As you may have noticed, this is not your typical book about religion. Most of them, and there are billions, were written for one purpose. The author thinks that he or she knows "how the cow ate the cabbage." What they want to do is let the world know how correct they are and how wrong everyone else is. They mean this in a nice way, but still...

"Hey, everybody, look at this bullshit that I thought up and ... but ... no ... it's real! It must be real because the Queen of Hearts told it to me during a mescaline induced out of body experience. Oh, and what you believe makes no sense."

The thing of it is, is. There I go again saying, "The thing of it is, is." I really don't know why I do that. In any case, I want to make one point perfectly clear.

4. I don't know every detail about how and why humans developed the ability to do complex language which led to abstract thinking and, thus, to a belief in God.

5. I know what happens after we die but I am totally OK with anyone who wants to believe in a fairy tale after-life because, well, so do I. (As an aside, here are 4 things that I believe are absolutely real: 1. Santa 2. The Grinch 3. The Easter Beagle and 4. The Great Pumpkin.)

6. There is no system of beliefs that I am trying to promote ... well ... except to say that sex is good and you should do it as often as possible.

7. OK, it looks like I am on my way to making 10 points perfectly clear. Oh, well, I'm writing a book about religion so a list of 10 things makes sense, right?

8. I have found that people who are moronic automatrons seem to be generally happier than the folks I know that do independent thinking. However, I think independently and I'm pretty happy. But, then, I get to have sex every day with the most beautiful and intelligent woman on the planet. HA...HA...

10. Finally, to all of the people in my life who have called me arrogant, I have a suggestion. Do you think that you would mind calling me intimidating? It kind of means the same thing but intimidating sounds so much sexier.

That list got a bit off track but what I was trying to say is, "I don't know everything but I also know that you don't either."

Perhaps, that is the overall big main point that I'm really trying to make by writing a book about religion.

I want to point out, however, that I am capable of constructing a logical argument and I know how to do the process of science. I can think critically. And I can tell when you are not. Furthermore, I have no sense that I have discovered anything that is anywhere near some kind of cosmic reality or spiritual awakening or correct set or morals or page in life that we should all be on.

In a way, I sort of use science as my spiritual guide. I know, I know ... science and religion are not the same thing. Nevertheless, my life is guided by its principles and philosophies. Therefore, I am primarily interested in the discovery of reality. What makes me somewhat unique is that I bring ideas together from across domains of scientific inquiry in order to extend this reality to places most people wouldn't have thought about it going.

Science and religion are not separate things. Science can totally explain religion and vice versa. But not in the way you think. For example, in the fantasy movie Field of Dreams Kevin Costner says in a crackling voice, "Dad, you wanna have a catch?" For me, there is nothing more real. Chew on that for a moment and come back to it after you finish this book.

Me of a Little More or Less Faith is about religion. Perhaps, you expect me to be critical and one sided in my opinions. Do I think that Christianity must be either good or bad? Do I think it has to be either right or wrong? Is there no middle ground? Is it real or is it fake? Is there either heaven or hell? Is there only God and the Devil?

Certainly, religions tend to embellish the natural human desire to dichotomize everything. But, no, that is not where this journey is headed. I am a big picture sort of person. I prefer to step back and look at the whole thing. That is why we are talking about anthropology and neuroscience in order to explain who Homo sapiens is or are and how our biology does religion. There is no value judgment here.

This book is not about which religions are bad. Unless, of course, you are Jehovah's Witnesses. There are some religions that are pretty bad and that is certainly one of them. Or maybe the folks who pretend to be religious in order to have an excuse to blow stuff up. The guys who did the World Trade center say it was for Allah. Yeah, like the 72 virgins had nothing to do with it.

I think that the vast majority of reasonably religious people in the world are pretty good most of the time. I think that they are simply being human. I also don't see that any of them are any different than any others of them. I am not pointing at people and saying, "All of you are wrong and all of us are right!"

Rightness and wrongness are not what I am talking about. I thought I would say the "no value judgment" thing twice and in two different ways. I usually have a hard time getting people to understand this concept. We seem to be inherently prone to doing value judgments. Or, as I am talking about it, our brains seem to be pre-programmed to do value judgements.

In fact, I often get de-valued for suggesting that we stop making value judgments.

What I'm saying is that belief in things for which there is no evidence is a defining human quality. It's what we do. It is what our biology has evolved to be good at. It helps to explain why we survived. It is who we are. But it is also crazy and illogical and can be very funny.

What I am trying to do is write a book about our biological disposition for fanciful beliefs and how this can be dumb and smart at the same time.

This chapter is specifically about monotheism. It is a brief and warped overview of the history of our species believing in a single deity. It is from my perspective and from Lewis Black's perspective and, I hope, from a big picture reality perspective. And a humor perspective.

I'm not trying to replace anyone's belief system with a new one that I think is better. In fact, I heavily encourage most of you to continue uninterruptedly thinking or believing whatever the hell it is you want to think or believe. If you get married, you might think about thinking like me on this. It will come in handy.

We should probably start with a time line of monotheistic faiths. Understand, however, that the idea of having only one God dates back to way before recorded history. In fact, throughout recorded history there have been numerous monotheistic faiths and the idea of one God varies dramatically from one to the other.

You see, religion is kind of like a pork chop. He...he... There are pigs in many places and there are many ways to prepare a pig for the dinner table. A traveler from Mexico comes by and suggests that we use Jalapenos. Someone from Greece suggests we use bahari. Someone from Italy suggests oregano. Someone from Thailand suggests tamarind. Years later my grandmother is making pork chops with all these same ingredients but not the same amounts or cooking times or mixtures that any of the travelers had recommended. The spread of knowledge about cooking pork chops is like spores blowing in the wind. They both get redistributed and blown all over everywhere all the time. So does knowledge about religion.

Eventually, there are 5,000 ways to eat pork chops and all are unique but all use the same ingredients. If you try to trace each ingredient and how it is used and where it came from and how it spread, you will end up with a very confusing map. Similarly, I think that all the religions that humans have conjured up over the years are simply different mixtures of the same basic ingredients.

OK, so here is my little, maybe-sort-of, as-best-as-I-could-come-up-with, time line.

If you take modern day Catholicism and attempt to trace the roots of all its teachings here is what you will find. First, you will be totally confused. Second, you could do this for three life times and not finish your research. Third, you will find 95% of everything that is in modern day Catholicism but it may be spread around a bit and convoluted in unusual ways. Fourth, you will find a few things that are original to Catholicism but they won't be what you expected. They will be little things like the way the napkins are folded or the kind of wheat that is used to make communion wafers. (I just made up the napkin and wheat thing for illustrative purposes.) Fifth, you will get the idea that the guys who created the early church did their research. They did very extensive research. They took a little of this from these guys and a little of that from those guys and a heap of this other stuff from these other guys and put it all in a large pot and simmered it on low for several hours until it was done.

The conclusion you will eventually come to is that whoever came up with the idea for Christianity used all the same ideas that had been used millions of times before. He or she just mixed them and cooked them in a new and original way.

It seems to me that an all powerful and omnipotent God would come up with stuff that was entirely original.

I think its fine for someone like Shakespeare to use lots of non original ideas and put them together in an original way but it seems to me that the almighty should be at least as creative as Bob Dylan.

Starting at the top of the list, let's look at China. The oldest recorded Chinese dynasty places Shangdi, or just Di for short, as the omnipresent almighty single creator and ruler of the universe. All subsequent Chinese faiths are reverent to Di. The real Chinks actually call him "Di." I didn't just make that up to be patronizing. However, I used the derogatory term "Chink" in order to be patronizing. No, I was just trying to be funny. I guess that when it comes to being a bigot, I'm pretty much of a wimp.

Of course, the Chinese made up about a zillion other ideas related to religion and warped the monotheistic concept in multiple ways over the centuries. Nevertheless, it is probably the case that 5,000 or more years ago there were human societies that believed there was one supreme diety.

You know, when you think about it, people who are polytheists usually believe in only one God. At least, they believe in one supreme God that they don't really pay much attention to and a ton of little Gods that help out with all the ordinary things in life. They also allow everyone else to have whatever deity they want. Polytheism is really more about tolerance than it is about an individual believing in an array of Gods.

The Indians (Hindus) and Mesopotamians (Babylonians) can also trace various forms of monotheism into the distant depths of pre-recorded history. Knowledge of this stuff is necessarily difficult to know for sure as none of these omnipotent beings ever got the idea to tell any of them to write anything down. I mean, you would think that someone would have at least got a tablet or something. Maybe God does like the Jews best. Fucking suck-ups.

In Egypt there was this Pharaoh named Akhenaten who got a lot of press. He decided that the sun God, Aton, was the one and only true God. He burned and destroyed all the temples for all the other Gods and took all their money. For about 20 years Egypt was a monotheistic nation. Then, they had a financial crisis and changed leaders. (Ever heard of that happening?) The next Pharaoh was one you have probably heard of. His name was Tutankhamen.

King Tut rebuilt all the temples and restored Egypt's polytheistic faiths and even made a guest appearance on the original Batman. I think he fancied himself a God whereas Akhenaten only fancied himself to be "like" God.

Here is a really interesting but neither here nor there extra little tidbit. The science of genetics has evolved to such an extent that they can now determine who and how King Tut was related to the other individuals in his court. The most alarming discovery is that his mother and his father were brother and sister! And his wife was his sister!! Wow!

This explains why his wife gave him a couple of stillborns, that were preserved and buried with him, and why he died at age 19 with multiple congenital anomalies.

Somewhere along in here the Jews were supposed to have been Egyptian slaves and escaped en masse. There really isn't any reliably recorded history of this, outside the scripture, but it seems possible that somehow or other they got the monotheism idea from Pharaoh Akhenaten. The problem is that the Jews didn't start writing things down until around the 6th century BCE.

When they did start writing things down the first thing they wrote down was how God had given them a tablet with the TEN COMMANDMENTS written on it. Theoretically, they got this tablet in 1313 BCE. Now ... I have just one question ... Why did God give the Jews a tablet with anything at all written on it? They would have received this tablet about half a millennium before they had a written language?

The Torah (first five books of the old testament) probably were written by multiple authors over a relatively long period of time. Especially since they had to create a written language in order to do it. If Moses had written it, then it would have been written in Egyptian.

I'm thinking they weren't motivated to write anything down because they were so good at doing unrehearsed monologues. Or, maybe they had not heard an oral story that was good enough. Among a bunch of Jews, this one sounds a little farfetched.

Perhaps, they only wrote down the stuff that was "news worthy." That means the stuff that was interesting regardless of its accuracy. Then, like all good news agencies, they had to write it down fast before the full story came out and made it uninteresting.

For the Jews it was the Torah that made them definite monotheists. They were likely polytheists prior to that but we can't be certain because no one was writing anything down. They still have stuff in their religion that seems to date back to Mesopotamia, at least I have heard that but I don't really know what stuff they are talking about, so they may have been quasi-monos but were not dedicated monos until around 600 BCE.

Wait a minute ... I know, it must be the dreidel! Yes, the dreidel has got to be Mesopotamian. Don't you think?

German?! Are you kidding me? German ... the dreidel is German? And it is only 500 or so years old? Really? Huh...

Right on the heels of the Jews were the Persians. They thought this guy named Zoroaster was a prophet who had a direct connection to God. He lived prior to recorded history so we don't have a definite date on him but he most likely lived around 1000 BCE. Like the Jews, the Persians didn't start writing things down until about 600 BCE. Therefore, we can't be certain that either Moses or Zoroaster even existed at all.

Interestingly, Zoroastrianism bares striking similarity to Christianity. It is a bit more mystical but has a lot of the same stuff such as one creator God, the devil, a savior figure, a soul, free will, heaven, good deeds, sin, and a baptismal like event. Zoroastrianism was one of the largest religions on the planet up until around 700 AD when Islam replaced it.

Greece, and subsequently the entire Roman Empire, adopted Christianity and most people know that part of the story. What you may not know is that there were a number of off-shoots of Christianity that got snuffed when Rome decided to adopt its version. What you might further be surprised to learn is that there were a number of monotheistic pagan faiths during the first three centuries. Yes, I mean people who decided that Zeus or Achilles or somebody was the one and only true God. Monotheism was quite a popular notion at this time in history.

The Muslims made it a party in the seventh century by creating a third installment to the God of Abraham but they changed his name to Allah. They fashioned their religion more after the Jews than the Christians since the Christians looked so much like the Zoroastrian-Christians that they were replacing. It wasn't until much later that they started hating the Jews. You know, it's always the ones you love that you end up hating.

The Islam that Muhammad is said to have created was part religion and part a form of government. You can't separate the religion from the government which is one reason they have such a problem with us Americans. Back in the seventh century this worked pretty well and actually united all the warring tribes in Arabia. Or, perhaps, was used as a made up explanation for why all the tribes united. The guy who kicked everyone's ass probably thought this story sounded better. It also usured in a wonderful era of science, philosophy, equal rights and a bunch of other really good things.

There is actually no archeological evidence for any of the battles that Muhammad supposedly fought and the written record seems to be a compilation from multiple authors. Sort of like Moses and the Torah. The Arabs had been previously ruled by Byzantium which was Christian. After the Byzantine empire withdrew in 632 AD there were several Arab kings but all written evidence of them was likely destroyed. Their stories were replaced with the made up tale of Muhammad.

Nevertheless, the story of Muhammad is filled with battles that he justified with passages from this new book that he supposedly solo authored called the Qur'an. A few Muslims still carry on the tradition of using the Qur'an to justify beating people up.

Then came the truth seeking Sikhs in the 15th century AD. This guy named Nanak decided he was a Guru, or teacher, and that there was only one God. This God wanted us to always seek the truth. I wonder if this God understood how that dictum might come back to bite him in the ass?

Then, in 1844 this guy named Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad Shírází stood up and declared, "I am the Bab!" You can understand why he might have wanted a shorter name.

Thus, he created the Bahá'í Faith. Interestingly, he is rare as prophets go. He said that all religions everywhere are a manifestation of the same "All-Knowing One" or God. Then he said, "And I have a direct link to him but so did all the other prophets such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. And along with me, everyone else is right about everything, too."

In essence, he proposed that all Gods are really the same God. I think that this is also what I am saying but I'm implying that the only real God is a shared figment of everybody's collective imaginations. I think he pretty much thought of God as being real. He goes on to suggest that God is whatever each group of people in each location needs him to be. Again, yeah...but...

The Bab wasn't speaking metaphorically, he meant that there was one true God who had different rules depending on which group of people he was talking to.

I think the Bab failed to understand the most basic tenet of the one God way of thinking. You are supposed to only think in one way. That means all other religions have to be wrong. He invented a chameleon God. This God has a totally different set of rules and regulations for everyone. That is great for the acceptance thing but kind of lousy for the making any fucking sense thing!

I think that 15,000 years ago humans began farming and that created large societies that sprang up quickly from relatively small gene pools. The societies that thrived were the ones that could work together the most effectively. These groups needed a leader and a bunch of hard working followers.

Previously, natural selection had favored individuals who could hunt and raise kids in small groups. At that time there was no need to control a large group of people. Their religions were all about explaining natural phenomena like volcanoes, etc.

The change to large societies of sedentary farmers all working together under the direction of a single individual required a new kind of religion. There needed to be a religion that had rules that told everyone how to live and how to interact and how to get along.

The ruler had to decide what religion all his subjects would have so they could all be on the same page working together. He had two basic choices. There could be multiple Gods in which case he could claim to be a God or a demi-God himself. Since there were so many Gods it was not a difficult stretch for the king to include himself as one. Can you imagine a King claiming to be a God?

Or, there could be only one God in which case the ruler isn't a God but he is certainly just like the one and only true God. He is the one and only true King. In his image, as it were. Yeah, I bet you thought the "in his image" thing was supposed to apply to all of us. I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to me or I wouldn't be writing this stuff.

I think that these new agrarian religions had to instruct individuals in the fine art of how to get along with each other. After all, when you settle down and buy a house you have to negotiate with your neighbors because they know where you live. And you know where they live.

These new religions also had to promote maintenance of the monarchy. For the entire society to thrive they had to be led by a single monarch.

After 15,000 years humans have pretty much tried every conceivable computation of both religious systems. Every new religion simply shuffles this stuff up and presents it in a new mix. The mix is new but the composite parts are the same.

There is a strong argument to be made that human evolution has accelerated it's pace recently due to the domestication of animals, at least in the Eastern Hemisphere. Livestock create infectious disease so tons of humans died prematurely. We descend from the few who survived. We rapidly developed more complex immune systems but we may have also become moronic automatrons at the same time.

Thus, our biology and our religion are not necessarily separable. We do religion because we have evolved to do religion. This evolution has also resulted in advanced language ability and thinking abstractly. Everything evolved together. That is why we are so comfortable thinking critically and, yet, thinking in unison with everyone else in an illogical way at the same time.

Since introspection is often difficult, let's think about it from another perspective. When you shine a light on a bat in a cave and see that hundreds of bats are moving around at light speed and not hitting anything, doesn't it appear humorous? Here is an animal that developed a unique ability, sonar, but if you change his environment just a tad he looks ridiculous.

We developed a unique ability, complex language --- abstract thinking --- complex collective thinking,* and our environment has changed dramatically. Do you think we now look silly?

(*Complex Collective Thinking, CCT, is a new term that I invented. It means the sharing of abstract ideas.)

Here is something silly that I do. I love baseball and I love my deceased father. I missed out on having a close relationship with him and he died when I was 10. I watch the movie Field of Dreams and I cry every time and then I watch it again. Even though I am an intellectual scientist I had no difficulty believing that my father was with me when the Rangers finally made it to the World Series. He was right there. I'm kinda pissed at him for not helping out Cliff Lee a little more but, maybe, he is not in the place where you get to do stuff like that. In any case, you get the idea.

If you think that you are not illogical, you are being illogical. Humans don't think logically. You are not logical and neither am I. Second, being illogical is not bad. It is good. We don't have the amount of information that we would need to have to make thinking logically the logical way to think. Therefore, we think illogically and are wrong less often. And we are able to feel OK about how we are thinking.

Because you are human, you can read the previous paragraph and not understand a word of it but still get the idea. You understand what I am trying to say even though I am butchering the act of saying it. You are using "intuition" which is an illogical synthesis of subconscious sensory input to understand me, perfectly. I appreciate that because it is hard to always speak logically.

In reality, what I propose is that you relax and allow yourself the privilege of thinking like a human. Try to think logically when that will help but don't hesitate to go illogical when that would be better. My God, use your gut ... man!

Thus, if you want to argue with me about whether or not we should all be Christians, this is what I would say:

Christianity is certainly an illogical way of thinking but what human philosophy isn't? I mean, look at our species and how we behave. How often are our actions based on anything close to reality? We think and act with our gut all the time. Would you prefer that we "go with our gut" AND make everything up at the same time? Or, would you rather we went with our gut but had some sort of reasonable framework to guide us?

Even though Christian beliefs are not scientifically accurate and the amount of logical fallacy involved in their development is obvious, there is one thing that is kind of logical. A lot of very intelligent people discussed this stuff ad nauseam over a period of 500 years. One of their goals was for humans to have a set of guidelines that would instruct them how to live their lives and how to get along with others. Christianity works pretty good for that purpose.

It is important to be flexible enough to be sensible but Christianity is not a bad place to start for some general guidelines on how to live life. Since you are a human and you will not be making all your decisions based purely on logic, it might be a good idea to learn the Christian way of behaving. It will give you some moral and ethical guidelines so you can get along with everyone else.

Here's the thing, whether you like it or not, you will join a group of humans and you will think like they think. Do you remember the bikers at the biker's bar who all had leather jackets on that said, "REBEL?"

You will join in because you are human. The question isn't whether or not you will do religion but which religion will you do?

"But I went to the monthly meeting of the Colorado Atheist's Society last night and we drew up some basic principles that we could all agree on. This guy spoke about how bad it is to be a Christian and how we should not believe in God. We are having a theme party this weekend and then we all plan to march on the capital next week."

Yeah, good thing the Atheists don't have to worry about being a religion.

If you want to be like Dr. Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski and live alone in a cabin out in the back woods for 20 years, then fine. But if you don't suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and want to join society and live like a human then you will need to choose a religion.

Why don't you pick one of these:

Official religions

Biker groups

Football teams

OK, this list of lists is going to get huge. Why don't you just go to this website and put in any word or interest or activity that you can think of and you will be directed to a meet-up group you could join. Meetup

Hmmmm ... forgiveness, love, peace, eternal life, free will, good deeds, sinners get their due ... What's so bad about being a Christian? Beats the hell out of joining the Evil Republicans Motorcycle Club.

Don't care what I think? OK, let's ask Budweiser. Whatever they say is good enough for me.

Religion, it's what we do.

Chapter 5

Table of Contents