Origin of religion and early hunter gatherers
I'm sure i'm far from the first to have this idea but perhaps religion began because humans have more
complex speech/communication than most animals, and....
thus
1. we understood death better than other animals in terms of communicating decomposure and physical details associated with it.
2. we feared death more because abstract thought tends to encourage severe depression. (how many animals commit suicide?)
3. we were a social animal so we felt the need to encourage good behavior in these small tribes. Primitive people are more prone to resort to religion to encourage ethics.
Anyone read Noah Harrari's "Sapiens".
Questions and comments?
complex speech/communication than most animals, and....
thus
1. we understood death better than other animals in terms of communicating decomposure and physical details associated with it.
2. we feared death more because abstract thought tends to encourage severe depression. (how many animals commit suicide?)
3. we were a social animal so we felt the need to encourage good behavior in these small tribes. Primitive people are more prone to resort to religion to encourage ethics.
Anyone read Noah Harrari's "Sapiens".
Questions and comments?
Comments (42)
1) I suppose that’s true.
2) Prolonged anxiety may have a tendency to lead to clinical depression. Sapiens may be unique in our capacity for existential angst.
3) Social critters encourage 'good behavior' without utilizing religion, as did sapiens prior to developing it. 'Advanced' societies utilize religion and other shared fictions.
Not sure where this is going or what the point may be. The gist of Sapiens is the theory that shared fictions like religion or money help to bind groups in cooperative behavior and that this has proven to be an extremely successful survival strategy.
:up:
https://www.theonion.com/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die-somed-1819594897
My assumption is you know the onion is a parody website. Yeah i'll read the article. The onion is very often funny.
I watched parts of it. Thats funny. Abstract thought leads to depression which is why i would argue humans are more prone to depression than most animals.
1. If we understood death, we wouldn't need religion. Religion is a knee-jerk knowledge-gap-filler. When our ancestors didn't understand something (which was a lot), they asserted a religion.
2. Exactly. We fear what we don't understand. Religion alleviates that fear for a lot of people still today
3. Absolutely. As Praxis pointed out,
Quoting praxis
But then this raises another question: Is religion a viable source of encouraging ethical behavior today? If not, then what changed - the religions, or us?
4. I'm adding another point as to the origin of religion: Humans are inherently self-centered. We believe the world was made just for us, and that there is a plan, or purpose, made just for us.
It seems to me that art, ethics, rights and political ideology also fall into that same category of "fictions that help bind groups in cooperative behaviors." What about science? Is science a shared fiction? Has science proved to be an even better survival strategy? If so, then maybe "extremely successful" isn't a proper characteristic of the outcome of shared fictions. How do we know that we wouldn't have been more successful if our ancestors adopted science instead of religion?
The hunter gatherers had limited knowledge so saying they are just simply selfish is an oversimplification.
They understood death better than the animals that were less verbally talented but they didn't understand death the way you or i do.
How would our ancestors have adopted science (considering scientific understanding is a spectrum?)?
In the beginning it was hard to get writing materials and a phonetic alphabet came with time and these two things are very important for science. The Native Americans didn't have these as far as i know which is why just like everyone else they resorted to religion.
I didn't say, "selfish". I said self-centered. There's a difference. It seems to me an inherent human quality to think oneself as "important", or "valuable". These are subjective, mental properties that we project onto the world that isn't important or valuable. It just is.
Quoting christian2017
They didn't "understand" death. They were aware of it, but didn't understand it. There's a difference. If they understood it, then how did they understand it other than how their religion described it?
Also, language isn't needed for understanding. Understanding is needed in order to learn a language, so understanding is prior to language-use.
Quoting christian2017By making observations of the world and making sure that they aren't projecting their wants and needs (like being accepted in the social group) onto what it is they are observing.
Quoting christian2017
At root, science identifies and integrates sensory evidence (which is the nature of reason). Science is essentially based, not on experiment, but on observation and logic; the act of looking under a rock or into a telescope is the quintessentially scientific act. So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes--a scientific act is completely private. (Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive.) Science is willing to accept and integrate information from any observational source, without concern about persuading other people.
I understand there can be a difference based on context, however self-centered is sometimes used to mean selfish.
Considering this is conjecture on both our parts, how would either of us prove it either way. The forum topic was food for thought. But once again neither of us can prove to what extent they understood death. To some measure they did, because understanding is a spectrum.
True. But how would you expect these early hunter gatherers to make this leap without alot of knowledge considering they didn't have a writing system.
Have you ever read Noah Harrari's "Sapiens". He argues one of the things that enabled cohesion on a massive scale among humans was fictional concepts like money(gold) and religion.
I'm thinking that the 'glue' of a shared fiction is in the perceived value or 'promise', if you will, that it contains. Things like money and religion are very different things, yet they function to provide cooperative behavior across the globe, and I imagine the common denominator is value, or rather, the promise of value. For instance, you identify as a Libertarian and by identifying as such you are in a sense making a promise that you will act in particular ways. If a group of sapiens all agree to act in a particular way, to cooperate across the globe, that is obviously very powerful.
Scientists across the globe cooperate using the same method and this is clearly powerful for any number of applications, but any particular application? Philosophers across the globe cooperate and exchange ideas, but do they agree on any particular philosophy?
If someone identifies as a scientist or philosopher what can I expect from them? I can expect that they value rationality and that's good because I also value rationality. Still, they may have all sorts of beliefs and values that I don't share. The designation of scientist or philosopher is not specific enough to have much meaning for me. Currently, if someone identified as a stoic I'd be very interested in being their friend.
:up:
Re: 'institutional facts' - public promises - whereby 'is' entails 'ought' (Searle, et al), no?
Institutional facts arise out of collective intentionality. With this understanding, how would you say something like religion develops?
Oh wow, i missed this post probably because my feed didn't give an alert.
How would you prove social critters don't have some irrational or fictional beliefs related to images considering they can't communicate with us. I'm not saying they have religion but they do have irrational or fictional beliefs. At the very least you could say they aren't the best at survival nor can they predict certain things as well as we can. However the common religious concept is that if something is done dumb it shouldn't be punished too bad for its wrong doing or it's stupid act because its dumb.
The book sapiens said religion probably began in some form (in some form) with hunter gatherers.
As to "where this is going": we are all supposed to keep an open mind or rational people tend to push people off of sites like this. Considering atheism argues for an eternity without feeling, i'm not sure there would be negative repercussions to find out there was no god or afterlife.
I'm sure social animals can be conditioned to have maladaptive responses to situations and in that way be considered irrational. And social animals can communicate with us. My dog and I communicate daily with body language and verbally. We don't philosophize about the existence of God together but our communication has the virtue of lacking all human bullshit, at least from his side.
Quoting christian2017
Just looking at dogs, it's estimated that there are almost a billion in the world. There are 7.8 billion sapiens. So canine survival ain't too shabby by comparison. In some ways, dogs are better predictors than we are because their minds aren't preoccupied with ruminating about human bullshit. Dogs pick up on subtle patterns that most people would miss and they respond instantly to those patterns.
I think you mean abstract thought or mental simulation rather than prediction.
Quoting christian2017
It is a philosophy forum, after all.
Quoting christian2017
The repercussion is commonly believed to be, in a word, nihilism.
Not sure what you mean by "atheism argues for an eternity without feeling."
the dog or in other words domesticated wolf is at the mercy of humans. Most wolves have been wiped out just as some say humans wiped out some of our precursors (not whether or not this is true). Dawkins claims wolves and dogs are essentially the same species because when they mate they produce offspring that is not infertile. There are 5 types of grizzly bears and one type of grizzly bear can mate with a polar bear and produce fertile offspring.
Most animals that can naturally survive are usually animals that humans produce on farms or animals that humans domesticate. Some would say its not survival of the fittest but survival of the domesticated.
I believe in aliens so perhaps we are all domesticated by aliens.
Cock Roaches, bacteria and viruses break this mold however.
"without feeling". Many would say when you die you don't feel or feel pain or happiness.
But not necessarily atheists, who hold that a god or gods don’t exist. An atheist may subscribe to a metaphysics that in some way allows for a continuation of being after death, for instance. Maybe something like simulation theory, or Buddhism minus the gods.
Some forms of hinduism don't have gods. Buddhism being derived from hinduism may have certain sects like that too.
I actually met a "neighbor" in college who was athiest but yet he said he had dreams alot of time that told him what would happen the next day or somewhat in the future.
So basically what your telling me is some atheists are open to a punishment after life just like religionists are very often open to a punishment after life. I'm really not sure we can say that atheists don't subscribe to faith and not even in the sense that they are at all different from religionists. I used to say that if a person just believes a scientist without doing their own research that that person has faith. This brings a whole new level to the concept of a atheist having faith. I'm not sure any person is completely free from the concept of faith. If i walk outside and see a butt ugly man like the man in Isaiah 53 (Jesus Christ) and we have a conversation, who is to claim i'm an outright idiot for not just claiming its a hallucination?
If a person's science can't be proven at this point in time or this point in history, that person has faith.
I agree that an atheist can be just as irrational as any theist, if that’s what you’re suggesting. And we do indeed all have shared fictions, some deeper and more influential than others. Religion tends to cut deep. I assume that’s because it offers structure, ultimate authority, and big promises.
Big promises? Communist russia and communist china atleast at its inception made big promises. The book of Revelation says that socialism will eventually take hold so i'm not sure how hard we should fight it (also considering globalism and automation). Are you familiar with the propaganda regarding a futuristic society in the early 20th century in Russia?
Structure will be in government whether you have religion or not. Money is a legal fiction and everyone either needs money, wants money, or wants money and needs money. Even gold is a fiction in the sense that when the spanish brought back american gold to the old world it cost massive inflation in europe. Gold is only useful to some extent in electronics and in fact even if we didn't have gold, it can be replaced with other things in the case of electronics. A motherboard doesn't have alot of gold anyway.
Government is an ultimate authority and very often even more so when there is no religion. If you remove religion power doesn't also disapear.
Alright, thank you. I'll add that to my journal and either get it at the local library when the library opens back up or if its cheap i'll get it at amazon.
Considering walmart and amazon are both owned by essentially the same international bean counters (stock holders very often and to some extent all share the same common interest atleast in this modern age), i have no problem shopping at walmart/target/amazon. I don't view them as separate companies. Even Best Buy which is significantly different from Walmart probably has strong ties to Walmart/Target in the sense that they all share atleast some of the same stockholders to some extent. I do believe there are fiscally conservative law modifications that can be made that would also enable the poor to be self sufficient, but i'm not going to go into great detail right now because, this is off topic. I could have summarized all this with "and yes i do shop at amazon", but instead i gave you the long answer. My assumption is you are a liberal, so you might have appreciated this stab at modern (modern) capitalism.
Um ... "out of collective intentionality"? :chin:
The Q, the question, is simply, "whence all this?" This question seeks, if nothing else, an explanation, for all there is - the whole of existence from the atom to the universe - and the evidence, that this was the burning issue for "primitive" people, is that early religions were simply personifications of nature (nature worship?)
The A, the answer, depends on our place in the timeline of history. For "primitive" people, god(s) was/were the perfect answer(s) to the question posed above. Not so for the modern man who, on the whole, finds the divine explanation less than satisfactory and seeks answers elsewhere - perhaps in science.
Ergo, in terms of the question, there's no difference between a shaman living 10,000 years ago and a modern, highly educated scientist but only in terms of the answer, does the distinction "primitive" vs "modern" make sense.
Indeed. Our ability to imagine and hypothesise demands causal explanation of observable phenomena.
The gradual acceptation and formal transmission of the scientific method and its need for observable causes pushed unobservable, ineffable and supernatural causes into a sphere only accessible by faith.
The godly personifications of natural phenomena were the first hypotheses of a hypothesising species. As better hypotheses come into play it is only sentimentality and power that can explain the resistance to paradigmatic shifts in understanding.
This leaves religion and philosophy to fight over the explanations of the thus far unexplained.
I actually almost completely agree with this. A regular engineer has 94.blah blah blah percent accuracy and a NASA engineer is above 99. blah blah blah percent accuracy. Minor details can destroy a system. The modern scientist while much less prone to error can still make huge mistakes by missing critical details. NASA isn't perfect its just much much much less prone to error.
Well, I was hoping you'd say the error in the answer was less important than the question itself.
I wasn't saying there was an error, my implication was the ancient shaman is severely flawed in comparison to the scientist but they have similar goals and each is somewhat right. My assumption is you agree with that to some extent.
I don'tt believe, or perhaps am reluctant to accept, that the "unobservable, ineffable and supernatural causes" is "only accessible by faith". If one thinks in those terms then faith is a state of consciousness that most have not experienced and has little to do with god as a being that cares about us in the way we think. It then must be that this state of consciousness by which we may experience the inefffable, unobservable can be isolated from religious dogma understood in terms of a god.
I wonder if the answers actually differ as they appear to in our eyes. Is one true and the other false or are they just different points of view? Thus my emphasis on the question rather than the answer.
Considering you believe in scientific determinism or determinism, i'm sure you believe in absolute truth, that being said i do attempt to word things in such a way that i believe conforms to cliches. I do try to use cliches when possible. To be honest, when out it public i do stretch the truth alot and use polymorphism. The Bible (atleast the KJV and Hebrew) uses alot of polymorphism. Lying and stretching the truth aren't the same thing. If stretching the truth was lying we couldn't justify getting out of bed in the morning.
Google "selfish vs self-centered".
Quoting christian2017
I see philosophers throw around these terms, "knowledge" and "understanding" without any clear meaning to those terms. What do you mean, "understanding is a spectrum"? You can be aware of something, but until you come up with an explanation of what you are aware of, then you can't say that you have an understanding of what it is you are aware of. Understanding is derived from explaining. How did they explain death?
Quoting christian2017
Sure. Humans are a different type of social animal. Do you think that this cohesion would have happened on a massive scale if humans didn't have large brains and opposable thumbs?
Quoting praxis
I don't see myself as making "promises" when using other's labels to label myself. I'm describing myself with a symbol that approximates my ideas - so that others will know where I'm coming from.
Tell me, what promise are you upholding when the government decides to print more money, thereby devaluing your money? What say did you have? Money is a great example of this "fiction". There's a reason why all governments of every country are in "debt". When governments go under and new governments arise, debts are erased, and money is revalued. It seems like money is a means to limit citizens' power and to give government unlimited power over them.
When I mentioned political ideologies I was pointing out how we use these labels to put people in boxes when many people don't fall neatly into any political group. Other people treat their political ideology like a religion - as their side being righteous and the opposing side being evil incarnate. Ethics is a means of controlling the population - no different than religion.
Science, on the other hand, seems at first glance to be unique among mankind's activities. It is objective, making use of methods of investigation and proof that are impartial and exacting. Theories are constructed and then tested by experiment. If the results are repeatable and cannot be falsified in any way, they survive. If not, they are discarded. The rules are rigidly applied. The standards by which science judges its work are universal. There can be no special pleading in the search for the truth: the aim is simply to discover how nature works and to use that information to enhance our intellectual and physical lives. The logic that directs the search is rational and ineluctable at all times and in all circumstances. This quality of science transcends the differences which in other fields of endeavor make one period incommensurate with another, or one cultural expression untranslatable in another context. Science knows no contextual limitations. It merely seeks the truth.
Oh. :rofl: it's great to know someone who values truth and consistency.
nope, they mean the same thing atleast in alot of circles or at the very least they have overlapping definitions to the extent that if someone is self centered they very often act selfishly.
Your welcome to post the definitions you retrieved from the internet.
How did they explain death?
How would i answer that? Do you want me to post verbatim the conversation they said to each other? There isn't much information i have available beyond the OP and what is written in the book called "Sapiens" mentioned earlier.
Yeah definitely. Elephants have large brains but they don't talk in complex ways. The opposable thumbs things does help quite a bit though.
:)
So you accept without question whatever your government tells you?
It sounds simple, maybe too simple to be useful. For instance, institutional facts may arise out of collective intentions but are not our collective intentions shaped, at least in part, by institutional facts? An extreme example might be something like a death cult where the institutional reality overrides what might be considered the strongest natural impulses.
Why do they need to know where you’re coming from? But more to the point, what happens when you don’t behave in accord with the label? You’re labeled a fraud and are no longer considered part of the group. They say that during the vast majority of sapien existence that would have been a death sentence. That’s quite an incentive to be consistent.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You’re arguing for utilitarianism?