Robert Tulip wrote: In a key comment, Wright says “evolutionary psychology is used to explain the very origins of religious belief as the residue of built-in distortions of perception and cognition; natural selection didn’t design us to believe only true things” (p40). In a competition between someone who believes things that are functional versus someone who only believes things that are true, short term functionality generally wins, even if truth is later seen by historians as vindicating the loser.

I was trying to find the passage in the book where Wright says that he himself doesn't see religion as being an adaptation selected for survival value--but I can't find it and now think that if he said it at all it must have been in one of the interviews. I know he does say in an interview that not every trait any species has exists because it helped it survive. I think it's been the view of both Dawkins and Gould that religion is a by-product of our evolution ( a "spandrel"?) rather than a functional one evolutionarily.

The contrasting views on shamanism are whether it serves just the powerful or everyone in the primitive community. I tend more to the view that shamans serve a social function, in that leaders are needed to guide the culture. If a leader exploits their power too much they will be replaced. Wright says the view that priests are just deceivers for kings is Marxist. We can see the failing of the Marxist theory in the emergence of communist shamans in the Soviet Union, with the dream of equality proving impossible and the old priests just replaced by commissars.

Wright calls the view Marxist, in quotes, because he doesn't really think this cynical view of religion lines up with Marx's thoughts. It's just that Marx, who made the "opiate of the people" comment, was misinterpreted as saying the leaders served up religion to the people to keep them manageable. Marx's actual thinking is deeper and more interesting than that.

"Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. (from Wikipedia)

geo wrote: Going off on another tangent here, I'm currently reading H.P. Lovecraft's essay entitled, Supernatural Horror in Literature. He makes an interesting observation that supernatural literature appeals to a certain segment of the population--those he calls "sensitives". According to Lovecraft, the appeal towards the macabre and the unreal is similar in many respects to that of religion, a connection with something unknown that is outside of ourselves. I'd say Lovecraft is talking about the same "unseen order" mentioned by James. Or it is at least driven by the same fears and wonder that are present in primitive religions.

As for tangents, I want to say, God bless 'em. I read the introduction of the essay and could see from looking at the rest that Lovecraft gives a comprehensive summary of weird literature, all of which explains why movies with supernatural mayhem continue to do well at the box office. But no doubt those are inferior products compared to the literature Lovecraft surveys. I can't read weird and macabre stuff myself. I'm too put off by the unreality of it. Lovecraft says that's due to an inability to loosen myself from the hold of the conventional and everyday, and maybe he's right. I was a little surprised that one of the most rational guys around here, johnson, has a big thing for supernatural movies and books. I believe you yourself have mentioned liking Stephen King. I would have said that the taste for this weird lit is driven by a simple need for the sensational, but Lovecraft makes that seem overly reductive.

DWill wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote: In a key comment, Wright says “evolutionary psychology is used to explain the very origins of religious belief as the residue of built-in distortions of perception and cognition; natural selection didn’t design us to believe only true things” (p40). In a competition between someone who believes things that are functional versus someone who only believes things that are true, short term functionality generally wins, even if truth is later seen by historians as vindicating the loser.

I was trying to find the passage in the book where Wright says that he himself doesn't see religion as being an adaptation selected for survival value--but I can't find it and now think that if he said it at all it must have been in one of the interviews. I know he does say in an interview that not every trait any species has exists because it helped it survive. I think it's been the view of both Dawkins and Gould that religion is a by-product of our evolution ( a "spandrel"?) rather than a functional one evolutionarily.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that our (us as a species) propensity toward religion has not been selected via evolution. I have a strong suspicion that the sensation and or believe in hope is a necessary psychologically for survival. Necessary may not be quite right; let me say aids significantly to the survival of individuals that traits associated with inducing hope were selected by the process of evolution. A major aspect of religion is hope.

Wright can be an entertaining writer. I wonder what people thought about his opening comparison between stock market gurus (and politicians) of today and the shamans of animist religion. I'll buy it, but some may not.

I think that the comparison between stock market gurus and politicians is completely true. Anything that humans are involved in includes politics. I think one of the things that people hate about religion is the fact that it is so political. Wright just shows that that is the way it has always been. We oftentimes like to romanticize our past but past people have been as screwed up as present people are.

The serious side of all this is that is that there seems to be a general need for people to be creative or imaginative, if you will, and perhaps all this old-and New-Age belief is an outlet for that. Whatever the case, I recognize that a view of humans as primarily rational is incomplete and not necessarily something to work towards.

I agree, Dwill. I think that is why I like religion so much because it attracts that creativity in me. The myths and the mystical experiences are all very much what I love about it.

Correct. I veered off on a tangent there and never came back. I suppose people can enter alternate forms of consciousness via meditation, spiritualism, psychedelic drugs, etc. Creative people—writers, artists, actors—regularly tap into their own subconscious for inspiration. Ultimately that's probably where that sense of mystic comes from, don't you think?

Exactly.

According to Lovecraft, the appeal towards the macabre and the unreal is similar in many respects to that of religion, a connection with something unknown that is outside of ourselves. I'd say Lovecraft is talking about the same "unseen order" mentioned by James. Or it is at least driven by the same fears and wonder that are present in primitive religions.

Cool! That is probably why I love ghost stories. I do not really believe in ghosts but I love those shows where they tell of hauntings and describe what made that ghost a ghost. My husband, ever the scientist, hates those shows. But I think they are fun. My brother is really into HP Lovecraft.

I like the way Wright pokes fun at shamans for their fraud, focusing on predictions where ‘a high batting average is likely’ (that eclipses will be temporary) and exploiting gullibility to get girls and money. He cites the famous phrase “pious fraud” (p36) which we have discussed regarding church fathers such as Eusebius. Fraud often works best where the defrauder is able to convince himself or herself that their motive is pure.

Interesting point. It seems that he thinks that there is definitely manipulation but also people who really believed in what they are doing. But you are right, oftentimes people are deceiving themselves in order to deceive others or justify their behavior. I like that you brought up mental illness. There has been an argument that many shamans are mentally ill and yet find acceptance and even reverence for the manifestation of that illness.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that our (us as a species) propensity toward religion has not been selected via evolution. I have a strong suspicion that the sensation and or believe in hope is a necessary psychologically for survival. Necessary may not be quite right; let me say aids significantly to the survival of individuals that traits associated with inducing hope were selected by the process of evolution. A major aspect of religion is hope.

I agree with you saffron.

By the way, Dwill, I like your new icon. The blue is very soothing.

seespotrun2008 wrote: I think that the comparison between stock market gurus and politicians is completely true. Anything that humans are involved in includes politics. I think one of the things that people hate about religion is the fact that it is so political. Wright just shows that that is the way it has always been. We oftentimes like to romanticize our past but past people have been as screwed up as present people are.

You're right that he shows us that from the beginning there was not a clear separation between politics and religion. The shaman's role was political and the chief's and then king's roles were religious. Wright doesn't make much of the gradual removal of religion from public life/politics, though. I mean that he doesn't use secularization as the gauge of progress toward a more inclusive morality, whereas many secularists such as me would tend to do that. I don't know if Wright ever says it, but religion itself can be seen as either zero-sum or non-zero-sum. With polytheism, the attitude was that all could have the gods they wanted (as long as they also honored the state's gods); it didn't have to be one or the other, as it would in a zero-sum situation. Monotheism, though, has an inherent problem with seeing religion as non-zero-sum. If there is only one true god, then the other country's god has to be a false one. There is even a stubborn refusal for different Christian monotheisms to recognize the others as just as valid. Yet for Wright, monotheism is still a a step in the right direction, that is toward moral inclusiveness. If so, it might represent an initial backward step before this progress can continue. I can see how monotheism might move everybody ahead, but it would have to be through a change in belief, that the god of one religion is the same as the god of any other religion. How likely that is, I don't know. It seems to me that only by becoming less devout in their religions would monotheists ever come to think this way. Less devout equals more secular, so that would still be the route I would favor toward moral inclusiveness.

The clash of Islam and the West is over just this matter of secularization. Islam does not believe that a secular society can remain a moral society in the light of the revelation of its religion. Islam looks at the West and sees with horror a moral degeneracy caused by a lack of religion in its public life--in its politics. We oblige them by providing plenty of fodder. The hatred they may have for our society is not based on religion, at least in the sense that it's lack of religion they abhor, not the kind of religion we have. If we were a Christian fundamentalist state, I think they would have greater respect for us.

In the U.S., we tried to create a civic religion, with our godless Constitution, our mini-Bible. The founding fathers knew, however, that success depended on maintaining individual virtue in the citizenry. They appeared to see religion as central to that maintenance of virtue, even if some of them were not conventionally religious. The question for us is whether the Jeffersonian mandate to pursue our own happiness is finally consonant with maintaining civic virtue. It's a continuing challenge for secularists.

I agree, Dwill. I think that is why I like religion so much because it attracts that creativity in me. The myths and the mystical experiences are all very much what I love about it.

I didn't mean to take so much space responding to your first comment, but just to say it's true that we often slight the importance to many people of the way that religion uses capabilities of the mind that otherwise might not be exercised.

By the way, Dwill, I like your new icon. The blue is very soothing.

Thank you. It's a good illustration of an old cliche.