In You are not entitled, we raised the possibility that a liberal society and liberal values, although clearly preferred by many, may actually be detrimental to a society and ultimately unsustainable. Earlier, in Let there be no difference made, we saw how natural selection has not “designed” us to be spiritually fulfilled and happy, presumably because those things – while clearly pleasant – may have no discernible survival advantage, and may even be a disadvantage.

The purpose behind making these points was not to suggest that we should abandon a preference for liberty or spiritual fulfillment, but to highlight the fact that we cannot afford to ignore reality in the process. We can reasonably suppose that it will be little consolidation to a society who succeeds in achieving a complete state of non-violence and shortly afterwards finding itself invaded and overrun by a more aggressive neighbour with fewer sensibilities, to then reflect (presumably after death) that they may have been the “moral” victors, if not the actual victors.

This week, Jefferson Seaver over at the “Center for Inquiry” reports on a Daily Telegraph story which reports a British scientist suggesting that authoritative religion may be the only solution to combating climate change, if “no country was prepared to take the lead and a ‘punisher’ was needed to make sure the rules of co-operation were not broken” (although, as he rightly points out, the current brand of U.S. fundamentalism will not fit the bill since “people who believe in the End of Days, who believe the world is going to come to an end, don’t care about climate change.”)

The ubiquity of religion, despite its patent absurdity and laughably false claims, suggests that it must have some kind of tangible benefit to have lasted this long, regardless of the fact that it does not do a good job of accurately describing the world. Lord May, the scientist in question, suggests that religion “makes for rigid, doctrinaire societies, but it makes for co-operation”, and that it may be “immensely stabilising in individual human cultures.” Where we may expect faithful representation of the world to be a survival advantage for organs such as the eyes and ears, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that a religion which does not faithfully represent the world could nevertheless confer a significant enough advantage on its adherents that it manages to survive for thousands of years, despite that fact that it’s utter garbage. If so, it is also possible that there are potential problems which only religion has the capability to solve. If these problems are significant enough that, for instance, they put the survival of the planet at risk, then this would bode ill for atheists across the globe.

It is not the place of this brief article to critique such a view in detail. Religion may have survived for reasons completely unrelated to concrete benefit, or it may have survived because of a lack of alternative tools that we now possess. It may, for all we know, just be a good replicator which has no significant survival advantages or disadvantages, or has both; an “end times” mentality, a tendency to accept oppression and put one’s faith in a “saviour”, and direct injunctions to plan for the future are all aspects of some types of Christian religion which we may expect to be positively detrimental to survival. Further, although religion may be “immensely stabilising in individual human cultures”, the long and sordid tale of religious wars throughout the centuries would seem to suggest that it’s completely unsuitable for the type of international cooperation that the subject of the article is claiming is necessary to combat climate change. It may also be that the social and civic role that religious institutions have played have been ultimately far more important to the survival of religion than any of the points of doctrine. Finally, the cynic in us compels us to suspect that those who believe in a “punisher” incline towards the attitude that it’s always the other guy who’s going to get punished, not themselves.

But, the point is that we have another example where ideals – in this case, a value placed upon reason over faith, just as we previously looked at a value placed upon freedom over social control, and a value placed upon happiness over necessity – may conflict with reality, and when anything conflicts with reality it inevitably tends to lose. There are certainly cases where idealism can overcome what is perceived to be reality, where a simple failure to be beaten by obstacles plays a large part in defeating those obstacles. But there are also plenty of cases where ideals did not and could not have overcome the facts, the socialist experiment of the Soviet Union being a recent example. Although generally human nature tends to overplay the magnitude of potential difficulties and a “can-do” attitude is therefore frequently an effective strategy for success, it is important not to automatically assume that ideals either can be implemented – or that they can survive for long after they have been – or that the world would be a better place if they were.

While the present author doesn’t quite agree with Seaver when he says, in reference to this particular example, that “such a world is not one I would wish to live in” – since he’d be more inclined to invite the believers to have a go if they really did think it would be a good idea – most sane people would agree that it is a world we would at least prefer not to live in. Further, anyone reading this today will likely be dead before climate change – if it ever occurs as portended – becomes anything approaching a global catastrophe, so it’s an academic question for all practical purposes in any case. But, at all times, thought must be given not just to the kind of world one would like to live in, but also to the kind of world one has to live in. Global catastrophes aside, failure to do this may one day leave the idealist with a unique opportunity to carefully consider the meaning of the phrase “be careful what you wish for.”