Religion Is Not Withering Away - from the Utah Humanist
R. Garrard
Religion Is Not Withering Away
November 2002
By Richard Layton
"Religion didn't begin to wither away during the twentieth century, as
some academic experts had prophesied. Far from it," says Toby Lester
in his article, "Oh, Gods!" in the February 2002, Atlantic Monthly.
"And the new century will probably explode--in both intensity and
variety. New religions are springing up everywhere. Old ones are
mutating with Darwinian restlessness. And the big 'problem religion'
of the 21st century may not be the one you think."
"The assumption is that advances in the rational understanding of the
world will inevitably diminish the influence of that last, vexing
sphere of irrationality in human culture, religion." But the world
today is as awash in religious novelty, flux, and dynamism as it has
ever been--and religious change is likely to intensify in the coming
decades. The spectacular emergence of militant Islamist movements
during the 20th century is only a first indication of how quickly, and
with what profound implications, change can occur. We usually think of
a few clashing civilizations as made up primarily of a few
well-delineated, static religious blocks: Christians, Jews, Muslims,
Buddhists, Hindus, etc. That's dangerously simplistic, assuming a
stability that is completely at odds with reality. New religions are
born all the time, and old ones transform themselves dramatically.
Schism, evolution, death, and rebirth are the norm--and not just for
cults. Today hundreds of widely divergent forms of Christianity are
practiced around the world." Islam, usually referred to as monolithic,
has more than 50 million members of the Naqshabandiya order of Sufi
Islam and 20 million members of schismatic groups. Buddhism is a vast
family of more than 200 religious bodies. Major strands of Hinduism
were profoundly reshaped in the 19th century, revealing strong Western
and Christian influences.
History bears out the continuing changes in religion. Early
Christianity was deemed pathetic by the religious establishment.
Islam, initially a faith of a band of little-known desert Arabs,
astonished the world with its rapid spread. Protestantism started out
as a note of protest nailed to a door. In 1871 Ralph Waldo Emerson
dismissed Mormonism as nothing more than an "afterclap of Puritanism."
Until the 1940's Pentecostalists were often dismissed as "holy
rollers," but today there may be more than a billion people affiliated
with the movement. After World War II so many new religious movements
grew up in Japan that local scholars had to distinguish between "new
religions" and "new new religions." One Western writer referred to the
time as "the rush hour of the gods." What is now dismissed as a
fundamentalist sect, a fanatical cult, or a mushy New Age fad could
become the next big thing.
The only serious reference work in existence that attempts both to
survey and to analyze the present religious make-up of the entire
world is the World Christian Encyclopedia. Its mover and long-time
editor, David B. Barrett, recently observed that 9,900 religions have
been identified in the world and that this number is increasing by two
or three new religions every day. "It's massive, it's complex, and
it's continual...new religious movements (long derided and persecuted
as cults) are not just a curiosity,...they are a very serious
subject."
The study of new religious movements (NRM's) has become a growth
industry. NRM scholars examine such matters as how new movements
arise; what internal dynamics are at work as the movements evolve; how
they spread and grow; how societies react to them; and how and why
they move toward the mainstream. NRM scholars played a key role in
de-fanging the influential anti-cult movement in the U.S. in the
1970's and 1980's, which engaged in the illegal practice of kidnapping
and "deprogramming" members of new religious movements. Since Waco,
the Heaven's Gate and Solar Temple suicides, and the subway poisonings
in Tokyo by Aum Shinrikyo, NRM scholars are regularly consulted by the
FBI, Scotland Yard and other law-enforcement agencies to avoid future
tragedies. They are currently battling the anti-cult legislation in
France, passed last year for the "repression of cultic movements which
undermine human rights and fundamental freedoms." The law was rooted
in a blacklist targeting 173 movements, including the Center for
Gnostic Studies, Hare Krishnas, some evangelical Protestant groups,
practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, Rosicrucians,
Scientologists, Wiccans, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Even the Vatican
hired NRM's as advisors to help them meet the challenges posed by
neo-religious, quasi-religious and pseudo-religious groups. The
surprisingly liberal report of the advisors, not referring to NRM's as
"cults" or "sects," suggested that these movements had something to
teach the church about how to make its missionary activity more
dynamic.
The one significant religious fact of our time is the failure of
religion to wither away on schedule. Why? British sociologist Colin
Campbell suggests an answer. It is to examine what happens on the
religious fringe, where new movements are born. Maybe the very
processes of secularization which have brought about the "cutting
back" of the established forms of religion have allowed "harder
varieties" to flourish. The groups that generally grab all the
attention--Moonies, Scientologists, Hare Krishnas, Wiccans--amount to
a tiny and not particularly significant proportion of what's out
there. Here are some samples: 1. The Ahmadis, a messianic Muslim sect
based in Pakistan, with perhaps 8 million members in 70 countries.
Mirza Gulam Ahmad, a Moslem, proclaimed, "Almighty God has, at the
beginning of this 14th century (in the Islamic calendar) appointed me
from Himself for the revival and support of the true faith of Islam,
who must, under divine command be obeyed by all Muslims." Members are
considered heretics by most Moslems and are accordingly persecuted.
They say Jesus escaped from the cross and made his way to India, where
he died at the age of 120; 2. The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual
University, a prosperous ascetic meditation movement based in India
with a half-million members, mostly women. The group was founded by
Dada Lekh Raj, a Hindu diamond merchant who in the 1930's experienced
a series of powerful visions revealing "The mysterious entity of God
and explaining the process of world transformation." It was rooted in
a desire to give self-determination and self-esteem to Indian women.
Members wear white, abstain from meat and sex, and are committed to
social-welfare projects. They believe in an eternal, karmic scheme of
time involving recurring 1,250 year cycles through a Golden Age
(perfection), a Silver Age (incipient degeneration), a Copper Age
(decadence ascendant) and an Iron Age (rampant violence, greed and
lust--our present stage); 3. Cao Dai, a syncretistic religion based in
Vietnam, established in 1926, with more than three million members in
50 countries. It combines the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism and
Buddhism and builds on elements of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and
Geniism. It has a pantheon of divine beings, including the Buddha,
Confucius, Lao Tzu, Qnan am, Ly Thai Bach, Quan Than De Quan, and
Jesus Christ. Its three saints are Sun Yat-sen, the Vietnamese poet
Trang Trinh, and Victor Hugo. The movement gained more adherents in
its first year of existence than Catholic missionaries had attracted
during the church's previous 300 years in Vietnam. Four other examples
given by Lester of new religions were the Raelians (Canada, Europe and
Japan), Soka Gakkai International (Japan), the Toronto Blessing and
Umbanda (Brazil). In order to save space, I won't describe these
except to point out that the last one has 20 million members and was
founded in the 1920's. It leaves the LDS Church, founded in 1830 and
vaunted for its rapid growth, in the dust with only 11 million
members.
Lester used to expect that people he would find in cults would be
strange and mysterious, but experience has shown him that they
demonstrate an essential blandness. They are no more or less
eccentric, interesting, or threatening than people he rides with every
morning on the London underground. They are very ordinary people. New
religious movements are not as exotic as they are made out to be, or
as they themselves would make themselves out to be.
What have the NRM scholars learned? Lester says several ideas recur
again and again. "In an environment of religious freedom, NRMs emerge
constantly and are the primary agents of religious change. They tend
to respond quickly and directly to the evolving spiritual demands of
the times, they are the 'midwives of changing sensibilities.' They
exist at a high level of tension with society, but they nevertheless
represent social and spiritual reconfigurations that are already under
way, they almost never emerge out of thin air. Their views can rapidly
change from being considered deviant to being considered orthodox. The
people who join NRMs tend to be young, well-educated, and relatively
affluent. They also tend to have been born into an established
religious order but to profess a lack of religious belief prior to
joining. They are drawn to new religious movements primarily for
social reasons rather than theological ones--usually because of the
participation of friends or family members... This last phenomenon is
profoundly symptomatic because the fact is that almost all new
religious movements fail."
Sociologist Rodney Stark is one of few people who have tried to
develop specific ideas about what makes religious movements succeed.
He summarizes his thoughts, "The main thing you've got to recognize is
that success is really about relationships and not about faith. People
form relationships and only then come to embrace a religion. It
doesn't come the other way around, it's something you can only learn
by going out and watching people convert to new movements. We would
never, ever, have figured that out in the library. You can never find
that sort of thing out after the fact--because after the fact people
do think it's about faith. And they're not lying, they're just
projecting backwards.
"Something else, give people things to do. The folks in the Vineyard
are geniuses at that. The Mormons are great at giving people things to
do too, they not only tithe money, but they also tithe time. They do
an enormous amount of social services for one another, all of which
builds community bonds. It also gives you this incredible sense of
security--I'm going to be okay when I'm in a position of need; there
are going to be people to look out for me...And if you want to build
commitment, send your kids out on missions when they're nineteen! Go
out and save the world for two years! Even if you don't get a single
convert, it's worth it in terms of the bonds you develop.
"You've also got to have a serious conception of God and the
supernatural to succeed. Just having some 'essence of goodness,' like
the Tao isn't going to do it...even...in Asian countries. They hang a
whole collection of supernatural beings around these essences. So to
succeed you do best by starting with a very active God who's virtuous
and makes demands, because people have a tendency to value religions
on the basis of cost."
Stark's rational choice theory of religion proposes that in an
environment of religious freedom people choose to develop and maintain
their religious beliefs in accordance with the laws of a "religious
economy." The essence of the idea is this: people act rationally in
choosing their religion. If they are believers, they make a constant
cost-benefit analysis, consciously or unconsciously, about what form
of religion to practice. Religious beliefs and practices make up the
product that is on sale in the market, and current and potential
followers are the consumers. In a free-market religious economy there
is a healthy abundance of choice, which leads naturally to vigorous
competition and efficient supply (new and old religious movements).
The more competition there is, the higher the level of consumption.
This would explain the paradox that the United States is one of the
most religious countries in the world but also one of the strongest
enforcers of a separation of Church and State.
Stark argues that all social science is based on the idea that human
behavior is essentially explainable, and it therefore makes no sense
to exclude a major and apparently constant behavior like
religion-building from what should be studied scientifically. The
sources of religious experience may be mysterious, irrational, and
highly personal, but religion itself is not. It is a social rather
than a psychological phenomenon, and absent conditions of active
repression, it unfolds according to observable rules of group
behavior.
Religious institutions often go to pot, but religion doesn't. Early
Christianity was a rational choice for converts because its emphasis
on helping the needy "prompted and sustained attractive, liberating,
and effective social relations and organizations."
"What new religious movements will come to light in the 21st century?
Who knows?" asks Lester.
African NRMs have been successful," says Rosalind I. J. Hackett,
"because they help people survive...People forget how critical that
is." The course of missionary activity is now moving from South to
North. African, Asian and Latin American missionaries are establishing
themselves in Europe and North America. The present rate of growth of
the new Christian movements and their geographical range suggest they
will become a major social and political force in the coming century.
Phillip Jenkins makes a prediction, "I think that the big 'problem
cult' of the 21st century will be Christianity."
=======================
Sir Frederick
and functions. Those processes are within their statistical variations,
the same as at least over the last 100 thousand years or so.
--
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
*************************
Phrases of the week :
'The idea of not wanting to go after the
senior leadership of a paramilitary group
that has declared war on you is such a
perversion that it's mind-boggling.'
-- Pentagon adviser (2002)
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
Ron Peterson
> All religions are based on genetic produced human brain structures
> and functions. Those processes are within their statistical variations,
> the same as at least over the last 100 thousand years or so.
Do you have any reference on that?
I recall reading that people with MS or epilepsy are more likely to be
religious, so isn't it likely that brain damage is a cause?
Ron
SpeakOut
Yes, these ancient myths are withering away!
"R. Garrard" <garr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:8786c02a.02121...@posting.google.com...
jimmy adams
Garrard <garr...@aol.com> writes
[,,,]
It must be really tough being a humanist in Utah; you have my deep
sympathy. It's so difficult even to get a drink!
But beware letting this distort your world view. Migration is probably
the biggest cause of religious survival: migrants need something to
give them roots, and religion often serves this need.
For all the proliferations which you list, religion is really a minority
interest in Europe. The rest of the world will catch up eventually.
Immortalist
force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human
nature. Emile Durkheim, an agnostic, characterized religious practice as the
consecration of the group and the core of society. It is one of the
universals of social behavior, taking recognizable form in every society
from hunter-gatherer bands to socialist republics. Its rudiments go back at
least to the bone altars and funerary rites of Neanderthal man. At Shanidar,
Iraq, sixty thousand years ago, Neanderthal people decorated a grave with
seven species of flowers having medicinal and economic value, perhaps to
honor a shaman. Since that time, according to the anthropologist Anthony F.
C. Wallace, mankind has produced on the order of 100 thousand religions.
Skeptics continue to nourish the belief that science and learning will
banish religion, which they consider to be no more than a tissue of
illusions. The noblest among them are sure that humanity migrates toward
knowledge by logotaxis, an automatic orientation toward information, so that
organized religion must continue its retreat as darkness before
enlightenment's brightening dawn. But this conception of human nature, with
roots going back to Aristotle and Zeno, has never seemed so futile as today.
If anything, knowledge is being enthusiastically harnessed to the service of
religion. The United States, technologically and scientifically the most
sophisticated nation in history, is also the second most religious - after
India. According to a Gallup poll taken in 1977, 94 percent of Americans
believe in God or some form of higher being, while 31 percent have undergone
a moment of sudden religious insight or awakening, their brush with the
epiphany. The most successful book in 1975 was Billy Graham's Angels: God's
Secret Messengers, which sold 81 o thousand hard-cover copies.
In the Soviet Union, organized religion still flourishes and may even be
undergoing a small renaissance after sixty years of official discouragement.
In a total population of 250 million, at least thirty million are members of
the Orthodox Church - twice the number in the Communist Party - five million
are Roman Catholics and Lutherans, and another two million belong to
evangelical sects such as the Baptists, Pentacostals, and Seventh-Day
Adventists. Still another twenty to thirty million are Moslems, while 2.5
million belong to that most resilient of all groups, Orthodox Jews. Thus,
institutionalized Soviet Marxism, which is itself a form of religion
embellished with handsome trappings, has failed to displace "what many
Russians for centuries have considered the soul of their national existence.
Scientific humanism has done no better. In his System of Positive Polity,
published between 1846 and 1854, Auguste Comte argued that religious
superstition can be defeated at its source. He recommended that educated
people fabricate a secular religion consisting of hierarchies, liturgy,
canons, and sacraments not unlike those of Roman Catholicism, but with
society replacing God as the Grand Being to worship. Today, scientists and
other scholars, organized into learned groups such as the American Humanist
Society and Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, support little
magazines distributed by subscription and organize campaigns to discredit
Christian fundamentalism, astrology, and Immanuel Velikovsky. Their crisply
logical salvos, endorsed by whole arrogances of Nobel Laureates, pass like
steel-jacketed bullets through fog. The humanists are vastly outnumbered by
true believers, by the people who follow Jeane Dixon but have never heard of
Ralph Wendell Bur-hoe. Men, it appears, would rather believe than know. They
would rather have the void as purpose, as Nietzsche despairingly wrote so
long ago when science was at its full promise, than be void of purpose.
Other well-meaning scholars have tried to reconcile science and religion by
compartmentalizing the two rivals. Newton saw himself not only as a
scientist but as a historical scholar whose duty was to decipher the
Scriptures as a true historical record. Although his own mighty effort
created the first modern synthesis of the physical sciences, he regarded
that achievement as only a way station to an understanding of the
supernatural. The Creator, he believed, has given the scholar two works to
read, the book of nature and the book of scriptures. Today, thanks to the
relentless advance of the science which Newton pioneered, God's immanence
has been pushed to somewhere below the subatomic particles or beyond the
farthest visible galaxy. This apparent exclusion has spurred still other
philosophers and scientists to create "process theology," in which God's
presence is inferred from the inherent properties of atomic structure. As
conceived originally by Alfred North Whitehead, God is not to be viewed as
an extraneous force, who creates miracles and presides over the metaphysical
verities. He is present continuously and ubiquitously. He covertly guides
the emergence of molecules from atoms, living organisms from molecules, and
mind from matter. The properties of the electron cannot be finally announced
until their end product, the mind, is understood. Process is reality,
reality process, and the hand of God is manifest in the laws of science.
Hence religious and scientific pursuits are intrinsically compatible, so
that well-meaning scientists can return to their calling in a state of
mental peace. But all this, the reader will immediately recognize, is a
world apart from the real religion of the aboriginal corroboree and the
Council of Trent.
Today, as always before, the mind cannot comprehend the meaning of the
collision between irresistible scientific materialism and immovable
religious faith. We try to cope through a step-by-step pragmatism. Our
schizophrenic societies progress by knowledge but survive on inspiration
derived from the very beliefs which that knowledge erodes. I suggest that
the paradox can be at least intellectually resolved, not all at once but
eventually and with consequences difficult to predict, if we pay due
attention to the sociobiology of religion. Although the manifestations of
the religious experience are resplendent and multidimensional, and so
complicated that the finest of psychoanalysts and philosophers get lost in
their labyrinth, I believe that religious practices can be mapped onto the
two dimensions of genetic advantage and evolutionary change.
Let me moderate this statement at once by conceding that if the principles
of evolutionary theory do indeed contain theology's Ro-setta stone, the
translation cannot be expected to encompass in detail all religious
phenomena. By traditional methods of reduction and analysis science can
explain religion but cannot diminish the importance of its substance.
A historical episode will serve as a parable in the sociobiology of
religion. The aboriginal people of Tasmania, like the exotic marsupial
wolves that once shared their forest habitat, are extinct. It took the
British colonists only forty years to finish them off (the wolves lasted
another hundred years, to 1950). This abruptness is especially unfortunate
from the viewpoint of anthropology, because the Tas-manians - the "wild
ones" - had no chance to transmit even a description of their culture to the
rest of the world. Little is known beyond the fact that they were hunters
and gatherers of small stature with reddish-brown skin and frizzled hair,
and, according to the explorers who first encountered them, an open and
happy temperament. Their origin can only be guessed. Most probably they were
the descendents of aboriginal Australians who reached Tasmania about ten
thousand years ago, then adapted biologically and culturally to the cool,
wet forests of the island. We are left with only a few photographs and
skeletons. Not even the language can be reconstructed, because few Europeans
who met the Tasmanians thought it worthwhile to take notes.
The British settlers who began arriving in the early i8oos regarded the
Tasmanians as something less than human. They were only little brown
obstacles to agriculture and civilization. Accordingly, they were rounded up
during organized hunts and murdered for slight offenses. One party of men,
women, and children was cut down by gunfire simply for running in the
direction of whites during one of the kangaroo hunts conducted en masse by
the aborigines. Most died of syphilis and other European diseases. The point
of no return was reached by 1842, when the number of Tasmanians had dwindled
from an original five thousand or so to fewer than thirty. The women were
then too old to have any more children, and the culture had atrophied.
The last stages of the aboriginals' decline was presided over by a
remarkable altruist, George Robinson, a missionary from London. In 1830,
when several hundred Tasmanians remained, Robinson began a heroic and
virtually single-handed attempt to save the race. By approaching the hunted
survivors sympathetically, he persuaded them to follow him out of their
forest retreats into surrender. A few then settled in the new towns of the
settlers, where they invariably became derelicts. The rest were taken by
Robinson to a reserve on Flinders Island, an isolated post northeast of
Tasmania. There they were fed salt beef and sweet tea, dressed in European
clothes, and instructed in personal hygiene, money changing, and strict
Calvinism. The old culture was then completely forbidden to them.
Each day the Tasmanians went to their little church to hear a sermon by
George Robinson. From this terminal phase of their cultural history we do
have records, rendered in pidgin English: "One God . . . Native good, native
dead, go to sky . . . Bad native dead, goes down, evil spirit, fire stops.
Native cry, cry, cry . . ." The catechism repeated the easily comprehended
message:
What will God do to the world by and by?
Burn it!
Do you like the Devil?
No!
What did God make us for?
His own purposes . . .
The Tasmanians could not survive the harsh smelting of their souls. They
grew somber and lethargic and ceased producing children. Many died from
influenza and pneumonia. Finally the remnants were moved to a new reserve
near Hobart, on the mainland of Tasmania. The last male, known as King Billy
to the Europeans, died in 1869, and the several remaining old women followed
a few years later. They were the objects of intense curiosity and, finally,
respect. During this period George Robinson raised a large family of his
own. His life's goal had been to try to retrieve the Tasmanians from
extinction, by substituting in good conscience the more civilized form of
religious subjugation for murder. Yet by the stark biological algorithm that
guided him unconsciously, Robinson was not a failure.
While growing increasingly sophisticated, anthropology and history continue
to support Max Weber's conclusion that the more elementary religions seek
the supernatural for purely mundane rewards: long life, abundant land and
food, averting physical catastrophes, and the conquest of enemies. A kind of
cultural Darwinism also operates during the competition among sects in the
evolution of more advanced religions. Those that gain adherents grow; those
that cannot, disappear. Consequently religions are like other human
institutions in that they evolve in directions that enhance the welfare of
the practitioners. Because this demographic benefit must accrue to the group
as a whole, it can be gained partly by altruism and partly by exploitation,
with certain sectors profiting at the expense of others. Alternatively, the
benefit can arise as the sum of the generally increased fitnesses of all of
the members. The resulting distinction in social terms is between the more
oppressive and the more beneficent religions. All religions are probably
oppressive to some degree, especially when they are promoted by chiefdoms
and states. There is a principle in ecology, Cause's law, which states that
maximum competition is to be found between those species with identical
needs. In a similar manner, the one form of altruism that religions seldom
display is tolerance of other religions. Their hostility intensifies when
societies clash, because religion is superbly serviceable to the purposes of
warfare and economic exploitation. The conqueror's religion becomes a sword,
that of the conquered a shield.
Religion constitutes the greatest challenge to human sociobiology and its
most exciting opportunity to progress as a truly original theoretical
discipline. If the mind is to any extent guided by Kantian imperatives, they
are more likely to be found in religious feeling than in rational thought.
Even if there is a materialist basis of religious process and it lies within
the grasp of conventional science, it will be difficult to decipher for two
reasons.
First, religion is one of the major categories of behavior undeniably unique
to the human species. The principles of behavioral evolution drawn from
existing population biology and experimental studies on lower animals are
unlikely to apply in any direct fashion to religion.
Second, the key learning rules and their ultimate, genetic motivation are
probably hidden from the conscious mind, because religion is above all the
process by which individuals are persuaded to subordinate their immediate
self-interest to the interests of the group. Votaries are expected to make
short-term physiological sacrifices for their own long-term genetic gains.
Self-deception by shamans and priests perfects their own performance and
enhances the deception practiced on their constituents. In the midst of
absurdity the trumpet is certain. Decisions are automatic and quick, there
being no rational calculus by which groups of individuals can compute their
inclusive genetic fitness on a day-to-day basis and thus know the amount of
conformity and zeal that is optimum for each act. Human beings require
simple rules that solve complex problems, and they tend to resist any
attempt to dissect the unconscious order and resolve of their daily lives.
The principle has been expressed in psychoanalytic theory by Ernest Jones as
follows: "Whenever an individual considers a given (mental) process as being
too obvious to permit of any investigation into its origin, and shows
resistance to such an investigation, we are right in suspecting that the
actual origin is concealed from him - almost certainly on account of its
unacceptable nature."
The deep structure of religious belief can be probed by examining natural
selection at three successive levels. At the surface, selection is
ecclesiastic: rituals and conventions are chosen by religious leaders for
their emotional impact under contemporary social conditions. Ecclesiastic
selection can be either dogmatic and stabilizing or evangelistic and
dynamic. In either case the results are culturally transmitted; hence
variations in religious practice from one society to the next are based on
learning and not on genes. At the next level selection is ecological.
Whatever the fidelity of ecclesiastic selection to the emotions of the
faithful, however easily its favored conventions are learned, the resulting
practice must eventually be tested by the demands of the environment. If
religions weaken their societies during warfare, encourage the destruction
of the environment, shorten lives, or interfere with procreation they will,
regardless of their short-term emotional benefits, initiate their own
decline. Finally, in the midst of these complicated epicycles of cultural
evolution and population fluctuation, the frequencies of genes are changing.
The hypothesis before us is that some gene frequencies are changed in
consistent ways by ecclesiastic selection. Human genes, it will be recalled,
program the functioning of the nervous, sensory, and hormonal systems of the
body, and thereby almost certainly influence the learning process. They
constrain the maturation of some behaviors and the learning rules of other
behaviors. Incest taboos, taboos in general, xenophobia, the dichotomization
of objects into the sacred and profane, nosism, hierarchical dominance
systems, intense attention toward leaders, charisma, trophyism, and
trance-induction are among the elements of religious behavior most likely to
be shaped by developmental programs and learning rules. All of these
processes act to circumscribe a social group and bind its members together
in unquestioning allegiance. Our hypothesis requires that such constraints
exist, that they have a physiological basis, and that the physiological
basis in turn has a genetic origin. It implies that ecclesiastical choices
are influenced by the chain of events that lead from the genes through
physiology to constrained learning during single lifetimes.
According to the hypothesis, the frequencies of the genes themselves are
reciprocally altered by the descending sequence of several kinds of
selection - ecclesiastic, ecological, and genetic - over many lifetimes.
Religious practices that consistently enhance survival and procreation of
the practitioners will propagate the physiological controls that favor
acquisition of the practices during single lifetimes. The genes that
prescribe the controls will also be favored.
Because religious practices are remote from the genes during the development
of individual human beings, they may vary widely during cultural evolution.
It is even possible for groups, such as the Shakers, to adopt conventions
that reduce genetic fitness for as long as one or a few generations. But
over many generations, the underlying genes will pay for their
permissiveness by declining in the population as a whole. Other genes
governing mechanisms that resist decline of fitness produced by cultural
evolution will prevail, and the deviant practices will disappear. Thus
culture relentlessly tests the controlling genes, but the most it can do is
to replace one set of genes with another.
This hypothesis of interaction between genes and culture can be either
supported or disproved if we examine the effects of religion at the
ecological and genetic levels. By far the more accessible is the ecological.
We need to ask: What are the effects of each religious practice on the
welfare of individuals and tribes? How did the practice originate in history
and under what environmental circumstances? To the extent that it represents
a response to necessity or has improved the efficiency of a society over
many generations, the correlation conforms to the interaction hypothesis. To
the extent that it runs counter to these expectations, even if it cannot be
related to reproductive fitness in a relatively simple, reasonable way, the
hypothesis is in difficulty. Finally, the genetically programmed constraints
on learning revealed by developmental psychology must prove to be consistent
with the major trends in religious practice. If they are not, the hypothesis
is doubtful, and it can be legitimately supposed that in this case cultural
evolution has mimicked the theoretically predicted pattern of genetic
evolution.
In order to pursue the investigation over a sufficiently wide array of
topics, the definition of religious behavior must be broadened to include
magic and the more sanctified tribal rituals, as well as the more elaborate
beliefs constructed around mythology. I believe that even when this step is
taken, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis of gene-culture
interaction, and few episodes in the history of religion contravene it...
to continue grap a copy of:
On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson 1978
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067463442X/103-2882975-2262230
about every library got a copy and further sections even compare Marxism &
Humanism as religions.
"R. Garrard" <garr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:8786c02a.02121...@posting.google.com...
Sir Frederick
Recommend three books from the last few years :
"Phantoms in the Brain"
"Why God Won't Go Away"
"Religion Explained"
Religion as motivated by religious experience is a normal part
of the human condition, brain damage is not necessary (though
it may held on occasion).
darth_versive
> All religions are based on genetic produced human brain structures
> and functions. Those processes are within their statistical variations,
> the same as at least over the last 100 thousand years or so.
Yes, this seems reasonable. But I think we shouldn't limit it to just
"religion" in the narrow, traditional sense of the word. Such things
as political ideologies (communism, fascism, etc.) also fit into this
category, since they seem to be a similar type of phenomena as
religions, but they don't seem to require belief in particular deities
or supernatural realms in order to function like religions.
I think that as evolutionary psychology develops, and integrates more
with traditional cognitive psychology and anthropology, we might learn
more about how these brain structures operate to produce these ways of
thinking.
DV
Sir Frederick
Recommend three books from the last few years :
"Phantoms in the Brain"
"Why God Won't Go Away"
"Religion Explained"
Religion as motivated by religious experience is a normal part
of the human condition, brain damage is not necessary (though
it may help on occasion).
Sphere
Interesting article.
--
No perfection. No essence. No permanence. No problem!
Eric Lehtinen
What does it matter if they are called this or that?
"Sphere" <no...@all.com> wrote in message news:3E01D606...@all.com...
Sphere
Eric Lehtinen wrote:
> The ten thousand things always wither and spring up.
> What does it matter if they are called this or that?
I am not a nihilist, but it seems you are.
...
Eric Lehtinen
"Sphere" <no...@all.com> wrote in message news:3E01FD69...@all.com...
>
>
> Eric Lehtinen wrote:
> > The ten thousand things always wither and spring up.
> > What does it matter if they are called this or that?
>
>
> I am not a nihilist, but it seems you are.
>
Insight includes the destruction of the distinction between 'I' and 'other'
even whilst maintaining the necessary awareness of differentiation required
to serve the varying needs of people everywhere.
The destruction of such distinction does not imply the destruction of 'I'
and 'other'
What happens to 'I' and 'other' when the barrier is recognized as void?
The Buddha lends some insight:
"Truth, however, is large enough
to receive the yearnings and aspirations of all selves
and when the selves break like soap-bubbles,
their contents will be preserved
and in the truth they will lead a life everlasting. --51.21
"The doctrine of the conquest of self, O Simha,
is not taught to destroy the souls of men, but to preserve them.
He who has conquered self is more fit to live,
to be successful, and to gain victories
than he who is the slave of self. --51.26
Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
> Religion Is Not Withering Away
>
> November 2002
>
Not yet ... however, dramatic changes in human behavior
are foreseen as exponential scientific / technological ad-
vances bring an age of trans-humanism / post-humanism
to humankind.
Beyond Religion - What the Future
May Hold ... (050102)
http://www.ghg.net/phf/science/beyond_religion_the_future.htm
"Will religion fade away as scientific / genetic /
robotic / biologic / computerized advances
propel us towards a future world in which the
ancient notions of transcendence (heavens,
hells, afterlives, blood sacrifice, belief in the
supernatural) are irrelevant to post-humans ..."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
In the U.S., the following statistical analysis applies, as to
faith and lack thereof:
---
http://www.religioustolerance.org/us_rel.htm
---
Excerpts:
... The most rapidly growing religious/spiritual/ethics group-
ing in the US is not an organized religion; it consists of non-
believers (Atheists and Agnostics).
... There has been a drop in the percentage of American
adults who attend religious services regularly.
It has gone from 49% in 1991 to 36% in 1996. Reduction
in attendance is a worldwide phenomenon among industri-
alized countries.
The US is believed to have the highest attendance rates;
Canada is at about 20%; Australia, England and the rest of
Europe are 10% or less. The general trend is downwards
as societies become more secular.
- - - end excerpts - - -
~~~
Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
(Freethinking Realist Exploring Expressive Liberty,
Openness, Verity, Enlightenment, & Rationality)
http://www.ghg.net/phf
~~~
John Bates
"darth_versive" <darth_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8e0e3045.02121...@posting.google.com...
*** My take on the subject.
John.
THE BIRTH OF RELIGION
Two hundred thousand years ago,
In England, when it was hot,
Stood an idyllic village
some two hundred folk,
And very good was their lot.
Their life a rich man's dream today.
Hunting, fishing, loafing, all play.
But, one was crafty and full of greed,
An entrepreneur, he found a niche in their need.
He frightened the others with tales of woe.
"The ground will burn - the lava will flow"
However, he had the solution,
Yes, listen to him.
He would make things right.
"Bring me a goat, I'll cut it's throat, it's blood
I will smear on a virgin. Bring me a Virgin,
she I'll smother in blood,
Then for the rest of your week all will be good".
So - the sacrifice was born - or created.
Entrepreneurs pantry, full. He, always mated.
He ate the goat - used the Virgin,
and - for him - life took on a new meaning.
Others became priests - they wanted free samples.
Recognising the potential - yes they were learning.
However, multiples soon got in on the act
with many new examples -
some of which exist today,
The best perhaps are Incas Temples.
As the years went by subtlety was unleashed.
The Temples, mass produced became Churches.
Printing arrived - more sidelines -
Bibles! - a feast!
All much more efficient than our original Priest.
*************
Omniscient1
> Discussion Group Report
> Religion Is Not Withering Away
>
> November 2002
>
> By Richard Layton
>
> "Religion didn't begin to wither away during the twentieth century, as
> some academic experts had prophesied. Far from it," says Toby Lester
> in his article, "Oh, Gods!" in the February 2002, Atlantic Monthly.
> "And the new century will probably explode--in both intensity and
> variety. New religions are springing up everywhere. Old ones are
> mutating with Darwinian restlessness. And the big 'problem religion'
> of the 21st century may not be the one you think."
And shall we be more liberal in our definition of "religion"? Perhaps
we ought also to include money-making (by various cult-like doctrines
thereof), pop-culture, fashion, and even anti-religion, which is
gaining a new and doctrinaire voice. Each has its proverbial
prophets, its men shaking a big stick from the pulpit, trying to tell
us how it's done, attracting a following (and cash therefrom), netting
"believers" (and profit thereby), going on crusades of taste both good
and bad, and we who follow worship them and give them our blessings,
dealings, and earthly earnings. Each attempts to save us from its
definition of evil (which to some is poverty, religion, peer
rejection, or bad fashion sense), thus ushering in new and hokey types
of morality. If the 20th century isn't the low-water mark of all
history, then I predict the 21st century will be such, wherein
television and comic books will assert themselves as religions, and
the twinkee (90% sugar/lard) will be the new food of the
self-proclaimed gods.
The veritable upper crust of the earth - what a "serious" bunch!
Really, let's take this seriously - meditating/chanting "hare
hare"/"Hubbard Hubbard"/"have a 'free' book (only 2 bucks)" one
moment, and the next moment crashing planes into buildings.
> Even the Vatican
> hired NRM's as advisors to help them meet the challenges posed by
> neo-religious, quasi-religious and pseudo-religious groups. The
> surprisingly liberal report of the advisors, not referring to NRM's as
> "cults" or "sects," suggested that these movements had something to
> teach the church about how to make its missionary activity more
> dynamic.
That's all we need: a bunch of transmeditating hippy
wiccan-sci-fi-reading tambourine-smacking Vaticanists touting their
new spin via 7-cent pamphlets and "free" flowers pushed on ailing
young citizens intrepidly braving the streets and sidewalks in the
evermore difficult quest of getting to work/school w/o religious
conversion. That's just what we need, the old religions competing
with the new to gain fellowship (and cash) using new pop-culture
teeny-bopper techniques. And the pope should tie-dye his robe,
perhaps? He's got the shaved head thing going, but the hat is just
way passe, he needs to cock it to the side or put a little umbrella on
it... and lose the sceptre, not cool, man.
> The one significant religious fact of our time is the failure of
> religion to wither away on schedule. Why? British sociologist Colin
> Campbell suggests an answer. It is to examine what happens on the
> religious fringe, where new movements are born. Maybe the very
> processes of secularization which have brought about the "cutting
> back" of the established forms of religion have allowed "harder
> varieties" to flourish. The groups that generally grab all the
> attention--Moonies, Scientologists, Hare Krishnas, Wiccans--amount to
> a tiny and not particularly significant proportion of what's out
> there. Here are some samples: 1. The Ahmadis, a messianic Muslim sect
> based in Pakistan, with perhaps 8 million members in 70 countries.
> Mirza Gulam Ahmad, a Moslem, proclaimed, "Almighty God has, at the
> beginning of this 14th century (in the Islamic calendar) appointed me
> from Himself for the revival and support of the true faith of Islam,
> who must, under divine command be obeyed by all Muslims." Members are
> considered heretics by most Moslems and are accordingly persecuted.
Between a Moonie and a Muslim fanatic (with duck-taped bomb and fake
pilot's liscense at no extra charge), I think the Moonie is a safer
(not to say better) choice: thus, perhaps we ought to promote
Moonie-ism in a sweeping government program to compete with and draw
followers away from Islamic fanaticism, thus reducing terrorism...
"Ich bin ein Berliner" -JFK; "I'm a Contra" -Ronald Reagan.... "I'm a
Moonie" -George W. Bush? (see links below)
> They say Jesus escaped from the cross and made his way to India, where
> he died at the age of 120;
And some say he's that old 2002-year-old beggar in the "Shroud of
Turin" loin cloth with the holy grail on the side...
Selected articles/links:
Article - "Vatican Disowns 'Moonie' Archbishop (BBC)":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1355000/1355906.stm
"Reverend Moon: Expose"
http://www.catch22.com/~vudu/moon.html
Moon gaining control over the press:
UPI:
http://cisar.org/000516d.htm
Washington Times:
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/washington-times.html
Moon seeks to control the world:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/groups/moonies/wash_times_20.htm
John Jones
are.
What did you recall?
Religion is a likelihood? .. hmm well..
Brain damage is a likelihood? well ...
hmm..
..of a cause?
hmm
well hmm
..causal likelihood eh? ..mm
hmm
.. brain damage. Eh? brain damage? hmm
hmm
hmm
mm
hmm
ref: hmm
Ron Peterson <r...@shell.core.com> wrote in message
news:3e00d073$0$1432$1dc6...@news.corecomm.net...
John Jones
RAYS!!!
Pro-Humanist FREELOVER <p...@ghg.net> wrote in message
news:3e022...@news.ghg.net...
> "R. Garrard" <garr...@aol.com> wrote in message >
Sphere
...
You've left out my two favorite examples
of religions: Science, and The State.
For Science in particular you don't have
to be more liberal in your definition of
religion. I'm of the opinion that you
don't need to be more liberal in your
definition to include The State as well.
I do use a sociological definition of
religion. If it walks like a religion
and it talks like a religion then it's
a religion. Whether it claims to be a
religion and the content of its beliefs
have no bearing on the matter.
--
The three characteristics of the dhamma:
anatta -- non-self, or no essence
anicca -- no permanence
dukkha -- stress, suffering, or no perfection
Tim, Some call me
> You've left out my two favorite examples
> of religions: Science, and The State.
Thanks for bringing up two of my least-favorite strawmen:
"science is a religion" and "the state is a religion"
> For Science in particular you don't have
> to be more liberal in your definition of
> religion.
No, just ignorant enough to not understand that science is a
process and religion isn't.
>I'm of the opinion that you
> don't need to be more liberal in your
> definition to include The State as well.
No, you just have to be ignorant enough to grasp that only a
fool would be satisfied if the State told it citizens to accept
things on faith.
> I do use a sociological definition of
> religion. If it walks like a religion
> and it talks like a religion then it's
> a religion.
That's a sociological definition?
How do the state and science fit this definition?
--
"When Robert Kennedy ran for president, we supported him. We're
proud of it. And if he had lived and been elected, we wouldn't
have had all these problems over all these years."
--Bill Clinton
Sphere
Tim, Some call me wrote:
> Sphere <no...@all.com> posted:
>
>
>>You've left out my two favorite examples
>>of religions: Science, and The State.
>
>
> Thanks for bringing up two of my least-favorite strawmen:
> "science is a religion" and "the state is a religion"
>
>
>>For Science in particular you don't have
>>to be more liberal in your definition of
>>religion.
>
>
> No, just ignorant enough to not understand that science is a
> process and religion isn't.
>
>
>>I'm of the opinion that you
>>don't need to be more liberal in your
>>definition to include The State as well.
>
>
> No, you just have to be ignorant enough to grasp that only a
> fool would be satisfied if the State told it citizens to accept
> things on faith.
>
>
>>I do use a sociological definition of
>>religion. If it walks like a religion
>>and it talks like a religion then it's
>>a religion.
>
>
> That's a sociological definition?
>
> How do the state and science fit this definition?
A religion claims special knowledge which
only the elite can maintain -- the body
of science, the law.
A religion has an elite devoted to
maintaining the special knowledge --
scientist, civil servant (etc.).
A religion has a lay following which
looks to the elite for guidiance --
layman (same name as Christianity), citizen.
A religion has special proceedures which
are performed by the elite preisthood --
scientific method, law.
A religion generally has special places
where religious observances are performed --
universities and labs, seat of government.
A religion has a canon -- scientific proceedure,
legislation or its equivalent.
You might want to hunt down a copy of "The
Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise
of the Sociology of Knowledge." I'm sure
there are other correspondances which I have
forgotten over the years.
Tim, Some call me
> A religion claims special knowledge which
> only the elite can maintain -- the body
> of science, the law.
Anyone may practice science. High school students have been
published in scientific journals.
Anyone may write laws. I wrote Washington State's presidential
primary law. I'm not a lawyer.
> A religion has an elite devoted to
> maintaining the special knowledge --
> scientist, civil servant (etc.).
Are plumbers, priests? Using this definition, nearly every human
activity is a religion.
> A religion has a lay following which
> looks to the elite for guidiance --
> layman (same name as Christianity), citizen.
Using this definition, nearly every human activity is a
religion.
> A religion has special proceedures which
> are performed by the elite preisthood --
> scientific method, law.
Are software developers, priests? As I said, anyone may practice
science or write law. They are processes, not religion.
> A religion generally has special places
> where religious observances are performed --
> universities and labs, seat of government.
Using this definition, nearly every human activity is a
religion. Is a fast food resturant a temple for eating greasy
foods?
> A religion has a canon -- scientific proceedure,
> legislation or its equivalent.
Like the instructions on the back of a package of rice with
broccoli and cheese. Using this definition, nearly every human
activity is a religion.
Sphere
Tim, Some call me wrote:
> Sphere <no...@all.com> posted:
>
>
>>A religion claims special knowledge which
>>only the elite can maintain -- the body
>>of science, the law.
>
>
> Anyone may practice science. High school students have been
> published in scientific journals.
And a layman may pray in a Congressional
Church. So?
>
> Anyone may write laws. I wrote Washington State's presidential
> primary law. I'm not a lawyer.
Same answer. Would you like
me to pick a different example
religion?
>
>
>>A religion has an elite devoted to
>>maintaining the special knowledge --
>>scientist, civil servant (etc.).
>
>
> Are plumbers, priests? Using this definition, nearly every human
> activity is a religion.
Nearly every human activity has
religious aspects, but a religion
is characterized by a collection
of characteristics -- not just
one or two of them. Do plumbers
have a lay following which looks
to them for guidance?
If we look at corporations we find
that most of them are failed religions,
although a few of them get really close
to becoming real religions. There's no
question that in general a corporation
tries to become a religion.
>
>
>>A religion has a lay following which
>>looks to the elite for guidiance --
>>layman (same name as Christianity), citizen.
>
>
> Using this definition, nearly every human activity is a
> religion.
No. Religions all try to fill basically
the same social nitch. Nearly every
human activity shares some aspects of
religion, but only certain activities
try to fill this nitch -- and have the
same collection of social characteristics.
It's actually easier to spot a religion
by looking at a known religion and asking
if there is some sort of conflict between
the known religion and the candidate
religion. This isn't a perfect test because
some religions are better at getting along
with other religions -- one can be both a
Buddhist and a Shinto, for example. You
can be certain, though, that if there is a
conflict between the known religion and
the candidate religion that the candidate
is a religion.
>
>
>>A religion has special proceedures which
>>are performed by the elite preisthood --
>>scientific method, law.
>
>
> Are software developers, priests? As I said, anyone may practice
> science or write law. They are processes, not religion.
Yes, software developers are priests. I
am a software guru myself.
Have you ever read the AI koans?
This distinction between process and religion
you are making makes no sense at all. The
Buddhadhamma is all about process, and Buddhism
is one of the world's major religions.
>
>
>>A religion generally has special places
>>where religious observances are performed --
>>universities and labs, seat of government.
>
>
> Using this definition, nearly every human activity is a
> religion. Is a fast food resturant a temple for eating greasy
> foods?
McDonald's hasn't done such a bad
job of turning itself into a
religion. The others have not been
so successful.
You should make a point of going to
worship at a McDonald's next time you
are in a different country. There
is a certain comfort in being in the
temple, where everything feels so
familiar.
>
>
>>A religion has a canon -- scientific proceedure,
>>legislation or its equivalent.
>
>
> Like the instructions on the back of a package of rice with
> broccoli and cheese. Using this definition, nearly every human
> activity is a religion.
The religions have suceeded in pulling
the pieces together. Most of of
human activity has not been so successfully
organized.
Tim, Some call me
> It's actually easier to spot a religion
> by looking at a known religion and asking
> if there is some sort of conflict between
> the known religion and the candidate
> religion. This isn't a perfect test because
> some religions are better at getting along
> with other religions -- one can be both a
> Buddhist and a Shinto, for example. You
> can be certain, though, that if there is a
> conflict between the known religion and
> the candidate religion that the candidate
> is a religion.
That's just plain silly. You're reaching. It's more likely that
the "candidate" is a political threat to the power of the
Sphere
Tim, Some call me wrote:
> Sphere <no...@all.com> posted:
>
>
>>It's actually easier to spot a religion
>>by looking at a known religion and asking
>>if there is some sort of conflict between
>>the known religion and the candidate
>>religion. This isn't a perfect test because
>>some religions are better at getting along
>>with other religions -- one can be both a
>>Buddhist and a Shinto, for example. You
>>can be certain, though, that if there is a
>>conflict between the known religion and
>>the candidate religion that the candidate
>>is a religion.
>
>
> That's just plain silly. You're reaching. It's more likely that
> the "candidate" is a political threat to the power of the
> religion.
Is there some sort of difference???
Used to be -- long time ago now --
that control over the body was
government's responsibility and
control over the mind was religion's.
That isn't true anymore, and hasn't
been true since the invention of "the
divine right of kings." Now, we have
the nation state, and 'patriotism'.
The fact that the state has become a
religion doesn't change what a religion
is. A religion is a socialized frame
of reference about how it all works.
Some religions try to deal with how
everything works, and others try to deal
with only how some things work. I've
already given you an outline of the
social characteristics which mark a
religion. The social nitch of religion
is the motivation for a society's culture.
Religion attempts to justify the existence
of a particular social scheme to the
individuals which constitute the society --
or it attempts to change that social scheme
in some way. In evolutionary terms, the place
of religion is the memetic nitch of social
cohesion.
In terms of a definition, I'll stick with what
I provided before; which you obviously elected
not to comprehend.
Timothy Griffy
Please clarify a couple of things. Are you taking your "sociological
definition" from Berger and Luckman? If so, only half the job is done.
Sociologists of religion often define religion in various ways.
Indeed, defining religion is one of the hottest debates going among
them. Before even arguing state and science falls under the hubris of
religion as defined sociologically, you will have to explain why they
have a better definition of religion than, say, Steve Bruce or Rodney
Stark.
Second, are you attempting to apply Berger and Luckman's definition to
state and science? If not, then how do they actually distinguish the
three, if they do at all?
--
Timothy A. Griffy
T.A.G...@cox.net
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.