Robert Tulip wrote:

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.

I don't know, Robert: from a zillion gods and ways to service them to one god or God could be seen as a grand simplification.

stahrwe wrote: 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.

Why sure they can be optional, with regard to both Judaism and Islam. Why can't they be? Is the claim of identity subject to stringent rules, as if it could be ruled fraudulent?

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.

This appears to be descriptively accurate. I suspect, though, that it doesn't represent your private belief.

Stahrwe wrote:

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?

Yes, when global judgments are made. But valid criticisms of aspects of anything can be made without one having to be judged an expert.

Geo wrote:Another interesting observation made of the primitives' quasi-religions is the curious absence of a moral component.

I found this interesting too. And if Wright is arguing (or will argue in later chapters) that one day a worldwide religion will arise that no longer attempts to provide nonsense answers to the origin of the universe and mankind (because it can't), but will merely be a religion that guides humanity on how to act morally...I would direct him back to Chapter 1 where he showed us that people can do just fine without religion. People have behaved ethically throughout history with or without religion so we don't need a worldwide religion to keep us from slaughtering each other.

I may be jumping the gun here. Hopefully Wright is not arguing FOR a worldwide religion that keeps us moral and good. Perhaps Wright is simply drawing our attention to the inevitable evolution of the concept of God and not interjecting his opinion on what should or should not happen, but merely sharing his opinion of what probably will happen (if we don't destroy our species beforehand).

Robert Tulip wrote:On Wright's theory, primitive religion is about explaining events in nature, rather than providing a universal moral code.

So we thrived once without gods involved with morality can we do it again?

Notice how lots of us immediately found it fascinating that early religion wasn't involved with morality. What if the entire world could be in on this little secret that religion doesn't have a monopoly on morality? So religion has failed at answering the big questions that pertain to how nature operates and now we're suddenly realizing that religion isn't even necessary for people to behave morally.

Yes, I am aware that all of us here understand that religious belief isn't necessary for a person to be good, but out in society I hear it argued all the time that without God this world would be a scary and dangerous place.

Chris OConnor wrote:

Geo wrote:Another interesting observation made of the primitives' quasi-religions is the curious absence of a moral component.

I found this interesting too. And if Wright is arguing (or will argue in later chapters) that one day a worldwide religion will arise that no longer attempts to provide nonsense answers to the origin of the universe and mankind (because it can't), but will merely be a religion that guides humanity on how to act morally...I would direct him back to Chapter 1 where he showed us that people can do just fine without religion. People have behaved ethically throughout history with or without religion so we don't need a worldwide religion to keep us from slaughtering each other.

If Wright's generalization about h-g groups providing their own morality, independent of the gods that controlled nature, is true, then we did in a sense at least, get along fine without religious morality. What makes me a little leery is thinking that the h-g morality would have been morality as we know it. It might not have been; it probably wasn't, in fact, since inevitably beliefs about the gods could create religious practices such as human sacrifice that are immoral for us. The most I can confidently say about h-g morality is that it helped enable humans to survive.

There are really two kinds of morality. One is the type Frans Dewaal talks about, on the level of interpersonal (or
inter-simian) relations. He tells us that empathy, the quality that makes us care about acting in consideration of others, is our genetic, selected inheritance. The other kind is on the level of social standards or group practice and becomes established through some type of evaluative institution in the society, however simple it may be. Wright says, and I think I would agree, that this evaluation was for a long while the province of religion. Still the result might not be what we would now call morality, might in fact be an obstacle to morality (such as killing non-believers). So the only point I'm relatively sure of is that institutional strength is important for morality type 2 to also remain strong. But that in itself is not sufficient for a satisfactory type 2 morality (as we can see with Nazism). I'm not sure where the trail goes from here.

I may be jumping the gun here. Hopefully Wright is not arguing FOR a worldwide religion that keeps us moral and good. Perhaps Wright is simply drawing our attention to the inevitable evolution of the concept of God and not interjecting his opinion on what should or should not happen, but merely sharing his opinion of what probably will happen (if we don't destroy our species beforehand).

That question I'm sure will occupy us as we get into the later parts of the book.

What does h-g mean?

OK, I figured it out. Hunter-gatherer.

Nice distinction, DW, between morality type 1 and type 2. I agree with the idea that humans can be moral without a god, but I think the problem of morality is more conplicated. I believe the size and transitory nature of the types of groups people live in today interfere with the development of morality and the display of moral behavior. In Wrights discussion of h-g groups he says that they did not need god to be involved with right and wrong becasue the groups were so small there was no anonymity; total accountability existed. It would have been impossible to maintain the cohesiveness of the group if the members didn't act morally toward one another. Wright is postulating that as groups got larger something was needed to reign in the freedom to act that anonymity creates; ergo god steps in to the morality business.

Where ever this book is going and what ever you believe about god and morality, the problem of the effect of anonymity on moral behavior remains.

Saffron wrote:Where ever this book is going and what ever you believe about god and morality, the problem of the effect of anonymity on moral behavior remains.

In the end, it is a matter of providing a framework within which groups, especially large groups of people can live, and providing them with a code of conduct. It is a matter of history and intellectual evolution which determines which of these framework-factors get the upper hand: consider the famous "who is going to crown the emperor? The Mediaeval Church, thus asserting power and their brand of moral behaviour? Or the secular nobles/emperor himself, demonstrating the secular section was to win the power struggle. Secular law systems were the determinate for moral behaviour (physical or monetary punishment) if the emperor won; Church law and restrictions (non-material punishment--excommunication, Hell, etc--and weirdly enough, also monetary) if religion won. As to Aten or Amun (I'm in the wrong chapter here, aren't I?), war made have indeed changed the thinking of Egyptians concerning their moral behaviour and acceptance of "alien" ideas and moral codes, and secular concerns went hand in hand with religioisity in going to war. This is a concept that always pays off and when 2 systems cooperate, it is highly interesting and horrifying seeing which moral codes surface or negate others....secular or religious.
Granted, I have just presented a rather terse and poor summary of one singular example, but the point I am attempting to make is that a system is the determining factor of moral behaviour, be it of "this realm" or not.
Dystopian literature has a good grasp on this concept. Once a society becomes more complex and larger, it is usually impossible for one singular system to provide the moral framework necessary to keep it together and functioning and you see elements of 2 or more systems competing or cooperating.

oblivion wrote:

Saffron wrote:Where ever this book is going and what ever you believe about god and morality, the problem of the effect of anonymity on moral behavior remains.

In the end, it is a matter of providing a framework within which groups, especially large groups of people can live, and providing them with a code of conduct. It is a matter of history and intellectual evolution which determines which of these framework-factors get the upper hand: consider the famous "who is going to crown the emperor? The Mediaeval Church, thus asserting power and their brand of moral behaviour? Or the secular nobles/emperor himself, demonstrating the secular section was to win the power struggle. Secular law systems were the determinate for moral behaviour (physical or monetary punishment) if the emperor won; Church law and restrictions (non-material punishment--excommunication, Hell, etc--and weirdly enough, also monetary) if religion won. As to Aten or Amun (I'm in the wrong chapter here, aren't I?), war made have indeed changed the thinking of Egyptians concerning their moral behaviour and acceptance of "alien" ideas and moral codes, and secular concerns went hand in hand with religioisity in going to war. This is a concept that always pays off and when 2 systems cooperate, it is highly interesting and horrifying seeing which moral codes surface or negate others....secular or religious.

At the risk of sounding chauvintistic, perhaps the U. S. Constitution provides the first example of a secular system fully replacing the religious. Our godless Constitution centers moral authority in the people and God is nowhere to be seen (to the continuing chagrin of many citizens today). I agree that a framework/code of conduct is essential, but it is easy to take for granted the institutional support that provides this and to think that morality, broadly speaking, will be naturally maintained. If the church or religion is out of the picture, we need to act toward our democratic institutions in a manner that almost might be called religious. Failure to do this might have consequences such as the recent scandals that brought on the financial crisis.

I suppose I should relate the thought to Wright somehow. Maybe God evolves to such a point that we no longer need to talk about it. It would be like the situation Wright talks about in Chap. 1, where the h-g folks don't know what you're talking about when you ask what their religion is. So if we have a just and moral society someday, anyone could say if they wanted that "God" was there, but it would make no difference.