What is Religion?

Religion, at least until the twentieth century, seems to have been a universal phenomenon. Historian Will Durant tells of a tribe of atheist pygmies in the nineteenth century. He seem to have heard about them from sociologist William Graham Sumner, who got it from a traveler or missionary. Unfortunately, we don't know the identity of this tribe. There is also reason to doubt the reliability of western travelers and missionaries, since they may be bringing with them western Christian concepts of what religion is. In 2010, linguist and evangelical missionary Daniel Everett reported the discovery of another tribe of godless hunter gatherers, the Pirahã his time in the Amazon region of Brazil. But it turns out he might have had a narrow concept of religion.The Pirahã warned him not to go into the forest, because Xigagaí, a being who lived above the clouds, would kill him if he did. Everett seems to be going by his finding that the Pirahã had no word for "religion" as a distinct sphere of human activity. That, as a matter of fact, is fairly typical of primal religion, where a sense of the sacred is so pervasive and so much a part of daily life that it's not viewed as a separate thing.

Sociologist Robert Bellah, in his monumental study Religion in Human Evolution , notes that religion changed from simpler, diffuse, undifferentiated forms to more complex, specialized forms, as societies developed from small, simple bands to more complex tribes and states. In its earliest forms, religion wasn't a separate entity set apart and administered by clerical specialists. It was an integral part of society, such that people weren't conscious of it being a separate thing. Bellah sees religion as part of a continuous process of adaptation and differentiation, beginning when human brains reached a certain level of development and social bonding became increasingly important for survival on the open savannah, where humans were more vulnerable to predators and there were advantages to banding together to hunt larger game. Following anthropologist Robin Dunbar (1996), Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, Bellah sees the evolution of bigger brains as critical to the growing size and complexity of human societies and the development of substitutes for grooming behavior as the principal mechanism for social solidarity. Grooming worked for chimps and bonobos, whose group size numbered 50-55 members. Human average group size increased to 150--correlated with a threefold increase in brain size and twice as many cells in the cerebral cortex, which is key to memory and thought.

This was facilitated by the development of language, which became a substitute for physical grooming in tying human groups together. The language at this stage was fairly rudimentary and accompanied by a lot of non-verbal acting out of the messages being communicated that neuroscientst and anthropologist Merlin Donald calls mimetic--"the ability to represent knowledge through voluntary motor acts." Donald, Origins of the modern mind Bellah sees this process as setting the stage for religious ritual, as primordial humans tried to convey ideas by means of action, dramatization and dance. He also sees the new human ability to engage in abstract symbolic thinking and to imagine alternative realities as a critical turning point. See also, Deacon and Cashman(2009) "The Role of Symbolic Capacity in the Origin of Religion," Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, vol.3: 490-517.

Along with the increase in the size of the cerebral cortex, there was a doubling of the subcortex which is the seat of emotion. Group solidarity depends on accentuating positive social sentiments and suppressing negative ones. Sociobiololgist E.O.Wilson thinks that sometime before the evolution of homo sapiens, the human brain became modularized between a component geared to individual self interest and a component including the "positive" co-operative norms necessary for group survival. Awe became a new emotion combining fear with reverence or animation A Study of Wonder ,and became a primary emotion in the development of religious sentiment. Then the religious ideas were communicated to the group and the young through mimetic rituals. Bellah describes the Djugurba (Dreaming) rituals of the Wabiri Aboriginees of Australia, re-enacting tales of the ancestors and spirits, in this regard in dramatic social rituals. So religion didn't just pop into existence like Minerva from Zeus's brain. It evolved gradually, by a process of mostly cultural evolution.

The mechanisms by which this happened are still debated among scholars. Religion is a complex phenomenon, involving the following individual psychology, societal needs and demands, and benefits to elites and political leaders There are 10 kinds of theories of relgion:

• Explanatory: Religion is a pre-scienticfic attempt to explain natural phenomena. (Tylor)
• Cognitive: Religion is a result of perception. (a) patternicity,the ability to detect patterns, sometimes when they aren't really there (Michael Shermer); (b) agenticity, the tendency to perceive agency in ambiguous experiences. (Pascal Boyer)
  
• Phenomenological: Religion is an experience of the sacred (Otto; Eliade; James)
• Psychoanalytical: Religion is a response to existential anxieties and unconscious needs. (Freud; Jung)
• Behavioral: Religion is a set of conditioned behaviors. (Skinner; Staddon)
• Social Coheison: religion binds societies. (Durkheim)
• Social Evolutionary: religion develops and changes with increasing societal scale and complexity (Bellah; Wright)
• Political legitimation: religion legitimates the power of rulers.(Weber)
• Elite domination: religion is a tool of the ruling class. (Marx)
• Primordial monotheism (Urmonotheismus). monotheistic belief in Sky gods was the first religion.

These perspectives reflect the complexity of religion. It's like the phenomenon of the proverbial blind men inspecting the elephant and describing it in terms of the particular appendage they happen to grasp. I think there's merit to all of them, and that they help to explain why religion has developed and persisted over the millennia.

 

When you bury someone with ceremonial honors that is by definition a sacred ritual as I have been describing that well within the boundaries of the definition of religion, unless you can explain its purpose otherwise using scientific method?

Simply giving them a gift would be considered profane not sacred unless there is some special ceremony and ritual attached to the event giving it a special meaning beyond the profane, that's the distinction between the two that we need to take into consideration to understand the difference between what is religious and what is not.

Your description implies profane not sacred in this case.

It does make the burial a religious because it's not profane it's sacred, and it's ritual. Agreed the gift as described is profane and not religious. How can you claim a byurial ceremony is not a ritual?

It's not necessary to explicitly 'claim' you are an atheist to be an atheist.

You stated you don't believe in any gods that is the definition of an atheist.

With that statement anyone reading or hearing you say that is going to immediately connect you to an atheist because again that's the definition of an atheist.

You defined yourself as an atheist others know the definition of atheist, therefore its afaik its perfectly rational to state you are an atheist.

No, it's just a larger scope than you seem to be willing to look at.

I don't see it that way I see it as subject matter definition/identification albeit a larger scope than you're used to seeing people who are not into philosophy use.

Durkheim made an extremely important distinction between what is and is not religious posted in the op.

It's not the object or subject matter in and of itself it's the meaning that the object or subject matter carries and it's actual usage.

So anything philosophical is just that philosophical nothing more when it shifts to an evaluative state such that you govern your life with it now it's 100% in the religion territory.

So no, it does not mean that all beliefs are religious but yes we can certainly label a lot of things as religious depending on how we interpret them.

Most things connected to the spiritual, supernatural, and metaphysical can or do fall into the religion category unless they can be confirmed using the scientific method, and where this can get extremely difficult if you were to be a judge and hearing religious cases would be a case where something is both religious and scientific, such as scientology religion.

I totally agree with that, that it always has existed just like psychology has always existed though the word psychology to compartmentalize the phenonmen hasn't always existed, psychology itself has always existed at least to some degree, and the same thing with religion it's always existed we just didn't have a word to describe it at that time.

Now that we actually have a word to describe it that doesn't dismiss it's existence prior to its description.

That part of the definition of religion is actually scientific observation, so it's totally not a case of how I wish to define it as if to slant or spin it that's totally not the case here.

Well they disagree about the intimate details of the reductionist version of its formation but they don't disagree as far as I know that religion has been with us since the beginning of time. Do you have any citations that reflects any of that, I've never seen any?

I agree if a burial is simply dumping a body in a hole and covering it up so it doesn't stink or to keep from tripping over it, that could hardly be classified sacred in my mind, however when a ritual is added or a ceremony such that words are said over the body or thought, especially if goods are placed or some of their personal items are placed with it now it's definitely ceremonious and sacred and is most properly placed in the realm of religious.

Yes and the phenomenon predates (in fact logically is has to predate) the description assigned to it like everything else in science we observed something and then create and use a word to describe that something but that message seems to be getting lost in some cases, Im not sure why.....

Exactly I call that the intimate details

Totally, which is why it's so difficult to discuss this within the narrow boundaries of a dictionary because dictionaries mainly focus on popular usage at any given time and philosophy tends to focus more on the meaning that is the actual meaning in different contexts.

If the dictionary were to elaborate on all the different contexts a set of dictionaries would probably be 20 ft long on the bookshelf lol

 

No just not to assume that every statement I make is all or none then respond to an all or none statement that I never made.

The reason for that conclusion of course is because that's the way it was done by the majority of tribes, so it's an educated hypothesis not just a random assumption to spin a point.

Wow now that would be one ridiculously lame ceremony LoL.

I'm not saying you can't come up with examples that are highly speculative but that's not the nature of what we're dealing with here we're dealing with what has historically been done in a ceremony and my example was to illustrate a non ceremonious burial like bulldozing bodies into a hole after a war.

There's no dependency here because it doesn't matter how I define God.

When you were asked the question if you believed in God or gods you said "no" which was a response based on your definition of God not mine, I never offered a definition of God or god, all I did was ask the question, so when you said you don't believe in any of them it's goes without saying it fits the definition of atheist therefore everybody's rationally going to presume you are an atheist unless you have some God or god that you believe in that you're not telling us about?

 

I wouldn't say that. Theoretically there may have been a time before the first hominids encountered their environment and tried to make sense of it.

 

I have just encountered my changing environment. I can make sense by leaving it, and I go beyond
the corn belt. They out there will not understand why I am now be with them. Their land's presence of bees
and butterflies becomes spiritual to me in our quiet way.

 

There are degrees of certainty between conclusive and assumption.
If I didn't think my opinion had some value, I wouldn't express it. I have said the experts assume certain things, but I guess I can't disagree with their assumptions. Authority is always right.
But you agree with those experts and claim they are right. My opinion has no value as I don't agree with you and your experts.[/QUOTE]
Not "my' experts. Experts. Yes, it's true. I tend to value the opinion of experts over those of non-experts. When Fauci tells me to get the vaccination, I get the vaccination, even though Q-Anon tells me he's an evil agent of the deep state. When I get sick, I go to the doctor instead of relying on my neighbor's home remedies. Much of what I believe is based on faith in experts: that the earth is round instead of flat, that the moon landing was real, etc. But I try to keep an open mind. If a non-expert backs up his opinion with substantial evidence, I might be persuaded. Show me yours.

Not always. There was probably a time when the first humans had to encounter their environment, make the judgments that led to the belief in invisible agency, and transmit that information to the group. Cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer (Religion Explained) explains it like this: humans developed a mental capacity that enabled them to detect threats in their environment. Those that perceived ambiguous objects as possessing agency had superior survival prospects than those who didn't. If an ambiguous object could be a crocodile or a log, better assume it's a crocodile; better safe then sorry. The brute empiricist who insists of a mountain of evidence before reaching a conclusion will be eliminated early on from the gene pool, leaving the gullible but safe humans to spread their genes to posterity. A rustling of leaves in the trees or a sudden noise will be perceived as a supernatural agent. The the subject relays his experience to the group.

That's what Tylor thought. Through dreams, humans seemed to come in contact with deceased friends and relatives, and journey to strange places. This led to the idea of a soul and spirits. Then Marett and his followers came along with research on Star Wars-like mysterious impersonal forces among the Melanesians, Polynesians and certain Native American tribes which may have preceded animism, which is why they called them "pre-animism". They argued that awe of the mysterious preceded the idea of soul.

The difference between gods and spirits is a matter of scale and jurisdiction. Spirits tend to be limited to the animals, vegetables and minerals they inhabit. God live outside and command jurisdiction over several natural phenomena: weather, storms, plagues, procreation, etc. It's a judgment call, but I think a useful distinction. I'd count animism as religious because it seems to have been part of a continuous process that led to Inanna, Marduk, Isis, Amun, etc.

The concept isn't strange, but it seemed strange to me that you might prefer a viewpoint which is the theory of choice among Christian evangelical apologists. But they assume that monotheism was the first religion of prehistoric humans. I suspect you think the opposite: that atheism was.

I don't think they apply only to a deity. And yes, I think the experts can redefine any word they choose if they find it useful to do so and explain why. I agree with their choice, which I think is superior to Webster's--a culture bound and analytically limited lay conception.

We seem to be close. I think religion is a human concept based on perceptions. I think it was partly developed to explain nature (Tylor's theory) but also in response to the other nine psychological and sociological factors I identified in Post #561. Tylor was criticized by later anthropologists for making it too intellectual, and neglecting emotion and social interaction.
And I'd add mysterious supernatural force (like mana) to the description of things worshiped.

Thank you. I do and I will.

Well there have certainly been lots of them since the eighteenth century.

Lots of secular societies--since trhe eighteenth century..

 

You can say that if you want, but reverence is an attitude that is an important ingredient in religion. If you just bury somebody perfunctorily, of course--get it over quickly so you can get to the ball game--it would be going through the motions. I go to a lot of funerals for people I didn't know well but are deceased neighbors or relatives of people I do know--because it's expected. I think it would be a mistake, though, to project those attitudes on earlier societies, where more things and event were held sacred.

But of course we live in a secularized society where sentiment for things beyond ourselves is going out of style. Sociologists call that de-sacralization, and it's a characteristic of the process they call "modernization". And even in highly secularized societies, the process is uneven--tending to be more pronounced in urban parts of the country than in more rural states. Our society is very much divided on things like how much respect should be shown to the deceased (folks in my community still come to a halt when a hearse carrying a stranger passes by). In the landmark flag salute case, Texas v. Johnson, Johnson was initially convicted of "desecrating a venerated object", i.e., the flag. I personally think it's kind of idolatrous to regard the flag as "sacred", but it's still and attitude found among the older generation, especially from military backgrounds. The issue is how do we use language to describe their attitudes. We could say "quasi-sacred". Would that get it by without triggering your allergy to anything religious? And how far would it get us in understanding hunter-gatherer and pre-industrial agrarian societies where sacralization instead of desacralization seems to be the norm?

 

I agree. And I try to corroborate them as best I can. Sometimes, I trust the peer review process to take care of the rest

But we need to be clear what we're talking about. Just as you don't need scientific "proof" to back up your conclusion that religion begins with god(s), I don't need it to support my judgment that the evidence makes more sense in the context of a continuous theory of cultural evolution. Otherwise, we have to explain how and when these deities came to be. The leading alternative theory is God. Primitive Monotheism -- By: Norman L. Geisler | Galaxie Software

 

But that isn't really how it goes. Person A claims that X is true. Person A is an expert in the field. Person A presents arguments and evidence to back up his/her claims. The evidence is submitted to expert peer review and published in a scholarly journal. The article is read by other experts and by the public, who comment on it. If it seems to stand up, the claim is plausible, and supported by substantial evidence, I might accept it, if it fits with other information similarly obtained.

 

Maybe someone just liked to paint antelopes, by torchlight, in a difficult to access part of the cave, day after day after day, just to impress his sweetie. Maybe I'm an hallucination plaguing you with backtalk. Or maybe we're both brains in a jar in some alien kid's science project. Or our entire reality is a computer simulation, as Oxford Prof. Nick Bostrom maintains. etc., etc. Maybe the United States is controlled by the Deep State, which is feeding us this information to keep us all confused and control us. Could be. Maybe everything Tucker Carlson tells us is true: that a Great Replacement of the white race by non-whites is afoot, that Russia is really a liberator of the Ukraine and Biden and Zelenski are evil NAZIS, etc. And Trump will make America great again, and DeSantis will save us from the woke cultural Marxists. At some point, we have to make the leap of faith and decide who and what to trust. It's a judgment call, combining evidence with intuition. If the experts who have cleared the peer review process seem to agree on a conclusion, I tend to put my money on them--if their arguments and evidence seem plausible.

And I don't think anybody is saying "that's the way it was and you'd better believe it." If it's just a case of a few beads being thrown into a grave, well sure it might not be a big deal. But if there are several graves in different regions and instead of a few beads you have 10,000 ivory beads, plus ivory bracelets and spears , together with fine buckskins to which the beads were probably attached--amounting to an estimated 9,000 man hours to produce, one might wonder whether something beyond respect for a good guy was involved. Then one might ask the question: what? And answer that on the basis of knowledge of present-day hunters and gatherers.

BTW, I know of one writer who agrees with you about the experts, at least in the area of evolution: John C. Landon, author of Descent of Man Revisited. He shows how the experts swallowed Darwin hook line and sinker, when really their "bottom up" approach to animal and human existence is just based on a lot of assumptions and extrapolations. He isn't burdeneded by high powered credentials, a fancy science education, and cow-towing to referees of scholarly journals, although he "attended" Columbia University, and is a self-described scientist, poet, mathematician, linguist, student of classics, oriental religion, and evolutionary theory. He says we have no sound basis for thinking that Darwin was right, and explains that at considerable length. Maybe he's a genius, but I've decided he has a bad case of Duning-Kruger's. But that's just me, what do I know?

 

So Fauci's judgments can always be trusted? For the most part, I agree, but ShyOne might differ on that one--and he has been known to change his mind on the basis of new evidence. I certainly agree that the hard sciences are more reliable than the soft ones, because of their rigorous methods which limits what they can reliably generalize about. If we want to know how religion began, they won't be of much help. We have to rely on the soft ones, or just forget it and go on to other matters, or rely on our own uniformed judgments and decide nothing can really be known about religion (except that it's bad).With all their limitations, I think the social sciences are better than nothing, or than the uninformed guesses of the average Fox News watcher.And I'd take them over Merriam-Webster any day.

So can theories about the origin of religion, by further archeological or anthropological discoveries.

You don't have to, but I tend to think a plausible theory supported by substantial evidence is better than none, even though it's not "conclusive". So are you saying you don't believe anything that isn't "conclusive". You realize, of course, that Darwin's theory of evolution by process of natural selection is only a pre-Cambrian rabbit away from the dustbin of history. (So far, no rabbits.)

Do you believe any history? Black history? Why? Much of it is interpretation of documentary evidence. Do you accept any of the findings of the "soft sciences"? What about political opinions? Do you suspend judgment and play golf on election day, or do you form judgments that seem evidence-based and reasonable, but could be wrong? Really, I can't prove conclusively that Trump is a bad guy. But I think I have substantial evidence to support that conclusion. Or do you make up your mind about "inconclusive" matters on the basis of coin tosses and/or gut instincts, regardless of evidence? I tend to require reasons and substantial evidence.

Good. At least we agree on that.But if they weren't atheists and they weren't religious, what were they? Agnostics? I tend to favor the view that religion developed gradually "bottom up" from simpler to more complex forms. In that case, we'd expect a transition to full-blown theism to something less than that.

Not necessarily, but still lots. Much of western Europe, especially Scandanavia; China; North Korea; Vietnam, etc. It seems to be growing in the U.S.

 

I tend to think of the development of religion as a gradual process beginning with simpler forms and developing into more complex expressions. I can't prove that. It's an inference, based on evidence that I've encountered. The idea is that religious rituals like burials built on simpler practices that might have been non-religious, and even pre-human, in origin. Catlin O'Connell (2021). Wild Rituals. (No, I'm not saying animals have religion, although some scholars have.)

Funeral rituals seem to go back aways, to pre-human observances. Death rituals in the animal kingdom For animals that hunt in packs, like wolves and for herd animals like elephants, loss of a member can be traumatic. Wolves give a distinctive mourning howl and act depressed. Do Wolves Bury Their Dead? | Woodsy Wisdom White Wolf : Heartbreaking moment when a pack of wolves mourn the loss of a member. Elephants are particularly into mourning rituals, "performing rituals that include touching and caressing the bones of the dead, moving them to different locations, and burying them with grass, leaves and tree limbs."
Elephant Mourning Rituals - SevenPonds Blog
https://animalbehaviorcorner.com/elephants-death-rituals/
How elephants mourn - Blog
Elephants Share Emotions, Empathy and Grief Rituals
They even bury the remains of non-elephants. They vocalize their grief and will stand by the grave of a deceased herd member for days.

These creatures are highly intelligent and empathetic, with brains containing "over 300 billion neurons as well as a highly developed cerebral cortex that is similar in complexity to that of humans and larger than that of almost all other primates except the great apes." https://blog.sevenponds.com/cultural-perspectives/elephant-mourning-rituals#:~:text=Elephants have been observed mourning lost members of,leaves and tree limbs. Elephants mourning (Credit: scalar.usc.edu)

The primates which are closest to us in genetic makeup, sharing 98.8% of our DNA, are chimps and bonobos. Primatologists ( what do they know?) tell us that chimps perform riituals on six major kinds of occasions: birth, consortship, dominance challenges, encounters with threatening natural forces, and death. Celebrated primatologist Jane Goodall reports that chimpanzees dance when they encounter a storm, a wildfire, or a waterfall, and throw rocks at trees. Goodall (2005) "Primate spirituality" The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Nature. p.p. 1303-1306;J.B Harrod (2014) "The Case for Chimpanzee Relgion,"Journal of the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, vol. 8:8-45. Mysterious Chimpanzee Behavior May Be Evidence of "Sacred" Rituals ; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chimps-may-be-performing-rituals-shrine-trees-180958301/ When a storm or fire approaches, subordinate chimps dance, while the alpha male confronts the forces with dominance displays. Chimps react to death by behavior including hours-long group silence, distinctive vocalizations, grooming of the the carcass, and displays; and calls of distress. Bonobos are less into ritual, but are more into empathy and reciprocal altruism, which may be foundations of morality. DeWaal (2013). The Bonobo and the Atheist.

We should be cautious in labeling any of these behaviors as religious or proto-religious. Chimpanzees: Spiritual But Not Religious? But they do suggest behavioral repertoires that could be pressed into religious service as humans added mimetic culture to the mix.

 

Well, there are three possibilities: (1) its a human invention; (2) it's a divine gift; or (3) it's a product of human psychology and sociology, not entirely (or even largely) conscious and deliberate. I'm open to all three, but favor the latter.