From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
Subject: Re: The origin of Religion
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 92 20:54:15 GMT

In article <92311.135304J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> John A. Johnson <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Nov06.094608.20334@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca
>(Douglas Graham) says:
>>For example, the specific beliefs of
>>Scientology don't appear to have much in common with those of Christianity,
>>yet they both appear to be quite successful in infecting the brains of
>>their hosts.  The only similarity that I can detect is that they both
>>promise immortality of one sort or another.
>
>Scientology isn't exactly a long-standing, major religion.

So?  I can easily imagine a world of a few hundred years hence, when
the Scientologists have acheived their goal of world domination by
the usual means (infiltration of governments, lying, hypocrisy, war,
extermination of non-believers, etc.).  After a thousand years of such
a regime, wouldn't people be talking about how the Scientologist beliefs
stem from deep with the unconcious?  Or is Scientology qualitatively different
than more primitive mythologies?  If such a cult did conquer the world and
destroy all records of previous religions, would you expect to see
some people regenerate some of the beliefs of these earlier religions?

>>If religious belief really
>>did stem from a preprogrammed unconscious, I would expect to see more
>>similarities.  I do believe that humans do come preprogrammed with some
>>instinctual reactions similar to that of the chicks (such as a fear of
>>snakes), but I would expect those reactions to be more directly related
>>to the business of survival than some fuzzy belief in gods.
>
>Isn't foreknowledge of our death an enormously relevant issue vis-a-vis
>our survival?  Michael Persinger, in his *Neuropsychological bases of
>God beliefs* suggests that illusions of immortality protect us from
>from the despair of realizing we can't escape death.

Absolutely.  I think foreknowledge of our death is a prime cause
of much of the madness amongst our species.  I think we got too
smart for our own good, and so we had to concoct all kinds of nonsense
to try to avoid facing up to our mortality.  But I think the details
of the nonsense are secondary; the fundamental problem is that we
know we are going to die.

>>To me, the puzzling aspect of religion is not the specifics of what
>>is believed, but rather the ability of people to maintain those beliefs
>>in face of overwhelming contradictory evidence.  It seems that all that's
>>needed is to provide a set of completely arbitrary beliefs so that
>>people don't have to think for themselves, possibly a promise of immortality,
>>and some innoculation against skepticism (eg. promote faith as a virtue).
>>If this is roughly true, where do the archetypes fit into this scheme?
>
>It would be presumptuous of me to attempt a proper summary of the theory
>of archetypes in a brief post.  But, essentially, archetypal symbols
>represent issues of universal human concern (birth, initiation into
>adulthood, marriage, death, etc.).  When shared by a group in the form
>of myths, legends, and religious rituals, archetypes provide a
>psychological linkage among the group members, leading to solidarity
>and, for the individual, reassurance and comfort.  I think all properly
>educated persons should read some Jung.  Give it a go.

I shall give it a go.  But I've got one more question.  I thought that
these archetypes were supposed to be things that we inherited genetically
rather than culturally.  You can't really be saying that there is some
information in our genes about initiation into adulthood or marriage
can you?  If I'm mistaken in my assumption that we're talking about
genetic inheritance, then I have no quarrel with any of this.  I have
no doubt that I've got a lot of cultural baggage in my head that I
don't know about.  But if that's the case, I can't see how cultural
inheritance is relevant to whether or not people are naturally atheists.
--
Should the human race not be extinguished by a nuclear war, it will degenerate
into a flock of stupid, dumb creatures under the tyranny of dictators who rule
them with the help of machines and electronic computers.  This is no prophecy,
just a nightmare.  -- Max Born.   **** dgraham@bnr.ca    My own opinions. ****
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