Responding to Nicholas Thompson who referred to David Sloan Wilson's view
that human predilection to religion is an adaptation that fosters
subjugation of the individual I would like to say this:
*Organized* religions do tend to foster subjugation, just as most organized
institutions do. Universities foster subjugation with their students and
even their faculty, governments with their citizens, large corporations with
their employees and even their customers. Trying to get a large number of
people to do anything with any semblance of order requires some measure of
that, and different cultures seem to prefer different levels of subjugation,
and so I guess of order. But *religious beliefs *are not inherently
subjugating.
One can believe in God, Tao, Christ, etc, and try to subscribe to a personal
path of --- say kindness, compassion, giving -- without choosing to even be
in an organized religious.
Now, if you are arguing that personally trying to follow a path of kindness
and compassion subjugates an individual by the very nature of the gesture of
kindness or compassion, well -- I disagree. One's path if one's choice.
Furthermore, if in walking one's own religious path, one stumbles on other
like minded individuals who occasionally get together to discuss their
common interests, I do not find that subjugating either.
I do tend to see subjugation enter, willingly or not, when that group
decides on rules that they then want others to follow and go out trying to
talk people into their rules and beliefs. If they simply go out to share
some level of personal positive experience related to their path, that is
not subjugating I don't believe.
Sort of like believing in a more environmental path. It is one
thing to try to tell others that it might be helpful to us all and to the
longevity of the planet as we sort of know it, if we got off the burning of
fossil fuels. Subjugation enters when a government insists on one course
(and sometimes I must admit that I see this as a necessary thing because
people are slow to act) -- like to insist (I wish) that all new coal fired
plants be closed and replaced with wind, solar, wind-to-hydrogen, and/or
geothermal plants, or that all new vehicles in 2020 will operate on either
hydrogen, solar, or electricity from renewables.
Enough expounding.
Peggy
<[email protected]> hat geschrieben:
Peggy, Kim, n all,
One of the features of *evolutionary* psychology that I like is that it is
less likely to see non-normative variations in psychological organization as
diseases. Rather, it tends to see them as potential adaptations to
different selection pressures. David Sloan Wilson in *his Darwin’s
Cathedral* holds the view that the human predilection to religion is an
adaptation that fosters subjugation of individual interests to those of the
group. In short, it works just because it is irrational (given that
“reason” is deployed to determine an individual’s best course of action for
himself and his own genealogy).
Nick
--
Peggy Miller, owner/OEO
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wix.com/peggymiller/highlandwinds
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