Zirkus, Zauber, Zaubermeister

Wilson interpretiert die Religion im Ursprung als dem sozialen Zusammenhalt der Gruppe dienend, so wie Erzähltalente in einer Familie der Unterhaltung und der Festigung dieser Familie dienen. Zuletzt schwingen sich die Priester der Schriften zu Magie und Heilsversprechen auf, die die Mehrheit der einfältigen und unterhaltungsfreudigen Menschen gerne hört. Ob es dafür ein materielles Substrat gibt? Jedenfalls wird die emotionale Einlullungs- und Ordnungskraft der Religion dieselbe erhalten, die Theologie aber nicht.

Wir werden sehen.

“If this interpretation is correct, the final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline. But religion itself will endure for a long time as a vital force in society. Like the mythical giant Antaeus who drew energy from his mother, the earth, religion cannot be defeated by those who merely cast it down. The spiritual weakness of scientific naturalism is due to the fact that it has no such primal source of power. While explaining the biological sources of religious emotional strength, it is unable in its present form to draw on them, because the evolutionary epic denies immortality to the individual and divine privilege to the society, and it suggests only an existential meaning for the human species. Humanists will never enjoy the hot pleasures of spiritual conversion and self-surrender; scientists cannot in all honesty serve as priests. So the time has come to ask: Does a way exist to divert the power of religion into the services of the great new enterprise that lays bare the sources of that power?”

Wilson, Edward O.. On Human Nature (S.192-194). Harvard University Press. Kindle-Version.