I hear that obe­sity is an epi­demic in this coun­try and world­wide, and that even those whose innate nature tends towards the sin of glut­tony must over­come their unhealthy ten­den­cies before they col­lec­tively under­mine our won­der­ful com­mons, by not only con­sum­ing all our resources directly, but also when they inevitably sicken and drain our hard-​​earned health­care system’s resources. Fast food, a seden­tary lifestyle, a com­puter, a sofa, a TV, a car… these are the symp­toms of a dan­ger­ous world, a mod­ern dis­as­ter poised to bring down this house of cards we call a culture.

Those fat peo­ple are gonna mess it up for us. We need to, in essence, evan­ge­lize among them, to get them healthy and better.

Sit­ting in cars lis­ten­ing to NPR and zap­ping the TV in hotels a lot lately, I also hear that many other sorts and groups of peo­ple are at least as bad as us, the fat-​​assed: some­body, some­where is immod­er­ate, unthink­ing, uncar­ing, antag­o­nis­tic, illog­i­cal, unpa­tri­otic, intru­sive, total­i­tar­ian, freedom-​​hating, unco­op­er­a­tive, self-​​endangering, or some other Bad Bad Thing. These var­i­ously include ter­ror­ists, fun­da­men­tal­ists, big­ots, athe­ists, zealots, sci­en­tists, social­ists, Repub­li­cans and a num­ber of others.

[cho­rus]: It was ever thus.

Ah, but this is new: It has pro­duced in me a new hypoth­e­sis.

Chang­ing gears before we come the the New Hypoth­e­sis: Let’s talk a bit about socio­bi­o­log­i­cal just-​​so sto­ries. Hav­ing to do with religion.

We have heard just-​​so sto­ries about how our brains used to talk to them­selves, and by this mech­a­nism we nat­u­rally heard voices in our heads as the Left spoke to the Right (or vice versa), and that those voices were gods, and so (even though the voices went away) there is a phys­i­o­log­i­cal basis of some mem­ory of super­nat­ural experience.

We’ve heard sto­ries about the amaz­ingly intense per­sonal expe­ri­ence of the numi­nous, the super­nat­ural, the divine, the vision­ary — whether through tem­po­ral lobe epilepsy or a funny mush­room or two — and how that gives rise to shaman­ism and fly­ing dreams and such­like. Even though not every­body takes an Amanita tisane of a win­try after­noon, there is some­how a rea­son for stained glass and altar­boys in the fruit­ing bod­ies of cer­tain botan­i­cals, or per­haps in some indi­vid­u­als’ ten­dency to see lights around people’s heads when they have a headache.

We’ve heard sto­ries about how reli­gion arose for social gain; that long ago in the land between the rivers, agri­cul­ture drove peo­ple to live seden­tary lives, and there arose an oppor­tu­nity for a hier­ar­chi­cal con­trol­ling classes… blah blah blah. Or maybe patri­archy over the Goddess-​​worshippers. Cf. “blah”.

A story or two about how people’s brains are dif­fer­ent. Amus­ing, but uncon­vinc­ing. Sorry. Mainly because people’s heads are tied together now, so no mat­ter what the bicam­eral mind was once, we got but one cam­era run­nin’ now.

Bunch of sto­ries about the per­sonal expe­ri­ence of the numi­nous. Never had one. Most peo­ple never do. Most peo­ple who belong to reli­gions never do. And yet they belong.

Bunch of sto­ries about how a select few dom­i­nate whole cul­tures by being proxy enforcers of sup­posed divine will. Why then do so many belong to the reli­gion? They get a piece of the action? As believ­ers, they get a lion’s share of grain? Shyeah, right, as the kids say these days.

Hum­bugs all.

So, on to my New Unfounded Hypoth­e­sis, based on my recent inun­da­tion with pre­scrip­tivist pon­tif­i­ca­tory heavy-​​handed advice about food, drink, reli­gios­ity, sci­en­tifi­cism, puri­tan work ethic, &c &c &c.

It is this: Reli­gion arose and flour­ished because it jus­ti­fies and enhances an innate and uni­ver­sal human need to boss other peo­ple around.

I’m not talk­ing about priests telling believ­ers what to do. I’m talk­ing about every­body telling every­body else what to do. Evan­ge­lism is the innate trait of human­ity, not expe­ri­ence of the numi­nous. We all want to tell peo­ple how to be bet­ter. We all want to pontificate.

What any reli­gion does is pro­vide a coher­ent cul­tural frame­work for all par­tic­i­pants, upon which they can express dis­ap­proval of some­body, or reach out and improve some poor soul’s way­ward lot in life.

And bet­ter yet, I expect you can make a strong socio­bi­o­log­i­cal argu­ment for East African plains apes’ need to boss one another around. Once lan­guage entered the game, it inevitably under­mined the old alpha males’ phys­i­cal dynamic with a social one.

But you can’t jus­tify split brains, mush­room visions, or even agri­cul­tural power-​​grabbing as a selec­table behavior.

Nope. Peo­ple want to tell other peo­ple what to do. That’s the universal.

Look around you. There’s no need to be reli­gious to preach among the tubbies.

[and no, this is not what I’ve been work­ing on. Back to that.…]