Excerpt #127 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Evolution has also given us another set of survival instincts that occur as a result of our evolved brains.
Among all vertebrates, relative to size, we have the largest brains.
Unique among all species, we are able to reflect on our behavior and project where our behavior is taking us.
When we project on the road ahead, it’s not a pretty picture.
We are like an airplane flying overhead with someone on the wing popping rivets until finally the airplane crashes.
We are beginning to understand that our short-term behavior for survival is destroying us.
We want to survive for the long-term, not the short-term.
We want to sustain humanity and advance our civilization.
The word “sustainability” has come into wide usage.
We understand its meaning: that we must leave this planet as we found it or improve it, so those who follow us will have the same opportunities we have had.
We are a species, likely the first on this planet, who has an opportunity to advance beyond short-term survival instincts.
LIFE IS ALWAYS TALKING; WE’RE NOT ALWAYS LISTENING.
We are beginning to understand that our behavior must be characterized not by fear, greed, power, control, immediate gratification, self-centeredness, authoritarianism, denial of
inequalities, and the like.
It must be characterized instead by health in all of its dimensions: physical, mental, and emotional.
By kindness toward each other and toward other nation-states.
By respect for our environment, our ecological systems, and our biosphere as we inhabit a very narrow and fragile band within our solar system that enables life as we know it to exist.
These long-term survival instincts and associated behavior can sustain humanity and advance our civilization.
Each of these sets of survival instincts, the older short-term ones and our emerging long-term ones, generates powerful belief systems in the areas of politics, economics, social interaction, and religion.