Midterm

5.

Quozgar Xilsunakki 49.0216 submitting report [901.4577810203] to Intergalactic Alliance database on Inhabited Planet: Psolxzra-3427h (local name “Terra-Gaia”), Star-System: Spiral Galaxy M11K711147, Quadrant: 09009067314, at Age: 21675.400096.4. Sociological analysis of document: “Genesis, Chapters 1, 2 and 3,” creation myth collection from central volume “Torah” of Hebrew tribe culture-binding text “Tanakh.”

From this text we may conclude that the Hebrew culture which produced it has not reached further than the prepubescent, mythic stage of psychospiritual development and operates under a patriarchal, authoritarian political paradigm. There is very little in the way of scientific knowledge or knowledge-acquisition methodology, and though there is a concept of higher intelligence, it is formalized almost entirely by means of a primitive memetic entity known as “YHWH,” who is simultaneously feared and worshiped as a dominating, jealous, narcissistic tyrant, promotes ignorance and blind obedience as virtues, and generally serves as an archetype of much of the most divisive and destructive psychospiritual characteristics of the primitive human species at this point in its history.

In 1:3-5 we see a description of the planet-bound-perspective-induced impression (PBPI impression) of disappearing and reappearing starlight resulting from Psolxzra-3427h's rotation on its axis and the movement of human beings on its surface relative to its host star, Psolxzra, literalized as the interchanging of separate objects, “day” and “night.” In 1:6-8, we see the PBPI impression of a blue-colored sky, in conjunction with precipitation stage of the planet's hydrological cycle, explained as a sea above the planet contained by some kind of literal sky-dome high above its surface. Both of these indicate a lack of basic astronomical understanding, and the latter also shows a lack of environmental scientific knowledge.

Further indications of Hebrew culture's poor astronomical understanding are found in 1:14-18, in which the many stars able to be perceived by the human eye from Psolxzra-3427h's surface are interpreted as small light-sources embedded in the proposed sky-dome, and described as of altogether different nature from the planet's host star, which is instead rather puzzlingly related more closely to the planet's single satellite, Psolxzra-3427h-1. Psolxzra-3427h-1 is described as emitting its own light, indicating that the Hebrews do not recognize the nature of the astronomical relationship between it, Psolxzra, and Psolxzra-3427h, instead believing literally in their PBPI impression that the star and the satellite alternately disappear to and arise from some hidden place beneath the planet. These verses also indicate, however, that Hebrew culture is at least sophisticated enough in its astronomical understanding to have developed a means of tracking culturally-important points in its seasonal process by their relationship to the PBPI impression of a slow-turning star map in the sky, likely for agricultural purposes.

We do see some intuition of the precedence of the planet's plant life to its animal life in 1:11-13, and of its aquatic animal life to other forms in 1:20 (although this is presented alongside an incorrect guess about evolutionary chronology with respect to the development of birds), but no mention is made of microbiology, and the creation as a whole is described in very vague terms of sudden, inexplicable appearance from divine thought, totally removed from any evolutionary process. The entire process of creation occurs over a timespan of a mere seven of Psolxzra-3427h's “days,” or axis-rotations, which, for the planet's relatively small size, is an incredibly short amount of time in which to grow even the most rudimentary life form, and nowhere near the span (billions of host star revolutions) over which plant, animal, and human life actually evolved on Psolxzra-3427h.

In 1:26-28 we see the Hebrews ascribing to higher intelligence their own egoistic impulse to dominate other life forms on their planet, which we can see will become a major problem for both the majority of the members of the human species and eventually the ecological balance of the planet as a whole at future points in Psolxzra-3427h's timeline. This is justified by the description of humankind as created in the “image” of the divine, which may indicate some understanding of the potential for higher intelligence within the human brain, or alternately might serve as an arrogant, egoistic declaration of human superiority and supremacy informing the subsequent declaration of a human right to domination over the rest of Psolxzra-3427h's ecology.

In 2:2-3, the seventh day of creation is designated as a special, holy day. This was likely done to ensure that the Hebrew people would submit to the will of the priest caste responsible for producing this document at the very least during the span of one out of every seven Psolxzra-3427h rotations, a significantly regular occurrence relative to the human metabolic rate, securing sufficiently routine donations of food and other resources to the priest caste for its members to survive without contributing to the work of the tribe.

Next, in 2:4-25, an alternate creation myth is put forth; the two may not originally have been intended for side-by-side analysis, but rather for use in different social contexts. In this one, the day-by-day model is abandoned in favor of a rapid sequence of creations. Unlike the creation of the first chapter, is no trace of connection in chronology between these creations and the actual evolutionary process of life's development on Psolxzra-3427h, the first human being is created before even plant life. We see even more of the dominating desires of the human ego, specifically of the human male ego, misattributed to higher intelligence.

The human male is created before all other forms of life, and all of these other forms are described as exclusively existing for his benefit and for his use, justifying by divine-right the patriarchal and authoritarian form of social organization present in Hebrew culture and future cultures grounded in this myth. Trees are created not for any purpose of their own, but to be “pleasing to the eye and good for food” (2:9). Likewise, nonhuman animals are created not for their own sake, but because “it is not good for the man to be alone,” and so that man might have “helper[s]” (2:18). In the most staggering assertion of human male arrogance among the Hebrews, we see that even the female members of the human species itself are described as having been created to be “suitable helper[s]” to their male counterparts, and were this not enough denigration on its own, the first female suffers the astonishing indignity of being crafted in 2:22 from a single small bone of the first male.

Further evidence of the agricultural society of the Hebrews is found in 2:10-15, where five lines are devoted to describing various rivers, and humanity's purpose on earth is explained as “to work and take care of” the land. The first evidence of Hebrew culture's fear of higher intelligence and valuation of ignorance comes in the next two lines, where man is commanded by the corrupted higher intelligence YHWH never to seek knowledge, here objectified as the fruit of a physical tree, lest he die. This shows us that the fear of higher knowledge and higher intelligence in Hebrew culture was so severe that it was connected directly to the ultimate fear of a culture at the mythic developmental stage: the fear of death.

Chapter 3 describes a “fall,” of humanity, indicating a vague historical awareness among the Hebrew culture of a prior age of greater ecological balance, social harmony, and relationship to higher intelligence that has been lost as a result of the domination of egoistic memes such as YHWH. Since this “fall” continues to inform the present state of the culture, however, it is described in inverted terms in which the pursuit of higher intelligence itself was its cause, and the more fervent worship and proliferation of the YHWH meme, with all its shaming of humanity and justification of oppressive hierarchy, is its solution. Additionally, in 3:6, the female of the human species is cast as responsible before the male for the instigation of this fall, adding yet more justification for patriarchy, which comes to its most explicit expression in 3:16, where YHWH directly commands woman to be subservient to man as a result of said instigation.

We can determine also that the Hebrew culture values lying and manipulation as necessary, because when humanity disobeys YHWH's command and eats of the knowledge-fruit, it is revealed that YHWH had lied about its lethality. Shaming of nudity, likely in connection with primitive, controlling attitudes towards sexuality, is also justified; the primary direct outcome of humanity's newly acquired knowledge is that they are ashamed of their bodies and feel the need to cover them (3:7). We also see here yet more human male ego on display, as the higher intelligence is depicted in 3:8 as having a human male body, and referred to with male pronouns. In 3:22 there is evidence that the Hebrews have some awareness of other memetic entities than their favored YHWH, making their religion a cult of one god in the context of a wider polytheistic system; the jealous being declares that man “has now become like one of us.”

From the evidence presented here, we reiterate our above-stated conclusion that the culture which produced analyzed document “Genesis 1-3” is at a prepubescent mythic psychospiritual developmental stage with little scientific knowledge, manifesting as a society that is patriarchal, authoritarian, and agricultural, and which values domination, egotism, ignorance, and obedience. End report. Quozgar Xilsunakki 49.0216 signing off.

7.

The seven dimensions of religion, according to the work of secular religious studies pioneer Ninian Smart, are as follows:

1. Doctrinal
2. Mythological
3. Ethical
4. Ritual
5. Experiential
6. Institutional
7. Material

Analyzing the foundational religions of Western culture, Judaism and Christianity, through this lens, we find that each feature elements of all seven, and begin to understand how these components work together to form a whole we call a “religion” that would not quite be said to exist in any of the seven components taken on its own.

1. Doctrinal: The Rabbinical tradition in Judaism and the theological tradition in Christianity both serve the function of systematically formalizing the official teachings of their faith in an intellectually coherent way.
2. Mythological: The Jewish Tanakh and the semi-derivative Christian Bible are both collections of purportedly divinely-inspired stories that describe the universe and humanity's place in it, in addition to providing a mythologized history of the religion itself.
3. Ethical: Rules of human behavior are found throughout the foundational texts of both traditions, most famously in the divinely-revealed "Ten Commandments" of the book of Exodus, which is found in both the Torah of the Tanakh and the Old Testament of the Bible. Other examples of religious ethics in the Jewish and Christian traditions include the Levitican law of the Jews and the cardinal and theological virtues of the Christians.
4. Ritual: The Christian mass and Jewish Shabbat are the primary rituals of each faith, observed weekly. Other rituals observed include the sacraments of the Catholic Church specifically as well as those carried over to other Christian sects, such as baptism and marriage, and in Judaism the Bris and bar/bat-mitzvah ceremonies. Holiday ceremonies such as Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah and Passover also qualify as rituals, as does prayer.
5. Experiential: The mystical traditions of Judaism and Christianity exemplify perhaps the most potent realizations of the experiential dimensions of the two faiths. Other emotionally powerful practices found in each include the Christian phenomena of "speaking in tongues" and "faith healing," as well as Jewish religious festivals.
6. Institutional: The many religious institutions of Christianity, most notably the Roman Catholic Church with its headquarters at the Vatican, provide rules for identifying community membership and participation and establish the faith's believers collectively as a hierarchical social entity in the larger society. The institutional dimension of Judaism is present in its synagogic communities, each a collection of Jewish laypeople and ministers organized in a hierarchy, as well as in various other Jewish institutions such as the JCC.
7. Material: The churches, chapels and cathedrals of Christianity as well as various sites of mythological importance (Bethlehem, Nazareth, etc.), and the synagogues of Judaism and its similar sacred sites (Israel, Mt. Sinai, etc.) represent places that manifest the sacred in the eyes of believers. Objects like rosary beads, saint's relics, the tabernacle, and the monstrance in Catholicism specifically, and the cross in Christianity more generally, as well as the shofar, the sukkah, and the yarmulke in Judaism, and the holy books of both traditions also serve this function.

9.

The sociology of religion and the biology of religion are related, but distinct approaches to understanding from a grounded, human-based perspective how religion and individual religions originated in the human species. The biological lens would focus more on the evolutionary roles filled by religion, as explained in my response to question 8, while the sociology of religion would focus primarily on social factors like politics and economics. For example, a biologist studying Hinduism might emphasize how its doctrine of reincarnation serves to mitigate the potentially paralyzing fear of death, allowing adherents to live and reproduce with a hope of a better future incarnation, or how its promise of Moksha provides adherents a purpose to strive for that transcends death. A sociologist might focus instead on how the Hindu caste system has historically served as a political tool to justify and perpetuate oppressive and inescapable class divisions in Indian society.

11.

Max Weber also analyzed the relationship of religion to economics, focusing in his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism on how the work ethic and rugged individualism inculcated by the protestant tradition allowed for capitalism to arise and thrive, pointing out how most successful business leaders are protestants. Specifically he points to the Calvinist doctrine, which justifies the pursuit of worldly gains as the righteous path of the "elect--" those predestined by God for salvation, whose financial success is purported to be a reward on earth for their faith. He argues that the reason why capitalism has not thrived in regions outside the West is because Eastern religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism do not support this kind of ravenous wealth-pursuit and idealization of hard work.

14.

The "projective arc" defined by Professor David Lane is the process by which human beings project powers which ultimately originate from within themselves onto external objects and entities. In the context of religion, this is exemplified by the projection of the transcendental and transpersonal aspect of our own deep psychology out onto mythological figures such as gods and goddesses, or living beings such as gurus and cult leaders, and imagine that we require these totems in order to make contact with something that is truly present within us at all times. In Professor Lane's short film "The Projective Arc," he illustrates this phenomena through a description of his own early experience of "speaking in tongues" or glossolalia. While glossolalia is a recurring component of mystical, ecstatic, and transpersonal experience across cultures and across paradigms, because Professor Lane experienced his first glossolalic episode in the context of a Roman Catholic religious paradigm, he was immediately indoctrinated with the belief that this experience was exclusively tied to the symbology of the Catholic Church, specifically the Holy Spirit.

16.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the reason why we as human beings have learned to question the purpose behind everything we encounter, from trivial things like a clown at a baseball game, to more serious ones like our own existence, is because it increases our chances of survival by making us harder to trick. A rudimentary study of the various phenomena of mimicry and other forms of deception in the animal kingdom should reveal how this inquisitive tendency is advantageous. An animal with a smaller brain like the pied tamarin might hear the margay's imitation of the cries of a baby tamarin and rush over to help, only to become food for the margay. Were an animal like the margay to attempt to imitate the cry of a human baby, however, a human who hears its mimic might pause to wonder what a baby would be doing out in a field of grass, or listen closer to be certain whether that really is a human baby s/he is hearing, or if perhaps there is something off about the sound.

Of course, taken to an extreme, this penchant to ask why can get us into some trouble, for one who questions enough fundamental assumptions may find themselves faced with the frightening possibility that all s/he has taken to be hir own life and basic "reality" might be the highly sophisticated mimicry of some cosmic and metaphysical predator about to snap its fearsome hyperdimensional jaws shut upon hir... but that couldn't be, could it?