Category: Religion


Religion and middle classes

Filed under: Evolution, Religion — Leave a comment
June 9, 2010

Part 2

Running with the ideas of religion evolution from my last post…

the parent child hierarchy is strongest in the middle classes…it almost defines it ( read my post on classes and how ‘expectations’ define the classes in the simplest of abstractions)

well…duh…religion must be strongest in the middle classes then.Why I never thought of that simple maths before.

Thomas Barnett has been predicting the rise of the middlle classes through Globilization and the Religion having a piggy back revival through that rise.I’ve been reading his posts blankly while knowing intimately that the Middle classes in Pakistan are the most religious of all the classes.

Pious through success ( like the Dutch in the 17th century)  , religious because of the forces I have described in all my Religion evolution posts.

Welcome  to the religious century.The Brits had their Victorian era with the rise of the middle classes…so will the Chinese ( who may increasingly choose Christianity as a middle class option) and the also the Turks ( Erdogan and the rise of the economy / middle classes there ).

Also …the Arab discontent is aligned the youthful demographics and poised to peak with the aging of the bulge ( TB’s thinking here..exceptional thinker as ever ) and then dissipate with aging.

But I see Saudis rise from Nomadic peoples to stratified and rapidly rising Middle classes as the key as the fertile ground and carrier for the Wahabbi contagion.

Religion has still some headway to make..its on the march upwards.If the UK is any indicator..it takes a  100 years of growth to become pass the secular tipping point.Economic growth creates security = less stress within the parent-child hierarchy = no psychic stress to cause religion in the first place = atheism.

Re-introduce stress ( war ) = child -parent stress= re-surgence of religion= more larger society = re-growth  ( unfortunately ..larger forces at play that are not allowing  this process to continue in Somalia and Afghanistan ).

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Religion evolution and Fairness

Filed under: Evolution, Religion — Leave a comment
June 8, 2010

Just a slightly better abstraction of my earlier posts/theories on the cause of religion.

Parent -child hierarchy ( non existant in Hunter gatherers ) causes  the child to subjugate a part of their Self to the authority of the larger outer force ( the parent(= private authority figure vs God/king = public authority figure )) .This causes a great sense of injury/violation to  the biological sense of innate fairness ( the insula becomes the address that remembers this loss and is the seat of negative emotions ).

In tight close packed communities ..such as caves ..or denser villages/hamlet/ towns….this loss causes a pyschic trace damage within which the biological( hardware)  sense of fairness..the personal sense of fairness gives way to an imaginary ( software ) re-institution of that sense of fairness..but in a public application…ie Religion.Headed by an idealised authority figure who is public as well .

Simply put….A LOSS OF PERSONAL  OWNED BIOLOGICAL FAIRNESS ( hardware) is replaced by A PUBLICLY OWNED AND OPERATED SENSE OF FAIRNESS ( software )

The original reason to cut the child down to size is to alleviate the pressures of close high density living …allowing larger groups to aggregate.The loss of fairness is replaced by the public version which re-inforces the ability of the group to live in close quarters.

The child Parent hierarchy then lends itself to the ‘layerfication’ of society as  once the ‘hardware ‘ for individuality is broken….mass conducted human behaviour by small groups of authority figures becomes enabled.

The pyramidally structured society is born.

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Jews are Arabs

Filed under: Religion — Leave a comment
June 4, 2010

Like I’ve said before…..Many Arabs ( Jews) moved to Isreal and are now not classified as Arabs….

Arabs is a meaningless term that can be ascribed to a language…but not a people…otherwise Isreal is just another Arab state .Is the Isreal Arab conflict just a war of words/languages ( languages …Hebrew vs Arabic ….remember Christian Arabs are in the Arabic camp …not because of which God/prophet they believe in )

Heres a study that shows that they are the same people genetically essentially.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100603/full/news.2010.277.html

But the study also found strong genetic ties to non-Jewish groups, with the closest genetic neighbours on the European side being Italians, and on the Middle Eastern side the Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians

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Incremental steps to radicalism

Filed under: Comment, Political, Religion — Leave a comment
April 5, 2010

Lebanese fortune teller sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.

In the past , King Fahd would have thrown the conservatives some treat to give up the bone they were chewing.Fahd was weak from the perspective of gambling playboy trying to appease the conservatives….hence Saudi Arabia becomes …incrementally …a cranky religious society during his reign.

Adullah hopefully does’nt make the same mistake.He needs to go  head to head with this powerplay and win it …without concession.The fact that its got this far suggests he does’nt have a strong hand…..i.e he will throw some crumbs their way to get the release of the Lebanese fortune teller.

If he does….his Kingdom will always remain a nest of backwardness.

The legal expert also speculated that Sabat, a father of five, was given the harshest sentence because he is a Shiite Muslim. Shiites are often marginalized and persecuted in Saudi Arabia, which enforces a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.

“The conservatives want to show everyone, ‘We are here and we’re still powerful and we can do whatever we want’,” the expert said.

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/saudi-arabia-lebanese-tv-psychics-death-sentence-stayed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BabylonBeyond+%28Babylon+%26+Beyond+Blog%29

(   Comment from a reader ….”The man claims to be a psychic. Didn’t he see this coming?  )

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Somalia adrift

Filed under: Religion, Terrorism, trade — Leave a comment
March 8, 2010

Posted by me on the Economist website

AQ are like Venture Capitalists for any muslim grouping that has its back to the wall.
The bargain includes many freebies like foreign ‘ plug and play’ fighters and a Faustian pact that unfortunately includes an Ebola like political agenda in the small print.
In the short term though…in a very Darwian way….religious groups will always trump tribal groups as it always has done in human history.
So bets are on Shahab in the short run….other iterations of religious groups in the long run.Tribes and clans are never going to get above this unless they find another way of organising themselves and a bigger better sugar daddy .Very unlikely.
So the show goes on.

Another more salient point….

Globalization is like Jupiter (or  like giant  gear wheels ..I call Jupiter class powers…US USSR China Europe …and lesser but up and coming Jupiters..India and Brazil…..they crush and will crush any contra-rotating forces  ) ..crushing the nursery that is Religion.All religious start-ups are cranky ..it helps with discipline and loyalty in the uderclasses. But in this Globalized world…you can’t get away with making enemies ..

Tribal societies need the religious rung of the organisational ladder …to create stability..as a stepping stone upwards….

In this Globalized world..that is no longer possible…Hence the Taliban and the  Somali twin…would have worked 50  years ago…but not today.These baby tribal societies need to run quickly..because they ar’nt going to get a crawling stage in which to develop and strengthen.

So what kind of stage will there be…..Somalia and Afghanistan are the largest tribal societies probably in the world…..I think there is a clue here.This itself could be the cause of their failure.But how did they last so long ?

Are they the gaps between the Jupiter  wheels that could’nt mesh together  ( Russia and Brittania in the Great Game )  …but that do  mesh now?..Held previously in suspension between India and Pakistan in the recent past was  another version of the Great Game.

The only Game in town is now Globilization.You can’t go it alone .

My only guess is that Somalia and Afghanistan would benefit from being broken up and turned into geographical units that represent the unit ethnic groups…allowing them to compete under a security umbrella by outside powers.

One power patron per ethnic grouping.That way they can compete and learn from other without wasting time /money / lives on competing for resources.

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Politics of the Amygdala…again

Filed under: Political, Psychology, Religion, Terrorism, War — Leave a comment
February 28, 2010

A series of posts concerning the fear of Islamism on a thread on Chicago Boyz….

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11799.html#comments

I’m hoping it gets moderated or deleted as that would conform to my theory …that its the Politics of the Amygdala in play when it comes to Islam.

The reply I got to this first post by me ..was that I was mis-using statistics and this was the link that gave an example how my thinking was flawed…….easily rebutted.

http://www.photoncourier.blogspot.com/2003_01_01_photoncourier_archive.html#86788061last

 

My first post

I’m not sure why the West is’nt taking the Islamic threat more seriously..

maybe it has something to do with the fact that muliples of more people die of diabetes in Montana than have
than have westerners died through Extremists from Islam…globally.

Politics of the Amygdala as opposed to the Frontal Cortex.

 

My reply to the fact that I was not taking trends into consideration ..:Second reply

I think after 9 years of fighting Islamic extremism …we have a surfeit of trends to base many assumptions.

A static calculation was’nt made after 911 , unlike the Auto example in the article…so it has no bearing on reality.

Would you argue otherwise?

my whole line of thought is at odds with the whole thrust of the ‘Chicago Boyz ‘Islamist will be everywhere ‘ fears ……

I got a reply about a serious domestic murder by a muslim in the US

Third reply….awaiting moderation ..unlike the others…

i’m not sure how the progress of a single crimminal case in Arizona is a validation of your fears yet the statistics I used ..a misuse.

I’ll let you dwell on that one.

Funny enough the article has an indepth look at a novel that explores some middle class person with issues and the middle class author deeply explores them vicariously through a ‘novel’…..many other middle class readers are engrossed as well.( all convincing proof of the weakness of the West to the bogey muslim man….even though the novel has nothing to do with Islam..but thats splitting hairs…)

Novel writing = circular therapy for the middle (muddled ) classes. An old favourite idea of mine.

Forth Post     David believes there 100′s of other cases he can cite

A picture of a dead person is’nt usually the best way to have an informed opinion about anything.
I do believe it helps suicide bombers to watch DVDs of dead Muslims before they carry out attacks…..shall we say that they are better informed for it?

You are determined to believe in the weakness of the West and in that , you also share another commonality with Islamists.

My theory is that there is a sneaking wish for and admiration of the order/discipline/self sacrifice that these people make for a cause ( no matter how mis-guided the end)….by Western right wingers and conservatives ( who love organisation , loyalty , duty , order ).They see these qualities in the terrorist and panic when they see liberals and muslims everywhere , living amongst them , agents of weakness or of unwanted change.This causes fear…which Rightwingers are susceptible to all the time regardless of the real conditions.

The ArchBishop I think said as much when he said that he admired the faith of the Taliban.Its almost a yearning for security …that can only come from Order…a New Order.

Therefore it really is the politics of fear that drives this…
100’s of examples list of anything can be plucked out from anywhere when you consider the number of people in the ‘West’ and Muslim areas .That does’nt explain anything.

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Cognitive vs Emotional

Filed under: Evolution, Psychology, Religion — Leave a comment
February 19, 2010

Note to self

Emotions present themselves to us ( condition of the body that has a social benefit-loss aspect).

Cognitive behaviour is then required to re-make the environment to cater for the smooth expression of the emotion ( condition  the environment ).

Civilisation occurs when Cognition turns the tables and begins to  ( modulation/deletion) alter emotions itself instead of just catering to their needs…as if they , the emotions , were part of the environment  and  could also be conditioned like the environment.

The  tool /apprentice  become the master.Its the fork, that once assisted the diner ,  then decided , to better eat the meal….it should consume part of the meal itself and take a piece of the diner as well.

Once you get that kind of self modulation ( a new hierarchy within the self then causes new possible social hierarchies )…you get a new paradigm….Civilisation : religion and Art =  stability = science = atheism  and whatever comes next.

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Religion evolution again ….the Child vs Parent Paradigm

Filed under: Religion — Leave a comment
February 15, 2010

Reading about Egyptians looking for clues about the nucleating forces for religion and I came across something that chimes nicely with my thoughts.

They separated an individual into Ba and a Ka.

One is represented as a child like figure ..like an ethereal otherness of yourself without which you are incomplete.

My thoughts/theory are that close proximity living causes religion ..by ways of the new hierarchy that discipline creates in tight social spaces.If you want to read more about that…you’ll just have to look up the blog for more posts on religion because I’m not repeating myself .

If the limbic parietal nexus ( the child ) is made to choose between itself and the authority figure..the child will always lose.

If the child comes out of the de-stabilising event ..wanting more security …you get an Authority seeker…right winger…..Religious person.

If the child exits the de-stabilising event still sub-consciously angry at the submissive ploy against the child-self…then the child will grow up as an adult that still resents the intrusion and will sympathise with their own inner child lost-self….hence greater empathy for other people who are downtrodden and more empathy for the individual rather than the group.A left winger …or spiritualist entails.

Hence the Egyptian version of the child as part of our make up.

So essentially..do you fall inwards towards the child or do you seek the adult……thats the two poles of religion ( mass religion vs spirituality ) and politics ( individuals ..liberals   vs the mass ranks …conservatives)

Thats all of humanity explained….hum de dum de dum

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Mirror neurons , Evil and WiFi .

Filed under: Evolution, Journalism, Psychology, Religion, Terrorism, Uncategorized, War — Leave a comment
February 10, 2010

Posted on Brain Blogger …but with spelling corrections and added thoughts

http://brainblogger.com/2010/02/09/i-feel-your-pain-the-neural-basis-of-empathy/#comment-597971

Its interesting that the level of empathy we have for each other  might have its roots within our sensori-motor mirror neurons…i.e we have to see ( be within sensory reach) to feel anothers pain.That ability is like ‘ line of sight’  WiFi synapsing between different brains….as effective as if they were really hard wired . 
That would be useful because we would’nt be able to compete if we empathised with the competition ( over the hill and out of sight….or mass Media air-brushed ).
Maybe the action of group dance could synchronise a tribe to de-sychronise  & overcome the mirror neurons temporarily when we go spears in hand, face to face,  to kill fellow humans in another tribe.That synchronicity duality would be Media based today.
We co-operate to compete.So somewhere along the line…our ability to empathise must be able to be suspendable  , so that we can  indeed do  terrible things to fellow humans …as that is what we have evolved  to do .
I think we have rituals/memes that do this .Dances..music…media ..dis-information…I believe we pro-actively need to suspend ‘ the humanity ‘ we inherently perceive  in others , who are to be  the object of our terror..so that we can inflict productive amounts of terror upon that other set of individuals .In essence ..a short cut around our mirror neurons.
Its a horrible thing to say in words….but I’m struck by how we always have a need to de-humanise people first ..before we can efficiently co-operate to commit the very evil we declare ourselves to be fighting.

Is Religion such a short-cut ? A steering comittee for mirror neurons that can promotes group self -empathy but can productively short-cut and suspend the ‘empathy ‘neurons.

Spirituality would be the opposite end ( the side that tips the scales  towards more empathy and fewer short -cuts /work arounds  the mirror neurons).

I still believe religion begins from close proximity living..but here is the mechanism that could propagate it.

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Religion evolution

Filed under: Evolution, History, Religion — Leave a comment
January 31, 2010

Waffly post by me from elsewhere

http://brainblogger.com/

Heres a narrative…religion as a conditioner and agency for stressed family groupings (higher densities)

Religion positively promotes and is initially created by close proximity living…such as Caves , or in resource dense areas that can sustain higher densities.
The child is denied free will and has to succumb to a hierarchy through intense parental subjugation.
The loss of free will is compensated by a population that can bear to live much more closely to each other .Emotional outbursts from close living could increase violations of the moral codes. Moral codes ( being innate )are re-ratified through taboo and ritual.That inner repressed self is allowed to burst out / channelled towards a ‘parent God – sinful child who can become good ‘ narrative…the inner child can re-channel the damage done by the branding done by the parent by loving an outer parent…invisible …but very apt for a love that was lost in childhood and kept unconscious.( invisible itself )…
The upshot is higher densities , stratified societies.Very sucessful.So sucessful that they can sustain Atheism…a reaction against that parental authority paradigm or just open defiance from individuals who have a need to express their non- belief….only possible in societies that have grown beyond the sustenace of the religion paradigm and are generating new paradigms.
But when societies fail…its religion that comes back.
We see reason everywhere as we move away from childhood .We serialise , intentionalise everything.
The kernel of emotional damage is never fully assimilated and we are forever projecting it outwardly…so our emotions become to flavour the outer world as they are left orphaned within us….
So we see intentionality in animals and the Sun and rain…..
The inner damage also causes us to seek more security amonsgt each other and that positively re-inforces the hierarchy.
The left brain -right brain hierarchy is the first hierarchy that is the cornerstone .The parent affects the emotional right side and effects changes in the left brain…hence re-inforcing a naturally occuring hierarchy.The right brain spills over into the outer world and the left brain channels new explanations that help it cope ( intentionalizing the inanimate..idols..sun moon….and the animate….animals ) .
Those that are left feeling insecure from the parental ‘conditioning’ seek more security and become ‘conservatives’….those that have a more fluid relationship with both cerebral hemispheres ..can become liberals.Those that have an emotional sides that career wildly within ..uncontainable by the left brain..are potential prophets.
Smaller religious societies require a higher proportion of rightwingers.When they get incredibly sucessful…they need liberals to occassionaly steer them onto novel or new paths ( social democracies).
Sorry if it bit waffly.

SECOND POST

Javaid Akhtar
February 01, 2010 | Permalink

This is my angle ..

Hunter Gatherers have the lightest density footprint and have a flat hierarchy , little or no religion and a looser or no specific bonding between children and parents( unstratified) .They are the baseline of our evolution.
Tribes have lineages ( requires a strong child-parent bond) and require alot of co-operation ,leadership , division of clans = hierarchy ) to compete with other tribes ( high population density) .Hunter Gatherers skim of the landscape and can only exist in a low density pattern.

The Toba event caused the population worldwide to decrease synchronously 60k years ago
and the population increases thereafter synchronised the rise of religions/civilisations
to the last 30k years as population densities recovered.

The first border war we fight as individuals is for the personal/self space we feel that
is ours.An authority figure will puncture this space and demand modulation to your behavioural
output ( the same pathway that makes you vunerable to hypnotherapy in later life…I’m sure Hunter
Gatherers are not hypnotizable ).This involves a loss of self and a gain for the larger group.
The benefits to the larger group eventually accrue back to the individual..which is why religion is so sucessful..This border skirmish is usually a singular event and the parent always win .They are larger physically ( as is God) , all powerful as compared to the child ( as God is), and can punish and withhold their love…all attributes of Gods.
If the insecurity of that breach causes you to seek more security , you are a right -winger ( good for the group).
If it causes some insecurity but only enough for you to despise the cause of the insecurity..
you will become a revolutionary , anarchist anti-authoutarian personality ( no good for
the group).If the insecurity leaves you in neither camp..you can empathise both ways ..you become a
liberal.
If you seek spirituality from a sense of weakness within..you will seek the comfort of the
the establised ‘ church’.This is a religious person in the fullest sense ( a follower , never a prophet)
A spiritual person …has a sense that the locus of the events that matter in a religious sense…are
within them selves..( quite correctly) and not in institutions..more the individual.
These people are irrelevent to the group hierarchy but become nucleators when a large grouping needs to re-align and politically re-define itself.These spiritiual nucleators are always around , but at oppurtune times , the larger group will re-orient itself using a nucleator …a new prophet is born.

The left+up vs the right+down arena of the brain and the relationship of these two are the backbone
for this interplay .

3rd post

I was going by Alan MacFarlane’s description of Hunter Gatherer societies.( less to no religion ..less to no heirarchy …both not characteristics of large scale societies)
I’ve tried an overall wide arc-ing view.Its not binary choices anywhere along the line…
but I expect less religion in early populations as density decreases and religion as positively present in every large scale/ high density grouping.
We evolved under the environmental pressure of other human beings ( we were the environment ) ..so even under conditions 150k + years ago..we had already been exposed to population pressure.( smaller bodies but stable brain sizes indicate that) .But its close proximity living that causes religion.
And religion itself then helps close proximity living.
After a certain tipping point..the Religious memes would have fought each other into existence ( less organised Tribal , Hunter Gatherers get swept aside )..leaving aside a meme ( religion ) that is propagating itself.

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