My Animal Religion Theory...

As I must’ve made clear by now, I have a very unconventional approach to life. And as I also have said, I have a number of medical and scientific theories that I have tried to share with people. Interestingly, you may be among the first ones to read this one.

Could animals, especially wild ones, all have inborn religions? Let me explain my theory carefully for you. Religion clearly serves a very important psychological and social need for humans. This surely must also be the case for feral animals. Now humans get their skills, their language, their very knowledge from society. Little or none of it is inborn. No such thing is true of wild animals and insects. They’re basically born with all that they need. So is it so wild to presuppose that they are born with a kind of quasi religion already intact? This is very true of their language and moral/social code. So why the heck not?

What kind of religion? I don’t know. For you diehard Christians, yes it could be monotheistic. But it also may be polytheistic (cf. humans for most of their existence). Or it may just be Animism. As I said, I just don’t know. Any input would be appreciated.

And as I said, this is a new scientific theory of mine. So feel free to share it with any scientist, especially already on this board. Oh, and I don’t want to hijack my own thread. But I do wonder if we’ll ever be able to read animals minds, because wouldn’t that be great? But we’ll leave that discussion for another time and another thread .

Thoughts? Criticisms?

 

Study the ways of the elusive bacteria, if you wish to comprehend what it means to be an animal. The Amoeba is the divine source of inspiration, for nature demands we all pay it forward, and Darwinian evolution only applies when a species promotes the overall harmony and creativity of the ecology. Apex predators such as the wolf, eat mostly mice, serving as pest control, and ensuring the harmony and diversity of their environment. Hippies say, whenever harmony is lost, balance will be restored, ensuring harmony will be regained, just not necessarily in your lifetime, and it helps to be smarter than a damned chicken. A flock of chickens represent the simplest possible decision making process, the default fallback reactionary system because, if you can't even organize like chickens, the only alternative is total chaos. Hence, you could say every animal's religion is that it helps to be smarter than a damned chicken, and to keep paying it forward.

 

In answer to your original question; I think it's extremely unlikely.
However, it does raise another question; if animals have got gods, do those gods interact with the many gods that humans worship?

 

The problem I have with such questions is: there seems to be no way of answering them with any confidence. Do rocks have religion? Does the grass have feelings? Are we inflicting suffering on it when we mow the lawn? I'm sure that the religions we have are partly the result of folks like yourself whose curiosity and capacity to speculate way exceeded the evidence at hand. It does seem, on the basis of scientific studies of animal behavior, that their cognitive capabilities are limited, variable and focused on the practical task of survival. I have a theory that human religions and political ideologies are the product of a symbiotic relationship between the minority of visionaries (those with overdeveloped right brain hemispheres, temporal lobe epilepsy, entheogen users, etc.) and the majority ordinary folks who are mainly concerned with hunting and gathering, farming or otherwise bringing home the bacon and prefer to spend their free time vegging out. Social scientists have a term for the mindset of the latter types: rational ignorance--those who choose to remain ignorant of the big picture so they can concentrate on everyday practical affairs and leave the deep thinking to the visionaries, or charlatans, whose visions they then may decide to accept because they need some spiritual uplift to their lives.I doubt that other animals have this relationship, although they do depend on some of their practical knowledge from trusted adults.

It is true that certain species exhibit empathy and reciprocal altruism, which could serve as rudimentary foundations for ethics, if not religion. I doubt that the needs humans have for religion, which haven't been exactly determined yet, are those which species with lower analytical capabilities would have. I'd say that for humans religion is a product of personal and social needs. Individual needs would include cognitive mapping, behavioral conditioning, and responses to existential concerns and anxieties. For societies, religion helps to bind members together through common beliefs and rituals and legitimate the positions of rulers, priests, and classes. Do other animals have such needs? Doubtful. But I could be wrong. In fact I could be a brain in a jar in some science laboratory or a computer simulation cooked up by some extraterrestrial being. Nothing is certain, not even that. Question: Why does it matter to us or to you?

 

Mental health.

 

I suppose some animals like mammals get a sense of divinity but a domestic will spend most of their life experiencing a providence in a way of an affectionate companionship where a wild will experience an awe in a way of an astrological phenomenon. Jimbee68... I do not want to change the subject but I believe the planet is a living organism with a PH value and also our mummy and God.

 

Do you really believe that? How did you come up with such an idea? The Gaia hypothesis? I think that the tendency to personify material objects and the forces of nature got us religion in the first place, but I suspect it's a subjective human phenomenon instead of an objective one.

Getting back to the subject, I doubt that animals, domestic or wild, have a concept of God, because from what we know of their cognitive capabilities they aren't equipped for such beliefs. If they are, as far as my dog is concerned, he might think I'm God, which would prove animals can be as delusional as humans. And if animals do somehow sense in their bones that there is some Higher Power out there, we would have no way of knowing that. If it makes you feel better to believe that, I guess it's harmless.

 

If Im understanding what you said the above statement is untrue quite a few animals learn from their parents

One example:
Whales Family Structure - Calves (whalesforever.com)
The calf is protected and taught by its mother as well as by the other cows in the pod. The matriarchal structure of the whale society makes for a social life for the youngsters, one that is supported by an array of “mothers”

 

'
I've noticed this with my neighbor's dog's extensive teaching of her pups how to hunt, our resident geese supervising their bood's; swimming lessons, and the squirrels teaching their offspring how to leap from one branch to another. If the kids know it all instinctively, the parents are going to a lot of unnecessary trouble.

 

I watched an adult Cooper's Hawk teach it's offspring how to swoop down from a branch and grab prey off the ground... The "prey" in this case was a pine cone. So, not only teaching but tool use as well.

 

I can see the approach to life non human animals have seeming like a religion. But it's probably only something that comes from practicality and evolution. Probably.

 

I'm not sure if this observation is in the spirit of this thread, but let me throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works.
There is nothing like the love of a dog for his or her Master or Mistress. Of this I am firmly convinced. Isn't love divine?

 

Metaphorically speaking, God is Love. I get the impression that my dog loves me, because I feed him and pet him. I certainly love him. Pavlov would have said this is a conditioned response. The Greeks were good at distinguishing different kinds of love. Eros, romantic love, is not something we associate directly with God or the love dogs have for us. Philos is a more intellectual kind of love, e.g., love of wisdom. Our love of God would probably, at least partially include that, although it would also especially include the final, highest form of love, Agape, the love that transcends purely personal motives and is not rooted in the expectation of reciprocity. That. I think, is the love between God and humans, and possibly between humans and their pets. The test would come if I stop giving my dog treats and stop scratching his ears.

 

I'm posting on a thread entitled "My animal religion theory", and you're asking me if I'm on a trip?!

 

I think instinct is the right word here. Animals appear to be programed to do certain things and mostly we call it instinct.

 

Maybe then religion is the wrong word. But animals might still be irrational.

The words 'animism' and 'magical thinking' come to mind.

Does that make it (my theory) more clear ?