Why is Comparative Religion in Science?

[GeoffP]

The one perspective Dawkins might - I grudge - have been right about is why one might consider such study scientific. Personally, I think the endeavour well worth the while and critical to the human spirit - but it is not a science. An art conducted scientifically, at best, since the reality of the phenomena informing such a field of study itself is not actually established.

 

[Yazata]

Why is Comparative Religion in Science?

I'm a relatively new arrival around here, so I don't actually know who created this forum or why. But I'd guess that the forum exists for much the same reason that the 'human sciences' forum exists.

The term 'comparative religion' seems to have a narrow and a broad usage. The narrow usage refers to a particular scholarly methodology that seeks to discover concepts common to religion in general by studying the simularities and differences between particular religious manifestations. Conceived in this way, comparative religion concerns itself with the cross-cultural examination of a vast number of general concepts and practices like ritual purity, religious authority, magic, sacrifice, syncretism, meditation, religious art, sacred spaces, beliefs in supernatural beings, beliefs in an afterlife, salvation, textual exegesis, divination and religious ethics. Conceived more broadly, 'comparative religion' is kind of a synonym for 'religious studies' in general, referring to the academic study of the religious phenomenon, even if that study isn't pursued in a comparative vein. That kind of study might include history of ideas approaches to the development of religious doctrines, anthropological discriptions of village religious practices and so on.

The one perspective Dawkins might - I grudge - have been right about is why one might consider such study scientific. Personally, I think the endeavour well worth the while and critical to the human spirit - but it is not a science.

I'm inclined to agree with you. The study of religion seems to be more of a humanities subject than a science subject. Of course, I don't really consider the 'social sciences' to be sciences in quite the same way that natural sciences like physics, molecular biology or geology are. (I'm less sure about psychology, I think that some approaches are scientific but others clearly aren't. I'd say the same about anthropology.) My reason for questioning whether the 'social sciences' are truly scientific isn't that social phenomena don't exist. It's that the social phenomena that obviously do exist don't seem to display anything like the formal regularities that are so prominent in physics.

An art conducted scientifically, at best, since the reality of the phenomena informing such a field of study itself is not actually established.

Of course it's established. Religion in general and individual religions in particular obviously exist as cultural phenomena. I'll go even further than that and say that religion is perhaps as close as we come to a human cultural universal, this side of a few things like language use. Every culture that we know about, everywhere in the world and at all periods from paleolithic times to the present, seems to have included some kind of religious manifestation. But those religious expressions take an almost infinite variety of forms and don't seem to be pointing towards or responding to any single thing. That suggests to me (and to many others as well) that there might be innate cognitive processes in human beings that appear to generate religiosity. (My own guess is that it's kind of a psychological consequence of some of our other social instincts.) It's interesting how often self-avowed atheists seem to generate systems of ideas with religion-like features. Marxism and Freudianism come to mind.

Academic religious studies doesn't really concern itself with the many supernatural 'realities' that the various particular religions proclaim. It doesn't necessarily deny them, it just 'brackets out' their transcendental significance (if any). Studies that accept the existence of some particular supernatural 'realities' and typically some purported supernatural 'revelation' that supposedly reveals them, a-priori as a presuppositional starting point for further study, would be termed 'theology' in the Christian context. Those kind of studies seems to be less purely academic and more internal to the religions themselves, and are often conducted in theological seminaries as opposed to secular universities. Intellectually, that's a rather different thing than the kind of academic religious studies that I'm talking about here, namely 'comparative religion' in the broad religious studies sense.

Of course, having said all that, its clear that the participants on this forum typically haven't had much academc exposure to that kind of stuff, so that this forum just serves as another place for all the familiar arguments about religion.

The methodology and presuppositons of religious study is a subject of interest to me, so forgive me for blathering on about it.

 

[NMSquirrel]

because if we can bring the critical thinking that science offers into religion maybe ppl can finally distinguish between religion and god.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I'm a relatively new arrival around here, so I don't actually know who created this forum or why. But I'd guess that the forum exists for much the same reason that the 'human sciences' forum exists.

Note from a Moderator (but not the Moderator of this board):
We already have a Religion subforum in the Philosophy section. It's one of the few places here where the scientific method is greatly relaxed--the other is Crackpottery, which pretty much tells you what the SciForums staff think of religion. On the Religion board people are free to make assertions that would qualify as trolling anywhere else, and treat any and all religions as though they are collections of literal truths, rather than metaphors.

This subforum was created so the rest of us can study religion the same way we study politics and art: in a scholarly way, subject to all the rules of the scientific method. In a place of tertiary and quaternary scholarship, this particularly concerns the Rule of Laplace: if you make an extraordinary assertion and someone challenges it, you must immediately provide at least some sort of evidence, or else shut up about it on SciForums--forever.

The term 'comparative religion' seems to have a narrow and a broad usage.

I wasn't a Moderator when this subforum was created so I wasn't privy to the discusson about it on the Super-Secret Moderators' Board. But having been privy to later arguments, I would guess that it was modeled after terms like "comparative linguistics." The point is that we're here to study religion as anthropologists, not philosophers.

The study of religion seems to be more of a humanities subject than a science subject. Of course, I don't really consider the 'social sciences' to be sciences in quite the same way that natural sciences like physics, molecular biology or geology are. (I'm less sure about psychology, I think that some approaches are scientific but others clearly aren't. I'd say the same about anthropology.) My reason for questioning whether the 'social sciences' are truly scientific isn't that social phenomena don't exist. It's that the social phenomena that obviously do exist don't seem to display anything like the formal regularities that are so prominent in physics.

The terms "hard science" (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) and "soft science" (psychology, linguistics, economics, etc.) are widely used. A soft science is one in which the scientific method is difficult to apply rigorously. For example, in sociology it's very difficult, and often illegal, to practice experimentation, one of the cornerstones of the SM. Of course that doesn't stop people in power from occasionally trying.

Of course it's established. Religion in general and individual religions in particular obviously exist as cultural phenomena.

I think what he was referring to was the putative supernatural phenomena that underly the religions, such as Jonah coming out of the belly of a whale alive in Judaism, Jesus coming back from the dead in Christianity, or the big blue elephant with the broken tusk in Hinduism. Not the phenomenon of religion itself.

I'll go even further than that and say that religion is perhaps as close as we come to a human cultural universal, this side of a few things like language use. Every culture that we know about, everywhere in the world and at all periods from paleolithic times to the present, seems to have included some kind of religious manifestation.

Actually Jung found a striking commonality among the motifs in the world's ancient and modern religions, what he called archetypes. They are instinctive motifs which, assuming that you reject the antiscientific supernaturalist explanation, must be pre-programmed into our DNA. Most instincts are tools of survival, such as fleeing from a larger animal with both eyes in front of its face. Many archetypes can be traced to a distant past when they served a purpose, such as various rites of passage into adulthood. Perhaps the beliefs that comprise religion were survival traits in an era whose dangers we can't imagine, but there's also no reason they can't be accidental mutations passed down through a genetic bottleneck like Mitochondrial Eve or Y-Chromosome Adam.

As for linguistics, since I'm the Moderator of that board, I'll point out that we have absolutely no clue as to whether language is, indeed, a universal instinct. We have only been able to trace one language family (Dene-Yeniseian) back 15,000 years. So we can't guess whether A) each language family arose independently, evidence that it is a universal instinct, or B) the technology of spoken language was a really clever invention that occurred only once and slowly spread across the globe as it was borrowed and copied by other tribes.

But those religious expressions take an almost infinite variety of forms and don't seem to be pointing towards or responding to any single thing. That suggests to me (and to many others as well) that there might be innate cognitive processes in human beings that appear to generate religiosity. (My own guess is that it's kind of a psychological consequence of some of our other social instincts.)

You're basically saying the same thing.

It's interesting how often self-avowed atheists seem to generate systems of ideas with religion-like features. Marxism and Freudianism come to mind.

Although Marx was of Jewish ancestry he was raised as a Christian in a Christian society. His motto, "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability," is an expansion on a quote from the Book of Acts. Communism is basically an offshoot of Christian philosophy. Can you imagine any self-respecting Jew, Hindu or Confucian suggesting with a straight face that an economic system can survive if what a man takes from it need not correlate with what he gives back?

As the disciple of an armchair Jungian (the closest I came to scholarship was being taken to a lecture by Joseph Campbell by my wife shortly before he died) I'm not very familiar with Freud, who is now only studied in medical schools while Jung rules in the business world. But I do know that Freud was a scientist, and his paradigm is based upon empirical evidence. Unfortunately his sample space was too small--young upper-class Swiss males--but still that qualitatively distinguishes Freudian psychology from religion.

Of course, having said all that, its clear that the participants on this forum typically haven't had much academc exposure to that kind of stuff, so that this forum just serves as another place for all the familiar arguments about religion.

Actually it is our intent to make sure that doesn't happen. SciForums is one of the few places where it's okay to bash religion--notice that the forum rule against insults glaringly omits it--so you'll find quite a bit of that on this board. But still, like the rest of the boards it is our assigned mission to maintain it as a place of science and scholarship--subject to the limitations of a membership whose average age is around 17 and who therefore often take off their lab coats and throw erasers at each other.

The methodology and presuppositons of religious study is a subject of interest to me, so forgive me for blathering on about it.

Actually you're just the kind of member we need on this board. Please carry on.

 

[GeoffP]

Of course it's established. Religion in general and individual religions in particular obviously exist as cultural phenomena.

No: the phenomena underlying religion are not established. I have no empirical evidence of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son, nor Christ's Divinity, nor Mohammed's climb up the mountain. As such, religious research may indeed be scholarly, and I would argue that it certainly is - but this makes it a social art, rather than a science. Surely it belongs there instead of here.

 

[NMSquirrel]

treat any and all religions as though they are collections of literal truths, rather than metaphors.

um..actually the consensus seems to be that the believers here tend to take the bible as non-literal, now there is occasion that a new user will..but rest assured that the rest of the sciforums non-believers are quick to educate them..

The terms "hard science" (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) and "soft science" (psychology, linguistics, economics, etc.) are widely used. A soft science is one in which the scientific method is difficult to apply rigorously.

so God is a soft science?

SciForums is one of the few places where it's okay to bash religion

bash religion all you want..just don't bash the believers..

take off their lab coats and throw erasers at each other.

games are in the free thoughts forum..

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

um..actually the consensus seems to be that the believers here tend to take the bible as non-literal . . . .

Nonetheless we have our share of literalists and the Religion board is the place where they're free to spout their poppycock.

. . . . now there is occasion that a new user will..but rest assured that the rest of the sciforums non-believers are quick to educate them.

"Educating" a person who believes that, for example, sea level once rose by several thousand feet when there aren't enough water molecules within the planet and its atmosphere to make that happen, is in most cases impossible. They believe that an unobservable, supernatural universe exists from which creatures and forces illogically and whimsically perturb the operation of the natural universe. The best we can hope is to help them understand that this belief is not merely unscientific, but antiscientific, since it violates the fundamental underlying premise of the scientific method (that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior), which has been tested exhaustively for half a millennium and never come close to being falsified.

Considering the number of respected scientists who practice cognitive dissonance and adopt this belief when they leave the laboratory, this is probably a futile hope.

so God is a soft science?

No. The study of supernaturalism as a psychological, cultural and evolutionary phenomenon is.

bash religion all you want..just don't bash the believers.

We allow the expression of opinions such as, "devout Jews believe they are superior to everyone else" and "devout Christians believe in an economic system that would destroy civilization if it were implemented rigorously," since we find those assertions not to be extraordinary and therefore not in violation of the Rule of Laplace even when presented without evidence. But we don't allow members to insult individuals, including each other, based on their religious beliefs.

games are in the free thoughts forum.

In any of the subforums, occasional wisecracks, good-natured insults other foolishness is permitted, since this is not an academy and cannot be run like one. The line is drawn when they escalate into genuine trolling: halting the progress of a discussion by derailing it from its topic or a related one.

 

[S.A.M.]

I think because the aim of comparative religion is different from that of religion. Comparative religion, by definition, aims to compare between myths, rituals and concepts of different religions. This is not an act of faith or belief but a study of empirically observed comparisons. They can be tested for similarities and differences using the scientific method - by examining and dating artificats, archaelogy, documentation, literary references, origins of parables, common origins of religious themes. So yes, it is a science

For example - two comparative studies on the same subject

1.Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

This book compares the non-literal Jesus and Buddha and points out the similarities in their teachings

2. The Buddha and the Christ Reciprocal Views

This book compares the bible literal Christ [Paul's Christ in the Bible] and shows how little his teachings match the Buddha's

 

[Yazata]

We already have a Religion subforum in the Philosophy section.

I probably spend most of my time there.

It's one of the few places here where the scientific method is greatly relaxed--the other is Crackpottery, which pretty much tells you what the SciForums staff think of religion.

Despite my personally being an agnostic, I think that I have a higher opinion of religion than simple 'crackpottery' (though it can often be that). My academic interest is religious studies, after all.

On the Religion board people are free to make assertions that would qualify as trolling anywhere else, and treat any and all religions as though they are collections of literal truths, rather than metaphors.

This subforum was created so the rest of us can study religion the same way we study politics and art: in a scholarly way, subject to all the rules of the scientific method.

I steer clear of politics and consider it nothing short of madness. As for art, I'm not convinced that the "scientific method" (I'm not even sure what that phrase means, hypothetico-deductive?) is the best way to approach it. I think that I'd say the same thing about religion.

I'm more inclined personally to approach religion historically, I guess, in the broad interdisciplinary context of the history of ideas. The comparative approach seems most useful to me in clarifying concepts. We become aware of subtle shades of meaning when we compare how analogous concepts have evolved and are employed in different cultures.

In a place of tertiary and quaternary scholarship, this particularly concerns the Rule of Laplace: if you make an extraordinary assertion and someone challenges it, you must immediately provide at least some sort of evidence, or else shut up about it on SciForums--forever.

I think that the moderators should take action in response to preaching and so-called religious 'testimony'. But I do like to investigate religious ideas, their sources and their implications, and quashing all religious expression that isn't reflexively dismissive would probably be a mistake. (Thankfully, I haven't seen any moderators doing that.) Just looking at this place, there are no end of very smart people ready and eager to question extraordinary claims. Oftentimes those responses and the issues they raise turn out to be more thought-provoking than the original claims. The original claim might have been a simplistic statement of faith, but the replies could raise all kinds of interesting questions about how extraordinary claims should be received and assessed.

The point is that we're here to study religion as anthropologists, not philosophers.

Owww!!! You hurt me! I was a philosophy-and-religion major in college and was a philosophy graduate student for a while, before I subsequently finished my MA in interdisplinary humanities. (I liked the broader and more expansive approach.) I've had a lifelong love of science as well and my other undergraduate major was biology. But when it comes to stuff like physics and math, I'm just a layman (I topped out at the introductory physics and calculus sequence required by my biology major) and don't really feel confident that I can post anything intelligent on most scientific subjects. Including anthropology, in most cases. (Assuming that anthropology is a science. Physical anthropology clearly is a science, but I wouldn't say the same thing about cultural anthropology. It looks more like a humanities subject to me.)

I think what he was referring to was the putative supernatural phenomena that underly the religions, such as Jonah coming out of the belly of a whale alive in Judaism, Jesus coming back from the dead in Christianity, or the big blue elephant with the broken tusk in Hinduism. Not the phenomenon of religion itself.

I'd heartily agree with Geoff about that. But I don't think that's necessarily what comparative religion is investigating. It's comparing, contrasting and exploring religious concepts across traditions and cultures, not directly studying the transcendental realities that those concepts purportedly refer to. I imagine that some people who practice comparative religion do believe in some of those things. (It's hard to imagine anyone believing in everything that anyone has ever believed.) Others of us are more thoroughgoing skeptics.

As for linguistics, since I'm the Moderator of that board, I'll point out that we have absolutely no clue as to whether language is, indeed, a universal instinct. We have only been able to trace one language family (Dene-Yeniseian) back 15,000 years. So we can't guess whether A) each language family arose independently, evidence that it is a universal instinct, or B) the technology of spoken language was a really clever invention that occurred only once and slowly spread across the globe as it was borrowed and copied by other tribes.

I'm just saying that for every human culture where sufficient information exists to say one way or another, language is observed to exist. No non-linguistic human cultures are known. I'll even go farther and suggest (a la Chomsky, I guess) that human beings seem to be biologically primed and preconditioned to learn, understand and produce natural language.

Just think of how much easier it is to learn natural language than it is to learn something like calculus, despite the fact that language is a vastly more complex system. Children just soak up language without formal instruction. Even kids with Down's syndrome are busily talking to each other.

My own speculation about the seeming ubiquity of human religiosity is that it might be kind of an 'unintended consequence' of other human social instincts. Not only do we appear in the world predisposed to understand and use language, we also seem predisposed to relate to other human beings as people. Even infants interpret people's expressions, tones of voice and gestures as indicative of their inner states. Children just naturally interpret others' behavior in term of purposes and intentions. Significantly, human beings seem much happier and comfortable in the company of other human beings than they do alone in a world of inanimate objects.

I think that a some of this 'social animals reading each other' stuff goes back a long way in our phylogenetic tree. My dog seems to be able to successfully read many of my emotions and some of my intentions. (Perhaps that emotional isomorphism between humans and dogs is one reason we get along so well with them.)

So it seems to me that in an early paleolithic environment, perhaps even before anatomically modern humans appeared, Homo erectus or some hominid started extending their ability to read others of their kind to conceiving of animals as having awareness and intentions too. That probably had survival value since higher animals do appear to be aware and do appear to have human-like intentions.

And our hominid might have moved right along to thinking of the sun, moon and sky, storms, lightening and thunder, trees and hill-tops as... having awareness, emotions and intentions too. Just like us. It might have been the easiest and most comfortable way for them to conceptualize and think about the the world around them - in terms of how they relate to each other. Even in historical times, we have countless examples of abstractions gradually being personalized and anthropomorphized in myth.

Actually it is our intent to make sure that doesn't happen. SciForums is one of the few places where it's okay to bash religion--notice that the forum rule against insults glaringly omits it--so you'll find quite a bit of that on this board.

I think that it's a good idea to treat everyone with sympathy and compassion. It doesn't make any difference to me whether they are religious believers or not. Of course, if somebody says something that I disagree with on a discussion forum, then I'm apt to engage them in discussion about the thing said. But I'll try (not always successfully) to avoid personal flames.

That's just basic rhetoric. If I want to have any hope of convincing somebody else to agree with me, then I have to make them want to do that. I can't just bash them with insults. That would only harden them against me and turn the thread into an ego-contest.

But still, like the rest of the boards it is our assigned mission to maintain it as a place of science and scholarship--subject to the limitations of a membership whose average age is around 17 and who therefore often take off their lab coats and throw erasers at each other.Actually you're just the kind of member we need on this board. Please carry on.

Thanks for the compliment. I think that you moderators are doing a good job. The quality of most of the discussion here on Sciforums and the moderation that fosters it is why I chose to sign up and join in.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Despite my personally being an agnostic, I think that I have a higher opinion of religion than simple 'crackpottery' (though it can often be that).

The motivation is deeper and more complex. But the results are depressingly similar.

I steer clear of politics and consider it nothing short of madness.

Yet it is one of the most powerful fields of endeavor on this planet. For you to dismiss it as madness and not take any interest in it is as foolish as me doing the same thing with religion.

As for art, I'm not convinced that the "scientific method" (I'm not even sure what that phrase means, hypothetico-deductive?) . . . .

The Wikipedia article on the Scientific Method is pretty good. I'm not going to try to summarize it because if you intend to become a regular here you need to understand the scientific method so you should just read the article. The SM is based on the premise that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior. It includes many concepts and many steps, such as experimentation, mathematics, peer review, Occam's Razor and the Rule of Laplace, not all of which are applicable, useful or possible in every instance. The general model of a scientific endeavor is to formulate a hypothesis and then test it thoroughly, then let others peer-review it. If it is proven true beyond a reasonable doubt, it becomes a theory. (Yes I know laymen and even scientists misuse this terminology and it drives me bonkers.) The scientific method is recursive, and has been tested exhaustively for half a millennium without coming close to being falsified.

. . . . is the best way to approach it. I think that I'd say the same thing about religion.

The elements of the scientific method apply nicely to many fields of scholarship. There's an obvious qualitative difference between the hard sciences such as physics and chemistry and the soft sciences such as psychology and economics, and the SM can't be applied as rigorously to the soft ones. But that doesn't mean we should not strive to do our best in testing the hypotheses and overseeing the discussions in those disciplines.

The study of politics, history, etc., can be seen as merely categories of anthropology. The other subforums here such as World Events and Free Thoughts are uncategorizable scholarship. We can still moderate the discussions so that they at least comprise good scholarship, in particular keeping them moving forward by discouraging trolling, and keeping them from misleading our younger members by the severe corporal punishment, incarceration and exile to Antarctica of people who practice intellectual dishonesty.

The same is true of the arts. If a member simply says that he enjoys Op Art or Bhangra Beat music he's just telling us something about himself, being sociable, giving us some demographic information about the membership, and suggesting topics for further discussion. But if someone says that a particular painting was influenced by a particular historical event or condition, or that a particular song is in a particular modality, these are assertions that are either true or false and they can therefore be peer-reviewed, so that the scholarly discussion that was initiated by the assertion retains its scholarly bearings.

I think that the moderators should take action in response to preaching and so-called religious 'testimony'.

It is permitted on the Religion board, and to a lesser extent in places like About The Members, but it is banned or at least discouraged everywhere else.

But I do like to investigate religious ideas, their sources and their implications, and quashing all religious expression that isn't reflexively dismissive would probably be a mistake.

That's exactly what the Comparative Religion board is for. Of course a discussion of that sort can be opened on the Religion board, but it's likely to be peppered with comments that are less than scholarly.

Owww!!! You hurt me! I was a philosophy-and-religion major in college and was a philosophy graduate student for a while, before I subsequently finished my MA in interdisplinary humanities. (I liked the broader and more expansive approach.)

Well there's no harm in looking at religion from a philosophical perspective, but I think the Philosophy board might better serve that end, and the people who hang out there will be better prepared to go in that direction than those who hang out here.

Assuming that anthropology is a science. Physical anthropology clearly is a science, but I wouldn't say the same thing about cultural anthropology. It looks more like a humanities subject to me.

There's no day-glow orange dividing line between hard science, soft science, and any other field of scholarship. The point is to use the resources of science as they prove helpful.

It's hard to imagine anyone believing in everything that anyone has ever believed.

If only because so many of them are incompatible with each other.

I'm just saying that for every human culture where sufficient information exists to say one way or another, language is observed to exist. No non-linguistic human cultures are known. I'll even go farther and suggest (a la Chomsky, I guess) that human beings seem to be biologically primed and preconditioned to learn, understand and produce natural language.

But you could say the same about agriculture as you're saying about language. Humans survived all the way up to 9500BCE as hunter-gatherers, but suddenly the twin technologies of plant cultivation and animal husbandry sprang up in quite a few different places within a few thousand years of each other, clearly with no influence between the various tribes. Does this mean that we're also programmed for farming and herding? If so, why did it take so bloody long to get around to it? The same can be said for metallurgy. The Bronze Age arose independently in all six of the world's civilizations. I think we have to recognize that human culture was advancing steadily, even if the archeological record doesn't give us much insight into most of it until quite recently when our artifacts became considerably more durable. A few tribes arrived at a point in their development when the idea of raising their own food, instead of chasing it across the landscape so they were always only one bad year away from a famine, became thinkable, and then doable. The fact that they all reached that idea at the same time in human history (on the timeline of the more than hundred thousand years we've been here) is an interesting mystery that is indeed part programming but also part luck and part something else that we can't imagine.

Just think of how much easier it is to learn natural language than it is to learn something like calculus, despite the fact that language is a vastly more complex system. Children just soak up language without formal instruction. Even kids with Down's syndrome are busily talking to each other.

The modern human brain has a speech center which facilitates "language" as we know it. The Neanderthal brain did too, but it's not clear that earlier hominids had it. Nonetheless, sign language is a less efficient but still powerful alternative to speech, and as Jean Auel postulates in her Earth's Children series of novel (beginning with the iconic Clan of the Cave Bear, which was written before we knew that the Neanderthal brain had a speech center), there's no reason to dismiss the possibility that older species of human ancestors may have invented rich and evocative, and simply slow, methods of communication using parts of their body other than the missing speech center and vocal organs. Technically, that would qualify as "language," just as much as writing, ASL and semaphores. (People with damaged and unusable speech centers can very often still write, and almost all of them can still read--reading is a skill that is "overlearned" at a very young age, and it's one of the last to go when the mind unravels. The architects of humanity's end-of-life policies would do well to note that.)

Not only do we appear in the world predisposed to understand and use language . . . .

The speech center may be a mutation that was passed down by selective breeding, as those who could not talk well would be seen as singularly unattractive mates. (We seem to have lost that point of discretion. )

. . . . we also seem predisposed to relate to other human beings as people. Even infants interpret people's expressions, tones of voice and gestures as indicative of their inner states. Children just naturally interpret others' behavior in term of purposes and intentions. Significantly, human beings seem much happier and comfortable in the company of other human beings than they do alone in a world of inanimate objects.

You're getting into our nature as a pack-social species of predator, with all the instincts necessary to maintain a pack-social organization. Herd-social species, solitary hunters, and the various other ways animals regard others of their own kind, each come with their own massive paradigm of behaviors and thought patterns. Even pack-social herbivores and pack-social carnivores have enormous psychological differences.

I think that a some of this 'social animals reading each other' stuff goes back a long way in our phylogenetic tree. My dog seems to be able to successfully read many of my emotions and some of my intentions. (Perhaps that emotional isomorphism between humans and dogs is one reason we get along so well with them.)

We can see a glimmer of the psychology of the dog, Canis lupus familaris, in the wolf, Canis lupus lupus. But 24,000 generations of breeding increasingly supervised by humans (two cycles per year since a handful of curious, gregarious, adventurous, tolerant and lazy wolves domesticated themselves while salivating over our trash middens) has selected for a subspecies which is unmatched in its empathy with humans. (As well as a smaller brain that survives on the lower-protein diet of a scavenger, teeth better suited for munching carrots than ripping huge chunks of flesh off of a fresh kill before the larger predators show up to steal it, a lower incidence of the alpha instinct and a far more gregarious nature that extends to companionship with other species.)

So it seems to me that in an early paleolithic environment, perhaps even before anatomically modern humans appeared, Homo erectus or some hominid started extending their ability to read others of their kind to conceiving of animals as having awareness and intentions too. That probably had survival value since higher animals do appear to be aware and do appear to have human-like intentions.

Again, you're discovering the peculiarities of cognition and behavior that identify a pack-social species. This focus on type and extent of socialization and how it affects the evolution of a species is one that I have never found emphasized, at least in my quaternary research in the popular press. I've even had to invent my own terminology like "pack-social" and "herd-social" to be able to write about it. I have no idea what zoologists call it.

I think that it's a good idea to treat everyone with sympathy and compassion.

Of course. You are now displaying evidence of our transition from a pack-social to a herd-social organization. Pack-mates only depend on and care about each other, and regard members of other packs with indifference or downright hostility. Herd-mates maintain a degree of anonymity that does not provide the warm fuzzy feeling that pack-mates get from those they have known intimately since birth, but it keeps them from knocking each other down or blocking their access to water. Becoming herd-social has allowed us to create civilization, in which anonymous strangers live in harmony and cooperation for the good of all. But it conflicts with our instincts. While our dogs went through 24,000 generations and became a new type of creature, we've only had a thousand, and that's not enough for instincts to evolve. Our inner caveman is simmering inside each of us, placated by the satiety, security, luxury and entertainment that the herd-social life provides; yet he occasionally boils over and does something decidedly anti-civiilized.

That's just basic rhetoric. If I want to have any hope of convincing somebody else to agree with me, then I have to make them want to do that.

Most of us have learned that religion is a unique kind of belief that withstands all attempts to dislodge it. The current attenuation of religion in places like England is encouraging but difficult to explain, especially contrasted with the Religious Redneck Retard Revival that has been sweeping the U.S. for three decades.

I can't just bash them with insults. That would only harden them against me and turn the thread into an ego-contest.

You may find that SciForums members delight in insulting religions and the religious (as a demographic group, we're discouraged from insulting each other personally), just because there are so few places where they're allowed to do so.

Thanks for the compliment. I think that you moderators are doing a good job. The quality of most of the discussion here on Sciforums and the moderation that fosters it is why I chose to sign up and join in.

Back atcha. Thanks for the compliment!

 

[begin1910]

Comparative religion must adhere to clinical observation because it is needed to understand the human condition. Millenia of environmental conditioning in every culture has absolutely affected human behavior. This is why it is science for those who study it seriously, for others it's just fun I suppose.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Comparative religion must adhere to clinical observation because it is needed to understand the human condition. Millenia of environmental conditioning in every culture has absolutely affected human behavior. This is why it is science for those who study it seriously, for others it's just fun I suppose.

Jung certainly analyzes religion with the clinical attitude of a scientist. He finds that all religions are built upon the same paradigm of archetypes: instinctive beliefs, rituals, images and other motifs that are hard-wired into our synapses by DNA passed down through a genetic bottleneck, or perhaps as survival traits in an era whose dangers we can't imagine. The flood that drowns the whole world, the man (bird or whatever) who rises from the dead, etc.

But he also points out that the polytheism of the traditional religions appears to resonate with our own psychology. They all have the same gods and goddesses with different names, suggesting that inside each of us there is a Hunter, a Warrior, a King, a Parent, a Lover, a Reveler, etc., who takes charge when the situation calls for it; that in some of us one dominates over the others, guiding our career choices. Monotheism, in contrast, replaced this rich, useful model of the human spirit with a one-dimensional model in which everything falls on a pathetic spectrum between Good and Evil. Major parts of our personality are pushed down into our "Shadow" (George Lucas calls it "The Dark Side of the Force") where they fester in frustration, and burst out periodically in orgies of hatred and violence: as Jung put it, "The wars among the Christian nations have been the bloodiest in human history." And he didn't live to see the impending nuclear war between the three monotheistic religions.

 

[universaldistress]

For me religion is something to be studied under scientific principles. In fact, I would say that religion despite being a progenitor of modern science, civilisation and modern ethical structures, it is now a field within science (science being knowing), and indivisible from science, despite its practitioner's choice to avoid the logical analysis of evidence.

Therefore religion is a branch of science, a dysfunctional one at that, for it chooses to ignore the rules it helped to set out and establish in understanding the cosmos.

 

[GeoffP]

Pfffffffsssssss...

I guess. :shrug:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

For me religion is something to be studied under scientific principles. In fact, I would say that religion despite being a progenitor of modern science . . . .

I suppose you're referring to the creation myth that explains the origin of the universe, and to the way religions train their members to accept hypotheses as true based solely on the authority of those who teach them, rather than demanding evidence?

. . . . civilisation . . . .

You must mean the way each of the monotheistic sects teaches its members that they are superior to members of all the others, to the extent that they periodically rise up in unison and attempt to kill them all and even obliterate their records?

. . . . and modern ethical structures . . . .

Like slavery and the demeaning of women?

Therefore religion is a branch of science, a dysfunctional one at that, for it chooses to ignore the rules it helped to set out and establish in understanding the cosmos.

All science is built upon the premise that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood and predicted by theories derived from empirical observation of its present and past behavior; and this premise has been exhaustively tested for centuries.

All religion is built upon the premise that an invisible, illogical supernatural universe exists, from which fantastic creatures and incomprehensible forces randomly emerge to capriciously interfere with the logical operation of our natural laws and, therefore, that the only way to be successful is to adopt an unreasoning faith in these phenomena for which there is no respectable evidence.

Religion is antiscience. There can be no truce between science and religion, much less collaboration. As long as religion continues to seduce people away from a reasoned faith in the scientific method and toward an unreasoning faith in fairytales, science and civilization will always be in jeopardy.

 

[Cris]

These threads are essentially indistinguishable from those in the religion forum. Contents of this sub-forum should be moved to religion.

It was a noble idea to attempt to debate religion in a scientific context, but then the religion sub-forum on this science website was meant to provide that function.

What we have now is some confusion as to where to discuss these topics.

Once the sub-forums are merged, then the dominating scientific nature of the website should be stressed as a guide to future religious topics.

 

[universaldistress]

I suppose you're referring to the creation myth that explains the origin of the universe, and to the way religions train their members to accept hypotheses as true based solely on the authority of those who teach them, rather than demanding evidence?

I agree with all you points, but was just observing that religion was at one time a seeking to understand and not a seeking to fudge, as it is now.

You must mean the way each of the monotheistic sects teaches its members that they are superior to members of all the others, to the extent that they periodically rise up in unison and attempt to kill them all and even obliterate their records?

I was referring to the evolutionary advantage of people in large cooperative religious groups over smaller non-religious groups around times when civilisations were first developing, and the distinct people power this provided in trade, war, control, monarchy and other modes of similar etc. Of course a movement away from religion/praising is now imperitive for humans to continue to be succesful.

Like slavery and the demeaning of women?

Peoples' primitive interpretations of texts is a big problem even today. The core desires of humans need to be regulated in a new unbiased way. With the older ethical constructions being updated by science and logic.

All science is built upon the premise that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood and predicted by theories derived from empirical observation of its present and past behavior; and this premise has been exhaustively tested for centuries.

Yes, and we have much more to learn to. Which we will only learn in the way you suggest.

All religion is built upon the premise that an invisible, illogical supernatural universe exists, from which fantastic creatures and incomprehensible forces randomly emerge to capriciously interfere with the logical operation of our natural laws and, therefore, that the only way to be successful is to adopt an unreasoning faith in these phenomena for which there is no respectable evidence.

We could hypothesise about possible ways in which a creative intelligence could exist alongside existing empirical, but such notions would only be conjecture. This board is more to explore the formation and history of religion etc?

Religion is antiscience. There can be no truce between science and religion, much less collaboration. As long as religion continues to seduce people away from a reasoned faith in the scientific method and toward an unreasoning faith in fairytales, science and civilization will always be in jeopardy.

Collaboration is only present on one side. Religion is just a body of mythologies. The fact religion is an attempt at understanding/knowing then it is a science. But it is not a science that is discharged in any type of an acceptable scientific manner. But it is still a desire for knowing. A truce of arms between science and religion is essential so science can slowly erode, evolve, and enlighten religion to the real truth. But no truce of the mind/debate is recommended. We have to show religion that logic is the better and more adult state for the human race to assume. That through science a new peace will emerge that will allow humans to flourish and focus energies on the things that really matter.

Science is under threat from religion. Religion has the potential for extreme acts of violence when threatened. But our war is one of attrition.

I know that social evolution can only go one way. Away from faith, towards understanding.

I think we are more or less alligned on this, just minutae.

 

[charles brough]

If the title of the thread had been "does religion serve an evolutionary function?" people would be offended. To label the subject as "comparative religion" is safer.

And, of course, we would not have and have had religions if they served no evolutionary purpose. Their role has been to bind us into large social groupings called "societies" so that we could get along better with each other, those with the same general ideology, and work to achieve common goals. That is the function of our secular ideology now.

We have to use language and ideology to achieve that large grouping fuction because millions of years of evolution in hunting/gathering groups made us "hard wired" with social instincts which make us restless and become stressed out when our groups become too large.

But what language and religion givith, it also taketh away. When the ideology grows old, is no longer more scientifically advanced and divides, it looses its power to bind us together in our societies and we feel the stress. The stress creates social problems, increases medical costs, causes hate groups to grow and leads to people going berzerk and killing as many other people as they can.

This is all at the frontier of social science and introduced at . . .

civilization-overview dot com

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

And, of course, we would not have and have had religions if they served no evolutionary purpose. Their role has been to bind us into large social groupings called "societies" so that we could get along better with each other, those with the same general ideology, and work to achieve common goals.

I have often opined here that religion may have been a positive influence at the time of the Neolithic Revolution. If two clans discovered that they had the same gods it might have emboldened them to make the peace necessary to join together in forming a farming village. There's a certain economy of scale in agriculture: If your crop or your herd is too small, it might be more labor-efficient to hunt and gather your food instead of trying to grow it. Larger communities get a greater return per unit of effort from farming and animal husbandry.

But the institutionalized religions, particularly the Abrahamic sects which arose several Paradigm Shifts later in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, reinforce our tribal instinct. They teach that members of that religion are just a teeny weeny bit better than everybody else. Christianity and Islam are even evangelical: It is the duty of the membership to convince all the rest of us that they're right and we're wrong, in order to make us like them. That's the only way we can go to heaven, and performing the selfless, humanitarian deed of preventing us from suffering eternal damnation in hell is far more important than foolish worldly concerns--such as respecting our rights.

As more clans came together, forming tribes, nations, states and now transnational hegemonies, the borders between their larger domains came to mark profound cultural differences that had accrued over the millennia. Religion was no longer a force for unity, but a force for conflict. So we now have the Jews, Christians and Muslims facing off in a nuclear holy war.

Even the "peace-loving" non-Abrahamic Hindus and Buddhists killed off tens of thousands of each other in Sri Lanka.

When we're trying to coalesce the world into a single, relatively peaceful civilization, religion has become a force that works against us.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

This is all at the frontier of social science and introduced at . . . civilization-overview dot com

I appreciate the fact that this website exists, but I'm skeptical of some of its scholarship. Standing "East Asian Marxism" up as a separate quasi-religious philosophy obscures a very important point: Communism is an offshoot of Christianity. Although Marx's DNA was Canaanite his family was Christian. His slogan, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability," is the elaboration of a line in the Book of Acts that he found inspiring.

Besides, only a Christian culture could have come up with that philosophy. Can you imagine any self-respecting Jew, Hindu or Confucian suggesting, with a straight face, that an economy could survive if what a man takes from it does not have to correlate with what he gives back?

If anything, by blending the teachings of Marx with the teachings of Confucius, the Chinese managed to salvage something out of both. They respect their elders so they put in a decent day's work, unlike the "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" culture of the Warsaw Pact workers. And unlike the Warsaw Pact leaders, who got rich from bribes and other forms of corruption, the Chinese elders get rich by running profitable corporations--even if they take their model from Dickens instead of Pickens.

The Vietnamese have done even better with Confucian Communism. We truly "bombed them back into the Stone Age," yet once we finally left, in one generation they became the fastest-growing economy in the region.

This certainly identifies a distinct "East Asian Marxist" culture and I don't mean to deny either the concept or the name. But I think it's important to point out that the only reason it became what it is is that it started with the onerous handicap of Christianity's fairy-tale economic system, in which supernatural forces can be counted on to bridge the gap between production and consumption. And hey, if your whole family starves to death, there's always Heaven waiting for them.