On Chain Letters: Human Nature and Its Discontents

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Below: a digression into the latent pagan in us all. Have you ever received a forwarded e-mail by one of your more superstitious friends like this:

Hey,

You’re not gonna believe this, but I swear it’s a miracle. It has worked for seven people I know. [Note: By now this letter is so far removed from you by wish-thinking Luck God worshippers that the so-called miracle of this ritual is improvable- then again, it can’t be disproved, as we so constantly hear.] Okay, so you make a wish. Write it on a piece of paper, a receipt, whatever! And then kiss it and throw it away. Forward this e-mail to eleven or more of your best friends—the more you send the better!—and your wish will come true! If you don’t send it…

 

I could struggle through a poorly-informed debate on why these viruses continue to exist, citing Dawkins, even a little Kurzweil, but instead let me offer three things: First, the chain mail is a meaningless ritual based solely on the remnants of a long-forgotten but nevertheless ubiquitous superstition. Second: the only thing that chain letters sent via electronic mail do is clog the internet’s servers and encourage wish-thinking (that is, the elusion of reality). Earlier, these chain letters were handwritten, stamped, and clogged postal workers’ mailbags across the world.

Finally, a digression for those of us who posit the following argument ad infinitum: When a believer says that it is human nature to have faith in god or gods, that it is a phenomenon occurring in humanity since recorded history, and how that must mean something, I want to remind them that these chain mails are of the same ridiculous, pre-programmed, infectious, detritus-of-human-nature ilk. I hope those who accept religion understand that when they say—“It is in our nature to believe in something,” they are also saying “It is in our nature to forward along chain mails so that Charlotte will go out with us,” or, to put it more succinctly, “It is in our nature to be superstitious idiots.” If that is what they are debating, then I wholeheartedly concede. Does it make the Inquisition okay? No. I’m hoping that the above—once and for all—damns the half-baked argument of “Stupid’s been around for a while” as arrogant and missing the point.

If not, perhaps you want to respond differently when you meet the superstitious. If the superstitious person says, “But religion has been around forever.”

You can say, “So has the appendix.”

The appendix, I think, is one of the strongest arguments toward another enlightenment. Although religion, which is man made, has not been around as long as the appendix, I would argue that it is natural for us, even in regards to our genetic ancestry, to fill in the blanks. The appendix is very much like religion. Those of us who have escaped the bonds of religion—but maintain a slightly sentimental, passive, or moderate view of it—think of it as a relatively benign, if not overall positive force in the world. We ignore it, lest we think of suicide bombers, and even then we tend to argue that the Seventh Crusade is more an issue of politics and oil than it is of the utterly deranged among us. Similarly, we ignore our own appendixes. They occupy some valuable real estate among our more useful organs, they are inevitably non-organs, but we are born with them. It is in our nature to have them, so to speak. But when they swell, when they grow to immodest proportions, they become a threat.

Allow me to go a little further: Without open-minded, scientific, and, finally, logical exploration, we would not have the means to remove the appendix. Without medical science, that is, our appendixes would still go on killing us every once in a while. When, three thousand years ago, someone’s appendix burst, it was in our nature to question why a person so unfairly died, someone who undoubtedly suffered horrible pain before expiring. We may have blamed the gods, the stars, the way it rained the week before. But such questioning is now the errand of a fool.

Agreed. It is anatomical for us to believe in the supernatural. But I argue that, just like the appendix, belief in the supernatural is utterly useless and potentially deadly. It is also plausible, based on the evidence that neuroscience shows us, that humans are healthily gifted as skeptics. That’s right. Call it a “too good to be true” meme, if you like. And skepticism is something within us that would do well to be strengthened.

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