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Gods above

Last updated on 22 Jun 2018

ZeusIt’s no real coincidence that the standard metaphor for approaching gods is one of height. Humans not only defer to those who are “above” them in the social hierarchy, they also tend to defer to people who are literally taller than they are. Taller individuals tend to have higher status and better pay, and this generalises away from western society. Even the status of women is in part due to their smaller stature than males – when height is corrected for, women tend not to be different in status, although this doesn’t mean taller women get better pay. An insult to another is to call them a “little” person, and we call a high status person a “great” person. We “look up” to leaders.

Not coincidentally also; we “look up” to priests, divine agents, and of course, gods themselves.
Suppose you are a king of one of the first civilisations (city-based political entities) after the rise of agriculture. Your populace is composed of many villages, probably of many cultures. Your social structure is roughly this:

  Civilisation.png

Each Village Head is the top of the local hierarchy, but is subordinate to the regional governor or military leader who in turn is subordinate to the king. All well and good, but how do you as king ensure the following things: first, that the villages do not fight between themselves, and that the social order is continued when you die? The in-group/out-group distinction is maintained by local cultural, largely ritual tribal markers, such as dress, language, and so forth, so they will tend to remain coherent groups. But civil war is a likely outcome at the death of the alpha king (or queen – this is not about gender as such; I’ll use “king” here for the position not the sex) as the lieutenants (those who stand in lieu of the one who holds the land or position of authority, according to most dictionaries) strive to take the supreme position.

Supposing that the king’s heir has not yet worked up the usual status markers by combat or allegiance making, which is a fair bet if the heir’s position relies upon the alpha king’s favours to date, then the heir is unlikely to make it past the king’s funeral in any position of respect, if they survive at all. What to do?

One way is to ensure that the old king never dies, and is watching to ensure that allegiences pledged during his earthly existence are maintained afterwards (that is, after his earthly death). In other words, the king becomes a supernatural observer, punishing defectors and rewarding loyalties. This means that (and experiment has shown it to have significant, but small, effect on ethical action) the watching god is a sanction for maintaining the status quo, literally.

Now the lieutenants may not think much of the deification of a king, but the populace in general might, thus undercutting their ability to insurrect. How do you get the message of the king’s new life to that populace? One way is to have a cult, not unlike the usual ancestor cults, in which the wider family loyalties are maintained by appeasing ancestors through sacrifice and ritual. I’ll talk more about sacrifice and ritual later on, not today.

But a cult needs propagators and maintenance. So it follows that you need a secondary hierarchy, the literal hierarchy, of priests. They are the bearers of tradition, teachers of ritual, enforcers of local morals, and in fact they end up as a secondary power structure in a society. Such a secondary hierarchy has been independently developed in the ancient near east, such as Egypt, and Mesopotamia, as well as the far east in China, in Mesoamerica and of course in the European empires.

You end up with this:

priesthood.png

Now, because this puts the king’s position in competition with the priests’, it pays to have a number of distinct cults, all of which owe their social standing to the political structure, and hence can be relied upon to defend the social order (including the inheritance of power by the heir), and so most urban societies developed multiple religious cults of various deities fairly quickly. Some of these were centred on the old king-gods. Some will be based on nature gods personified. Some will be foreign imports, like the Apollo cult in Hellenic cultures was imported from the Phoenician Apollyon cult. Some will absorb local ritual sites and their deities, the way that the Zeus cult absorbed many local “supreme” gods as Hellenic culture spread with political control.

Religion plays a central role in maintaining the cohesion of an urbanised society, made possible by agriculture, that transcends the usual kin group selection of a village, and the tribal markers that identified the edges of that group. Gods are in part, political heroes after death, sometimes kings, sometimes cultural heroes like Herakles, Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Prometheus (although I always had a soft spot for Epimetheus, myself). Initial loyalties to a tribal god-king can become magnified as the tribe becomes an agrarian city-state and eventually an empire.

I fully agree with Loyal Rue (2005) that religion is not about god or the gods. It is, instead, about us. It is how we solve a particular set of problems as they arise when social bonds exceed traditional kin groupings. It is, in short, something that happens with a shift from foraging societies to urbanised agrarian societies and the subsequent division of social role and specialisation that follows this. Religion is one, not the only, solution to social cohesion.

hammurabi.jpg

Gods act as high status individuals who enforce the alliances made by a certain ape. Religion is what happens when apes get symbolic language and agriculture, and if you gave these to chimpanzees, I would expect they’d have a religion very soon thereafter. This means that I restrict the term religion to those politically related structures, institutions and rituals that parallel the martial hierarchy in such an urbanised society. Shamanism and animism (and ancestor worship) in tribal societies doesn’t count as religion on my version, because there’s really no way to distinguish the social rituals of religion from those of hunting, trading, political structure and in-group/out-group tribal marking.

Incidentally, the origin of religion in this sense doesn’t mean that religion itself cannot be further shaped by social evolution. Monument building, such as the stone circles of northwestern Europe in the late Paleolithic; the pyramid construction, and so forth, all have basically the same problem as religion does as the target for which they are a solution – social cohesion. It is to be expected then that religion will be engaged in these enterprises too. It even follows that if a substantial ethnic subgroup wish to break free of the status quo, their own religious traditions will in part act to justify and inspire rebellion. But fndamentally, in times of relative stability, religions are a way to maintain the status quo in large scale populations, of several thousand individuals or more, right up to the tens of millions that are normal these days.

The current “World Religions” are, in fact, the eccentric and unusual forms of religion, not the typical or exemplary forms, and drawing conclusions from, say, the religion of the anthropologists’ culture to those of the past or different cultures is a kind of cultural imperialism in itself, as evidenced by the categories of those who first set up the problem of the origin of religion in the 19th century. But in fact they stand in need of special explanation, and I would suggest tentatively now they are the products of empire, and the subsequent need to regularise social conventions for trade over very large distances. If you meet a trader from central Asia, and you are from Spain, say, then it helps to ensure that the trade will be fair and the contracts kept, if your deity and theirs are roughly the same kind of god. Even better if you are both Muslim or Christian, and much better still if you are both Shiite or Catholic.

Thus ends my summary of views. I will of course continue to discuss the details and special case studies (for instance, the Varna system of Hindu social order is an intriguing case study in which social and ethnic hierarchies have become coextensive, more or less), but the principles are now out there.

Rue, Loyal D. 2005. Religion is not about God: how spiritual traditions nurture our biological nature and what to expect when they fail. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

©2009 John S. Wilkins. All rights reserved.

37 Comments

  1. simplyshardai simplyshardai

    INTRESTING.

  2. VERY INT(E)RESTING.

  3. John John

    Starker! Zis is KAOS. Ve don’t do Arte Johnson here!

  4. But you do do bippies. I’ve seen you.

    • John John

      You bet your… things that you bet.

      • Say “Goodnight, Dick.”

    • John John

      Viel besser. Now can someone comment on the damned post?

      • Jeb Jeb

        Ive not had the chance to read them but.

        Brumfiel E. (1994) ‘Ethnic groups and political development in ancient Mexico’ In E.M Brumfiel and J.W. Fox (eds.) ‘Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World’ pp. 82-102, Cambridge

        Maddock, K @Myth, history and a sense of oneself.’ In J. Beckett (eds.) ‘Past and Present: the construction of Aboriginality,’pp. 11-30. Canberra

        Worth reading alongside the Varna system I suspect. They deal with related issues.

      • Jeb Jeb

        Abotiginality should read as Aboriginality

        JSW: It now does.

  5. djlactin djlactin

    In one sense, I agree: religion is about control. In another sense, I disagree: religion is not about maintenance of the status quo, it’s about maintaining the power of those who maintain the status quo. Ultimately, “the clergy” gain the upper hand: they become the justification for the continuance of the dynasty. With such power, they determine who constitutes “the dynasty”. It’s the old “servants become the masters” scheme.
    Personally, I think religion is a crock, but if I had to use my wits to survive, I’d try to establish myself as the conduit to eternity.

    • John John

      Hence the multiplicity of cults. In Catholic countries, for instance, the orders acted as distinct cults and hence distinct hierarchies. In Protestant countries, the numbers of different denominations from the start helped. In Islamic countries, the various sects (as many as twelve, I think) and so forth.

  6. Jeb Jeb

    Have you seen the illustration from the “Livre des merveilles du monde” (French version of John Mandeville) particularly the one of European Merchants exchanging barnacle geese with a saracen lamb (the eastern example of spon gen.)?

    I am rather fond of it. But the illustrations as a whole are fascinating. There are a couple of versions.

    It’s a classic example, of part of youre discussion. Of the control and the regulation of diffrence and the concerns of empire and trade. Mandeville’s text reflects such concerns and even better he does it with a barnacle goose.

  7. Actually that was my comment. On the whole I agree with your analysis as I have always seen religion as a scio-political control mechanism.

    What did Peter Tosh sing:

    Preacher man dont tell me
    Heaven is under the earth
    I know you dont know what life is really worth
    Its not all that glitter is gold
    And half the history has never been told
    And now that the children have seen the light
    They’re gonna stand up for their rights

  8. Jeb Jeb

    Varna system is particularly fruitfull area for a number of reasons. Not least as you also see Alberuni’s 10th century comments, which demonstrate the relationship between early intrest in ethnology and the administrative officials of empire.

    He noted that the Varna system was a major problem for muslim administration as it was not culturaly compatable. It’s a thread that runs through his work concerning a number of cultures.

    Given Alberuni’s background in astronomy would be intresting to see something by thony c. on this aspect, which occurs in his chronicle of ancient nations.

  9. fvngvs fvngvs

    John,

    You say “…experiment has shown it to have significant, but small, effect on ethical action…”

    This seems to be in direct contradiction to the attitude of many of the ‘atheist/agnostic’ opinions around. Do you have any (quick) references on this?

    • John John

      Sure:
      Shariff, Azim F., and Ara Norenzayan. 2007. God Is Watching You: Priming God Concepts Increases Prosocial Behavior in an Anonymous Economic Game. Psychological Science 18 (9):803–809.

      Anyone who starts singing any Bette Midler songs will be rapidly murdered, whether God is watching us or not.

  10. Anyone who starts singing any Bette Midler songs will be rapidly murdered, whether God is watching us or not.

    Don’t you like the Divine Miss Midler?

    • John John

      Before she caught terminal schmalz, sure.

      • It’s a disease they all get when Las Vagas comes calling with the big bucks!

  11. J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

    Shamanism and animism (and ancestor worship) in tribal societies doesn’t count as religion on my version, because there’s really no way to distinguish the social rituals of religion from those of hunting, trading, political structure and in-group/out-group tribal marking.

    I think that this is bound to be confusing. It would make more sense to let the term “religion” have its usual meaning(s), and describe what you call religion as a subset of religion at large. Also, your schema doesn’t really explain why the ideas about gods develop in shamanism, etc., as well as in more hierarchical supernatural belief systems.

    • Jeb Jeb

      The ingroup/ outgroup tribal markers, are just not as distinct as suggested. This has been a common finding in Anthropology for years.

      I can agree with many of the points made but I think this is a problematic area.

  12. rajay rajay

    Now the lieutenants may not think much of the deification of a king, but the populace in general might, thus undercutting their ability to insurrect

    i wonder if you are suggesting that religion was invented to ensure that the common people dont revolt! forgive my ignorance but are there many examples in history of common people rising against the rulers ?

    • jeff jeff

      Well, I don’t know how much of the Old Testament is historically reliable, but how about the whole golden calf scene when Moses returns from mount Sinai? Apparently “Thou shallt have no other Gods before me” took precedence over “Thou shallt not kill”- the existing social order was more valuable than 3000 lives in that particular case. But I suspect that personal motivation played an even greater role. If the priests and tribal elders could not keep the populace united under the God they represented, they would rapidly lose power and perhaps even find themselves in great physical danger.

    • jeff jeff

      I would also add that the entire bible is littered with similar stories designed to instill unconditional obedience and loyalty to God, where “God” of course, actually means leaders and priests who are only too glad to interpret God’s will for you: stories like Abraham and the sacrifice of Issac, the whole story of Job, the tempting of Eve, and “Not my will, but thine” (explicit subjugation of one’s free will). When I read the bible, I see a whole sordid history of attempts at mind control. And that continues even today, with the powerful influence of religion in politics.

      • Jeb Jeb

        When I look at historical documents I try not to project my own 21st century morality into the text. Things are often more complex than they appear.

        Take the words of one “mind controller” as you appear to be describing them.

        He is refering to spontanious generation as applied in the middle ages in the Jewish faith.

        “The masses were not capable of understanding evolution as a complete and inclusive idea and could not [therefore] relate it to their spiritual
        world. The problematic aspect, which weighs so heavily on the masses, isn’t the incompatibility of the biblical verses or of traditional texts with
        the idea of evolution. This type of work [of explaining the verses of Genesis or Rabbinic texts on creation] is quite easy. [After all] everyone knows that metaphors and riddles dominate these areas which are cosmic
        secrets. . . . But [the problem is] how to relate to the idea of evolution all of the wealth of spiritual ideas developed by the masses which are based on the idea of [creation] ex nihilo and which [was taught since it] saves the mind from floating into areas too removed from understanding. . . . This needs a great deal of the light [of pedagogical explanations]”

        http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:hw48wqG9wDQJ:www.yutorah.org/_shiurim/15-49%2520Shuchat.pdf+Israel+Lipschütz+orangutang&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

      • jeff jeff

        Jeb:

        Take the words of one “mind controller” as you appear to be describing them. He is refering to spontanious generation as applied in the middle ages in the Jewish faith.

        The essay you link to, by one “Raphael Shuchat” appears nowhere in my post, nor did I label him as a “mind-controller” (I’ve never heard of the guy before).

        I suspect it is not my 21st century morality I am projecting, just simple common sense – and I stand by my interpretation, which quite honestly, seems fairly obvious. Theological attempts at obfuscation will not help you, rabbinic or otherwise. Words actually have meaning.

        A religion is not a religion if only one person believes in it. It is necessary to enlist the support of others, and the more unconditional that support is, the better. There are numerous stories in the bible that are obviously designed to get you to believe in the biblical God, or else. If you can’t see that, then perhaps you are blind.

  13. William Hall William Hall

    Great article! I especially appreciated the statement, “Religion is what happens when apes get symbolic language and agriculture….”

    I want to elaborate a little further on those ideas and how they relate to religion and the social conception of “God”. Language facilitates survival through group communication and the subsequent ability of social cooperation. Over time this helped hunter gatherer groups to form more settled agrarian cultures. Historically smaller horticultural societies, where women utilized simple hoes to till the soil, had a tendency to be more matriarchal. Conversely, agricultural societies where men utilized an animal and plow had a tendency to be more patriarchal. One reason for this was a higher rate of miscarriages due to the heavy labor of operating a plow. So, why was the one matriarchal and the other patriarchal? Generally, those that controlled the means of survival, in this case the production of food, had a higher social value and therefore greater dominance within the social structure.

    Let’s talk about the development of the abstract conception of “God”. In any social context there are a myriad of questions and issues that arise that can threaten social cohesion and therefore potentially group survival. In preliterate societies it is much easier to have a small somewhat literate clergy, a religio-political (god-king) hierarchy that can organize a large collection of human ideas under one concept called “God”. The amalgamation of multiple areas of human knowledge, especially knowledge which assists social cohesion and therefore survival, into one person or concept is more easily communicated to the group in general. Furthermore, the utilization of ritual worship psychologically reinforces an adherence by the group to certain standards that the socially dominant leaders see as that which is best for personal and group survival. Therefore, the conception of “God”, from only one perspective, is simply the anthropomorphic or human-like personification of an amalgamation of human social ideas that have often lead to group cohesion and subsequently the potential survival of the group structure and its general members.

    At this juncture the human primate, this reasoning ape, with its neo-cortex and post-conventional formal-operational thinking should be able to logically and responsibly engineer and intentionally evolve its personal and social conceptions of “God”. Not yet! Well “I pray” that the further evolution of our species will make it so! ?

    These are highly generalized comments and not intended to be exact.

  14. Jeb Jeb

    An extremely intresting post. Group cohesion and reciprocity are key concepts in understanding how stories and beliefs are exchanged, I think.

    Even within this system of ritual, worship, and group cohesion there will also be room for disagreement and the exchange of different beliefs. Social dominant groups manage these potentially damaging ideas by ensuring that core beliefs are shared throughout the group.

    Its competition within the system which allows it to evolve when faced with new environmental circumstances.

  15. rajay rajay

    John has given me another perspective actually.
    always believed religion originated out of ignorance and resultant fear that ancient people had of natural phenomena. in pagan religions, we have gods representing natural forces. similarly, the next phase (of life after death, etc) simply because the thinking among them were scared of death. so this concept of soul/liberation, etc made death bit acceptable. were gods (and religions) invented to maintain social status quo or were simply manipulated for that purpose subsequently, am not sure.

    predominantly hindu india was ruled by muslims and christians for more than 400 years since 1526. for a brief period around 200 b.c., a major part of india had budhist rulers. what part gods and religions play in such circumstances?

  16. William Hall William Hall

    Jeb,

    Thank you for your posted response, I agree. You wrote:

    “Group cohesion and reciprocity are key concepts in understanding how stories and beliefs are exchanged…Even within this system of ritual, worship, and group cohesion there will also be room for disagreement and the exchange of different beliefs…Its competition within the system which allows it to evolve when faced with new environmental circumstances.”

    Yes, the universal core principle shared amongst the majority of world religions is the principle of “reciprocity” in human interactions and transactions (do unto others…). We all live in a world that is the product of social contributions from thousands of people both currently and historically. No matter how independent we become as an individual the moment we think I’m going to take this modern saw and hammer out to the woods and build a cabin to be completely self-sufficient is the moment we admit to our social interdependence. Almost every linguistic thought and tool we utilize is a product that has evolved out of a greater social context and history.

    Yes, evolution uses a dialectic process or ”conflict” that builds up pressure until a critical mass is reached and new self-organizing structures emerge. Yes, exploring and then expanding the boundaries of social concepts through “disagreement” can and often does facilitate improved survival. There are thousands of historical examples where great minds have been persecuted for presenting new ideas; ideas that are perceived as a threat to the current dominant social hierarchy. It’s a shame to see the emotional and physical persecution of so many brilliant and humanitarian lives. Nonetheless, each person that pushes the envelope of social evolution, with the intent of mutual benficience, is a hero. It’s ironic to think that some of the deists of the Enlightenment era, and some of the atheists of today, are doing more for the evolution, survival and health of the human species than our well intentioned religious brothers.

    Religion has certainly played a valuable role in our historical survival as a species. There are still things that we can learn today through observing it with an open heart and an academic mind. The “disagreement” and conflict of ideas continues to rage on. This is good! Nonetheless, I hope we evolve and mature enough to have our ideological conflicts settled without the continued horrors of war. That we battle more with words and results based research. That we move toward an Integral perspective of religion that includes the best and transcends the rest. As humanity evolves through reason and the application of the scientific method so must its “gods” evolve and the religions of those “gods”.

    Let me clarify one thought. I am not suggesting that the evolution our species is determined solely on the development of our brains frontal lobe or neo-cortex where reason and language mostly occur. Evolution not only requires the further use and development of the neo-cortex but also the further development of our brains emotions through the amygdala and cingulate gyrus. General access to public education and higher education has helped create a more literate society and promoted the greater utilization of our reasoning faculties. In addition to that, certain aspects of religion may help us better understand what methods are culturally effective at guiding and or developing our emotional responses and states to improve group cooperation.

    May the “Great White Ape in the Sky” unite all of our species around the common cause of evolution by conscious choice instead of evolution by random chance.

  17. Jeb Jeb

    A nice development. As you said, “Almost every linguistic thought and tool we utilize is a product that has evolved out of a greater social context and history.”

    It’s what makes the hard work trying to understand the history worthwhile.

    I like to use ideas based around Marcel Mauss and the gift in order to understand the economy of narrative particularly that of oral culture.

    But the basis that allows such exchange to take place and evolve does seem to lie in our emotions and biology.

    Its very intresting to see biology working in this area and the contributions it can make to understanding human culture.

    p.s rajay, some research on the archeology of the Indus Valley may help to answer some of youre questions.

  18. William Hall William Hall

    Jeb,

    Thank you for the introduction of the Torah, Talmudic and Rabbinic Commentary on the issue of creation and evolution. You wrote:

    “But [the problem is] how to relate to the idea of evolution all of the wealth of spiritual ideas developed by the masses which are based on the idea of [creation] ex nihilo and which [was taught since it] saves the mind from floating into areas too removed from understanding. . . .”

    The concept of creation by “God” from each major Abrahamic religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) is generally believed to have taken place in 7 days. The five books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy) are an account of the Hebrew peoples through the life and visions of Moses as scribed by various priests.

    Moses received the “vision” of the creation when he ascended Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights. Observe the literature closely and you will find that there are 33 out of the 40 days accounted for in the text. There are 7 days of his interaction with “God” that are not accounted for. These 7 days, out of the 40, were the days that Moses was experiencing a “vision” of creation. I believe that if the ancient text is examined properly within the context of the situation that it never fully claims a 7 day creation but rather a comprehensive 7 day “vision” of the creation by Moses.

    After 33 days without food and 6 more days in the throes of an altered state of consciousness I would bring my visions to a “rest” on that 7th/40th day before I descended back down the mountain to my priests’ and people. Look at the way Moses depicts his 7 day “vision” as it was scribed in Genesis. It is a very step by step “evolving” process. I’m not claiming that evolution is found in the sacred text. Nonetheless, I am stating that the depiction in Genesis is not a 7 day creation but a 7 day evolving process for Moses to have a “vision” of creation.

    Satirically speaking Moses and his “God” could have known about the sequential process of evolution long before Darwin.

  19. Jeb Jeb

    The most famous 17th century commentator on genesis appears to have suggested that there was no way of knowing what the bible meant by a day.

    There is also an alternative to the genesis story that the earth was created many times before.

    Most of the late 19th century and early 20th century Jewish scholars who accepted evolution (To a lesser or greater degree) appear to have been kabbalists, who used the alternative genesis story.

    Evolution was viewed as fitting with this theory and indeed the claim is made that Jewish religious texts were discussing evolutionary ideas long before Darwin.

    This is of course untrue, but they were discussing humanities relationship with other animals and the origin of life with reference to a number of creatures which formed part of there belief system.

    But these belief systems have the flexibility to change or they would never have survived. Beliefs require constant maintenance. As we see with the creationists. Belief systems have an organic development.

    I think biology now has to confront a series of stories which have been developing for centuries in oral and written forms. People are comfortable with them and know how to identify, manipulate, update and use such stories.

    I think it’s important to understand what they are, particularly when information is presented to a wider public.

    The notion that some sort of being related to us fell out of a tree, is not a new idea, it’s a rather old one.

    Given the web of beliefs that surround the subject, clear language is important.

    But what it demonstrates is that people have fascination with the origin and development of species or kinds and have for a very long time.

    The interest is there to be tapped into. The theory and evidence is very clear. Presentation would appear to be the problem when confronting ancient belief systems, which are now being re-used, re-cast and re-invented by creationists.

  20. William Hall William Hall

    Jeb,

    Very nicely put. A lot of rich content in the last post. You wrote:

    “But these belief systems have the flexibility to change or they would never have survived. Beliefs require constant maintenance. As we see with the creationists. Belief systems have an organic development.

    But what it demonstrates is that people have fascination with the origin and development of species or kinds and have for a very long time.

    The interest is there to be tapped into. The theory and evidence is very clear. Presentation would appear to be the problem when confronting ancient belief systems, which are now being re-used, re-cast and re-invented by creationists.

    I think biology now has to confront a series of stories which have been developing for centuries in oral and written forms. People are comfortable with them and know how to identify, manipulate, update and use such stories.”

    The 7 day “vision” version may help many devoted followers alter their story but still base it on the text. Although, these ideas have a tendency to flow in a random path through culture as they develop on their own.

    Yes, many historical mystics like the Kabbalists of the oral tradition from Mount Sinai have contributed a great deal to this discussion. The Kabbalists extensive and detailed emanationist writings and perspective have added a considerable amount to the discussion over the centuries. When we speak of the Kabbalah, we are of course not speaking of the post-modern internet and local book store genre.

    Evolution in most cases is a process best observed over long periods of time. It is the task of being patient while our religious brothers and their organizations work through these ideas that is challenging at times. Not that the philosophers, scientists or academicians have a complete conceptual and linguistic structure yet. Nonetheless, the latter group is developing much more quickly.

    Pax tecum,

    William

  21. Jeb Jeb

    Understanding narrative structures is also best observed over long periods. I am not sure if ideas have a tendency to flow in a random path some of the time.

    Ideas look about for other narratives that offer reinforcement. When in the Middle Ages it was found that the barnacle goose resembled the Saracen lamb (Arabic but strongly related to Jewish belief), it demonstrated the truth of the knowledge that such monsters spoke of.

    Two different creatures from two different cultures all pointing to the same truth.

    But the simple fact would appear to be that these stories are not separate developments; I don’t think you can reconstruct Ur originals but they have always had repeated contact and act to channel ideas in a specific direction.

    Belief is not based on a single truth it’s based on a mass of narrative which reinforces and points in a particular direction.

    Cohesion and reciprocity may form the basis for these shared international tale types or “travellers tales” as they are sometimes known.

    Groups, bands and cultures need to maintain some shared cultural basis in order to exchange knowledge and trade or resolve conflict.

    Difference must be maintained, it’s a necessity for any form of institutional knowledge but a degree of similarity and repetition is required if the pax is to be maintained.

    Omne ignotum pro magnifico est

    j

  22. William Hall William Hall

    Jeb,

    You’re correct; the word “random”, when referring to the cultural evolution of religious beliefs is not very accurate.

    My intent by using the word “random” was to indicate that there is not generally an intentional designing or engineering of new doctrine regarding these mythological stories that would make them, for the most part, compatible with modern knowledge.

    Yes, some religious leaders and some organizations have made some progress. Even the Catholic Church, as an organization, has officially issued new decrees that are more compatible with commonly understood modern facts (e.g. the earth is round and does revolve around the sun). Nonetheless, generally speaking there is no intentional official organizational effort by major world religions to make vast alterations to doctrine that would be more compatible with modern discoveries utilizing the scientific method. However, I believe there is a compromise.

    I find that one of the larger breaking points in discussions between those that would require facts and those that appeal to what they call “faith”, is the idea amongst religious adherents that the mythological stories are “historic fact”. I believe that many of the mythological stories, the narratives, are metaphors and do have value. Often times they incorporate excellent principles that can be applied universally toward the cohesion and evolutionary development of the species. There is no reason why religion or science oriented academia need to throw out each others baby with the dirty bath water.

    Altered states of consciousness are real to the subject experiencing them. I do not believe that there is a clear line of Cartesian dualism between the external sensory objective experience of the individual and their internal mental subjective experiences. Both work together to shape the individual’s intellectual and emotional perspective on reality. Nonetheless, we should not allow our subjective visions, garnered from altered states of consciousness, to supersede the facts as established through repeatable experiment and group consensus.

    Thank you for your thoughts. This has been a great post/article.

    Take care all.

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