• In total there is 1 user online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 1 guest (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am

Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

#88: Sept. - Oct. 2010 (Non-Fiction)
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

The anthropological perspective would seem to be that morality is entirely relative. That can be a true statement if we are able to divorce, in our minds, morality from virtue. But in fact I doubt we can, or at least I can't. I find myself wanting to change morality in the anthropological view to something different and neutral, such as mores, customs, or beliefs.
User avatar
seespotrun2008

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
Graduate Student
Posts: 416
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:54 am
15
Location: Portland, OR
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 39 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

Isn't it inevitable and isn't it correct to note the difference between the natural world and the supernatural? Don't we want to keep those things separate?
I do not know that I would say correct necessarily in keeping the supernatural and natural world separate. It may be inevitable. There can be beauty in living spiritually moment by moment. We probably could not live in a society where that is even an option, however. Individually we can make a choice to do that but we are always conscience of separating spirituality from daily life. I think that is necessary in a society where we are so diverse. We have to learn to live with many different people with different worldviews. It is always a challenge in America. I know that not everyone makes an effort to do that but more of us do than don’t.
Another interesting observation made of the primitives' quasi-religions is the curious absence of a moral component. The primitive gods did not approve or disapprove of stealing, murder, adultery, etc., but were more concerned with protocol of rituals and sacrifice. The gods didn't get angry if you killed another member of your tribe, but would get angry if you didn't make your ritual fire a certain way. As Edward Tylor noted in 1874, the religions of "savage" societies were "almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainstream of practical religion."
I thought that that was very interesting also. But I think that Wright explains that really well. He says that in the tribe people had to be moral with each other. If they were not moral to each other everyone knew what was going on anyway. It reminds me of living in a small town. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Small towns are so fun. :P But I digress….

Outside of the tribe it was a different story. Someone else in this thread referenced that too. Other tribes were not even really people. It sounds like from that article that geo provided that Wright is going to argue that adding morality to religion was inevitable. We had to add it because we had to deal with our expanding communities. So far Wright has made some interesting points. I am looking forward to reading more.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

seespotrun2008 wrote: Outside of the tribe it was a different story. Someone else in this thread referenced that too. Other tribes were not even really people. It sounds like from that article that geo provided that Wright is going to argue that adding morality to religion was inevitable. We had to add it because we had to deal with our expanding communities. So far Wright has made some interesting points. I am looking forward to reading more.
I believe that Wright does attribute the idea of brotherhood to a more practical need to trade with other nations and to incorporate conquered peoples into the society. The international accommodation to others then tends to reform the domestic situation, too. One of the good arguments we might have is whether Wright is correct that the moral circle expands only in response to "facts on the ground." Is there no room for idealism?
Last edited by DWill on Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6497
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2717 times
Been thanked: 2659 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

Saffron wrote:we need to be careful about the use of the terms moral and ethic. It seems mostly we are using them as synonyms for each other. Wright does not define what he means by moral, but what else could he mean other than "a system of right and good conduct." How could he be anymore specific? As Oblivion has pointed out, we do not know the specifics of what was considered right behavior in early groups of humans. Part of the point of the book is the idea that morality, like the concept of God has eveloved over time to match the development of human thought and understanding and just maybe with this twin evolution our concept/understanding of the divine (this applies even if it turns out there is no divine) and morality gets nearer and nearer to truth. Indulge me a minute and I will try to illustrate my thinking and to hit on a comment made by DWill (As for primitive people not having a word for their religion, this to me may indicate almost a different phase of consciousness than exists when civilization appears. I don't see this as a desireable state. It's bit scary to me.) and maybe one made by Robert (vast bulk of human evolution occurred prior to the advent of civilization). Robert: I just want to check in on what did you mean when you used the word civilization in the comment I quoted above? I am assuming you were referring to an advanced level of society that includes agrigulture, towns/cities, trade across long distance, etc.
Saffron, you might recall in our discussion of Our Inner Ape by Franz de Waal, we looked at the continuity between human and animal morality. De Waal observes that bonobo apes display empathy and care, an apparent morality suited to their lives in a tropical paradise of abundance and ease. Humans separated from apes some eight million years ago. Much of our primitive clan-based ethical value system probably had strong continuity across our instinctive evolutionary heritage over ten million years or longer. This is one thousand times as long as the roughly ten thousand years of civilised life since the rise of settled agriculture. Wright cites love and generosity and honesty as ethical moral values that it appears were originally hardwired into clan life but which required threat of divine punishment to sustain them once humanity evolved from the original simple social structures.
someone is missing from Wrights discussion! What happened to the goddess?
Good question! Wright has an agenda, to assert that God has evolved to become more moral. However, the emergence of patriarchy since neolithic times contradicts his argument. Overturning the primitive equality of the sexes created a more powerful society in which women were subordinated. The suppression of ancient female spirituality was one of the casualties of progress. Wright conveniently ignores this topic of sexism in religion that conflicts with his thesis.

This all reminds me of another gap in Wright's theory, his failure to compare the over-arching myths of progress and decline. On the one hand, science promotes an assumption of linear progress, with everything getting better. On the other hand, religions claim that humanity has fallen from grace into a state of corruption. These two models are in conflict, and it seems that Wright just assumes the truth of the linear progress model.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

Robert Tulip wrote: Wright cites love and generosity and honesty as ethical moral values that it appears were originally hardwired into clan life but which required threat of divine punishment to sustain them once humanity evolved from the original simple social structures.
I wonder if we're quite justified in assuming that in the simplest societies, the baseline was that love, honesty, and generosity prevailed. These are people, after all. Surely there was a great variety in the degree to which clan society was characterized by these virtues. The capacity for love, etc. is an inheritance, but its full expression is not a given. There was never a self-sustaining moral society. I think there would always be an effort to sustain and encourage morality by some means or other, whether we're talking about a simple or a complex society. The need in a complex society would probably be greater. I also don't think that a divine commandment to be virtuous necessarily is about punishment. It can be about "this is who we are as a people."
Wright has an agenda, to assert that God has evolved to become more moral. However, the emergence of patriarchy since neolithic times contradicts his argument. Overturning the primitive equality of the sexes created a more powerful society in which women were subordinated. The suppression of ancient female spirituality was one of the casualties of progress. Wright conveniently ignores this topic of sexism in religion that conflicts with his thesis.
I'm not up on the primitive equality of the sexes, or on how much fertility worship actually translated to better lives for women vs. for men. You can point out moral progress, though, even though you might not be able to say that on some measures, progress was lacking. Wright just means to point out that the circle of morality has broadened, though it occurs is such fits and starts that sometimes you doubt it's there. Equality of the sexes has been the area of slowest progress, for the hopelessly patriarchal major religions of the world.
This all reminds me of another gap in Wright's theory, his failure to compare the over-arching myths of progress and decline. On the one hand, science promotes an assumption of linear progress, with everything getting better. On the other hand, religions claim that humanity has fallen from grace into a state of corruption. These two models are in conflict, and it seems that Wright just assumes the truth of the linear progress model.
You might be correct, but perhaps he can only handle so much in one book!
Last edited by DWill on Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
Saffron

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I can has reading?
Posts: 2954
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm
15
Location: Randolph, VT
Has thanked: 474 times
Been thanked: 399 times
United States of America

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

DWill wrote:The anthropological perspective would seem to be that morality is entirely relative. That can be a true statement if we are able to divorce, in our minds, morality from virtue. But in fact I doubt we can, or at least I can't. I find myself wanting to change morality in the anthropological view to something different and neutral, such as mores, customs, or beliefs.
DWill, if you are referring to my post, I wasn't meaning to suggest that morality was relative and I can't really speak for the anthropoloical perspective anyway. I was trying to get at the idea that morality developed along side of human thought. Just as you would not say an animal was immoral, I don't think you can say that early humans were immoral until a significant level of understanding is achieved. When I wrote that post I had de Waal, the primatoligist, in mind.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

Saffron wrote:
DWill wrote:The anthropological perspective would seem to be that morality is entirely relative. That can be a true statement if we are able to divorce, in our minds, morality from virtue. But in fact I doubt we can, or at least I can't. I find myself wanting to change morality in the anthropological view to something different and neutral, such as mores, customs, or beliefs.
DWill, if you are referring to my post, I wasn't meaning to suggest that morality was relative and I can't really speak for the anthropoloical perspective anyway. I was trying to get at the idea that morality developed along side of human thought. Just as you would not say an animal was immoral, I don't think you can say that early humans were immoral until a significant level of understanding is achieved. When I wrote that post I had de Waal, the primatoligist, in mind.
Saffron, I wasn't referring to your post in the sense that I thought you were trying to excuse whatever cultural practice as moral in its own context. There is simply a limitation to any culture of the past that we will pick out retrospectively (perhaps while being quite blind to our own problems). I do wonder about the growth of human thought. Robert has reminded us that in terms of neural complexity, our brains wouldn't seem to be any different than they are today. So growth in human thought would seem to be empowered entirely by culture. The problem is that there is no uniform advance that we can identify in culture. This might be picking on cultures, but traditions of rape in African countries and of female genital mutilation in some Muslim countries, might make one think that human thought shows no general advance and that we're never very far from descent to a very low level.
User avatar
Saffron

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I can has reading?
Posts: 2954
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm
15
Location: Randolph, VT
Has thanked: 474 times
Been thanked: 399 times
United States of America

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

DWill wrote:
Saffron wrote:
DWill wrote:The anthropological perspective would seem to be that morality is entirely relative. That can be a true statement if we are able to divorce, in our minds, morality from virtue. But in fact I doubt we can, or at least I can't. I find myself wanting to change morality in the anthropological view to something different and neutral, such as mores, customs, or beliefs.
DWill, if you are referring to my post, I wasn't meaning to suggest that morality was relative and I can't really speak for the anthropoloical perspective anyway. I was trying to get at the idea that morality developed along side of human thought. Just as you would not say an animal was immoral, I don't think you can say that early humans were immoral until a significant level of understanding is achieved. When I wrote that post I had de Waal, the primatoligist, in mind.
Saffron, I wasn't referring to your post in the sense that I thought you were trying to excuse whatever cultural practice as moral in its own context. There is simply a limitation to any culture of the past that we will pick out retrospectively (perhaps while being quite blind to our own problems). I do wonder about the growth of human thought. Robert has reminded us that in terms of neural complexity, our brains wouldn't seem to be any different than they are today. So growth in human thought would seem to be empowered entirely by culture. The problem is that there is no uniform advance that we can identify in culture. This might be picking on cultures, but traditions of rape in African countries and of female genital mutilation in some Muslim countries, might make one think that human thought shows no general advance and that we're never very far from descent to a very low level.
I actually agree with what you have posted. I was thinking further back in history than modern human beings -- as we were becoming humans. As I think back over my posts I was not really very clear about the progression I was meaning to show. The only area I think we have progress is our scientific understanding of the world. And it seems to me many of us can't figure out to do with what we do know about the universe, the earth, ourselves, etc... Some days it almost seems useless to us (all of humanity) to have any scientific understanding of the world.

Ooops, I better run -- you can guess where I am and by the time stamp on my post what I need to be doing!
User avatar
stahrwe

1I - PLATINUM CONTIBUTOR
pets endangered by possible book avalanche
Posts: 4898
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:26 am
14
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 166 times
Been thanked: 315 times

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

DWill wrote:I don't have my copy of the book yet, but it must be in this chapter, or maybe in a preface that we don't have listed, that Wright makes a distinction that struck me as important. He says that both religious zealots and opponents of religion make the mistake of thinking that a religion is what its leaders and scriptures say it is. Wright says that it doesn't work this way, sociologically. A religion isn't controlled in this way but is always evolving; it can only be defined by its characteristics at any given time, and these might actually contradict the word of authorities and scriptures, or at least ignore them.

That's why it might not be so important what the Bible really says. We all know about the distasteful stuff in it. Just because it is there places no demand on a Christian to believe it or take responsibility for it. A Christian can probably "believe in" just a minor part of the Bible and still feel okay about calling himself a Christian. This would apply to Muslims and Jews, too.
A few comments here: There is a great difference between Christians, Jews and Muslims. You are a Jew by birth. That is true in close to 100% of the Jews that have ever lived. It is possible to convert to Judaism but you are never quote there. There is also a distinction to Jews who consider Judaism to be a religion and those who consider it a tradition, or an ethnicity. For those who consider it a religion there are approximately 600 laws they are required to obey and an elaborate sacrificial systems to partipate in. The problem is that the sacrifices can only be made at the Temple in Jerusalem and it was destroyed in 70AD. Jews of tradition pick and choose what they observe. Basically, you are a Jew by birth is the point.

Muslims have a rigid code to observe in the form of the Five Pillars of Islam:
Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
Establishment of the daily prayers;
Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
Self-purification through fasting; and
The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able

none of these are optional.

Christians, while an offshoot of Judaism have a very different structure and within Christianity there is a wide variation of devotion to the Bible and interpretation of the practice of Christianity. For some there are sacriments to be performed, for others there is nothing necessary beyond affirmation.

Dwill wrote:We might have an opinion about the intellectual honesty of the attitude I've described. But we have to take into account the cultural significance of religion to many people. It's more about the shared customs and sense of community than it is about the beliefs, in my view.
It isn't a matter of honesty it is a matter of simplicity. Christianity is, at its heart, uncomplicated.
DWill wrote:I do support requiring that people know what they're talking about, though. If they're going to claim the Bible as a moral authority, they should be knowledgeable about it, or at least they should admit that they don't know it in detail.
Should the same requirement be imposed on people who criticize the Bible?
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6497
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2717 times
Been thanked: 2659 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1 - The Primordial Faith

Unread post

stahrwe wrote:Christianity is, at its heart, uncomplicated.
This vision of simple faith breaks down under analysis. Simple faith is sufficient for simple people, but not for our modern complicated world. For faith to be relevant it has to engage with complexity by providing answers that are compatible with reality. Wright's analysis of how religion has evolved to match observation is a story of steadily growing complexity, from animism to polytheism to monotheism, with each stage subsuming the previous concepts into a higher synthesis.
Post Reply

Return to “The Evolution of God - by Robert Wright”