David McElroy

When there’s unexpected tragedy in the world, I always know what to expect from myself. My first instinct is to call someone I love and say, “Are you OK? Are you safe?”

It’s a very instinctive and irrational desire to reach out to try to protect someone who couldn’t possibly have been threatened by a shooting in Las Vegas today. It’s just so instinctive that it takes time for my conscious rational brain to kick in and remind me, “The people you love aren’t in danger, so you can relax.”

The many centuries of human history seem to have wired us in this way. When there is a danger — to ourselves or others — the first thing we’re programmed to do is think of the people we love and to think about how to protect them.

When something terrible happens, who do you think of first? Who do you want to tell about news in your life? Who do you want to protect? Your complicated answers to those questions will tell you who you really love — because your instincts tell you the truth.

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For most of human history, men and women have developed their ideas of God through group experience and tradition — and they’ve then been willing to kill those who didn’t accept their notions of who and what God is.

Every group seems to have believed it was uniquely qualified to speak for God. Every group believed it knew the truth. Every group was willing to use force to impose its idea of God on everyone else. Every group was willing to kill those infidels who didn’t know their truth and worship their God.

Many modern rationalists like to laugh at those people — both the primitive early religious folks and the comparatively flexible and more rational modern religious groups. They like to look down their noses at religious people and say, “The world would be great if all of you stupid people would just worship my god — the god of reason.”

I’ve realized recently that rationality has been turned into just another false god.

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When I think back to the first time I spoke with the man, I’m ashamed of myself. I probably felt superior. Maybe a little condescending. I pitied him — even if he didn’t know that.

There’s a dilapidated house not too far from where I live. The houses in the blocks around it vary. Some are nice and newer. Some are old and modest.

But this house was a pile of junk where I would never live.

It hadn’t been painted in years. The wood was slowly rotting. A couple of garage doors that open into the first floor — living space is on the second floor — were falling apart. I doubt those doors had been opened in years. (I doubt they could open anymore.) But this man had just moved his family into the house.

“Yeah, I’m going to fix the house up,” he told me. “It will take me awhile, but I’ll get it done.”

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