Home Sapiens: what's religion got to do with it?
When I was young, I believed everything I was taught about religion, God and the universe. I believed that my very life depended on it. I believed because the generations before me believed.
They were wrong and if not wrong, then very, very misguided.
The irony is that I believe something different now and I could very well be proven wrong myself. Such is the nature of belief.
Nothing!
Nothing much, anyway.
Well, in truth, quite a bit.
Widespread belief in a system of religious ideals can lead to equally widespread human destruction as much as it can to personal and spiritual growth. Wars fought in the name of God, Yahweh, Jehova and Allah are well-known and the resulting mass destruction of humans just as well known.
The God whom these adherents venerate is asked to intercede on their behalf for mutually impossible requests like please, Allah / God in Heaven, help us win this war, or Father, lead us not into temptation and dear Yahweh, if I hold my arms out, please smite the Philistines (and it will be my fault of I get tired). Oh, and then there's this one, sent to Heaven by both sides: Dear Lord, bless this game of football and give us the strength to win.
Confusing, isn't it?
Then there's the propensity to ask adherents to do something in the present in the hope of future reward. If you make that reward enticing enough (despite the fact that no one can actually guarantee the future) enough people will take the emotional bait and, hey presto, you have prayer, pilgrimages, the Hadj, Lourdes, fatwahs, deathbed confessions, baptism, circumcision, food restrictions, cults, sin (which obviously needs forgiveness by a heavenly intermediary).
Every human being, to some degree or other, searches for the reasons underlying events, phenomena and experiences that they can't explain. This seems quite normal and natural.
One person wants an explanation of another's action so he/she can decide whether the relationship is worth continuing. A legal system wants an explanation of a perpetrator's action so it can be understood and punished accordingly. Newton wanted an explanation about why an apple fell downwards onto his head so he might avoid being hurt next time (Luckily, Newton found a rational explanation from nature).
The trouble with religious explanations lies in their tenuous hold on reality, on the present moment. Their tendency is to want to conflate the past, present and future into some sort of universal time-frame within which they can wield authority and control. If they could get a large number of people to believe that this is the case, again, hey presto, we have belief in martyrdom, the honour of dying in battle for God and country, the necessity of making at least one pilgrimage to Mecca, the universal saving act of Jesus' crucifixion, Original Sin, the hoped-for arrival of the Messiah, the Second Coming, control by the Universe of human lives, to name a few of them.
We are all entitled to our beliefs. We all have values by which we try to live, even if they are mostly unconscious and often not directly examined.
But it might be, as Harari suggests, that some of the long-held beliefs surrounding religions and ideologies may be under severe attack. He says: "... a huge gulf is opening up between the tenets of liberal humanism and the latest findings of the life sciences, a gulf we cannot ignore much longer." (p.263) Could it be that what we value is simply a way of making sense of our world and not an immutable truth? Are good and evil simply a matter of perspective? Are all our actions biologically determined? Can emotions be simply explained as the interplay between hormones, enzymes and electro-chemical impulses across the synapses rather than the use of free-will or the impact of an "experience"?
If religion can be defined as "a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order" (p.255) it is clear that humans are capable of creating another "system of norms and values" that are based on a different "order".
Where are we headed? More importantly, where do we want to head?
Philosopher George Santayana is thought to have said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The past is significant only in so far as it has brought us to the present. It should not be invited to live there. In a similar way, the future is like the "undiscovered country" of death to which Hamlet referred and should not be used to populate the map of your present. Various religious beliefs attempt to tell us what death is and what awaits us after its occurrence, but we actually don't know. Similarly, the future is unknown and unknowable, despite what we might be told.`
"... religion has been the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires. Since all social orders and hierarchies are imagined [think about that carefully, my addition], they are all fragile and the larger the society, the more fragile it is." (Sapiens, p.234) Harari suggests that religions have helped give these societies and hierarchies authority and stability by supplying then with "superhuman legitimacy." (p.234)
The turmoil faced by these societies and hierarchies around the world suggests that traditional religions no longer hold sway. At the same time, we see larger and larger groups of humankind eschewing long-held beliefs by confronting their proponents in demonstrations, social media blitzes and legal settings.
Could it be that a new form of "religion" is arising? The religion of Nonbelief?
They were wrong and if not wrong, then very, very misguided.
The irony is that I believe something different now and I could very well be proven wrong myself. Such is the nature of belief.
Nothing!
Nothing much, anyway.
Well, in truth, quite a bit.
Widespread belief in a system of religious ideals can lead to equally widespread human destruction as much as it can to personal and spiritual growth. Wars fought in the name of God, Yahweh, Jehova and Allah are well-known and the resulting mass destruction of humans just as well known.
The God whom these adherents venerate is asked to intercede on their behalf for mutually impossible requests like please, Allah / God in Heaven, help us win this war, or Father, lead us not into temptation and dear Yahweh, if I hold my arms out, please smite the Philistines (and it will be my fault of I get tired). Oh, and then there's this one, sent to Heaven by both sides: Dear Lord, bless this game of football and give us the strength to win.
Confusing, isn't it?
Then there's the propensity to ask adherents to do something in the present in the hope of future reward. If you make that reward enticing enough (despite the fact that no one can actually guarantee the future) enough people will take the emotional bait and, hey presto, you have prayer, pilgrimages, the Hadj, Lourdes, fatwahs, deathbed confessions, baptism, circumcision, food restrictions, cults, sin (which obviously needs forgiveness by a heavenly intermediary).
Every human being, to some degree or other, searches for the reasons underlying events, phenomena and experiences that they can't explain. This seems quite normal and natural.
One person wants an explanation of another's action so he/she can decide whether the relationship is worth continuing. A legal system wants an explanation of a perpetrator's action so it can be understood and punished accordingly. Newton wanted an explanation about why an apple fell downwards onto his head so he might avoid being hurt next time (Luckily, Newton found a rational explanation from nature).
The trouble with religious explanations lies in their tenuous hold on reality, on the present moment. Their tendency is to want to conflate the past, present and future into some sort of universal time-frame within which they can wield authority and control. If they could get a large number of people to believe that this is the case, again, hey presto, we have belief in martyrdom, the honour of dying in battle for God and country, the necessity of making at least one pilgrimage to Mecca, the universal saving act of Jesus' crucifixion, Original Sin, the hoped-for arrival of the Messiah, the Second Coming, control by the Universe of human lives, to name a few of them.
We are all entitled to our beliefs. We all have values by which we try to live, even if they are mostly unconscious and often not directly examined.
But it might be, as Harari suggests, that some of the long-held beliefs surrounding religions and ideologies may be under severe attack. He says: "... a huge gulf is opening up between the tenets of liberal humanism and the latest findings of the life sciences, a gulf we cannot ignore much longer." (p.263) Could it be that what we value is simply a way of making sense of our world and not an immutable truth? Are good and evil simply a matter of perspective? Are all our actions biologically determined? Can emotions be simply explained as the interplay between hormones, enzymes and electro-chemical impulses across the synapses rather than the use of free-will or the impact of an "experience"?
If religion can be defined as "a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order" (p.255) it is clear that humans are capable of creating another "system of norms and values" that are based on a different "order".
Where are we headed? More importantly, where do we want to head?
Philosopher George Santayana is thought to have said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The past is significant only in so far as it has brought us to the present. It should not be invited to live there. In a similar way, the future is like the "undiscovered country" of death to which Hamlet referred and should not be used to populate the map of your present. Various religious beliefs attempt to tell us what death is and what awaits us after its occurrence, but we actually don't know. Similarly, the future is unknown and unknowable, despite what we might be told.`
"... religion has been the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires. Since all social orders and hierarchies are imagined [think about that carefully, my addition], they are all fragile and the larger the society, the more fragile it is." (Sapiens, p.234) Harari suggests that religions have helped give these societies and hierarchies authority and stability by supplying then with "superhuman legitimacy." (p.234)
The turmoil faced by these societies and hierarchies around the world suggests that traditional religions no longer hold sway. At the same time, we see larger and larger groups of humankind eschewing long-held beliefs by confronting their proponents in demonstrations, social media blitzes and legal settings.
Could it be that a new form of "religion" is arising? The religion of Nonbelief?
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