16 October 2010

Chicken or the egg problem



In this case, the egg comes first but most people assume the chicken did (at least I think that's how that goes). Religion, when examined under the lens of anthropology turns out to be far more about codifying already existing practices, and then trying to hard code in legalistic language that preserves the ability of powerful elites to exert power in the manner they choose (religions in the organised sense that progress beyond mere superstitions tend to require elites to exist in a propertied society of agricultural production). On balance, there are many people who seem to be able to use a set of guiding principles and the mistaken perception that some invisible man/being/whatever is observing their behavior to coincide with those principles to lead otherwise healthy moral lives, and there are many people who overinterpret cultural values from thousands of years ago as relevant today or selectively interpret things to establish and encase their existing biases in a cocoon where they need not be challenged. I'm of the opinion that this negative effect is kind of unnecessary and hence religion, certainly of the organised institutional variety, tends to be a net bad, or at best, not nearly as good as is otherwise claimed by its adherents. Primarily because our basic human morality seems to be a thing that is a creature of necessity in social animals (like humans) so if we must have large diverse societies, it would be better to find social structures that allow us to coexist without as much "team building". By which I mean bullying "other" people. To some extent this includes atheists and other secularists who've had the good sense and fortune to discard punitive invisible beings as their impetus for moral behavior, in effect recognize that the only tyrannical beings in place here are ourselves over our own behavior. I suppose I can sympathize with the desire by many to have a system available that makes their emotional displeasure and disgust with the actions of others that do not effect themselves (or in most cases, others) seem justifiable.

But in practice, when there is no rational basis for our fear and displeasure, perhaps because we have assumed to possess mythical knowledge about others in acts of prejudice and bias (as happens not infrequently with homosexuality, as a modern example), it's hard to say that we've achieved a good moral system because it may act arbitrarily at that point and be turned against anyone it chooses. The preference should be that a moral system should be used very sparingly to condemn others because those condemnations represent penalties and costs to ourselves as well as those we condemn. We should therefore seek out places where it can only function as it does, for example in the cases of rape, torture, or murder, to avoid a societal collapse.

In other words, privately we can condemn (or give praise) whoever we want, but collectively it should be only the most extreme cases, the most damaging to the order and function of a society that we should exert our energies.

The more interesting debates about morality centered on issues like empathy: the beggar problem or the horror movie problem for example. I do see where religion offers some of these essential lessons (the story of the good samaritan), but again, I struggle to see how these goods cannot be forcibly removed from their surroundings and taken as independently valued and valuable commodities for a human society to practice and understand. To me we might accomplish quite a lot by re-writing the entire old testament as just the book of Job and throwing away the rest as obsolete and useless historical testimony from the victors (or at turns the insufferable whining of the oppressed) in a long series of wars. At least that book offers a complex moral conundrum for people to resolve if their beliefs are in some deity to whom faith is central over and above goodness, not to mention gives an important illustration that bad things do not happen only to bad people (in abortion debates this is known as the "abortion should be illegal for everyone except in cases of rape, incest, and me" corollary). Meanwhile the rest offers us these lessons on biology and geology that are so lacking in context as to be rendered useless. We don't listen to the tales of the ancient Greeks as they explained the shape and size of the globe to each other or the essential nature of birds and beasts, so why listen to a bunch of Israelites from even further back? This is absurd.

(to those that would then claim that this is the inerrant word of god, and not the rantings of a few priests and scribes from ancient times, you might want to realize that the Bible itself was edited several times by the church hierarchy, ultimately deciding arbitrarily which books were to be included and which not, as though they could determine which books were "divine" and which not. Not to mention the problems of translations and which words have altered in their meanings and uses over the centuries. None of these problems are not limited to Christianity or Judaism, and all of them relate to the central problem of people taking literally things which are best taken in their proper context, and then using that literal interpretation to justify actions which, at best, seem contrary to the essential teachings of most faiths and at worst, are unspeakably immoral acts in their own right).

4 comments:

Kyla Denae said...

I'm religious, and I agree with you. I think too often religious people (Christians especially, here in the States) use their religion to behave in a manner that, to my mind, is completely contrary to the original teachings of thier chosen religion.

I think one of the biggest problems (and I'm going back to the Christian community here) is that they can't just mind their own business and take care of problems in the internal society of the brethren, and let conviction deal with those outside. No. They have to go tell people who have no allegiance to our moral code what to do, too. That's wrong.

So yeah. ^.^

Sun Tzu said...

One of the advantages of living largely by a sense of live and let live empiricism is that if someone else's way is genuinely better, you can observe this, ask about it, see if it works for you. When it doesn't, as in the case of faith for me (because I just do not have a mental framework that allows me to take anthropomorphizing things seriously), you can move on. It's also possible that during the exchange, your own methods can be questioned, observed, and found to be superior.

I think in large part that putatively "religious" concepts (or at least the use of religious messaging to provide these lessons) like tolerance toward others can be employed in useful and ultimately socially superior ways by complex societies like the US, but we will have a hard time doing this in an organised way when it very often seems like the religious among us are among the most intolerant and the most closed-minded.

Kyla Denae said...

Indeed. It's rather sad that religious people here are so close minded, especially those who share the Christian faith with me. I mean, from their perspective (and mine, in some respects), Christ said things and he meant them to be followed. The problem comes in when Christians attack people because they disagree. That doesn't help the cause of Christ, at all.

But anyway. I digress. I agree with you. :)

Sun Tzu said...

I'm not so sure that the problem is limited necessarily to "religious people", or certainly to Christians. This kind of thinking applies all over the place.

And from the perspective of many Christians, or Muslims, or Hindus, there are proscribed actions, yes. The issue is that most of those are contextual. "Turn the other cheek" is a pretty well known example. Has to do with self-respect and the distinctions of treatment between social classes (plebeians and patricians at the time), not necessarily non-violence. That meaning has been discarded or lost in favor of others, but it's not the original message. The further in time and language and use of language you get, the less confident you should be that you're even reading what "actually happened", what was actually said or importantly, what was actually meant.