Posts Tagged ‘belief’
July 20, 2010
Just about to write something about the recent restatement of the Catholic Church’s opposition to the ordination of women – I realised, effectively, I already had.
Add only this: it’s not actually very easy to be excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Few people have ever met anyone who has been (militant atheists have been trying it recently, with limited success). This is because exclusion is a very uncharacteristic measure for a hierarchical organisation. It sits rather better with Egalitarian organisations which have no other sanctions against persistent dissenters. Indeed, for hierarchies, exclusion makes almost no sense, since one thereby excludes the wrongdoer from punishment. Note that in describing excommunication theological commentators sometimes refer to it as being of medicinal benefit. It supposedly encourages the wrongdoer to realise the seriousness of their offence and thence to repent and return to the fold.
So, far from being another indication of the terrible hierarchy at its terrible worst, as some commentators have suggested, the restatement of the Church’s willingness to excommunicate those attempting the ordination of a woman is really more evidence of just how far Egalitarianism has made inroads into that most hierarchical of hierarchies. Lacking other more coercive sanctions, the Church is reduced to fighting Egalitarianism with its own weapon, exclusion.
But the excluded who won’t repent don’t merely vanish. These days they turn up in America where they take a largely competitive, Individualist approach to religion: if you can’t join them, beat them. Does it seem unlikely that a small group of women could change the church’s longstanding practice? Perhaps these women and their supporters might take a little encouragement from the story of Mary Mackillop, the Nineteenth century Australian nun who was excommunicated for inciting disobedience. In October 2010 she’ll be made Australia’s first saint.
Read also: grid-group cultural theory and hierarchical churches
Tags:belief, Egalitarian, excommunication, Grid-Group, Hierarchy, Individualist, Mary Mackillop, religion, sociology, women priests
Posted in atheism, cultural theory, religion | Leave a Comment »
November 24, 2009
“Groups fortified by religious belief would have prevailed over those that lacked it, and genes that prompted the mind toward ritual would eventually have become universal.”
An article in the New York Times, In Search of the God Gene, flies a kite for religion as an evolutionary benefit. But it takes a very particular view of what religion amounts to. According to the article the traits regarded as religion are those that promote a [high-group, low-grid] egalitarian society, but then also those which favour a [high group, high grid] hierarchical society. However, the view that these cultures are the most effective and therefore the most likely to be selected for in evolutionary terms does not stand up to scrutiny. It begs the question of the relationship of nature to culture. Neither does it take account of the possibility raised by Cultural Theory of [low grid, low group] Individualist, or [high grid, low group] Fatalist religions and religious practices.
No organised religion in the world today is claimed to have lasted more than 40,000-60,000 years. Most are far, far younger than this. Indeed we could characterise religion itself as a very recent phenomenon, far too recent to have affected evolution to any significant extent. Supposedly timeless ‘Religious’ practices such as ritual dancing or induced trance states are so general as to transcend any useful definition of religion, or else not actually necessary for a definition of religion.
The evidence cited in the article itself contradicts the claim that religion helps societies to survive over generations. Note that far from being static, the religious activities identified in the NY Times article change and involve discontinuity. Communal religious dancing floor, ancestor cult shrine, astronomical temple – it is our modern category of religion that links these structures, not the experience of those societies which changed, perhaps drastically, from one to the next. What seems to be selected for, if that is the right term, is the ability of humans to abandon their religious beliefs and practices and adopt different ones, often radically different ones. Apostacy seems to be the intergenerational norm, and even loyalty as the intra-generational norm can take a big hit from time to time. Letters of reply to the article were interesting, with some supporting the alternative view that religion is a byproduct of evolution, not a factor, and others pointing out that many ethically questionable human behaviours can be seen as adaptive.
Tags:archaeology, belief, cultural theory, Egalitarian, evolution, god, God gene, Hierarchy, Individualist, New York Times, sociology
Posted in atheism, cultural theory, Grid-Group, religion, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
June 21, 2009
Much of the supposed conflict between science and religion may well be imaginary, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any conflict.
How then should this conflict be characterised?
Gregory Bateson once noted the distinction in playful animals between the nip (playful) and the bite (serious). It’s clear that animals, including ourselves, can tell the difference, but how? How do they (we) make the transition between ‘this is play’ and ‘is this play?’?
Bateson famously summed up his observation of monkeys at the San Francisco zoo as follows:
“the playful nip denotes the bite, but it does not denote what would be denoted by the bite” (p.180).
This has a great deal to tell us about the science and religion debate. (more…)
Tags:atheism, belief, Gregory Bateson, religion, science
Posted in atheism, religion, science | 2 Comments »
April 24, 2009
Philosopher A.C. Grayling writes about the illiterate roots of religion.
The ‘roots’ of religion may be illiterate, but this is hardly a cogent argument since the roots of everything, including writing, are illiterate.
Further, it’s unhelpful to disparage illiteracy in a generalising way. Australian Aboriginal culture, for instance, has been ‘illiterate’ for most of its existence, yet is one of the high points of human achievement. Far from being ‘primitive’ as European theorists such as Durkheim claimed, it is highly advanced and has a highly advanced relationship with its environment. In a sense, country is the ‘text’ with which Aboriginal culture is ‘written’, or the page on which it is inscribed. Or rather, literacy in the sense we understand it is a pale shadow of its former glory (was it Socrates who thought writing was an inferior form compared with face to face discourse?). (more…)
Tags:A.C. Grayling, atheism, belief, god, religion
Posted in atheism, philosophy, religion | 1 Comment »
January 11, 2009
It came to my attention recently that there are still churches which don’t let women preach or lead worship.
Choosing the leaders because they are men is a hierarchical approach to social organisation and needs to be set in a context. The other ways of choosing leaders should be noted:
Egalitarian – ‘priesthood of all believers’ (become more like the Quakers and be suspicious of activities that require structured leadership)
Individualist – ‘work out your own salvation’ (become more like the new age and construct your own tailor-made religion out of bought pieces. Leaders are entrepreneurs).
Fatalist – ‘the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles’ (Acts 1.26) (become more like a lottery and embrace chance. After all, leadership is pointless - who remembers what Matthias ever did?) (more…)
Tags:belief, Egalitarian, Fatalism, Grid-Group, Hierarchy, Individualist, Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson, religion
Posted in Grid-Group, religion, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 10, 2009
The Atheist Bus Campaign story just keeps rolling along.
The latest is that after more than 400 complaints, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority is considering an investigation.
Meanwhile in Australia no such problems have been encountered, since the advertising industry is already censoring itself by refusing to work with anti-God ads.
It seems the ASA may be putting itself in the unenviable position of ruling on whether the claim that ‘There’s probably no God’ is misleading. To help the process along I can definitively advise that there is in fact a God in England and he has been located in Oxford, York, Manchester, London and Chester (see image), as well as at a number of places in Northumbria. This is obviously bad news for atheists, but it may be equally bad news for Christians, Jews and Muslims. The God in question is none other than Mithras, the subject of a popular ancient Roman mystery cult. In fact, evidence of his existence is to be found all over western Europe.
Paganism was banned in 341, but London’s Mithraic temple is due to be re-established by developers in 2009.
There is a serious point to this: by denying a certain type of god, contemporary Atheists risk lending that god some backhanded credibility.
Tags:atheism, atheist bus, belief, Mihraism, Mithras, post-secular
Posted in atheism, post-secular, religion, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 24, 2008
Psychologist Dorothy Rowe has a book out about religious belief, entitled What Should I Believe? She says,
it is possible to create set of beliefs, which allow us to live at peace with ourselves and other people, to feel strong in ourselves without having to remain a child forever dependent on some supernatural power, and to face life with courage and optimism.
What I find interesting about this is the acceptance of the idea that belief as such presents itself as some kind of choice, while the content of belief is in need of construction by each and every would-be believer. It seems that DIY religion is not so much an option – it’s the only real possibility.
But I think there may be at least three alternatives… (more…)
Tags:belief, books, Dorothy Rowe, Egalitarian, Fatalism, Grid-Group, Hierarchy, Individualist, psychology
Posted in books, religion | 1 Comment »
December 16, 2008
Inexplicably, one of the more popular search terms connected with this blog is ‘santa science’. Given the current season, perhaps this should be cleared up once and for all (look away now if you are under the age of 18):
There is no scientific evidence for the existence of Santa. However, this is not taught in schools, and teachers who do cast doubt in children’s minds are suitably punished (i.e. removed).
It may be true that every year the white bearded one is detected in North American airspace delivering presents by sleigh and given a welcome by fighter interceptor planes, but Youtube footage is unconvincing. Richard Dawkins, for one, has never received presents from Santa. He maintains this has nothing to do with his inability to be a good boy for a whole year, and it is difficult to argue that it might.
Here’s a nice piece of research on the issue of what children learn and unlearn about Santa.
Ironically, those who see something strange in society’s insistence on Santa’s literal truth are in the company of extreme Christian groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses. These people hold that if children grow up disillusioned about what their parents told them regarding Santa, they’ll be less inclined to accept what they’re told about God. It’s hard to know whether this is correct because there is remarkably little scientific research on the effects of Santa-belief, although ‘current research in developmental psychology suggests that even very young children competently draw boundaries between reality and its alternatives’ (Rosengren and Hickling, in Rosengren, Johnson and Harris, 2000: 76)
Perhaps it’s all a bit of harmless fun…
What do you think?
Please note: I made up the bit about Richard Dawkins.
Tags:belief, Christmas, religion, Santa, Santa Science, sociology
Posted in Christmas, post-secular, religion | 1 Comment »
August 31, 2008
What is the relationship between belief and rule-keeping? Which matters more in religion? These comments follow from a previous post on this matter.
The Guardian’s Face to Faith column has an interesting comment by Geoffrey Alderman on the life of Benzion Dunner, a prominent member of London’s Orthodox Jewish community, who died earlier this year.
Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks said: “Benzion Dunner was an outstanding exemplar of Jewish values and Jewish responsibility. He was a person of exceptional chesed, much of whose work was done quietly behind the scenes and was all the more impressive for that. Our hearts go out to the members of his family, whose grief we share. His memory will endure as a source of blessing and inspiration.”
According to the Guardian article (and that’s my main source), while Dunner was very wealthy and very charitable, he was also a user of cocaine and may have died under the influence.
The question is how the community of which he was a part should respond to this. Alderman seems to think it’s sad “that practically no one among the sectarian-orthodox is prepared to condemn his behaviour”.
The issue seems to be how someone who doesn’t keep the rules is to be regarded. Is condemnation appropriate?
It seems there is more to it than merely belief or obedience. There is also belonging. This matters enormously. And in the case of Benzion Dunner, his standing in his community, not his rule-keeping, is what he is being remembered for. And this standing comes from exemplary chesed, not from perfection.
No one can be good at everything; all of us have our weak points. In this case, it seems, fatal drug-taking.
But belonging, as much as believing or obeying, may be the mark of a good, if flawed, life.
Tags:belief, BenzionDunner, cocaine, death, JonathanSacks, Judaism, religion, rule-keeping
Posted in religion | Leave a Comment »
