Religion, Curses, and Four-Letter Words
Disclaimer, so read this first: This essay is one of many that explains how early religion most likely developed, and stops at the Enlightenment, Nietsche, and a few other places along the way. It is by no means complete. I start with the Enlightenment and Nietsche, yet the document(s) and book(s) I cite are not in front of me, nor am I bothering to look up page numbers or consult with someone more knowledgeable to make sure my details are correct. I will; just not now. Expect details to change, but the overall thesis will stay.
So here we go:
The common explanation for the origin of religion, the explanation given in most introductory textbooks, goes something like this:
The ironic thing about this explanation is how little it explains, or how well it explains its own emergence. The explanation itself has its origins in post-Enlightenment thought. Enlightenment historians, Edward Gibbon included, had their faults. They were excellent at gathering data, a result of the careful scientific mindset of their time. They had a propensity, however, to write off human behaviors they could not understand, usually ascribing them motives that were more understandable. Thus did the Crusades become about money and land rather than piety. The idea that marching off to a city to visit a shrine, knowing full and well that Muslim armies will have to be fought and killed along the way for it to be successful, yet continuing anyway - the idea that this behavior is pious still strikes us as absurd, even now. And thus do we, and so did the older historians, look for other explanations.
The fact is, however, that "piety" was precisely the reason for the Crusades. Nor does it do anyone any good to defend or attack the Crusaders for their reasoning, however inferior we may think it is. Bottom line, it doesn't matter how wrong we think the Crusaders were - they themselves did not think they were wrong, and that is what we must come to grips with if we can have a proper historical understanding of any period in history. "These people at this time thought this, and it was self-evident to them. They did not question it." That's the beginning and end of that story. We can trace the evolution of their thought, and even begin to understand how we might believe the same things as they did were we to be born in the same time. But if we cannot at some point accept that "this is how people thought, and it does no good to question why, because it simply is so," then we will stop doing history and start doing philosophy. Or propaganda, in worse cases.
Bringing us back to the Enlightenment: the textbook explanation for religion is that it explained things, just like that very theory of religion explained religion to those who could not understand it, nor their predecessors who practiced it. That in itself is the truly ironic element of the explanation.
But it isn't correct. Below is what I think is a much better explanation for early religion, told from the standpoint of an agnostic. The assumption is this: assuming gods and deities do not exist, what is a likely explanation for the origin of belief in them?
Ironically enough, to understand this explanation, we have to start with Nietsche.
Most people know Nietsche as the "god is dead" guy. Those who have had to study him know that he was first and foremost a Classicist and Hellenist, not a Philosopher. He knew Greek, and Latin, and ultimately went mad thinking himself the sort of man that he found all over in the Iliad and Odyssey, a hero whose will was so powerful that it enabled him to do whatever he pleased. And though Nietsche ended up praising what was, for all practical purposes, a sociopath, he was right when it came to the Iliad and Odyssey.
Whatever else may be said about the man and his madness, he was usually dead-on when it came to ancient myth. Anyone familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey, however, might find it hard to picture the characters as sociopaths. So a little explanation is in order:
We define a sociopath as someone who has no moral sensibility whatsoever, and does whatever happens to be on his or her mind. Writing a letter and gutting someone have the same moral weight. The characters in the Homeric poems are slightly different. It is not that they have no moral sensibility - there is a very strict moral code in the Homeric poems. It is simply that the moral code of the Homeric poems doesn't inclide ideas like "restraint" and "culpability," ideas that are central to the moral code we follow.
A brief example to illustrate the difference: if I were walking down the street and heard someone insult me, I might feel like punching the dim-witted fool. But I don't. I wanted to, but restrained myself, and walked away. That, in our world, is a moral victory.
Here's how it happens in the ancient world: I am walking down the road. I am insulted. I cut the man's head off.
Note that in the second example there isn't even a thought process inserted between hearing the insult and cutting the man's head off. One action follows the other like the night follows the day - inevitable, and inalterable.
Nietsche himself gave the best example: if we were to see an eagle swing low and capture a fieldmouse as prey, and eat it before us, we wouldn't think to question the eagle's morals. We would simply say, "it is in an eagle's nature to eat weaker animals." That's be the end of the discussion. And in the same way, it is in the strong man's nature to do as he wills - not doing as he pleases, like someone ruled by his desires, but doing as he wills, like a god.
(At this point some of you might protest that there's no significant difference between someone doing as he desires and doing as he wills. To which I say, "perhaps. But the Homeric poems suggest that the author thought there was a difference, if he thought about it at all. And we have to accept that.")
The Homeric poems bear out Nietsche's thesis extremely, extremely well. There is little mention of anything called "culpability" or "restraint." People simply do things, and the stronger people do more things and prevail against many more people. Those in battle who are celebrated are the strong ones, not the ones fighting for this or that particular side. And the only moral weakness mentioned is weakness itself.
- Athena is angry with Odysseus when he displays weakness in brutally killing off all the suitors.
- Odysseus attacks and pillages a seaside village on his return home. No one listening to his story even bats an eye, as if such activities are entirely normal. The gods certainly don't mind.
- A warrior attacks a god in the Trojan War. The other gods laugh at someone so gutsy, and feel proud of him.
I can go on. The point is, in the Homeric poems, men have not yet learned how to restrain themselves, nor would it even occur to them to do so. Their actions are the result of their will, which, being as egomaniacal as wills usually are, exerts itself on the outside world as much as possible, occaisonally over-extending and killing itself.
So what does this have to do with religion and its formation?
Next essay, please.
So here we go:
The common explanation for the origin of religion, the explanation given in most introductory textbooks, goes something like this:
Early religion evolved as man's response to the world around him, to explain that very world. Man was better able to deal with Nature's uncertainties - rain, famine, flood, etc. - if he understood these events in terms of an anthropomorphic deity's actions.In short, every time early man doesn't understand something, he makes up an explanation and is then satisfied with it.
The ironic thing about this explanation is how little it explains, or how well it explains its own emergence. The explanation itself has its origins in post-Enlightenment thought. Enlightenment historians, Edward Gibbon included, had their faults. They were excellent at gathering data, a result of the careful scientific mindset of their time. They had a propensity, however, to write off human behaviors they could not understand, usually ascribing them motives that were more understandable. Thus did the Crusades become about money and land rather than piety. The idea that marching off to a city to visit a shrine, knowing full and well that Muslim armies will have to be fought and killed along the way for it to be successful, yet continuing anyway - the idea that this behavior is pious still strikes us as absurd, even now. And thus do we, and so did the older historians, look for other explanations.
The fact is, however, that "piety" was precisely the reason for the Crusades. Nor does it do anyone any good to defend or attack the Crusaders for their reasoning, however inferior we may think it is. Bottom line, it doesn't matter how wrong we think the Crusaders were - they themselves did not think they were wrong, and that is what we must come to grips with if we can have a proper historical understanding of any period in history. "These people at this time thought this, and it was self-evident to them. They did not question it." That's the beginning and end of that story. We can trace the evolution of their thought, and even begin to understand how we might believe the same things as they did were we to be born in the same time. But if we cannot at some point accept that "this is how people thought, and it does no good to question why, because it simply is so," then we will stop doing history and start doing philosophy. Or propaganda, in worse cases.
Bringing us back to the Enlightenment: the textbook explanation for religion is that it explained things, just like that very theory of religion explained religion to those who could not understand it, nor their predecessors who practiced it. That in itself is the truly ironic element of the explanation.
But it isn't correct. Below is what I think is a much better explanation for early religion, told from the standpoint of an agnostic. The assumption is this: assuming gods and deities do not exist, what is a likely explanation for the origin of belief in them?
Ironically enough, to understand this explanation, we have to start with Nietsche.
Most people know Nietsche as the "god is dead" guy. Those who have had to study him know that he was first and foremost a Classicist and Hellenist, not a Philosopher. He knew Greek, and Latin, and ultimately went mad thinking himself the sort of man that he found all over in the Iliad and Odyssey, a hero whose will was so powerful that it enabled him to do whatever he pleased. And though Nietsche ended up praising what was, for all practical purposes, a sociopath, he was right when it came to the Iliad and Odyssey.
Whatever else may be said about the man and his madness, he was usually dead-on when it came to ancient myth. Anyone familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey, however, might find it hard to picture the characters as sociopaths. So a little explanation is in order:
We define a sociopath as someone who has no moral sensibility whatsoever, and does whatever happens to be on his or her mind. Writing a letter and gutting someone have the same moral weight. The characters in the Homeric poems are slightly different. It is not that they have no moral sensibility - there is a very strict moral code in the Homeric poems. It is simply that the moral code of the Homeric poems doesn't inclide ideas like "restraint" and "culpability," ideas that are central to the moral code we follow.
A brief example to illustrate the difference: if I were walking down the street and heard someone insult me, I might feel like punching the dim-witted fool. But I don't. I wanted to, but restrained myself, and walked away. That, in our world, is a moral victory.
Here's how it happens in the ancient world: I am walking down the road. I am insulted. I cut the man's head off.
Note that in the second example there isn't even a thought process inserted between hearing the insult and cutting the man's head off. One action follows the other like the night follows the day - inevitable, and inalterable.
Nietsche himself gave the best example: if we were to see an eagle swing low and capture a fieldmouse as prey, and eat it before us, we wouldn't think to question the eagle's morals. We would simply say, "it is in an eagle's nature to eat weaker animals." That's be the end of the discussion. And in the same way, it is in the strong man's nature to do as he wills - not doing as he pleases, like someone ruled by his desires, but doing as he wills, like a god.
(At this point some of you might protest that there's no significant difference between someone doing as he desires and doing as he wills. To which I say, "perhaps. But the Homeric poems suggest that the author thought there was a difference, if he thought about it at all. And we have to accept that.")
The Homeric poems bear out Nietsche's thesis extremely, extremely well. There is little mention of anything called "culpability" or "restraint." People simply do things, and the stronger people do more things and prevail against many more people. Those in battle who are celebrated are the strong ones, not the ones fighting for this or that particular side. And the only moral weakness mentioned is weakness itself.
- Athena is angry with Odysseus when he displays weakness in brutally killing off all the suitors.
- Odysseus attacks and pillages a seaside village on his return home. No one listening to his story even bats an eye, as if such activities are entirely normal. The gods certainly don't mind.
- A warrior attacks a god in the Trojan War. The other gods laugh at someone so gutsy, and feel proud of him.
I can go on. The point is, in the Homeric poems, men have not yet learned how to restrain themselves, nor would it even occur to them to do so. Their actions are the result of their will, which, being as egomaniacal as wills usually are, exerts itself on the outside world as much as possible, occaisonally over-extending and killing itself.
So what does this have to do with religion and its formation?
Next essay, please.
posted by NateWazoo at 7:05 PM
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