Half a century ago, anthropologist Colin Turnbull spent several years with Mbuti pygmies in eastern Congo. On one occasion, he took his Mbuti assistant to an overlook that offered a view of a distant plain where buffalo grazed. The Mbuti were familiar with buffalo, but they lived their lives in the forest and were not familiar with distance. The assistant pointed to the distant buffalo and asked what kind insects they were.
To him, distance was measured in meters, not kilometers, and he refused to believe that the bugs were actually huge animals.
(This was the point that Father Ted tried to make with Dougal when he contrasted the plastic toy cows with cows in a field: “These are small, but the ones out there are far away.”)
Escape from Camp 14
A more discouraging example of this hardwiring is the story of a 26-year-old man who escaped in 2005 from a North Korean prison camp, first to China, then South Korea, and then the United States. He was in the prison camp, not because he had committed a crime, but because he had been born there as the child of two inmates.
Though he made it to freedom, the story doesn’t have a particularly happy ending. Life had taught him since birth that survival meant husbanding precious energy by shirking work. Survival was immediate—steal food or shoes, avoid punishment, hide to rest from difficult manual labor. He adapted poorly in the West to the vaguer notion that if he didn’t arrive on time or didn’t complete his work that he might eventually lose his job.
Christian Hardwiring
This is similar to Christians who seem hardwired to not be able to see what, to atheists, seem obvious—for example, that the skepticism that Christians apply to other religions sinks theirs as well. Or that “the atheist worldview is hopeless,” whether true or not, is irrelevant to someone looking for the truth. Or that quoting the Bible does nothing to satisfy the atheist’s demand for evidence.
Remember the Mbuti assistant? He adjusted to the idea of distant animals and size constancy over a few days. And the Clergy Project—an intellectual halfway house for clergy who are losing or have lost the faith—shows that even the most-invested believers can choose reason over Christianity.
Other links:
- Patheos has a new blog, Rational Doubt, started by members of the Clergy Project.
- I argue that no well-informed atheist becomes a Christian for intellectual reasons here.
Study one religion, and you’ll be hooked for life.
Study two religions, and you’re done in an hour.
— Anon.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
