The Paradox of Existentialism Between Religion and Evolution

"Dostoyevsky is saying, here is that:
to be a Christian is to choose, because you have to choose of your own choice. And since you can't choose to be good -- because that'd be too rational -- you have to choose to be bad. It's existential."

(The Ice Storm, by Ang Lee)

Since watched the movie I've been thinking if doing good is too rational, and that's what humankind is "programmed" and expected to be, then the notion of being existential is indeed to choose doing bad, to act against the "codes" designed by the "programmer" or by nature, otherwise humankind is a mere group of robots.

In most of religious teachings (specifically the abrahamic religions), it is said that God created humans to worship and obey Him. If we look at those teachings carefully, albeit some of us may find it anthropologically as artificial divine and nothing more than a compilation of parables, most of the teachings tell us to form a harmonious community through morale and ethics; for instances, the ten commandments teach us not to murder, not to lie, and not to desire what don't belong to us, the Muslims believe it is compulsory to take good care of relationship among neighborhood to the extent that it becomes a sin for everybody if there is one of neighbors suffers from starvation, not to mention they prefer to perform prayers together in public mosques as a form of spiritual bonding.

From the teachings, we can safely say that it is God's will to have humans be good, and probably the so-called compassion and conscience come from God's will as well (in Christianity, someone's altruistic behaviors are derived from the blessing and guidance of holly spirit). In that sense, being good may be too rational, or rather too "automatic", as if we're being the objects of puppetry.

However, evolution speaks differently. What human being is programmed and naturally expected to do is, in fact, to be bad. This can be traced to the behavior of many kinds of species, or at least to the fellow apes. Evolution dictates individuals to be selfish, to compete and to be superior, to intimidate those weaker than us, so that we can gain comfort and safety and survival. The way how we adapt to difficulties and problems and thus come as the victor is by eliminating other parties.

further reading: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160401-how-did-evil-evolve-and-why-did-it-persist

Evolution dictates us to prioritize our own well-being over others, that it's okay to exploit other individuals for our own ego-fulfillment. When the behavior of evil is traced among various species, it is found that evil is in fact the common nature of living beings.

So if evil is in fact the real codes in our program, the way how human beings shape the idea of good and bad must have been a new kind of further evolution in itself, the real existential notion. It proves how to be good altruistically is to transcend beyond our capacity as a species. How to be civilized and harmonious and to aspire peace and love are what truly make humankind more than just apical predators among all living beings on Earth. And just like that, we see how to be good is definitely a freedom of choice, to be an existentialist, to be the real human.

It is not the entire face, though. There is another element we must further consider rooted from different perspective of evolution itself: communality. In order to assure the safety and security of oneself, some species, including human race, have developed a tendency to live in groups. Within a group of individuals, not only there will be a systematic division of tasks assigned proportionally toward the members, but also they can more easily protect each other from the danger of predators. The complexity of social interaction individuals will have within group scale eventually leads to other coping-up mechanisms such as on how managing one's ego in accordance with other group members' well being and interest.

Compromising the two evolutionary behaviors, self-fulfillment and ego-management, must be a complicated process someone has to undergo. However, that process is necessary and both must be in balance for the sake of survival. If someone lacks the ego-management and causes harms to others, they will be alienated from the group and will fail the survival. On the other hand, if someone is too altruistic sacrificing one's own need and self-comfort, it will harm themselves as well. Probably the ability to compromise both sides and finally find the meeting point is a more advanced evolution in itself, and somehow it is a choice on the degree of how much we want to be selfish and selfless accordingly. Factually speaking, many of us fail to adjust it and choose wisely.

Ironically, that means we have to approve that religious teachings are progressive and evolutionary as well, no matter how superstitious they are, because those religious superstition is in fact what has maintained some orders in human history. The way how it regulates and controls people's behaviors through the notion of good and bad in divine perspective, how it teaches of selflessness, and how many of religious stories teach us to fight against injustice and to liberate people from oppression, it is truly inline with the idea of existentialism within evolution.

Nonetheless, religious teachings also tell us to pay attention to our own well being as well. There are verses on how we must take care of our health and hygiene, verses on how we must carefully choose our friends, on how we must learn and make use of our talents to the utmost result we can receive, and verses on how we must be wise in decision making when it comes to issues related to ourselves and other people, that every live matters. Religion gives the answer of meeting point between selfishness and selflessness. However, then again religion disapproves of evolution, doesn't agree that humans are programmed to be evil and egoistic (that in essence, humans are pure). This is paradoxical.

Anyhow, despite the ongoing debate between creationism and evolution and on how they view human nature differently, there is one same stance between the idea of evolution and religious teaching: the fact that we see many people nowadays argue and act against social justice toward fellow humans and only care about life competition defeating other members of society, means that we are faced to those who probably are still apes in the form of human, faced to non-existing humans or robotic humanoids driven only by their primitive instinct, which at the same time, they are also divinely irreligious for their bad injustice selfishness. Both condemn such kind of people.