Sabio at Triangulations pointed me toward a very interesting article by the anthropologist Pascal Boyer, Why would (otherwise intelligent) scholars believe in “Religion”?
That’s a deliberately provocative title, and his thesis is equally provocative:
There really is no such thing as “religion”. Most people who live in modern societies think that there is such a thing out there as “religion”, meaning a kind of social and cognitive package that includes views about supernatural agency (gods and suchlike), notions of morality, particular rituals and sometimes particular experiences, as well as membership in a particular community of believers and the constitution of specific organizations (castes of prests, churches, etc.).
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But all this is a recent invention. Most of human evolution took place in small-scale communities that did not have any religious institutions. This was also the case of most human groups outside modern economic development until recently, and it is still the case in remote places outside the direct influence of modern states. In all these places, there is no unified domain of “religion”. True, there may be various ideas about superhuman agents, there may be ideas about morality (often not connected with those agents), there may be notions about ritualized sequences that must be performed (some with and many without a connnection to spirits etc.), there may be community affiliation (generally unrelated to morality or superhuman agency), but there is nothing that would justify putting all these things together.
It reminds me of the Buddhist parable of the chariot. Briefly, a Buddhist wiseman approaches a chariot, points at a wheel and asks “Is that the chariot?” No. He points at the axle, “Is that the chariot?” No. He points at the harness and asks, “Then is this the chariot?” Again, no.
Then what is the chariot? It’s the sum of all these things, and if you take one away you no longer have a chariot. Change the configuration of the pieces – put the wheels in the floor and drag the axle behind you – and the chariot is just a way to really irritate your horses.
But a person can function when their “religion” has been broken into unconnected pieces, or been put together in different ways. In fact, as Boyer points out, most people throughout history have done just that. So what is a religion?
Boyer admits that we have to use the word for now, but that it should be deprecated:
It makes some pragmatic sense, and it is almost forgivable, if you are in the business of attracting grants or selling books, to talk about “the brain and religion”, “the evolution of religion”, “how religion works”, “explaining religion”, or even, if you are really desperate, of “religion explained”.
All this is harmless if your scholarship then proceeds to deflate the notion and explain why your empirical studies have to focus on genuine natural kinds, like costly signaling, counter-intuitive concepts, monopolistic specialists guilds, coalitional psychology, imagined agents, etc.
It is easy to see how ‘beliefs’ when insinuated into the minds of various groups naturally collect for mutual support and automatic re-programming. Just look at the mega-churches we see today and you see this in action. In fact if you really listen to atheists you find the common message is NOT that some form of trans-dimensional ‘g0d’does not exist, but rather that Ye-Wow-Way, allah, or jepus does not, or the organizations based on them are invalid.
I’ve always thought of ‘religion’ not as a way to ‘g0d’ but rather a political power base or powerful, money making corporation.
Watching religious people is like watching a group looking at a pile of junk and convincing themselves and others that it is really a chariot.
Thanks for the mention Vorjack.
I think many atheists would benefit from understanding the implications of Boyer’s insights. Because I see broad generalized attacks against “Religion” as being as misguided as broad generalized defense of “Religion”.
Atheists who ignore the many, many functions loosely, and flexibly aligned in the notion of “Religion” that are not mere propositional statements will always be puzzled at their resilience.
Boyer is brilliant. I remember the day and location where I lost my faith after 25 years of churching. It was at an Atlanta Borders in 2002 when I devoured Pascal Boyer’s “Religion Explained” in one sitting. It explained religion in a way that completely evaporated an intellectual fog. I didn’t sleep for two days. I still tingle with emotion when I think about it.
“Then what is the chariot? It’s the sum of all these things, and if you take one away you no longer have a chariot.”
So this no longer is a human being, right?
Well ‘jose’ according to some it isn’t a human being.
Remember that the dead women in Florida was still a viable human by the definition that her uterus was still usable, so her wires could not be pulled, according to ??Catlicks?? I think.
Since your example has no reproduction abilities, then by the above logic it aint human.
But the philosophy of what is or isn’t ‘human’ is a very lengthy discussion and many varying views and beliefs.
And…“Then what is the chariot? It’s the sum of all these things, and if you take one away you no longer have a chariot.” is a very over simplification. If both wheels are broken you still have a chariot but it must be fixed to be functional, which also relates to your example.
@ IXNU
I could not agree more — fantastic book !!
I’m not picking on ‘jose’ but the ‘this’ pointed too really illustrates just how disgusting some religions can be. Because the subject is not truly human now….
Deformed people cannot be in church….
“For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken. No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.” (Leviticus 21:18-21)
A man with wounded or missing kock cannot enter church….
“He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”(Deuteronomy 23:1)
But to an atheist he is a science miracle…in terms of medical technology and engineering technology…he does not stand a chance getting anything from prayer.
Boyer uses way more words to say what Sabio said much better, and his conclusion just amounts to saying we need to carefully define what we mean.
I’ve made it something of a hobby to challenge “hard atheist” claims, and invariably I find what L.Long says: it’s the Abramic “god” that they don’t believe in, and when pressed they insist they don’t need to define their terms. They could stand to take Boyer’s criticism to heart, but none of this is very deep.
his conclusion just amounts to saying we need to carefully define what we mean.
Well, no:
The term “square triangle” is clearly defined?
I realize he contradicts himself. Also that he follows your quote with four paragraphs explaining that quote, by offering a false dichotomy. His two situations hardly exhaust all the possibilities.
What’s more, this has little to do with his conclusion, where he says this is all fine as long as we explain what we mean.
Thanx you Uzza. I agree that definitions are very important. And Vorjack illustrates, that when struggling with definitions we can see that something was just created out of nothing.
Take, for example, the word “Ego”. Freud used it, it became come language, but on examining, all we come back to is that Freud made it up — no substance. Maybe that is a bad example, but I imagine you see my point.
I think Boyer definitely has a point here, in that, yes, Religion is indeed an abstraction. However, it is a useful construct for more than just getting grants and so on. I don’t think it is exclusively a modern construct, but rather arose with the priesthoods that developed along with the first civilizations of both the Old and New Worlds, such as in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and Central America. Religion is the domain of those priesthoods, just as war is the domain of the aristocratic and warrior classes, trade that of the merchants, etc. Although the separation of Church and State, and thus the religious and secular domains, is very much a feature of the West, nonetheless a component of all agriculturally based civilizations since their beginning has been some form of priesthood or equivalent institution, such as the ulama of Islam or the wu of ancient Chinese shamanistic religion. Personally, I find that the best explanation or description of Religion comes from Stewart Guthrie, who characterizes it as essentially ‘institutionalized anthropomorphism’ in his book “Faces in the Clouds.”