

enlightening ....

[Scott Lerch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a great job at explaining the origins of religion and how it was a necessary by product of evolution. After reading this is hard to deny that religion and the concept of God is not explainable through natural processes. Then given the choice between an understandable natural phenomena and a mysterious supernatural phenomena, why should anyone choose religion over science unless for comfort? Because of this book I changed my religious label to nontheist meaning I don’t believe reason can lead to a belief or disbelief in God. This is subtly different than atheist (depending on how it’s defined) in that it’s not that I completely reject the possibility of God, it’s just that I don’t believe in God. It is also different than agnosticism because that generally has the connotation of being undecided which I am not. Another plus of nontheism is that it doesn’t (yet) have the nasty connotation of being amoral like atheism. In the end this book just made me wish everyone would analyze their own religious beliefs and labels as thoroughly as Michael Shermer.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FAMED SKEPTIC AND AUTHOR TRIES TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION SCIENTIFICALLY

Author Michael Shermer wrote in the Preface to this 2000 book, “Why people believe in God is a specific subject I address to get at a deeper one: how we believe.. my moral dilemma is: ‘How can we have a dialogue about the God Question and keep our emotions in check?’ … I am an agnostic who has no axe to grind with believers, and I hold no grudge against religion. My only beef with believers is when they claim they can use science and reason to prove God’s existence, or that THEIRS is the One True Belief; my only gripe with religion is when it becomes intolerant of other people’s beliefs, or when it becomes a tool of political oppression, ideological extremism, or the cultural suppression of diversity. I am unabashedly interested in understanding how and why any of us come to our beliefs, how and why religion evolved as the most powerful institution in human history, and how and why belief (or lack of) in God develops and shapes our thoughts and actions…. I am mainly interested in three things: (1) Why people believe in God; (2) the relationship of science and religion, reason and faith; and (3) how the search for the sacred came into being and how it can thrive in an age of science.” (Pg. xiii)

He outlines, “If my hypothesis is correct---that humans evolved a Belief Engine whose function it is to seem patterns and find causal relationships, and in the process makes mistakes in thinking---then we should find evidence for this engine in our ancestors as well as ourselves. Superstitions do not leave behind many fossils, through Cro-Magnon cave paintings and flower-strewn Neanderthal burial sites may serve as a starting point. We can also consider the behaviors of indigenous peoples living today, to a cautious extent, as mirrors of our ancestral Belief Engine, as well as our immediate predecessors in the Middle Ages.” (Pg. 39)

He acknowledges, “Since death is something most of us would like to transcend, we must be particularly skeptical of claims that play on this deepest of all human desires, be it religiously or scientifically based. It is doubtful that … one day we will live into the thousands of years, if not achieve actual immortality. But I must admit it is fun to think about and occasionally, in quiet moments, I wonder… what if they are right?... for ALL OF US it is tempting to believe that ‘there must be something there.’ … Perhaps seeing ‘Something There’ is partly hard-wired in us all.” (Pg. 61)

He points out, “the fact that identical twins reared apart are more similar in their religious interests and commitments than fraternal twins reared together indicates that we cannot ignore hereditary in our search to understand why people believe in God. Taken at face value, a 50 percent heritability of religious tendencies may sound like a lot, but that still leaves the other half accounted for by the environment… Virtually all studies implemented over the past century have found strong environmental factors in religiosity, including everything from family to class to culture. In other words, even with a genetic component to religiosity we still must examine other variables.” (Pg. 64-65)

He recounts, “Curious to know the level of religious disbelief in the [Skeptics Society], I conducted a survey of members in 1995… I expected the survey to show an extremely low level of belief in God. The results were surprising… over a third thought it ‘very likely’ or ‘possible’ that there is a God…. Nor were skeptics as oppugnant toward religion as expected. For example, 77 percent said they believe that religion is ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ a force for morality and social stability… those who might be described as ‘militant atheists’ … appear to be a vocal minority… So, while the majority of skeptics and scientists do not believe in God, a surprisingly large minority do.” (Pg. 74)

After quoting a number of scientists, he summarizes, “Maybe our universe simply popped into existence out of the quantum fluctuation of the vacuum of some larger multiverse. Maybe our universe is just one of those things that happened for no reason at all.” (Pg. 109)

He argues, “at the core of the new creationists’ argument is the arrogant and indolent belief that if THEY cannot think of how nature could have created something through evolution, it must mean that scientists will not be able to do so either…. It is a remarkable confession of their own inabilities and lack of creativity. Who knows what breakthrough scientific discoveries await us in the next month or next year?... A scientific theory need not account for EVERY anomaly in order to be viable … But it is not acceptable in science to offer as an alternative a nontestable, mystical, supernatural force to account for those anomalies.” (Pg. 116)

He admits, “As for … religion’s purpose in the moral and social realm, humanists have worked to present viable secular alternatives. But… we are small in number and, compared to religion, largely impotent as a social force. Studies show… that following the 1992 Los Angeles riots it was religion that helped rebuild the looted and torched neighborhoods, and certainly not the humanists. Perhaps it is because religion has a 10,000 year head start on these other social institutions, or perhaps it is because that is what religion does best. Only time will tell. But the notion that religion will soon fall into disfavor would seem to be belied by the data…” (Pg. 141)

He notes, “The fact that … apocalyptic visions can proliferate on the cultural landscape tells us that they are deeply rooted in the human mind… Hold a people down long enough and learned helplessness arises… leading to feelings of utter futility, which … end in apocalypticism, with a hoped-for paradisiacal state to come. But this is not true for all millennial groups… millions of white, middle class, American Christians believe that the world is soon coming to an end. It would be a long stretch to classify these folks as oppressed, disenfranchised, or marginalized… Indeed, some recent polls and studies indicate that religious people, on average, may be both physically and psychologically happier and healthier than non-believers. Apocalypticism requires a different explanation here. Perhaps it has something to do with the need for justice…” (Pg. 211-212)

He reveals, “I am often asked by believers why I abandoned Christianity and how I found meaning in the apparently meaningless universe presented by science. The implication is that the scientific worldview is an existentially depressing one. Without God, I am told, what’s the point?... To the contrary. For me, quite the opposite is true. The conjuncture of losing my religion, finding science, and discovering glorious contingency was remarkably empowering and liberating…. With the knowledge that this may be all there is, and that I can trigger my own cascading changes, I was free to live life to the fullest.” (Pg. 236)

Religious skeptics (as well as those interested in the sociology of religious belief) will be greatly interested in this book.

[S.P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing I like about Michael Shermer is he holds a very precise view of the world - if you make a claim (about anything) then be prepared to prove it, with scientific evidence.

The survey of American's beliefs is fascinating (though frankly scary), the reasoning and conclusions as to how we believe odd things convincing, and the breadth of the research that has gone into this volume fairly impressive. The problem is I found the book cast a little wide to be able to be able focus on properly.

To summarise however, Shermer believes (with supporting evidence!) that man's belief in God is due to his pattern recognising brain and it's ability to correctly and incorrectly attribute things as true or not true. In our primitive past, correctly identifying a true pattern as true resulted in longer life whereas incorrectly identifying a true pattern as false resulted in shorter life. Since incorrectly identifying a false pattern as true rarely results in death, there is an evolutionary bias to correctly identify true patterns, but no bias against incorrectly identifying false patterns. Thus there is way in for superstition and Gods. This is the same logic that predicts that pigeons will stand on one leg to obtain food from a dispenser if this has in the past resulted in food being dispensed (really they do - pigeons are as superstitious as people!).

Anyone committed to their God or Religion is unlikely to chime with Shermer's view (although Shermer is at pains to explain he is not anti-God), however as review of the current state of the God vs Science 'debate' as of about 10 years ago, it is not bad.

[Daniel Gonçalves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagination is a powerful tool. Over millennia, it helped the human being survive the most calamitous scenarios, such was our will to succeed as a dominant species. As a result, gods were concocted. Religions were edified. Myths were invented, and successfully propagated.

The 21st century brought hope. Civilization is now able to use its cognitive powers to discover new ways of explaining reality. Science seems to be the definitive answer to ignorance. But how are people using this privileges?

In “How We Believe”, skeptic Michael Shermer promises to explore an entirely different realm of knowledge: the study of secular, highly developed societies like the United States of America, and how medieval conceptions of the world continue to spread amidst the population. To accomplish this, Shermer shows the reader numerous studies and a considerable amount of statistical data. People continue to go to church. 90 % of individuals still believe in God.

With wit and ingenuity, Michael Shermer tries to dissect Humanity, and Its rich history. A brilliant attempt to find satisfying answers.

[Kolbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book detailing why people believe what they do. This book went over several different standpoints on God and religion for example, Agnosticism, Atheism, and obviously Christianity. One of my favorite discussions in the book is, in an age of science are religious people becoming scarce or are they on the rise. The quick answer would be that people believe in God more than they used to, but I would highly suggest that you read the polls and studies done they are very fascinating. I really enjoyed the book I just wish certain topics would have been discussed in more depth.

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too technical at times, but interesting. Shermer doesn't totally dump on believers, having been a born-again Christian at one point. He now is skeptical of religion, but allows that many others might not be. Not so much looking at how religion rose, but just an overall view of how/why people today believe.

[J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be incredibly frustrating multiple times through the book. As background, Shermer and I have similar backgrounds in fairly literalist christianity but have moved into more skeptical stances as adults. He is, of course, a fairly devout skeptic, while I am a fideist similar to the types he discusses in the book. (Note that anyone who discussed with me would call me a theist, but I'm NOT a theist according to the definition he gives near the end of the book, one of many little frustrations throughout.) So let me be up front and say that I agree with the VAST majority of conclusions he draws in the book,and this would be, in many ways, very similar to the book I would write on the topic.

Many sections of this book are strong, particularly when he focuses on understanding how and why we believe. His explanations of man as storyteller and myth-maker, and his research into why people believe and disbelieve in god(s) are interesting and thought-provoking. But there's weird sections, too, and I will illustrate with the one I found most disturbing:

In chapter 5, he discusses arguments for God's existence. Again, I want to be extremely up front: I don't believe that it is possible to have any logical or scientific proof of god's existence. I believe that any such proofs could only be personal and existential, essentially non-transferrable. So I agree with his rejection of the validity of those proofs. But. Through this section, I repeatedly felt like he was trying to convince me not to believe the arguments. His quick, snappy argument / counterargument format gives a strong impression that theistic arguments (which, remember, have been being debated for thousands of years now) are simultaneously lacking any subtlety or persuasive power and obviously false for all to see. But neither of those can possibly be true. First, there are incredibly refined versions of these arguments which, while not convincing to me, are impressive and majestic and logically reasonable. Similarly, doesn't the fact that so many people buy into these arguments tell us something about the arguments themselves? Certainly they aren't as easily falsifiable as Shermer seems to imply. This whole section seems to take believers as opponents to be dissuaded (rather than his stated goal of understanding belief itself) and doesn't even do them the service of treating them with respect of giving them strong versions of their own positions. And who is the target audience of this section, anyway? Are there a bunch of religious theists who are only religious because of scientific arguments going to be reading this book? This whole chapter leaves me befuddled, as if this were a section from another book, shoe-horned into this book.

So that's one particularly frustrating example, but there are a few others scattered throughout. (For instance, I'm not a theist, according to this book!) To reiterate: there's definitely some good stuff in here, but for a book supposedly trying to understand belief and believers, and which--to its strong credit--often goes out of its way to understand and commiserate, it also seems occasionally dismissive and belittling of them.

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professional skeptic Michael Shermer takes on one of the most formidable issues of modern life: Why is there religion rather than no religion? To be more precise, why is it that in an age of high-tech wonders, when people in general are living better off than ever before, and scientific inquiry is filling in the holes of the unknown in the physical world, religious belief persists and was, at the time he was writing (late 1990s) seemingly more popular than ever? Shermer looks at the matter from primarily a social science perspective, through the lenses of sociology, anthropology, history, cognitive neuropsychology, and mythographic studies. He admits up front that he is a strong agnostic (is not 100% sure that there is no god, but strongly leans in that direction), but also does not get too much involved with the various philosophical and theological arguments for or against god. To him, these arguments as such are so much pretzel logic. He is, however, interested in them as data points in his exploration of why humans believe religious ideas.

The book definitely fits the popular science mold, which means there is enough science and data to qualify it as scientific, but it is not written as a formal scientific study, which makes the book readable to the non-expert. It also allows Shermer to indulge in some speculation and argumentation. Shermer's loose thesis is that human brains have a "belief engine," a biological inheritance that tends toward brains adopting certain kinds of beliefs that get lumped together in the social structure called religion. His evidence for the belief engine and its effects is mostly inferential, but that is the nature of social science versus physical sciences. Given complex systems (a concept he refers to on several pages) interacting with each other, any theoretical model is difficult to "prove" in the absolute sense, but can be inferred from the preponderance of evidence. Much of this is well-reasoned and thought-provoking and challenging. I have a quibble regarding Chapter 10, which is about Stephen J. Gould's theory of contingency as a factor in biological and social evolution. Shermer strongly supports Gould's theory and takes quite a bit of time defending it against its critics, such as Daniel Dennett and Murdo William MacRae. Shermer then applies the theory to the moral argument for religion, the argument for god as the law-giver of morality and that humans would live horrible, immoral lives without god to do them this favor. My feeling about this chapter is not that it is wrong as such. I would have to take more time exploring the various arguments before concluding about it. I simply feel that this chapter is irrelevant to his thesis about the belief engine. It is as if Shermer had an idea, but he didn't know where to put it, so crowbarred it into this book. Aside from that, this book should be of great interest to anyone who wants to know about the sociology of religion and what we can reasonably conclude from the data.

[The Other Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Returning to Michael Shermer’s How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God after nearly a decade felt like retracing a path in a landscape I once thought I knew intimately. I first read the book in 2015, at a time when my atheism — not necessarily fresh, but still tinged with the exhilaration of shedding inherited certainties — was something I was learning to inhabit. This second reading revealed how much of that earlier self had been reading with the eagerness of someone seeking intellectual affirmation. Now, with more years of lived complexity behind me, Shermer’s arguments and premises met a reader who no longer seeks confirmation so urgently, but instead looks for nuance, friction, even contradiction. The text had not changed, of course, but the interpretive lens through which I apprehended it had acquired scratches and refractions that made the experience richer.

Shermer’s central project, his attempt to map the origins and functions of belief, presents itself as a kind of intellectual topography: neat, systematic, and grounded in empirical soil. He draws from cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, sociology, and the natural history of human thought to explain why humans believe in gods, spirits, patterns, and narratives. On my first reading, I found this multimodal approach stirring; it seemed as though he were unfurling a cartographer’s parchment of the mind, promising that belief could be plotted with the precision of a coastline. Revisiting the book now, I became more attuned to the unevenness in that map: the territories where cognitive tendencies blur into cultural-historical forces, and where neither science nor skepticism can fully account for the unruly textures of human experience.

Read my full review of this book at: https://theotherpaula.wordpress.com/2...

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shermer illustrates that our "belief machine", our mechanism for understanding the world, arose from our need to believe _something_ in that believing true things and disbelieving false things increases our chances of survival. Unfortunately, that same mechanism easily picks up and believes false things and disbelieves true things, especially where those mistakes don't cost us too much. At the same time, he helpfully illustrates the features of worldwide cults and religions that are shared with Christianity, gently illustrating both the universality of our hopes made manifest in beliefs, and also the truly mundane nature of the Christian tradition. Well written and respectful of belief, while still advocating an evidence-based reality and mindset

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shermer is very sharp! I'm not sure why, but I kept hearing some of these sentences in Carl Sagan's voice. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, he illustrates why the scientific method is the best way to learn about ourselves, our world, and the universe. Not a believer in any traditional way, he treats believers with respect, and I prefer that approach to, for example, Richard Dawkins' in-your-face confrontational stance. I've had discussions with both believers and non-believers and find that the non-confrontational approach promotes discussion while militant atheism does not.

[Dave Pusey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first chapter the most of this book. I found chapter 2 and 3 a wee bit drawn out, still good just a little long. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Michael Shermer has written as I find his perspective on religion interesting.
The main thing I appreciated in this book is how the author doesn't engage in proving or disproving a supernatural being as that seems insoluble.

[Eduardo Barraza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful explanation of why the mind makes up things that aren't real.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a very good and worthwhile read. I think some of the material needs to be re-evaluated and updated at this point in time.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts off rather strong and interesting, but it descends into several final chapters of rambling.

[Tracy Brower · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a believer but it’s interesting to understand social dynamics of belief systems.

[Roling K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, as usual. Although, this book wasn't quite as interesting as "Why People Believe in Weird Things," it still focuses on a lot of similar topics.

[Shourov Hasonov Pre · Rating 3 out of 5]

🟦🟦🟦🟥

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

My notes and quotes:

Origin myths among indigenous peoples, of course, neatly fit this description. Landau, however, goes on to show how scientific theories of human origins are no less susceptible to narrative bias. Was it bipedalism that gave rise to tool use, which generated big brains? Or was it tool use that led to bipedalism and then big brains? Were early hominids primarily hunters – man the killer ape, warlike in nature? Or were they primarily gatherers – man the vegetarian, pacifist in nature? More importantly, does the narrative change in response to empirical evidence, or does the interpretation of the evidence change as a result of the currently popular narrative? This is a serious problem in the philosophy of science: To what extent are observations in science driven by theory? Quite a bit, as it turns out, especially in history and social sciences. And this fact supports the thesis that humans are primarily storytelling animals. The scientific method of purposefully searching for evidence to falsify our most deeply held beliefs does not come naturally. Telling stories in the service of a scientific theory does. (p. 149-150).

Jesus himself made it clear that ultimate redemption would come within the lifetime of his contemporaries: “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). Two thousand years later over one billion people profess Jesus to be the Messiah who not only redeemed Jews from their Roman oppressors, but who will deliver us from ours. (Such is the power of belief systems to rationalize all discrepancies – one being that this is the Kingdom of God on Earth.) (p. 188).

The Jehovah’s Witnesses must hold the record for the most failed dates of doom, including 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, and others all the way up to 1975. One of the more novel and audacious rationalizations for failed prophecy came after Armageddon’s nonarrival in 1975. In a 1966 book published by the Watchtower Society, Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God, the Witnesses established the date of creation at 4026 B.C., declaring that “six thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of 1975.” The Watchtower Society’s president, Frederick Franz, at a Toronto, Ontario, rally, blamed the members themselves. Because Jesus had stated that no man will the “day or the hour” of his coming, the Witnesses jinxed the Second Coming: “Do you know why nothing happened in 1975? It was because you expected something to happen.” Undaunted, they recalibrated again, citing October 2, 1984, as doomsday. Finally, in 1996, the leaders of the church learned the Millerite lesson. In the November 1996 issue of Awake!, members discovered that “the generation that saw the events of 1914” would not, after all, be seeing the end of the world. Instead, this oft-quoted line was replaced by a much vaguer “is about to” clause, reducing dissonance indefinitely. (p. 203-204).

Isaiah 65:20-23, 25 – According to The Interpreter’s Bible, in these Isaiah passages “the meaning is not that the present world will be completely destroyed and a new world created, but rather that the present world will be completely transformed … there is no cosmological speculation here.” Indeed, in the Hebrew Bible it is not until the book of Daniel – the latest addition to the canon – that one can find reference to humans ascending to heaven. For mortals, heaven generally meant a new Kingdom on Earth, not a place to go where God resides. The shift from earthly paradise to cosmological firmament began in Daniel and was reinforced especially by Jesus who portrayed to his oppressed peoples that redemption was just around the chronological corner. Yet even Jesus made intriguing references to the Kingdom that “has come upon you” (Luke 11:20), that has suffered violence since the time of John the Baptist (Matthew 11:12), and especially in Luke 17:20-21, where he seems to infer that heaven is a state of mind: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (p.209).

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but an urban legend oops and a caveat
On page 220, Shermer repeats one version of the QWERTY myth when he says the normal typewriter layout was "designed for nineteenth-century typewriters whose key striking mechanisms were too slow for human finger speed." He then goes on to point out the sequence DFGHJKL on the home row and says, "It appears that the original key arrangement was just a straight alphabetical sequence, which made sense in early experiments before testing was done to determine a faster alignment. The vowels were removed to slow the typist down to prevent key jamming."

The first quote is partially wrong or confusing, and the second is incomplete, as illustrated by an entry on the typewriter at one of the two main urban legends-refutation websites, About.com's Urban Legend Reference Pages.

From About.com:

"For years, popular writers have accused Sholes of deliberately arranging his keyboard to slow down fast typists who would otherwise jam up his sluggish machine. In fact, his motives were just the opposite. ...

"If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances."

So, the modern key spread was not done to slow down typists; it simply was, in a phrase Shermer should appreciate, a near-optimal evolutionary adaptation of the original keyboard layout to mechanical constraints of the time.

And, as for his implication that an alternative layout might be better? (Something believed by many others, not just him.) About answers that one, too:

"The Dvorak keyboard sounds very good. However, a keyboard need to do more than just 'sound' good, and unfortunately, Dvorak has failed to prove itself superior to QWERTY. ... A U.S. General Services Administration study of 1953 appears to have been more objective. It found that it really didn't matter what keyboard you used."

Not a huge deal, but a professional skeptic should get this one right.

====

Now, on to the more serious objection.

Shermer, in my opinion, explains HOW religious belief may have come into being, but not WHY.

Man the pattern-seeing, or even man the pattern-making out of white-noise seeing, I agree with. But, why do the seen patterns have to have a religious vision to them?

THAT's the question Shermer doesn't answer. To attempt an answer, he would have to delve into psychology of religion, as well as cognitive science, even more than he did, IMO. Paleoanthropology of early homo sapiens would also be needed.

Also, pattern-seeing falls somewhat short on the "how," in my opinion. Rather, I believe that religious belief was developed in part to FORCE patterns onto massively contingent medium-term temporal patterns.

For example, some ancient culture asks why it has a drought, which is NOT part of the normal rain patterns.

Answer... the seen pattern of some divinity, malevolent or angry.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

After I read Why People Believe Weird Things, I really wanted to get a hold of more books by Michael Shermer, renowned skeptic and founder of Skeptic magazine. And while this book is enormously valuable, it sails far over my head sometimes. It is not as fun or readable as WPBWT, perhaps because that book was more of a general collection of self-contained essays and this books is a grand dissertation on a topic. Nevertheless, there is a lot here to think about.

The subject of the book is about how and why people believe in God in an age where science can seemingly answer questions of existence better than faith. Many chapters have to do with scientific and philosophical arguments for God. The chapter on the “Ghost Dance” was particularly interesting to me in explaining the role of religion in people of oppressed cultures. Shermer talks about a Native American myth about the destruction of the white man and ruling the Red Man ruling the world--not dissimilar from Christianity, which was essentially born from a Jewish minority in Ancient Rome and somewhat of a reaction to being repressed by the Roman majority. Now that Christianity has grown, firmly entrenched, it seems at times that this group still likes to persist in the belief that they are being held down by Godless, “liberal media,” secularists, believers in evolution (virtually all scientists), what have you. And suddenly it makes sense--no matter what the Christian’s position in life, no matter how much money he has, or what his station or rank in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter: it is easier to be a Christian if you believe that you are being oppressed by SOMEONE. But lest I rant about followers of JC (sorry, it’s so easy ‘cause it hits so close to home) the point is that the theme of the enemy being destroyed and the righteous inheriting the earth is one that recurs throughout humankind, in many different forms. In modern times there is the UFO/Nation of Islam story about how Louis Farrakhan visited a UFO, and was told that it would rain destruction on white America but would save those who embrace the Nation of Islam (I’m not making this up). While history is continuous, forever changing, with thousands and thousands of things that can happen, there are actually only a limited number of human reactions to them, which is why many of our stories in many different cultures are similar (the creation of the earth, the flood story, the idea of a savior, etc.).

While this book can be one giant headache, it is extremely provocative and interesting. Shermer does not attack religion; he merely offers that by it’s very definition, it is an issue of faith, that can only be decided by faith.

[Nicolas Shump · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read the first edition, so I don't know what might have changed between editions. Shermer is the director of the Skeptic Society so it is not difficult to imagine his stance regarding belief and religion. Still, Shermer is obviously well-educated and makes a good case for his agnostic position.
However, I would have liked for Shermer to engage Catholicism more and better. He was a born-again Christian who lost his faith. This has resulted in what I see as a certain hostility, if not, patronizing attitude towards born-again and Evangelical Christians. He does seem to like the Pope (John Paul II) however.
Shermer is quite selective in his consideration of scientists who profess religious beliefs. He does not once mention individuals like Ian Barbour, Stanley Jaki, Arthur Peacocke and most especially John Polkinghorne.
He trots out the usual suspects like Hawking, Dawkins, and Gould to help make his case. Overall, I do thnk that he makes a good argument for the difference between science and faith. This is a reasoned account that does take belief seriously.
Like fellow skeptics/atheists, Shermer overstates the hegemony of science. He claims that science has proved all phenomena by natural law, but what do we make of the fact that Quantum Physics has supplanted Newtonian Physics? Models and paradigms change, so science is not absolute nor infallible.
Curious that Shermer refuses to even consider "near-death experiences" as there is a substantial body of literature on these phenomena.
I don't think Shermer's arguments regarding design and how we see design in nature as being particularly strong. The same goes for his attempt to explain away mystical experiences as "temporal lobe" seizures and aberrant brain physiology.
Likewise, the whole "multiverse" idea runs headstrong into Occam's Razor, which seems to be a standard embraced by Shermer in most contexts.
I don't understand why he critiques so many other scientists, but does not offer the slightest critique of someone like Hawking. Plenty of critiques are out there.
His chapter on Ghost Dances and the Messiah Myth is unconvincing. This is the comparative religion, cultural anthropology argument: If many cultures have a messiah myth, than all messiah myths are just myths. The other argument that Shermer neglects to make is: perhaps these various myths point to a "truth" that is beyond science?
His chapter on Gould and glorious contingency seems to me like Gould's attempt to bring the anthropic principle back into play. It reminds me of process theology, what I've read of it, in that God continues to be involved in the process of the universe.
A good book, but not as good as Shermer thinks it is.

[Mahbub Zaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listening to Shermer reading his "How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science" became interesting towards the end, where he expressed his (and shared by many others) feelings on freedom in a world without the necessity of a super-natural being for the meaning of our existence. How he finds more meaning in this given condition of meaninglessness, leaving us to the openness of defining our own meaning, living the life to the fullest, in absence of daemons and angels, fire and the heavens; how we still rise to our morality in a world without a 'third-party' judgement day, and all those meanings that we can't help attaching to our loving yet equally frightening God.

I was not so sure about those feelings, either in the intensity or in their nature. But, then a deeper feeling of sadness, a vague feeling of loosing, gradually but unceasingly began to flood my neurons. Have I, after all these times of 'conditioning' in a corrupted milieu, lost the very will to become free? Have we became slaves, not in our physical limitedness, but in our hearts who do not even seek freedom anymore? Have we not done anything at all right, then? Like that bird of Tagore, we must have completed the lesson then - learned not just to carve our wills, but to have no free will at all. Completeness indeed.

[Joel Justiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

x Happy is the man who finds wisdom…its profit better than gold… - Proverbs 3:13-18
xviii Contrary to what most religions preach about the need and importance of faith, most people believe because of reason.
27 When half a million men blanketed the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 4, 1997, it was the largest religious rally in American history.
95 Unless the supernatural exists, there can be no miracles. A miracle is really a name for something we cannot explain. The point of miracles is to inspire the faithful.
149 Human reasoning is well designed for detecting violations of conditional rules when these can be interpreted as cheating on a social contract.
227 Contingencies have far-reaching effects only when the system has started anew or is precariously hanging in the balance.
235 Human freedom is action taken with an ignorance of causes within a conjuncture of events, that compels and is compelled to a certain course of action by constraining prior conditions.
236 “A Wonderful Life” shows that we all have power and importance.
The lack of meaning for the universe does not prevent us from finding meaning in life.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Shermer doesn't have a problem with you if you believe in God. What he has a problem with is the way that some people (he mainly focuses on Christians here) try to use science to prove God's existence. Moreso, they use BAD science with little understanding of the scientific method, and that really rankles.

This is a really interesting book to read if you're curious about the history of the intersection of God and science, and if you are looking for something less adamantly atheistic than Hitchens or Dawkins, this is a good place to start. The book isn't without faults; it focuses pretty much exclusively on science and Christianity in the United States, and I would have liked to see explorations of how other cultures handle this split. I also would have liked more in-depth exploration of how individuals who are both religious and scientifically-minded negotiate this, but overall I found it extremely readable and thought-provoking.

[Allen Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very formative book in my current thinking of how we come to believe what we do. Scientific, religious, or otherwise. Schermer writes a column which I like in Scientific American, so i anticipated this being a good book. I wasn't disappointed. He's done his homework and looked human perception in the eye and yet writes without judgement.

He asserts we are a "pattern-seeking, social animal" that bring to adulthood what our parents taught us. The challenge we encounter then is how do we determine what is still true or untrue? What should be our criteria. I found this topic fascinating because of the acceleration of change I see in perception of supernatural entities and events, i.e., God and miracles. I see this book as one of the bridges that lead us where we need to go in our beliefs of the supernatural.