EoG Chapter 4: Gods of the Ancient States

As Western society began transitioning from chiefdoms to ancient city-states, religion began to have elements of modern religion, namely:

1. Monotheism
2. Ethical Core
3. Universalism

Let's begin by looking at monotheism. To explain why gods were so cranky and finicky, gods in pre-literate ancient chiefdoms were anthropomorphic, with human flaws and desires. As such, the courts of gods reflected ancient courts of kings. As such, there was often a "king" god who controlled all of the other gods. Gradually the "king" god (such as Marduk in Mesopotamia or later Aten in Egypt, early home of the Hebrews) began to replace the other gods either by absorbing them or usurping them altogether. As ancient cultures began to study science, the need for a bunch of finicky gods who held nature and humanity at their whim receded as ancient scientists discovered that they could be predicted and/or prevented. In addition, ancient societies previously relied upon polytheistic gods to create cultural and economic bridges, or syncretism. Whereas before including or absorbing another society's gods was good diplomacy, gradually creating a single powerful god became a way to show dominance over another culture.

Another element of modern religion whose roots can be found in ancient times is an ethical core. Religion was originally used to explain why the world worked the way that it did, and later to manipulate it for desired results. As society became more complicated, kings and other community leaders began to use religion to control the general populace. Whether knowing that they were taking advantage of the established belief system or as an extension of the belief system is an argument I leave up to the Marxists and fundamentalists. Nevertheless, ancient gods began to send out demonic beings to punish their followers- beings such as "Fever" or "Jaundice" to punish people who acted amorally, such as urinating in the river or similar acts that violated social decency. This played to ancient people's self interests. The difference between modern and ancient religions is that our religions have the concept of the afterlife to put us in line- ancient people were punished pretty quickly if they stepped out of line. Philosophers also compare the modern law system to this ancient practice.

The final element of modern religion is universalism, or that religion applies to everyone and not just the followers of the religion, ie, that Marduk created all people, not just the Babylonians. Before technology allowed them to, people lived in isolated city-states that allowed them to develop an us-vs.-them mentality. Gods were used by kings to incorporate nearby villages and cities into their religion to display dominance economically and diplomatically. As technology and the economy progressed to the point that large city states (and thus their religions) began trading and inter-marrying, the concept of a dominant god began to take hold. While Hammurabi began the idea with his Code of Law, touting Marduk as the one god, it was Amenhotep IV in Egypt that began to tout his god Aten as the god of all people (not coincidentally, this was also the original home of the Hebrews). There was a global need for cosmopolitanism and cultural acceptance that came with economic and technological advancements; having one god over all people united the world (as they knew it) under one philosophy. This paved the way for monotheistic faiths, which we address in the next chapter.

EoG Chapter 3: Religion in the Age of Chiefdoms

So far in this book, we have had the question of Marxism versus fundamentalists; rephrased, we have been discussing if religion is good for the people or for those in power. In the last chapter, it was a question of whether shamans created mystical gods to control and victimize the people around them or if they genuinely believed that they had control over the supernatural world and used that power to help those around them. In this chapter, we have reached the next step in human cultural development, the chiefdoms. These groups are larger than the bands of kin that spread throughout the world, and are more complicated and hierarchal, but not as large, complicated or hierarchal as future ancient city-states.

As groups became more complicated, so too did religion. Religion stepped in to reinforce a moral code and social system to keep order. In Evolution of God, Robert Wright uses the example of Polynesian islands whose concept of manu and tapa used to keep control. Manu is good; tapa was bad. Chiefs and priests would invoke tapa to punish those who were exhibiting anti-social behaviors, either morally (such as murder or theft) or not following religious rituals. Similarly, chiefs were considered conduits of the positive religious energy of manu, which protected you from religious wrath and made your life more successful. They rewarded those who lived their lives positively and religiously. Thus began moral dimensions within society- do good, receive good fortune; do bad, be sacrificed to appease the gods.

In many ways, concepts such as manu and tapa served ancient chiefdoms as science. People would find correlations between two variables-such as the appearance of stars in the night sky and weather, or perhaps the behavior of the parents and the health of their child- and surmise an explanation, using their religion. In the first case, they would interpret their gods' wishes to predict the weather; in the second case, they would reason that the parent's tapa made the child ill. While their methodology was crude and their explanations often wrong, our modern science is dated back to ancient times.

The Marxists believe that chiefs and priests selfishly used manu and tapa as a carrot to control those in society and, while they may be correct in some instances, ancient chiefdoms tended to be subject to cultural Darwinism. Chiefs that abused their power or rule poorly tended to fall victim to wars or coups, and their societies tended to be trampled by socially stronger societies. Just as anti-social people tended to be eliminated through sacrifice or by outcasting them, so stronger and more harmonious societies developed and grew, and more selfish chiefs were eliminated in coups. And the most successful societies eventually grew into larger ancient states, such as Babylon, forming the next chain in human development.

EoG Chapter 2: The Shaman

Between ancient hunter-gatherer superstitions and more organized village chiefdoms, there lay the shaman. The term "shaman" is an umbrella term that covers any person (man or woman, perhaps child) that claims to have some control or insight into a culture's supernatural belief system. Cynics (Marxists) and optimists (functionalists) debate over whether the shaman truly believed that they had control or insight into their gods and goddesses or if they were a sort of primitive scam artist. There is merit for both arguments.

For the Marxists side, there is the idea that shamans didn't do the work that they did to serve the greater good, but rather for personal gain. Services that they provided were paid for rather than given for free or the common good. Using their so-called access to the supernatural world, shamans leveraged political powers for themselves, bringing themselves into further notoriety. The anthropologist Paul Radin explains that the shaman techniques were "designed to do two things: to keep the contact with the supernatural exclusively in the hands of the [shaman], and to manipulate and exploit the sense of fear of the ordinary man." By developing this religion that revolved around service for the shaman, the shamans were servicing themselves at the expense of culture.

The fundamentalists argue that the shamans weren't necessarily in it for themselves. They point to the strenuous hardships that many shamans suffered to get in touch with the spiritual world- many cultures required them to abstain from food or sex for days or months, some even to pierce their penises. If a shaman was found to be a fraud, he was ostracized from the community, probably to certain death. In certain cultures, shamans guaranteed their work- beads or blankets that they received for their services were given back if their incantations failed to heal the sick or prevent storms. According to the fundamentalists, the shamans gave social cohesion and created "social vitality."

Who was right? Were the shamans fundamentally good, creating social unity and serving society? Or as the Marxists believe, did they control society and exploit innocent people? As Robert Wright puts it, why not both? Both viewpoints come into play for cultural evolution. Shamans paved the way for the next step in human development- chiefdoms.

EoG Chapter 1: The Primordial Faith

Religion started out several millenia ago as a way for early hunter-gatherer societies to explain the world around them. A few questions they wanted answered- what were dreams? What happened when you died? Why do bad things happen to good people? Good things to bad people? What can I do to make good things happen to me?

Religion first began when man developed the concept of a soul, that dreams were your soul wandering the earth while you slept, and death was your soul leaving your body once your earthly form was finished. From there it's an easy leap to putting souls in everything- trees, animals, even inanimate objects like rocks and the wind. (Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?) From there, early societies developed the idea that there were gods that were in charge of all of these different objects- the god of trees, the god of the sun and wind, etc. Religion started as a way of explaining the world around them and grew organically from that.

Hunter-gatherers developed five different types of gods:

1. Elemental spirits: Objects that we consider inanimate, such as rocks, have intelligence, personality and a soul.
2. Puppeteers: Parts of nature, such as the wind, were being controlled by gods distinct from themselves.
3. Organic spirits: Objects that we consider alive, such as animals or trees, have souls themselves and can control elements of nature.
4. Ancestral spirits: Deceased members of society stuck around, able to help or hinder the living.
5. The high god: This isn't a god that is in charge of other gods, but rather one that is somehow superior to the other gods for some reason or another.
   

Robert Wright is careful to explain that early religions weren't religions at all, that they were a way of explaining the world before there was writing or modern technology to understand it all. So then was early "religion" more of an early science, albeit a supernatural one? Modern science uses technology, a scientific method and the rapid exchange of ideas to explain why the world works the way that it does, to explain why the wind blows, storms come and disease strikes. In hunter-gatherer societies, religion didn't serve as a moral compass. People lived in small, transparent groups, so if one did steal or murder, it would not only be seen easily, but backlash against that person- his or her close kin and tribesmen would know that it was that person and prevent a cohesive society from functioning. Then people didn't worry about betraying some higher god, just each other. Ritual was used to appease the ego of a god to create good things.

Finally, a quote: "Religious doctrines can't survive if they don't appeal to the psychology of the people whose brains harbor them," meaning religion will only work if it appeals to the hunter-gatherers. If a religion or religious idea doesn't make sense to a group of people, they will reject it and search for a new explanation of why nature works the way that it does. This raises the idea of cultural evolutionism, or cultural Darwinism- weaker ideas are discarded in favor of stronger, more logical ideas. This can come in the form of rituals, when one ritual doesn't work and must be discarded to find another way, or simple theory.

My thoughts about my personal religion:

• If ritual was originally created to make good things happen to good people and prevent bad things, then the rituals that I went through when I was younger- communion, baptism- were there to make good things happen to me?
• My original religion- Episcopalianism, or Diet Catholic- doesn't make any sense to me. Does this mean that it doesn't reflect my own ideas about the way the world works? Is this why science is more successful, and why Catholicism and Christianity is losing members?
  

Evolution of God

For my Questioning Religion class, I'm writing a thesis paper on the different manifestations of God within western religions, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It sounded smart to me, anyway, and it was better than debating the existence of evil all summer (or going outside.)

To this end, I'm reading Evolution of God by philosopher Robert Wright, about the development of religion in western society. It's pretty convenient for me that this book exists; it's like my work has been done for me!

To help me figure out this book, I'm going to be summarizing and analyzing the book chapter by chapter. If you guys want, you can read along with me or comment or criticize to help me think of concepts I hadn't thought of yet and help me further my thinking! It'll be fun.

Photoshop

Body image is a pretty common topic on feminist blogs- consider Broadsheet's recent article on recent cover girl Nancy Pelosi or here which talks about photo retouching and the recent trend against it. Photo-retouching is pretty common practice in magazines, making beautiful women even more impossibly beautiful and giving us some impossibly high standards of beauty to boot.

So I googled some images:


and


And I got to thinking. When I see images in magazines of impossibly beautiful images, like the picture of Britney Spears or Mariah Carey, it does make me feel bad about myself. As the blog Feministe points out, these images create an idea that beauty is something that can be achieved rather than something you're born with naturally, that if you work hard enough and pay enough money than you're beautiful. These magazines create two-fold ideas: 1. that if you're not beautiful, obviously you're not working hard enough and 2. you're never, ever going to be beautiful enough.

Looking at these photos, though, I feel better about myself. Namely, I know that the ethereal beauty are reachable with a few hours on Photoshop and, conversely, that even the most beautiful women are as ugly as me.

Date Night

So Tina Fey is one of the hottest stars on the planet right now. She has a hit show (you may have heard of it, 30 Rock? You know, the critically acclaimed show and a huge success with audiences?), has written and starred in several popular movies (Mean Girls, Baby Mama) and is considered one of the funniest and most successful women in Hollywood today. Plus she has this new movie coming out, Date Night.



The movie also stars Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and Mila Kunis, although watching the trailer you'd swear only Carell and Franco are in the movie. All five are established comedic actors on their own: Fey as listed above, Carell's roles in Forty Year Old Virgin and Anchorman established his career, Wahlberg was hilarious as an existential firefighter in I <3 Huckabees, James Franco redefined his career in the stoner-buddy-comedy Pineapple Express, and Mila Kunis has been a comedy darling since her role in That 70's Show. But again, watching the trailer above, you'd think only Carell and Franco were the ones with comedic chops.

I have enough confidence in both Fey and Kunis as comedic actresses, and that they both have the smarts to pick strong roles that give them great, funny, memorable lines. But it's the trailer that doesn't show that- the trailer betrays a lack of confidence in its female stars. Fey is used to ogle the man-candy that is Wahlberg shirtless, and Kunis sets up a joke for Franco. That's it. What- does that mean that Kunis and Fey don't get any good lines in the entire movie? Did Kunis and Fey settle for the stereotypical wife role, playing second banana to Carell and Franco?

I lean more towards the filmmakers and the editor of the trailer not trusting the appeal of Fey (specifically) and Kunis as comedians, or even women. Again, as I said above, Kunis and Fey are hilarious. Everyone knows it. I mean, Carell and Franco are doing extremely well for themselves, but Kunis and Fey are as well! Do they think that funny women are going to scare off their target audience? What target audience would be scared of funny women, twelve year old boys?

Personally, this exclusion turns me off from this movie. The marketing team is underselling its actors and that doesn't bode well for the movie as a whole.