[QUOTE=truthpizza]
The apparent claim of faith in the situations I’m talking about is that it occurs independently of any reason. Suspecting a dangerous animal may have caused a rustling has a sensible reason for retreat. In fact, the person probably doesn’t believe there is definitely a dangerous animal there, but runs because he doesn’t want to take that risk. This strikes me as very different from a belief without any evidence.
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I think you missed the point of the example. I’m suggesting Human psychology is designed in a way such that it is natural to immediately attribute thought and design to unknown phenomena. We would, of course, judge such behavior as “rational” now, but I don’t believe the ability to avoid predators was reasoned out; rather, our psychology evolved this tendency to personify natural phenomena, and it proved to have an evolutionary advantage to primitive man.
Humans certainly have a built-in psychological tendency to “over detect” the presence of predators. Have you ever been in a situation where you quickly glimpse something and think it is a living thing (e.g. a small object on a table is a bug)? That tendency is of little use today (unless you’re still foraging in packs along the African Savannah), but it does explain why humans still find it easy to attribute thought and design to phenomena which, when examined logically, can be explained entirely in natural terms: It’s an artifact of a now-mostly-obsolete survival mechanism. It doesn’t surprise me that many folks can’t “shake” the feeling.
If the pros don’t outweigh the cons, religious behavior would not be a product of evolutionary forces. We are definitely on shaky ground here, but I think scientists should be interested in why–if there is no logical reason to believe–every culture on earth has developed religion.
Your theory seems to be that theists don’t really believe “without a reason”, but that they are unable or afraid to articulate the real reason. I am merely pointing out that if you are limiting “reason” only to things associated with logical cause and effect, you are missing another possibility: That our minds are simply designed to accept illogical religious belief as a by-product of an early evolutionary advantage.
Another more fantastic possibility is that by having some persons in a group especially susceptible to religious belief, the group as a whole benefits. Again, we have the example of herd animals in which some specific group members innately prefer to live on the fringes of the group rather than in the main body; these members are more likely to be picked off by predators (so the innate tendency isn’t individually useful), but their position as “bait” and their ability to alert the rest of the group to a predator’s presence may give the group an overall advantage. Thus, although religious belief may be an overall negative to folks who have it (e.g. they are more likely to act on things without having a sound, logical reason for doing so), the presense of these individuals may benefit the group in some way.
There are several problems with this idea–it implies, for example, that religion and ultimately culture itself carries a specific evolutionary advantage, rather than existing as an unintended side-effect of some other, obsolete advantage–but if it is true, it argues we might not want to convince religious people to give up their beliefs, for fear it could harm the group. Again, I’m not supporting this argument, but merely using it as an example to show that there may be ways other than personal, logical justification to validate religious beliefs.