The God Gene

I'm interested by the arguement that there exists a 'God Instinct', which tilts those with the necessary genetic make up to be more inclined to believe that God exists (or something along those lines).

My first thought was that this is slightly embarrassing for religion - making it ultimately a matter of biology not revelation. If you believe because you were always going to believe and not because you chose to take a leap of faith isn't that reductive, even embarrassing, for those who hold that God freely gave them religion? It has nothing, ultimately, to do with truth. Or even 'Truth', if you prefer.

Then I read this article by Nick Spencer, a director at Theos. He argues that the God gene could work in a totally different argument - that it is suggestively consistant with a divinely created universe. Evolutionary advantage could suggest that:

Not only does God tilt creation towards life, and life towards sentience, and sentience towards intelligence, and intelligence towards morality and wonder, but he tilts that package of intelligence, morality and wonder that we call human nature towards himself. Creation delivers us to God's doorstep and bids us only knock at his door.

Of course it doesn't prove anything - transferring from helpfulness or inevitability to truth or goodness jumps Hume's is-ought gap - but perhaps it's less of a problem than I thought.

Spencer concludes saying its bad news for the atheist who must defend his/her beliefs for their 'unnaturalness'. I'm not sure he's right, there seems something rather noble about being unnatural, and this is where I worry that the God gener might still be bad for religion.

If religion were weird or 'unnatural' it would give religious faith a valourous, against the odds sense of overcoming an 'animal' disposition. What greater obstacle to overcome than genetic disbelief? Bigger than martyrdom or persecution. And what is the effect on personal experience - for the fool that saith in his heart there is no God, but trusts in him anyway?

The most reasonable answer is probably that of Michael Argyle, as quoted by Spencer:

psychological research can tell us nothing about the truth, validity or usefulness of religious phenomena: these are questions which must be settled in other ways

He is, however, only repeating the conclusions made eloquently by William James in Lecture I of The Varieties of Religious Experience. The 'nervous' causes of any belief do not determine our judgement of it, which is based rather on other values (how pleasing it is, how well it fits with other beliefs, etc). As the mad genius is no less a genius for being mad so the mad believer is no less true or insightful for his madness.