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.…]
Uh uh, Bill, that’s off the mark.
I read recently — somewhere, I can’ t find it, dang — that worshipping God is just worshipping Society. We take an ideal view of how things should work, how humans should behave towards each other, and enshrine it, with whatever historical/philosophical/mythological/aesthetic/emotional trappings are necessary to make it persuasive. Societies that have useful social ideals (and can motivate members to make nice with each other) have an edge over societies that don’t.
Whoever came up with this (and I’m sure it’s just a reworking of the “religion is useful, for idiots” theme that’s been around for a few millennia) felt that he/she had disposed of religion. Only an idiot would fall for that con.
However, as someone who has fallen completely for the con, fallen completely off the edge, I’d say that it comes down to “how shall I live my life?” and that “whatever feels good at the moment, or just happens to be the dominant meme in the crowd of people with whom I find myself right now” doesn’t work very well. It doesn’t make people happy, and it doesn’t make for a functioning society. So people look for something that IS worth making their life goal, they end up with something like religion. Because it works. Because it makes them feel better. Because the world religions are condensates of the experience of people who have lived and loved and thought, and offer something more than “If it feels good, do it” and “If that’s what everyone else is doing, I’ll do it too.” That’s not worshipping society as it is; it’s worshipping a vision of society as it could be.
It’s a two-edged blade. Religion can be captured by the mob, the state, the plutocrats, and used against people — but the traditions also throw up Luthers, Wilberforces, and the Egyptian scholar (I’m blanking on his name) who recently declared Female Genital Mutilation a non-Islamic practice.
If I live to please myself, I’m miserable. If I live for the good of all sentient beings, I’m happy. If I’m captured by words, I’m miserable. When I dwell in the “don’t know”, I’m happy.
There’s been an upsurge of “religion mocking” of late, in which the target seems to be an archetype modeled on Creationists, proselytizing Evangelical Christians, jihadis, and murderous Hindutvadis. Why would you think that I’m like them, or that what I do, and what I call religion, has anything to do with them?
–
Zora, Zen Buddhist
Funny, I had just translated a fragment by an 18th century German philospher for my own blog when something made a neuron fire and I decided to go and read Notional Slurry. Theobald Ziegler wrote: “The longing for the eternal with all the idealistic feelings it produces will always exist, because it belongs to man’s psychological inventory, and a progressing culture cannot change that.” (He writes further that religion is an/the expression of this longing.)
Your statements immediately show how most people, no matter the camp (evolution/creationism/whateverism) base their knowledge on the thinking of others, rather than on their own self-examination. You’ve pointed out the bi-cameral theory of Jaynes and the “collective unconscious” of Jung, and formed an opinion based on what you’ve HEARD from mainstream religion and have HEARD from the other camps.
That’s “hearsay” knowledge.
Not that you are wrong; just inconclusive. In each camp there is someone who takes it upon himself to “lord it over” everyone else (“my way is the right way”) and they can only do so by having proselytes with willing ears (oh, he DOES tickle the ear, doesn’t he? Hee hee!) no matter what camp.
I’m neither for or against either posit; I’ve realized that Self (who “I” am) only THINKS it is in control of his little universe (his body) — and becomes astonished when some other “self” within him gives a command over his body that overrides his “free will” (to which has been assigned the name “sub-conscious”). When “self” is awake, he is “conscious”; when asleep, this self is unaware of his little universe, and then another little guy (the “un-conscious”) takes over. Dreams of flying and great wisdom or primal fear occur, and the self, when it awakens, tries to make sense of it all. Then promptly forgets all.
This realization was from self-examination (looking “inward” to use another popular term); and I’ve come to the conclusion that actually, the meaning of life is simple: Love “God” (that is, that entity which we have defined as the source of our lives) and love your neighbor. This means, to me, more than just tolerance of someone else’s POV, but to help and care about those “we think” (because, after all, it is the conscious self which is trying to assimilate the universe into some semblance of understanding) need our help.
Pontification sometimes is just exactly that: if I were to “tell you” how you should live your life, I would be pontificating, and thereby trying to expand my control. This is obviously seen. But one, feeling threatened, would immediately point to the one stating something, screaming “Mom! He’s pontificating me! Mom!” and thus summon help.
Your opinion therefore is valid, if not necessarily accepted by someone (like me) who “thinks” he is “thinking”. If that makes any sense.
Thanks for an interesting post!
El Besino
“Thy neighbor”