Beat Blog,

what religion were you most familiar with growing up?

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I just can't imagine a different set of circumstances without religion now.

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on a related note

im reading this book now



basically it makes a case for religion being an unavoidable and necessary cultural/anthropological/sociological/biological/psychological part of human development from as far back as 1.5 million years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec necessary

this i doubt. but it was probably

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec unavoidable

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pkc, the argument is basically that early (prehistoric) religion was a sort of pre-shamanism and that the first and most 'truly' (and still to this day) religious experiences came out of ecstatic states and trance states.

The author argues that in primitive hunter-gatherer societies (think aborigine & african bushman) collectivism is the essence of survival. Shared emotional bonds formed in these ecstatic religious experiences created unbreakable alliances between people that were necessary for survival (scarcity of resources and harsh conditions gave humans with better people skills and emotional capacity an advantage in natural selection)

The evolution of human emotion and the development of the human neocortex along with complex thought such as language runs parallel to the development of more complex religious ideas. As language came to be developed and with it more conceptual and signs detached from pure religious experiences, and as artwork and religious experience became a tool of the elite class in later more complex societies, religion became more and more a political tool.

This book claims that corruption of religious experience as a political tool was common at the time of the cave paintings at Lascoux, France




all the conceptual, dogmatic, and theological shit about the ordering and structure of morals and the universe is essentially not "religion" in the pure sense, according to this author. It is so called 'book religion'. "pure religion" he claims is this sort of belief that everything in the world is connected by some sort of life force and experienced in higher states of consciousness achieved through ecstatic experience that can come from things like drumming, keeping rhythm, intense pain/masochism, sleep deprivation, psychoactive drugs, stress, etc. It's a really basic and primitive thing.

Last edited by nefardec on Sep-09-2008 at 00:26

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec pkc, the argument is basically that early (prehistoric) religion was a sort of pre-shamanism and that the first and most 'truly' (and still to this day) religious experiences came out of ecstatic states and trance states.

or eating the wrong mushrooms

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec The author argues that in primitive hunter-gatherer societies (think aborigine & african bushman) collectivism is the essence of survival. Shared emotional bonds formed in these ecstatic religious experiences created unbreakable alliances between people that were necessary for survival (scarcity of resources and harsh conditions gave humans with better people skills and emotional capacity an advantage in natural selection)

see, i prefer other authors' ideas that religion came about because of a biological pre-disposition in humans which initially was a "fear of the unknown" which kept people alive (note, i havent really done my due diligence on this particular topic, im merely paraphrasing [crudely!] TAs Renegade and Arbiter). i find it a little problematic though to argue that these "shared emotional bonds" would not have existed anyway, as tribal collectivism will undoubtedly produce similar outcomes. i certainly think there's a big gap between identifying historical happenstance and illustrating that religion was "necessary" for early human survival.

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quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i find it a little problematic though to argue that these "shared emotional bonds" would not have existed anyway, as tribal collectivism will undoubtedly produce similar outcomes. i certainly think there's a big gap between identifying historical happenstance and illustrating that religion was "necessary" for early human survival.

I'm definitely not doing justice to his ideas here in this format

here's the summary from chapter 2: "The Making Of Humanity and the Origin of Religion"

quote:

One of the major challenges to cultural ecology is to explain how and why religious behaviors became universal aspects of humanity. The fact that religious behavior involves great amounts of time and effort indicates that it should have had some important adaptive role that helped early humans survive. Physical anthropologists usually focus on skeletal changes, intellectual changes, and technological changes that helped people survive drastic climatic deteriorations in Africa millions of years ago. Ritual behaviors and other unique human emotions are generally overlooked. Yet these features can be viewed as important means for creating and maintaining strong emotional bonds between people in alliances that constituted mutual help relationships between distant bands. The ability to use these relationships in order to move to other band territories and be accepted by the resident populations was critical for survival in times of crisis. This is likely the real adaptive value of kinship, language, gift-giving, food sharing, and shared ecstatic ritual experiences. All these human characteristics probably evolved together as adaptive ways of dealing with life-threatening crises. The first material indication of these mutual-help alliances may be reflected in the movement of small amounts of stones used as tools over long distances beginning about 50,000 years ago; however, such alliances do not necessarily have to leave physical traces, and they would have been so adaptive that they may well have existed much further in the past. Additional unique human emotional features such as innate responses to drumming, music, dance, and drama undoubtedly enhanced the effectiveness of rituals in creating strong emotional bonds; and it is no coincidence that traditional rituals generally feature all of these other "arts". These arts, and especially ecstatic experiences, are the essence of our human heritage. To be truly human means to experience that heritage, to sing and dance adn experience ecstasy - as James Campbell put it, to "follow one's bliss". This was the essence of religion for our ancestors, and it constitutes quite a different perspective from the book religions of today. The physical and emotional changes that took place during human evolution were also accompanied by some major changes in the structure of the brain, including its division into two hemispheres with different functions and into three separate levels dealing with physical functions, emotional functions, and intellectual functions (the triune brain). Some researches suggest that people have specific emotional reactions to or symbolic associations with images such as water, fire, or horns. These are called archetypes, but the degree to which they are an innate part of the human psyche remains to be investigated. Whether the gods or any supernatural dimensions really exist is an open question. However, on the basis of personal experiences, many people are convinced that something odd certainly is part of the universe, whether we choose to call it magic, information, self-organization, the supernatural, or quantum spookiness. There is no lack of anecdotes of strange events that cannot be accounted for in terms of current mainstream science

Anyways, take what you will from it, but I think this book is pretty interesting because it gives a thorough history of the development of religion from its earliest forms, from the point of view of many disciplines - neurobiology, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, etc. I think the author is also pretty fair and objective in his conclusion, and sticks to his goal of research rather than trying to push an agenda onto the intellectual scene.

According to the "Encyclopedia of Wars" by Phillips and Axelrod, 7% of the wars that have been documented since humans were able to document wars had something to do with religion. Of that 7% 50% had to do with Islam. Not to mention Vox Day in "The Irrational Atheist" researched that only 2% of the killings done by states were done in the name of religion while 50% of the murdering of states in the 20th Century were done by atheistic countries. If any argument has feet to stand on it is that atheistic countries should convert to a religion to save the lives of their people. Not that I'm saying that religion always is beneficial but to to go around with the argument that religion is the great evil in the world and caused more problems in the world than anything else is just ignorant.

Last edited by weymouth on Sep-09-2008 at 02:34

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Originally posted by weymouth "religion is the great evil in the world and caused more problems in the world than anything else" is just ignorant.

No one in this thread said that.

Yes, religion was beneficial. If it wasn't for religion, we would still be beating each other with sticks in caves.

HOWEVER, in the last 2000 years, religion has been everything BUT beneficial, and has caused a lot of wrongs.

Religion is, today, irrelevant, but it has been relevant for a long long time.

quote:

Originally posted by weymouth Not to mention Vox Day in "The Irrational Atheist" researched that only 2% of the killings done by states were done in the name of religion while 50% of the murdering of states in the 20th Century were done by atheistic countries.

that's thoroughly disingenuous and a non sequitur.

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