[quote=jpinpb] For years, I have had my own version of the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In my version, God appears before Adam and Eve, and tells them that they have disobeyed Him. He admonishes them, and they will have to leave immediately. Everything will be completely grotesque, grim, ghastly and gruesome outside of Eden. God spares them no detail.
Adam and Eve, both crestfallen and fearful, prepare to leave, but God, feeling perhaps a little guilty for the severity of his decision, looks at them and says, “Yes, things will be bad out there, but I’m giving you self-deception so you’ll never notice.”
Gives meaning to ignorance is bliss, right?[/quote]
If you subscribe to the idea that religious or spiritual beliefs contain self-deceptive aspects, then the first archeological evidence of self-deception occurs in Western Europe approximately 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. A profound change in behavior took place at this time. In fact, this segment of human development has been referred to as ‘the creative explosion’ or ‘cultural takeoff.’ In addition to evidence of ritualized religious behavior, art, music, jewelry for personal adornment, trappings of status, and even the concept of inherited status, suddenly appears in the archeological record.
“We have physically evolved very little in the past one hundred thousand years—and certainly not in the past 30,000. So I would have to say that self-deception had little or nothing to do with our physical evolution. Self-deception, no doubt, played a substantial role in our cultural evolution.
“Humans are the only animals known to self-deceive. There is no evidence to suggest that any other species besides our own possesses this capability. At a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 1991, Washington University anthropologist Robert Sussman said, ‘Self-deception is what separates us qualitatively from all other animals and even early hominids.’
“Hierachies certainly exist within animal groups. But, a hierachial system does not need deception or self-deception to exist. Science generally recognizes two types of thinking. Concrete thinking—thought that occurs within the realm of the senses—is the form of thinking found in most animals. Concrete thinking is a linear progression like beads on a string or rungs on a ladder.
“Abstract reasoning is the second form of thinking and is found in only a few species: humans, chimps, gorillas, dolphins, etc. Since an intentional lie is an abstraction, only animals with brains complex enough for abstract reasoning can intentionally deceive. A chimpanzee is a notorious liar. But it takes the even more complex brain of a human to self-deceive. Self-deception is a relative newcomer on the behavioral scene. It didn’t help make us human. Self-deception didn’t exist until human brains reached their current level of complexity. In short, self-deception had no part in making us—we made self-deception.”
