Adolf Hitler

To avoid being arrested for evading military service in Austria-Hungary, Adolf Hitler left Vienna for Munich in May 1913 but was forced to return--then he failed the physical. He volunteered for the Bavarian army the following year and served during all of World War I on the Western Front. His experiences in the fighting affected his thinking about war thereafter.

After World War I, Hitler came to control the National Socialist German Workers Party, which he hoped to lead to power in Germany. When a coup attempt in 1923 failed, he turned, after release from jail, to the buildup of the party to seize power by means that were at least outwardly legal. He hoped to carry out a program calling for the restructuring of Germany on a racist basis so that it could win a series of wars to expand the German people's living space until they dominated and exclusively inhabited the globe.

He believed that Germany should fight wars for vast tracts of land to enable its people to settle on them, raising large families that would replace casualties and provide soldiers for the next war of expansion. The first would be a small and easy war against Czechoslovakia, to be followed by the really difficult one against France and Britain. A third war would follow against the Soviet Union, which he assumed would be simple and quick and would provide raw materials, especially oil, for the fourth war against the United States. That war would be simple once Germany had the long-range planes and superbattleships to fight a power thought inherently weak but far distant and possessing a large navy.

Once Hitler had come to power in 1933, German military preparations were made for these wars. The emphasis in the short term was on weapons for the war against the western powers, and for the long term, on the weapons for war against the United States.

In 1938 Hitler drew back from war over Czechoslovakia at the last minute but came to look upon agreeing to a peaceful settlement at Munich as his worst mistake. When he turned to the war against France and Britain, he could not persuade Poland to subordinate itself to Germany to ensure a quiet situation in the east; hence, he decided to destroy that country before heading west. He was determined to have war and initiated it on September 1, 1939. To facilitate the quick conquest of Poland and break any blockade, he aligned Germany with the Soviet Union, assuming that concessions made to that country would be easily reclaimed when Germany turned east.

Hitler had originally hoped to attack in the west in the late fall of 1939, but bad weather--which would have hindered full use of the air force--and differences among the military led to postponement until the spring of 1940. During that interval, Hitler made two major decisions. Urged on by Admiral Erich Raeder, he decided to seize Norway to facilitate the navy's access to the North Atlantic and did so in April 1940. Urged by General Erich von Manstein, he shifted the primary focus of attack in the west from the northern to the southern part of the force that was to invade the Low Countries. They might then cut off Allied units coming to aid the Belgians and the Dutch.

The new strategy at first appeared to work when the Germans in a few days broke through the French defenses and, within ten days, reached the Channel coast behind the Allied forces. Ordering their air force to destroy the cut-off Allied units, the Germans first wanted to turn south to prevent the buildup of a new defensive line, a decision on which the German commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Hitler agreed. As it became clear that many Allied soldiers might escape, the direction of the armor was reversed again, but too late to halt the evacuation of much of the British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers. The thrust southward in early June 1940 brought a swift collapse of remaining French resistance, and this complete victory gave Hitler an aura of triumph, which assured him the enthusiastic support of almost all of Germany's military leaders, especially as he systematically tied them to himself by generous promotions and a system of mass bribery.

Because it looked as if this war was over, Hitler and the military began planning for the wars against the United States and against the Soviet Union. On July 11, the resumption of construction of the navy to defeat the United States was ordered; by July 31, after first hoping to invade the Soviet Union in the fall of 1940, Hitler, on the advice of his military staff, decided to attack in the east in the late spring of 1941.

As Britain refused to accept defeat, Hitler planned to combine three measures to knock it out of the war: the German air force would destroy the country's capacity to defend itself; there would be an invasion if Britain did not surrender; and the expected quick defeat of the Soviet Union would remove that country as a possible source of aid for Britain and, by ending any danger to Japan's rear, encourage that power to move in the Pacific and tie up the United States.

Hitler wanted Japan to join in the war with Britain and promised to join Japan in war with the United States if that was thought necessary by Tokyo, assuming that this would be the other way for Germany to acquire the navy for war with the United States. A short campaign in the Balkans was to secure what he believed might be a vulnerable southern flank; the last step in this, the airborne seizure of Crete, proved so costly that the Germans attempted no major airborne operation thereafter.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union, begun on June 22, 1941, seemed at first to work as planned but quickly ran into trouble. The initial blows, which were supposed to bring the Soviet Union crashing down in a few weeks, did not have that effect. Thereafter, the question always was which sector to attack and whether to retreat. In this, Hitler was at times at odds with some generals, but others always took his position. As the war turned increasingly against Germany, disagreements became more frequent. Hitler still expected to win while some generals were trying to find a less messy way of losing. None advised against going to war with the United States. For the 1942 offensive in the east, Hitler and his military leaders agreed on striking in the south; this project ended in disaster at Stalingrad. A new major offensive in 1943 not only ended in defeat at Kursk but also was followed by the first successful Red Army summer offensive.

When retreats were advocated, Hitler was always concerned about the loss of mat[eacute]riel that could not be hauled back, about the need to reconquer whatever had been given up, and about shorter lines, which released Red Army units for new offensives. Some generals, Erwin Rommel and Walther Model, for example, occasionally acted without or against orders to pull back and were not punished. Others were sent home to collect their monthly bribes in retirement.

As Hitler saw increasing danger from the western Allies, he relied more on Admiral Karl D[odie]nitz to hold them off by submarine warfare. When that effort was blunted in 1943, he both supported the building of new types of submarines and geared strategy on the northern portion of the Eastern Front to protection of the Baltic area, where new submarines and crews could be run in. Enormous resources were also allocated to new weapons designed to destroy London. It was Hitler's hope that the Germans could drive any Allied troops who landed in the west into the sea and then move substantial forces east in the interval before any second invasion. When this plan failed, Hitler turned to holding all ports as long as possible, to hamper Allied supply lines and to prepare for a counterstroke that would defeat the western Allies. This counterstroke, the Battle of the Bulge, would then provide the opportunity to move forces east after all.

As the Allies closed in on Germany, Hitler increasingly hoped for a split in the alliance he had forged against himself. He believed Germany had lost World War I because of the collapse of the home front and therefore assumed that establishment of a dictatorship and the systematic killing of all Jews would guarantee victory this time. When the end was near, he married his mistress and then committed suicide with her.

The term "Hitler's War," sometimes attached to World War II, is accurate at least to some extent; obviously, only the massive energies of the German people, harnessed to his will, made the war possible and made it last so long. But there cannot be any doubt that in harnessing that energy to extraordinary projects and horrible crimes, Hitler placed his stamp on that war and on the twentieth century.

Genghis Khan

In less than 100 years, Genghis Khan and his descendents established the largest empire in the world, exceeded only by the British Empire in the 19th century. Through cunning diplomacy, spiritual mission, and brute force, Genghis Khan unified the incompatible Mongols and then set out east and west to swiftly conquer vast parts of Asia. The Mongol army swept down on cities and villages, taking anything as booty or victims. By 1280, Mongol rule stretched from China's Yellow Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, a total of 12 million square miles. Among the descendants of Genghis Khan, the most well-known is his grandson, Kublai Khan, admired for his enlightened rule and famous for his opulent lifestyle. During its brief existence, the Mongol Empire was responsible for an estimated 30 to 40 million deaths, the destruction of several major dynasties, and retarding or altering the development of many other civilizations. Yet, at the same time, Genghis Khan and his descendants increased Europe's knowledge of the Orient, established major trade routes between East and West, and unified large regions in western Russia and China that remain united today.


When Temujin was 9, his father took him to live with the family of his future bride, Borte. On the return trip home, Yesukhei encountered members of the rival Tatar tribe, who invited him to a conciliatory meal, where he was poisoned for past transgressions against the Tatars. Upon hearing of his father's death, Temujin returned home to claim his position as clan chief. However, the clan refused to recognize the young boy's leadership and ostracized his family of younger brothers and half-brothers to near-refugee status. The pressure on the family was great, and in a dispute over the spoils of a hunting expedition, Temujin quarreled with and killed his half-brother Bekhter, confirming his position as head of the family.Genghis Khan was born in north central Mongolia and named "Temujin" after a Tatar chieftain that his father, Yesukhei, had captured. Young Temujin was a member of the Borjigin tribe and descendant of Khabul Khan, who briefly united Mongols against the Jin (Chin) Dynasty of northern China in the early 1100s. According to the "Secret History of the Mongols" (a contemporary account of Mongol history), Temujin was born with a blood clot in his hand, a sign in Mongol folklore that he was destined to become a leader. His mother, Hoelun, taught him the grim reality of living in turbulent Mongol tribal society and the need for alliances.


At 16, Temujin married Borte, cementing the alliance between the Konkirat tribe and his own. Soon after, Borte was kidnapped by the rival Merkit tribe and given to a chieftain as a wife. Temujin was able to rescue her and soon after she gave birth to her first son, Jochi. Though Borte's captivity with the Konkirat tribe cast doubt on Jochi's birth, Temujhin accepted him as his own. With Borte, Temujin had four sons and many other children with other wives, as was Mongolian custom. However, only his male children with Borte qualified for succession in the family.


When Temujin was about 20, he was captured in a raid by former family allies, the Taichi'uts, and temporarily enslaved. He escaped with the help of a sympathetic captor and joined his brothers and several other clansmen to form a fighting unit. Temujin began his slow ascent to power by building a large army of more than 20,000 men. He set out to destroy traditional divisions among the various tribes and unite the Mongols under his rule. Through a combination of outstanding military tactics and merciless brutality, Temujin avenged his father's murder by decimating the Tatar army and ordered the killing of every Tatar male less than 3 feet tall. Temujin's Mongols then defeated, the Taichi'ut, using a series of massive cavalry attacks, and had all the Taichi'ut chiefs boiled alive. By 1206, Temujin also had defeated the powerful Naiman tribe, thus giving him control of central and eastern Mongolia.


The early success of the Mongol army owed much to the brilliant military tactics of Genghis Khan and his understanding of his enemies' motivations. He employed an extensive spy network and was quick to adopt new technologies from his enemies. The well-trained Mongol army of 80,000 fighters coordinated their advance with a sophisticated signaling system of smoke and burning torches. Large drums sounded commands to charge, and further orders were conveyed with flag signals. Every soldier was fully equipped with bow, arrows, shield, dagger, and lasso. He also carried large saddlebags for food, tools, and spare clothes. The saddlebag was waterproof and could be inflated to serve as a life preserver when crossing deep and swift-moving rivers. Cavalrymen carried a small sword, javelins, body armor, a battle-ax or mace, and a lance with a hook to pull enemies off their horses. They were devastating in their attacks. Because they could maneuver a galloping horse using only their legs, their hands were free to shoot arrows. The entire army was followed by a well-organized supply system of oxcarts carrying food for soldiers and beasts alike, as well as military equipment, shamans for spiritual and medical aid, and officials to catalog the booty.


Following the victories over the rival Mongol tribes, other tribal leaders agreed to peace and bestowed on Temujin the title of "Genghis Khan," which means "universal ruler." The title carried not only political importance, but also spiritual significance. The leading shaman declared Genghis Khan the representative of Mongke Koko Tengri (the "Eternal Blue Sky"), the supreme god of the Mongols

The Legend of ZORRO

In 1850  the people of California are voting to decide whether or not to join the United States as a state. During one of the votes, a wild gunman named Jacob McGivens, attempts to steal the box of votes. Before he makes off with the votes, however, Zorro appears and chases after him and his men. Zorro succeeds in recapturing the votes, but in their scuffle McGivens manages to pull off Zorro's mask. A pair of Pinkerton agents see the face of Zorro, recognizing him as Don Alejandro de la Vega. Zorro then makes a make-shift mask out of his costume and rides off on his stallion, Toronado, to deliver the votes to the governor.

Upon returning to his mansion, Alejandro is greeted by his loving wife, Eléna. Eléna believes that Alejandro can now give up being Zorro, but Alejandro is sure that the people will still need him. Angered of Alejandro's neglecting his wife and son while going out as Zorro, Eléna kicks him out of the house. The next day, after sending her now 10-year-old son, Joaquin to school, Eléna is confronted by the Pinkertons, who reveal that they know who Zorro really is. Soon after, Alejandro is served with divorce papers from Eléna.

Three months later, Alejandro is living in a hotel, depressed over the separation from Eléna and not having been summoned as Zorro in all this time. His friend and childhood guardian, Father Felipe, convinces him to attend a party at a French count's new vineyard, and there Alejandro finds out that Eléna has been spending time with the count and her former schoolmate, Armand. Later, after drinking himself stupid, Alejandro witnesses a huge explosion go off close to Armand's mansion and becomes suspicious of his ex-wife's long-time friend.

Afterwards, McGivens and his men attack a peasant family, the Cortezes, with whom Alejandro is friends, in order to seize their land deed. Zorro succeeds in rescuing Guillermo's wife and infant son, but McGivens shoots Guillermo just before disappearing with his gang, the deed to the Cortez home in hand. Zorro subsequently stakes McGivens out at Armand's mansion to confirm his suspicions and finds out that Armand wanted Cortez's land to build a railroad. At the same time, he encounters Eléna, who has been doing undercover espionage for the Pinkertons and discovered that Armand is to receive a mysterious shipment.

Zorro tracks McGivens to a cove where the count's cargo is being delivered. However, on a class trip nearby Joaquin has also come across McGiven's gang and hitched a ride. Zorro saves his son, who does not recognize him, from the bandits, but the only clues he is able to retrieve are a piece of the cargo - a bar of soap - and the name Orbis Unum from one of the crate lids. Felipe and Alejandro learn that Armand is the head of a secret society, the Knights of Aragon, which secretly ruled Europe in the past. Armand plans to throw the United States, which is perceived as a threat to the Knights' power, into chaos before it can gain too much power to be kept in check.

Sometime later, Alejandro is captured by the two Pinkertons and is told that they black-mailed Eléna into divorcing him and getting close to Armand to find out his plans; since California isn't yet a state, they couldn't conduct a legal investigation. Joaquin stumbles upon his father's whereabouts and frees him from prison. Zorro then heads over to Armand's mansion, while Eléna also arrives there. After meeting up, they eavesdrop on Armand's meeting and learn that the soap bars actually containglycerin - a precursor to nitroglycerin, which Armand plans to distribute throughout the Confederate Army, with the help of Confederate Colonel Beauregard, to destroy the Union. After confessing her involvement with the Pinkertons, Eléna then heads back to the mansion before Armand gets back, and Zorro prepares to destroy the train carrying the explosive shipment. Meanwhile, McGivens arrives at Felipe's church to look for Zorro, but ends up shooting the priest and kidnapping Joaquin.

At the mansion, Armand is informed by his butler Ferroq about Eléna's deception and, showing her the bodies of the Pinkerton agents, brutally confronts her with his knowledge. He takes her and Joaquin hostage and prepares to take her on the train, forcing Zorro to stop his own sabotage and getting himself captured. He is unmasked in front of his wife and son, much to Joaquin's shock. Joaquin and Eléna are taken away by Armand, while McGivens is tasked with killing Alejandro; but unexpectedly, Felipe arrives and helps Alejandro overpower McGivens, who is killed when a drop of nitro lands on his head. Felipe then reveals that the crucifix around his neck shielded him from McGivens' bullet, and Alejandro goes to save Eléna and Joaquin.

Zorro catches up with and lands - along with Toronado - inside the train, and engages Armand in a sword fight. Meanwhile, Eléna has Joaquin escape and then fights Ferroq in the nitro storage car, eventually stuffing a bottle of nitro into his trousers and pushing him off the train just as it approaches its rendezvous point with Colonel Beauregard, killing them in the resultant explosion. Joaquin, unwilling to be left behind, collects Toronado and rides after the train.

Further along the tracks, under the eyes of a huge crowd, the governor is signing the bill that will make California a state. As the train gets closer, Joaquin has Toronado hit a track switch, causing the train to pass around the governor's car. Zorro and Armand's duel takes them to the very front of the locomotive; however, the track is a dead end blocked by a large pile of rails. Zorro hooks Armand to the train and escapes with Eléna. The train plows Armand into the block, killing him and causing the nitroglycerin to detonate, destroying the train. With Zorro as an official witness, the governor later signs the bill, and California becomes the 31st state of the United States of America.

Later, Felipe gets Alejandro and Eléna remarried with Joaquin as the only witness. Alejandro apologizes to his son for not telling him the truth, and he admits that Zorro's identity is a family secret rather than just his own. Eléna then allows Alejandro to continue being Zorro, accepting that it is who he is, and Zorro rides off on Toronado to his next mission.

The Birth of Christ

Only two of the four accounts of the life of Christ in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, tell of his birth. These Infancy Gospels, as they are known, both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and today pilgrims and tourists mill in their thousands around the Church of the Nativity built upon the supposed site of Christ’s entry into the world, just as they have for centuries. But only Luke mentions the Census and the journey from Nazareth. Neither mentions the ox or the ass. The visitors from the east are nowhere referred to as Kings and nor is it mentioned that there are three of them.

Both Gospels mention King Herod, but his dates do not correspond with the dates of a possible Roman census under the Governor Quirinus mentioned in Luke, which came ten years after Herod the Great’s death. And what census, then or now, would take you away from your main residence to be counted in a town which you or your ancestors have long since left?

We reveal that even though we assume that Joseph is present at the birth of Christ, this is not mentioned in any of the gospels. In fact according to purification laws outlined in the Temple Scroll and in the book of Leviticus, under Jewish law the only people that may have been present at the birth would in fact have been women.

With help from leading academics, archaeologists and Jewish and Christian theologians, we visit many of the locations mentioned in the Gospels to place the birth of Christ in its historical, cultural and Jewish and early Christian contexts and piece together the real story of The Nativity.

Can Religion Be Explained Without God?

I want to believe in God, but “religion” stops me. I hope God has less to do with religion, and religion with God, than we usually think. 

Some claim that religion needs nothing supernatural, that religion, without God, can form and flourish. To others, the claim is blasphemous: God exists and religion is God’s revelation. All agree that religion affects humanity profoundly.

Why is religion a force so powerful? Even those who believe in God should understand how personal psychology and group sociology drive religion. 

Philosopher Daniel Dennett’s book Breaking The Spell describes religion as a “natural phenomenon.” No one naturalizes religion better than Dennett, who defines it succinctly as “belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.” He suggests that, “the question of whether God exists is actually of less importance to the modern world than maybe it once was.”

Dennett encourages us “to think not just historically, but biologically or evolutionarily.” He says, “We have to realize that Homo sapiens—us—descended from earlier hominids; we share a common ancestry with chimpanzees going back about 6 million years. Can we see what religion adds to the mix that makes us so different from all other animals?”

He thinks that we can. “I think we can discern religion's origins in superstition, which grew out of an overactive adoption of the intentional stance,” he says. “This is a mammalian feature that we share with, say, dogs. If your dog hears the thud of snow falling off the roof and jumps up and barks, the dog is in effect asking, ‘Who’s there?’ not, ‘What’s that?’ The dog is assuming there’s an agent causing the thud. It might be a dangerous agent. The assumption is that when something surprising, unexpected, puzzling happens, treat it as an agent until you learn otherwise. That’s the intentional stance. It’s instinctive.”

The intentional stance is appropriate for self-protection, Dennett explains, and “it’s on a hair trigger. You can’t afford to wait around. You want to have a lot of false positive, a lot of false alarms [because you can’t afford even one false negative!]”

He continues: “Now, the dog just goes back to sleep after a minute. But we, because we have language, we mull it over in our heads and pretty soon we’ve conjured up a hallucinated agent, say, a little forest god or a talking tree or an elf or something ghostly that made that noise. Generally, those are just harmless little quirks that we soon forget.But every now and then, one comes along that has a little bit more staying power. It’s sort of unforgettable. And so it grows. And we share it with a neighbor. And the neighbor says, ‘What do you mean, a talking tree? There’s no talking trees.’ And you say, ‘I could have sworn that tree was talking.’ Pretty soon, the whole village is talking about the talking tree. The talking tree idea has entered the world. It has made multiple copies of itself. Everyone in the village has a copy of the talking tree idea. What’s it for? It’s for itself. It just happened because it could. It’s like a virus.”

He goes on: “When I first started studying religion, people said, ‘Oh, an evolutionary account of religion. What do you think religions are good for, Dan? They’ve got to be good for something [for evolution to have selected it for propagation]. After all, every human group that’s ever been studied has some kind of religion.’ And I said, ‘Every group that’s ever been studied has the common cold, too. What’s it good for? It’s good for itself. Similarly, these ideas are just good for themselves. They’re good at reproducing in minds.’ They start out, as it were, as wild superstitions that happen just because they can. They enter through cracks in our cognitive machinery. Then, they’re around; they can be used. People begin appreciating them; people begin to use them for other purposes—and now we’re on our way to organized religion. And the ones that we see today, the ones which have the big budgets and the big churches, the musical histories and all the rest, those are the hardy survivors of a very large competition.”

Dennett says that, “If we think about all the features of religions from an evolutionary point of view. we see lots of ‘design’ features that are otherwise a bit baffling. Were they consciously, deliberately designed by clever priests? For the most part, no. It’s just that the religions that happen to have this ‘mutation’ did better than the religions that didn’t. And so they were better able to spread themselves.”

To Dennett, religion is explainable by modern methods of social science. And there’s noresidual, nothing left hanging: There’s no need, or room, for God.

I like his arguments; I buy them all. But still I wonder: Even if religion as we know it, particularly organized religion, is entirely of human origin, does it then follow that there is no God?

I speak with a theologian who appreciates religion as a social construct, but also believes in God. J. Wentzel van Huystteen, an expert on “theological anthropology,” seeks ancient origins of religion. The core of religion, he says, is “how to make sense of our own vulnerability of death and suffering,” and religion provides “great incentives for ethical behavior … in spite of the many harms it has done.” 

To van Huyssteen, “God is always going to be a deeply personal commitment.” He agrees that “we can make strong scientific arguments why religion can function perfectly well without God” and that “for getting God back into the picture, science is not going to be helpful.” He is “deeply impressed and overwhelmed by science,” he says, “but at the same time, do I need to accept that empirical methodology should always have the absolute last word in explaining away religion? Science has no reach beyond the empiricism that it itself professes.”

This is indeed the core issue: In seeking ultimate truth, can we ever be epistemically justified in going beyond empiricism?

 

Van Huyssteen argues that “a very clear commitment to religious traditions and to the kind of God or gods that we believe in is not something that ordinary science, such as evolutionary psychology, can explain to me.”

On the other hand, he does not argue that “the more we find religion, the more likely for God to exist.” He admits that even though “our ancient ancestors had a clear sense of symbolic activity, ritual, religious faith,” this is not a good argument for the existence of God. Similarly, he says “people today, the world over, are still religious, and this too is not a good argument for God”—“but it is an argument for what it is that we humans, or most of us, feel we need,” he adds. He then says, “I’m willing to prune back all kinds of excessive or extravagant beliefs, but I don’t think this goes to the heart of the spiritual sense, which I find to be so important for many people.”

Van Huyssteen agrees with Dennett that religious belief is a natural and continuing human need. But they part ways in that van Huyssteen gives credence to the content of that belief, which, at its core, is a deeply personal connection to the divine. But to do so, he must reach beyond empiricism, venture beyond science.

To psychologist Susan Blackmore, that’s an egregious error. She is an expert on how certain cultural ideas, called “memes,” can grow and propagate and take hold of people’s minds. She proffers that religion originated with early cultures wanting control over an uncontrollable world. “Our ancestors invented spirits,” she says, “to explain the weather or certain events. That’s the ground of it all, and at some point, there were competing ideas about God—competing memes (which is any information that’s copied from person to person). The idea is to treat cultural products like biological products, all of them in competition. Take songs and jokes and playground games and clothes: The ones we know are the ones that won the competition.”

She continues: “Religions are like that too. They compete to infect people’s brains and thus propagate into more people. What makes a successful religion? Originally, perhaps, one that seemed to bring the rain. But at some point, we started some major religions which evolved to have some really, really nasty tricks. So if you look at the major religions on the planet today, particularly the Judeo-Christian traditions, you see the most incredibly well-evolved complexes of memes that hang out together.”

Blackmore takes Christianity’s story of Jesus, from virgin birth to resurrection from the dead, as an example of “intrinsically unbelievable things.” Why do people go around believing these things, then? The “very clever packaging,” she answers, which is “basically a ‘copy me’ instruction backed up with threats and promises. If you’re a Catholic, you have to learn the catechism all at once. You put on your white dress, you attend the ceremonies, keep the traditions. This discourages people from picking and choosing because once you start to pick and choose, then memes loose their power. If ordinary rationality enters, these things look ludicrous, don’t they?”

Blackmore continues: “You are infected with these ideas when very young, when you have almost no mental immunity, no skills of argument—and it’s heaven if you believe and pass on these ideas to other people, and it’s the hell of toasting forks and pits of sulfur if you don’t. It’s the same in Islam: If you die propagating these memes, you’ll get so many virgins (I don’t know what women get).” 

She explains that, “religious memes are very infectious. There’s room for only one per brain because it encompasses and regulates so much of one’s life. It takes over a whole lot of jobs in your brain—giving you meaning in life, a reason to get up in the morning, a social life. Once you understand how the memes of religion work, you can see the awful affects they have on people and how difficult they are to get rid of.” She concludes with her hope: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just let go of believing in those daft things?”

Blackmore sees religion as almost all bad—founded on false, silly promises and empty, vile threats. But because it is empowered by memes—these infectious, parasitic ideas that lock minds and control belief—religion can commandeer belief systems, institutionalize itself, and jump generations. 

To explain religion without God, memes are crucial, so I’ll put them to the test. Because memes are analogized to viruses, I speak with Denis Alexander, a biologist and a believer. How does he defend religion against the explanatory onslaught of memes?

“The meme metaphor has no substrate,” Alexander says. “We don’t actually absorb ideas, especially complex ideas, as a sort or viral invasion of our brains. The anti-religious rhetoric of the memologists seems kind of like medieval ideas of demonology when people kept their windows closed for fear that demons would come in, infect their brain, and do terrible things to them without their knowing. But in reality, we have beliefs that we have to justify, that we have to give reasons for. And that’s why the memes rhetoric doesn’t work for me.”

Alexander admits that religion does fulfill psychological and sociological needs. “We are social animals,” he says. “When a bunch of skeptics and atheists get together to listen to a well-known speaker supporting their skepticism and their atheism, they’ll have group cohesion, they’ll feel good about it, they depart with their belief supported, they feel happier—their atheism has been nurtured by the group. It’s the same when football fans go to a football match. And when people go to church, the same processes are going on. But so what? At the end of the day, none of that tells us about the true status of what’s really going on.”

So whereas religion can be explained without God, the question is: Even though you are explaining it, could there still be a fundamental reality to it?

“All we can do is to give descriptions,” Alexander says. “We, as scientists, can measure the brainwaves of religious believers, but that doesn’t tell us whether those beliefs are actually true or not. We could do similarly with scientists. We could hook them up, observe their brainwaves, but that wouldn’t tell us whether their scientific theories are true. Truth is based on different kinds of evidence, whether for scientists or religious believers.”

A Christian and a scientist, Alexander agrees that the methods of science can analyze the activities of religion, but disagrees that the findings of science can adjudicate the reality of religion.

As for me, I respect the clarity of categories, differentiating religious behaviors from transcendent truths. But this internal consistency, which generally I like, here shields religion from any assault, making religion impossible to challenge. That I don’t like. Anything impervious to scrutiny troubles me. So in my anxiety, I turn to my favorite skeptic.

Michael Shermer is an expert on belief systems. “Religion is a social institution,” he says. “It can be explained like any other social institution, political institution, or economic institution. It's just in that same category. You can believe that and still believe in God.”

He continues: “Where it gets interesting is to examine the reason for religion. What purpose does it serve? Here’s where we begin to see human construction, not only of religion, but of gods. To me, there's just overwhelming evidence that humans constructed all of this, religion and God, as a belief system. Humans have what I call a ‘belief engine’—modules in the brain whose function it is to find causal connections between things in the environment. It's called learning. Everybody does it. You have to do it to survive. All animals do it. We do it spectacularly well.”

But, he says, “not perfectly well. We are pattern-seeking animals; for example, keeping track of when migrating herds were going to return next year and when the fruit was going to be ripe. Those are patterns that help us survive. However, we also sometimes find patterns that don't really exist. These are sort of false positives, superstitions. Maybe I believe that if I twirl around three times clockwise and twice counterclockwise, the rain gods will spare us the lightning. So a tendency toward superstition—‘magical thinking,’ we call it—is part of the baggage of being a pattern-seeking animal.”

I ask Shermer why, as science expands and religion contracts in their respective capacities to explain the world, the power of religion is still strong.

“Because the primary function of religion is not to explain the natural world,” he answers. “It is mainly a social institution. People don't go to churches, temples, or mosques to hear a lecture about the big bang. They go for some other reason—for family, society, social group, often to hear a message of inspiration about helping other people, doing the right thing, avoiding sin, and so on.”

As for the future of religion, Shermer worries about “the negative side of religion and its intermixing with politics and social policy.” He says: “I don't care what gods people believe in. I'm happy for them if that makes them happy.”

“In a patronizing way?” I ask my friend.

“No. In a respectful way,” he answers. “Because, ultimately, I can't prove that my beliefs are absolutely true either. So, hey, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, let's go our separate ways, and can't we all get along.”  

Go 10,000 years into the future, or 100,000 years. Assuming humans are reasonably similar, does Shermer see religion still existing in something akin to its current form?

“Yes, probably so,” he responds. “My secular humanist friends would disagree with me and say, ‘Oh, no! Someday we'll move beyond religion.’ Yeah, well, maybe. But it sure doesn't look that way. The trend is going in the opposite direction.”

Here’s my take. Religion, all of it, can be explained without God; nothing supernatural is needed. I’ve not much doubt about this. To account for religious beliefs and behaviors, even those who believe in God should accept this demonstrable truth. 

While arguments about God are philosophical and cosmological, those about religion are biological, psychological, and sociological. Thus, the methods of science can analyze religion. 

But is there residue? After doing all the science, does anything religious remain? This is the ultimate crux of the matter.

Frankly, I can hope but I don’t know. But this I do know: Even after explaining religionwithout God, nothing follows regarding the potential existence of an actual God. No analysis of human religion can ever disconfirm a supreme being.

Conversely, anyone hoping to convince me that God exists should not hold up “religions of the world” as an affirmative argument. For me, institutional religion offers scant help for coming closer to truth.