B. F.
Skinner
I
grew up in a moderately religious culture. For many years I went to a
Presbyterian Sunday school, where a sympathetic and liberal teacher took six of
us boys through lessons supplied by the church, most of them, as I remember it,
on the Pentateuch. When I was in high school, a watch I had lost was returned
to me in what seemed a miraculous way, and I thought God had spoken to me. I
soon lost my faith, however, though I was rather troubled about it for a number
of years. In college I attended compulsory morning Chapel, where our professors
took turns reading passages from the Bible, especially the Parables. Possibly
that explains why, at 82, I lead a kind of religious life.
Contribua, envie a tradução para postagem pois o artigo é muito bom, porém, a tradução eletronica não ficou legal. hiltoncaiovieira@gmail.com
Everyday
I take communion -- not in a church with God but with myself in a Thoreauvian
community of one. I do so for 40 minutes while walking to my office. I used to
carry a pocket edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and I memorized some of them
as I walked. Occasionally I still recite one to myself, always astonished at
how hard they are to remember. Usually, as I walk, I put the business of the
day into some kind of order.
I
commune with myself again in the afternoon while listening to music -- the four
Bs (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner), Mahler, Wagner -- in a word the
Romantics. I do not read while listening, but I think about my work, and I
always have a notebook at hand, because that is when fresh ideas most often
make their appearance. When I am at my desk I practice a kind of Zen, as I
understand it, putting myself into the best possible condition for saying
things. Writing is a process of discovery. The paper I complete has almost no
resemblance to the paper I start to write. I learn what I have to say.
Science,
not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual
honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those which merely
resolve puzzlement. I like Bertrand Russell's reply to Pascal's wager. Pascal
argued that the consequences of believing in God were so immense that only a
fool would not believe, but, said Russell, suppose God values intellectual
honesty above all else. He has given us shoddy evidence of His existence and is
planning to damn to hell all those who believe in Him on the strength of it for
the sake of the glittering prize.
Like
many people, I wonder about things. How did the world begin? We are not in a
very good position to say. We live on one of the smaller planets of a small sun
in one of the smaller of millions of galaxies. It is remarkable that we have
made as much sense of the available facts as we have. It is not much of an
answer, but I find it more credible than that the world is the handiwork of a
creator. How did the creator begin?
How
did living things come into existence? Here we are on better ground. Current
molecular theories of the origin of life seem to me more plausible than any of
those said to have been revealed by a god. It is possible that scientists will
someday construct groups of molecules that will reproduce themselves. If the
molecules do so after undergoing variation, they could evolve as living things.
What
is man? Here, closer to my own field, I am less likely to agree with scholarly
or scientific accounts. I believe the human species is distinguished by one
thing: through an extraordinary step in evolution its vocal musculature came
under operant control. How that led to language, self-observation, and
self-management is too long a story to be told here, and it is not a fully
satisfying answer, but I think it is better than saying that man was created in
the image of a creating God.
I
often wish I could pray. I want to help people, especially those I love. When I
myself cannot help, I wish it were possible to call upon someone who could. As
a child I called upon my parents, but I no longer believe that I can call upon
a god as father (or mother).
I
often wish I could say thank you for good fortune, as I was taught to do as a
child, but I do not believe that good fortune is a sign of grace. What happens
happens, and we should accept it, no matter how inscrutable the reasons. (Nor
do I curse God when I have suffered, or ask God to curse others for me.1
I
marvel at the intricacy of nature. I look at a tall tree and try to imagine how
one cell at the tip of the topmost leaf could have found its place there. I see
the orioles in our garden returning from a round trip of thousands of miles and
wonder how they can have found their way. Nature is marvelous but not, I think,
miraculous. We began to learn more about it as soon as we stopped regarding it
as the work of a god.
Religious
faiths have been responsible for beautiful architecture, music, painting, sculpture,
prose, and poetry. They have held people together in durable communities. At
times they have helped people behave well toward each other and ,manage their
own lives more successfully. But the claimed power to intervene in supernatural
rewards and punishments is the kind of power that corrupts, and it is no
accident that religion today is so often associated with terrorism and
repression. Even in relatively peaceful America, religious organizations are
trying to suppress knowledge in our schools, encourage the birth of unwanted
children, impose their beliefs upon others through political action, and in
many other ways interfere in peaceful, informed living.
I
accept the fact that like all living things I shall soon cease to exist. For a
time, some of the genes I have carried will be replicated in my children, and
something of me will survive in the books I have written and in the help I have
given other people. Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural
punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would
be nothing left to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
http://www.isac.psc.br/wp-content/uploads/skinner/Skinner_(sd)_What_Religion_Means_to_Me.pdf