Not an original idea I know, but I got thinking from a new book: Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. It marshals scientific data to argue that we didn't evolve monogamous, and are wired for multiple partners (compare bonobos).

And I'm also thinking anthropologically about the function of religion in my local community. And then it hit me: the motor of world religions.

Consider: the Judeo-Christian-Islamic (JCI) religion (and I'm sure other world religions) strongly object to sleeping around.

Now think of a primal band of humans say 500k years ago, when they are hotly evolving the social graces. Think of the main function of language: to influence others, for which there are endless rewards. A terminology of moral reasoning (religion) would be especially useful, because it stirs the powerful hardwired emotions of reciprocity, right and wrong.

But recall our band is a randy bunch -- people's natural pattern is to drift from partner to partner. Hence the utility of a head-of-household model deity, a god the father. Adultery is a preoccupation of JCI because patriarchs can use these moral edicts to improve their reproductive success, i.e., keep their wife(s) away from other males.

The beauty of this thought is that it goes beyond just explaining religion as arising to provide privilege to the priestly class. This system of moral reasoning is available to anyone who wields it convincingly, and others have to learn it too to keep up. Hence it spreads to all.

Beyond controlling reproduction, there must be endless ways religion works as a language of persuasion for primate advantage. Discuss.

This went out, does someone have a match?

This video and the one that follows should be interesting to you.

Daniel Dennett Evolution of Religion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoKkQ0_isTg

It all sounds like an immoral fantasy to me.

People run into just as much trouble over fantasizing as they do repressing themselves and that's sort of the point of the bible. People need to find the balance point in the middle of their life not engage in mindless excess. Its just the craziness of the world keeps knocking you off kilter so you can't find it.

It'd be much better for atheists to see themselves as God's precocious little children. Precocious children get in trouble because they are almost too intelligent and over fantasize instead of focusing on getting done what should be done. They still have the chance to be God's children if they can overcome their own precociousness.

What's wrong with the polygamy is that it never accords a woman a proper place in society. God never says a woman isn't equal he just does a division of labor between the sexes. All this self permitting of sexual partners does is destroys true partner intimacy and thereby the family. If the family unit is destroyed then gradually society goes more and more haywire.

Splendour, you do realise the definition of atheist is someone who doesn't believe in gods? So why would we want to fantasize that we're actually the children of a deity named Yahweh?

I love your random posts like this though. It's also quite a good appeal to emotion. "You're the children of Yahweh! Be good little children! There is still time!"

Much love to the Splendor.

Well many atheists think the transference of religion is a negative meme. I think they are right that a generational transference does occur.

But what they are missing is that it is the knowledge that God loves them that occurs in the transference.

That is why God tells people to love other people. So that in case you somehow missed out on the transference you will make the connection later.

The greatest truth about love is: the more you give the more you get. Think of all the best people you like best...usually it will be because you get the most love from them.

Now imagine you have a "supernatural friend" that is never going to quit on you. You have an endless well of love to draw from then...He can never go dry...ultimately your heart will be satisfied and then it goes on the mend no matter how many times the world burns you...it can always repair itself ...It is a perpetually regenerating well. So spiritually you can keep renewing and growing even though eventually the flesh will fail you and you will die.

That was an excellent video. Daniel Dennett is an articulate, effective teacher.

Yah, shut the fluff up imo.


(Still, much <3)

Why? This is a religious forum...

I think you should learn to hold back an opinion of yours every once in a while.

Her post was pretty much irrelevant to mine, failed to acknowledge what I was saying, and was more of the weird religious drivel she posts all the time.

I was just pointing this out Gunthy.

Jared Diamond argues that with the rise of populous states religions supported the legitimacy of rulers, thereby fostering internal stability. That function was not needed in tribal societies where everybody knew each other. Only relatively recently have states developed other means to elicit the loyalty of their people.

Well yes, but the religion rulers pitch to the masses needs something compelling about it to get picked up. How does the religion become big enough and believable enough that a state can make use of it? These early states were immensely weaker than those of today -- they controlled ports and major cities, but not villages, much less the household. They can't compel changes in culture until they are highly advanced. The big-ruler model of the spread of religion explains some cases, but not others. Islam, in particular, was carried across Asia informally by merchants -- not just by states. The genius of the world religions is that they make every man a king of his own house, even if he submits to others elsewhere.

When you think of religion as a technology of persuasion, you can explain more. States were the most effective at utilizing it, but everyone else does too. The prohibition movement in the US was largely a women's movement -- they asserted themselves by appropriating the language of Biblical condemnation of drink, which got them out of the house and to the head of a movement so powerful they amended the constitution. And patriarchs used religion to maintain exclusive sexual access, going against the natural predilection for serial partners, and that developed pre-state. (And Splendour, they use this to curb women's freedom to seek multiple mates as much as to keep other males away. Patriarchal religion reduces women's freedom, not enhances it. At least compared to the primitive band.)

I disagree. Religion doesn't make men the ruler of the household though some cultures could use it as a rationalization.

Men started to rule the roost back with the invention of the plow and maybe even before that when they wanted to ensure their children were their children.

Just because the NT came along and said "Women submit" doesn't mean God didn't temper it with "men love women like you love your own body" and "men love women like Christ loved you"...Those are pretty high standards. There really are a lot less power plays and quarrels if you just treat everyone like you'd like to be treated.

I would say what you are pointing out are the people that were aberrant in the practice of religion like Henry VIII. There are plenty of other people who weren't aberrant but the ones that got it right don't help an anti-religion case and are usually overlooked. Also we don't know how many atheists playing king of the castle abused their privileges since atheists would be in the closet in olden times. Ambition and desire to control can be either personality traits or learned from other people and not necessarily even a religious source. See the women with bound feet in China....it had nothing to do with Christianity but everything to do with men thinking they had the right to rule their own household and treat women like chattels. When women are chattels there can also be an element of greed and that's more likely to be related to practical reasons of economic survival rather than religious ones. Many people today don't follow certain religious courses of action for fear of survival. So I wonder you over credit religion with the abuse of women. Christianity is usually never purely in control in any country. It always bonds with the underlying prexisting culture and why do you overlook that?