Monotheism vs. Polytheism

[Ormond]

I would assume that the persecution of Baha'i in Iran is because it grew out of Islam in Iran and so is considered a "heresy" there. Humans unfortunately are always more disturbed by someone who used to be part of their group who abandons it than they are by those who were never part of their group to begin with.  Being a "traitor" is more condemned than just being an "enemy."  One sees this in politics as well as in religion. 

I think in the United States that Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were especially persecuted back in the 19th century because of that phenomenon. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Yeah good explanation Ormond. Ive read a little more on the Ba'hai because I was a bit fascinated with thier Temples which are all gorgeous examples of architecture around the World, it really piqued my interest.

In Iran the persecution has been so complete they've bulldozed Ba"hai sections of cemetery to sort of erase any history of them, reminded me of ISIS behavior in Syria.

@straits The competitive/aggression type behavior is real with some proselytizing groups though. If youve ever experienced it you would recognize what I meant.

There are groups in the U.S. that literally go door to door and harass people to be "saved" from burning in the hellfires. 

I actually had to use the garden hose on a couple of Mormon missionaries who hounded our door relentlessly one summer. I have also experienced arrogance from Jehova Witnesses who are especially guilty of "our way is the only way and all others are damned."

I assure you that's a very real thing that happens unfortunately.

Edited January 14 by DireWolfSpirit

[Ormond]

14 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

YI actually had to use the garden hose on a couple of Mormon missionaries who hounded our door relentlessly one summer. I have also experienced arrogance from Jehova Witnesses who are especially guilty of "our way is the only way and all others are damned."

I assure you thats a very real thing that happens unfortunately.

I am very sorry you have had that experience. In my personal case both LDS and JW missionaries have quickly accepted "no" for an answer.

I think I have read that Mormon missionaries are directed now to especially concentrate on younger people, which is a demographic I do not fit.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Ormond I think with the internet things are improving and that people are becoming more open and understanding of Worldy ways, that would include missionaries and witnesses having a better clue about their audience in theory.

I personally know some JW's that are estranged within their own families over differences in beliefs, its quite nasty.

Edited January 14 by DireWolfSpirit

[Ormond]

1 minute ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Ormond I think with the internet things are improving and that people are becoming more open and understanding of Wordly ways, that would include missionaries and witnesses having a better clue about their audience in theory.

I personally know some JW's that are estranged within their own families over differences in beliefs, its quite nasty.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are going through some major upheavals right now, and the national board that controls them has even decided to make some changes recently. I have run across several YouTube videos about the fact that the rule against beards which the Witnesses had has recently been scrapped. That might seem like a minor issue, but it seems to be a big deal for a lot of former JW's out there that even that rule has been changed. Any change where individual Witnesses are trusted with making a personal choice where they weren't before seems to be a big victory for some people who have been part of that group.

[polishgenius]

20 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am very sorry you have had that experience. In my personal case both LDS and JW missionaries have quickly accepted "no" for an answer.

 

 

Dunno about Mormons, but my personal experience (well, my dad's, but I was living in the house) with JW is that they'll accept 'no' if you always, immediately, say no, but if you give them the time of day even once (even if it's just politely having a conversation rather than any indication of interest) they'll try to push the issue for yeaaaaaaars  before they get the hint. 

[Conflicting Thought]

On 1/13/2024 at 12:01 AM, fionwe1987 said:

I have no idea why this must be so. Theoretically, at least, there's plenty of ways for religion to evolve. You seem to think it must be caused only by how our brains work, but I see no reason to assume that. 

Ummm... We're hardwired to experience all the emotions we experience, and there's no reason for sociality to be the driver of awe, because awe can come from any interaction of the small and individual set against the vast and connected world. 

And awe is hardly a consistent emotion social animals feel around authority, so I'm sorry, that kind of evolutionary psych hypothesis just doesn't fly. 

Well this isn't a reasonable assumption. No creature is going to evolve without a biosphere of many other species, and even solitary or non-social species in our world interact with other creatures. 

And even if you imagine such a thing, this species will be interacting with the world, with nature, with the vast universe. Whatever they feel in response to these things won't be identical to human awe, but they'll feel something, and it'll be awe-adjacent. 

Arrival is a great concept and story, but it's a far greater reach to imagine a species unbound by time that way that evolves naturally than assuming any naturally evolved species that comes up with linguistic communication will have some form of religion. 

so for some reason i cant put the i like or love the comments, but i wanted to say that i very much appreciate this post, i kind of hate much of the evo psych stuff outhere and i thins this responsse is very good so, thank you 

[Rippounet]

Wanted to sit this one out, but...

13 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

 i kind of hate much of the evo psych stuff out here

The "evo psych stuff" is based on centuries of anthropological and sociological studies though. Starting from the fact that we are a social species, and as such we share a great number of behaviors with other social species. We may be excellent at conceptualizing our social norms thanks to the gift of abstract thought, but we're still conceptualizing behaviors that are rooted in biological determinism.

The point being that while it is true that "theoretically" there are plenty of ways for religion to evolve, in reality it would be an extraordinary proposition to claim that religion has not evolved with our social organization. For better or for worse, human thought does not exist in a vacuum but is inextricable from the fact that we are primates with anxiety.

[Sw33t Summ3r Ch1ld]

I think I prefer Monotheism because it's laid the foundations for society and I like society so I believe it's crucial to like how it formed. But then that goes back to polytheism with all its deeply grasping roots and holds so I guess I like it both ways since we can't not say that polytheism was formed in the majority of minds to make things happen which society is famous for. And it goes without saying that society now makes itself known for its monotheism. 

[fionwe1987]

4 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

so for some reason i cant put the i like or love the comments, but i wanted to say that i very much appreciate this post, i kind of hate much of the evo psych stuff outhere and i thins this responsse is very good so, thank you 

Thanks. There's a lot of bad evo psych, but there's good stuff out, as well. It's a question of what evidence there is.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Wanted to sit this one out, but...

The "evo psych stuff" is based on centuries of anthropological and sociological studies though.

Hardly all of it is. A lot of evolutionary psychology is plausible sounding hypothesis that's not testable. The specific idea here is that awe is an emotion that evolved as a result of having to deal with authority. That seems a fairly thin hypothesis to me. 

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Starting from the fact that we are a social species, and as such we share a great number of behaviors with other social species. We may be excellent at conceptualizing our social norms thanks to the gift of abstract thought, but we're still conceptualizing behaviors that are rooted in biological determinism.

The point being that while it is true that "theoretically" there are plenty of ways for religion to evolve, in reality it would be an extraordinary proposition to claim that religion has not evolved with our social organization. For better or for worse, human thought does not exist in a vacuum but is inextricable from the fact that we are primates with anxiety.

The shape of our religions certainly is driven by our social organisation, and also language, but neither is necessary for religiosity to evolve. 

[Conflicting Thought]

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The "evo psych stuff" is based on centuries of anthropological and sociological studies though. Starting from the fact that we are a social species, and as such we share a great number of behaviors with other social species. We may be excellent at conceptualizing our social norms thanks to the gift of abstract thought, but we're still conceptualizing behaviors that are rooted in biological determinism.

are they rooted in bilogical determinism? it is not so clear to me that they are, but im still learning.

i guess my criticism with EP is that i see it used as a way to justify some very sus shit like sexism and misogyny, or anti semitism (cuz its always lurking everywhere i guess) with the case of one kevin mcdonald.

i found this noam chomsky quote that gives light to some of the problems i have with EP 

"You find that people cooperate, you say, 'Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.' You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that's obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."

[Rippounet]

53 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Hardly all of it is. A lot of evolutionary psychology is plausible sounding hypothesis that's not testable. The specific idea here is that awe is an emotion that evolved as a result of having to deal with authority. That seems a fairly thin hypothesis to me.

That's fair. I'm not familiar with this specific theory and would therefore not defend it. Many theories of evolutionary psychology are supported by observation or testing however.

9 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

i found this noam chomsky quote that gives light to some of the problems i have with EP 

"You find that people cooperate, you say, 'Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.' You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that's obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."

That's also fair, but it depends what you define as "evolutionary psychology." TBH I'm not sure what this is supposed to be exactly. I'm personally interested in inter-disciplinary research, theories that touch upon a mix of anthropology, primatology, sociology, psychology, history, or even -sometimes- neuroscience. Frankly speaking, the purely psychological side of things is probably the least important to my eyes, because individuals develop near-infinite variations of a given behavior ; it is therefore fruitless to attempt to apply evolutionary theories to individuals. Franz De Waal for instance speaks of "preexisting tendancies," an approach that does nor preclude individual or cultural variation.
To put it differently: you want theories that can be supported by a model providing some form of statistical analysis. If you theorize a link between human behavior and evolution, you can then either look at whether the link can be seen in different peoples/cultures, in all peoples/cultures throughout history, or test it through studies of individual behavior.
 

53 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

The shape of our religions certainly is driven by our social organisation, and also language, but neither is necessary for religiosity to evolve. 

But that is precisely an untestable proposition. Since all humans are social in nature and possess a form of language, and since humans alone have developed religion, it is impossible to claim that neither social organisation nor language are necessary for religiosity to evolve.

[fionwe1987]

40 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

That's fair. I'm not familiar with this specific theory and would therefore not defend it. Many theories of evolutionary psychology are supported by observation or testing however.

Certainly some are, but many aren't simply because we don't have any proof of the evolution of psychology. There's no fossilized psychology, we need to infer it from physical evidence, and that physical evidence tends to be sparse, and the risk that our inferences are overfit to those sparse data points is very high. 

40 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

But that is precisely an untestable proposition. Since all humans are social in nature and possess a form of language, and since humans alone have developed religion, it is impossible to claim that neither social organisation nor language are necessary for religiosity to evolve.

Well, we were discussing alien civilizations, so I wouldn't say these aren't untestable by nature, just currently untestable, and contingent on contact with other alien species.

As a comparable analogy, you can use similar logic to yours to claim all life in the universe must be carbon based. And that language and religion can only occur in bipedal species, since all humans are bipedal. Do you believe these to be true? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

A lot of evolutionary psychology is plausible sounding hypothesis that's not testable.

That's why you need a bit of faith. Most of the lit I had to read while getting my degree led me to believe evolutionary psych is probably more accurate than not. 

[Rippounet]

7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Certainly some are, but many aren't simply because we don't have any proof of the evolution of psychology. There's no fossilized psychology, we need to infer it from physical evidence, and that physical evidence tends to be sparse, and the risk that our inferences are overfit to those sparse data points is very high.

I'm a bit confused, as we seem to be talking about different things here. When you look at inter-disciplinary studies on stuff like the cognitive niche, altriciality, or reciprocity, you hardly need anything like "fossilized psychology." With some basic knowledge of history and a decent sense of observation, you can easily confirm half-a-dozen theories yourself. With a bit of reading, a good dozen more.

I dunno, since we're talking about religion, it's easy to observe that kneeling and a downward/averted gaze are a universal sign of submission/deference, not just among humans, but among most (if not all?) social mammals. Generally speaking the up/down and the anterior/posterior hierarchies are constitutive of human thought, for easily discernible biological and practical reasons. Therefore it follows that our notions of the sacred and divinity would reflect that and we would kneel and bow in front of both ancient Gods in the heavens as well as their representatives on Earth, who will of course appropriate the sacred to consolidate their own social status.
One can quibble about the details and causality, but honestly this shit ain't rocket science. It's thanks to this kind of stuff that after observing a group of humans talking together, you're very likely to guess who is the leader/dominant in a given situation within minutes - though you probably do it unconsciously most of the time.

7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Well, we were discussing alien civilizations, so I wouldn't say these aren't untestable by nature, just currently untestable, and contingent on contact with other alien species.

As a comparable analogy, you can use similar logic to yours to claim all life in the universe must be carbon based. And that language and religion can only occur in bipedal species, since all humans are bipedal. Do you believe these to be true? 

Well no, you got me there, but there's a difference between what I think or what I want to believe and what I can present as fact. I may want to believe that there is non-carbon based life in the universe, but as long as we haven't found it, it's not truly scientific to claim that "life doesn't have to be carbon-based" without a modal of possibility - and that's despite scientists having shown that at least one alternative is theoretically possible.
Like, I dunno, I really want to believe that with enough illumination and meditation one can acquire the power to levitate, but I can't exactly go around saying humans don't need energy to fly, can I?

 

[fionwe1987]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm a bit confused, as we seem to be talking about different things here. When you look at inter-disciplinary studies on stuff like the cognitive niche, altriciality, or reciprocity, you hardly need anything like "fossilized psychology." With some basic knowledge of history and a decent sense of observation, you can easily confirm half-a-dozen theories yourself. With a bit of reading, a good dozen more.

I dunno, since we're talking about religion, it's easy to observe that kneeling and a downward/averted gaze are a universal sign of submission/deference, not just among humans, but among most (if not all?) social mammals. Generally speaking the up/down and the anterior/posterior hierarchies are constitutive of human thought, for easily discernible biological and practical reasons. Therefore it follows that our notions of the sacred and divinity would reflect that and we would kneel and bow in front of both ancient Gods in the heavens as well as their representatives on Earth, who will of course appropriate the sacred to consolidate their own social status.
One can quibble about the details and causality, but honestly this shit ain't rocket science. It's thanks to this kind of stuff that after observing a group of humans talking together, you're very likely to guess who is the leader/dominant in a given situation within minutes - though you probably do it unconsciously most of the time.

I'd respond to this, but I think it would be more productive for us to start with you defining what evolutionary psychology is, as far as you're concerned. Because you seem to think it's something else from what I understand it to be, which is that evolutionary pressures select for specific psychological/behavioral traits and tendencies, and this has explanatory power for a significant portion of human psychology and behaviour. 

You seem to be saying evolutionary psychology=psychology is rooted in and shaped by physiology. The right side of that equation isn't in doubt, but also isn't evolutionary psych. 

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Well no, you got me there, but there's a difference between what I think or what I want to believe and what I can present as fact. I may want to believe that there is non-carbon based life in the universe, but as long as we haven't found it, it's not truly scientific to claim that "life doesn't have to be carbon-based" without a modal of possibility - and that's despite scientists having shown that at least one alternative is theoretically possible.

It's actually a very scientific hypothesize that "life doesn't have to be carbon based" because it's dubious to call single observation inferences as absolute truth, and certainly not very scientific. 

Now, if you want to couch this as "long carbon chain molecules are more stable than long chain silicon molecules, so silicon based life will have different energetics", that comes closer to a scientific hypothesis that is falsiable, as a prediction would be "we'd find more carbon based life that silicon based life, statistically". What you're giving me, though, is "correlation=causation", and "if you haven't seen it before, be more certain it is impossible". Neither of which make sense. 

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Like, I dunno, I really want to believe that with enough illumination and meditation one can acquire the power to levitate, but I can't exactly go around saying humans don't need energy to fly, can I?

I think maybe it would be productive if you understand what hypothesis and falsifiability mean, before we discuss your wonderful ideas on levitation. 

[Ormond]

As someone who until recently was a psychology professor, I will just say that much of the more sexist and unsupportable statements of "evolutionary psychology" have been made by popularized books and articles written by people who are actually not researchers in the field, and many of those who are academic researchers have been embarrassed or appalled by them. 

[fionwe1987]

39 minutes ago, Ormond said:

As someone who until recently was a psychology professor, I will just say that much of the more sexist and unsupportable statements of "evolutionary psychology" have been made by popularized books and articles written by people who are actually not researchers in the field, and many of those who are academic researchers have been embarrassed or appalled by them. 

My issue with evolutionary psych was less about those appallingly stupid hypothesis about rape, etc, and more that evolution acts on genes, and that behavior and psychology are often driven (so far as we've been able to show) by complex gene networks which are in turn very susceptible to developmental environment, which leads for a fairly wide spread of variance in genetics that can underlie seemingly similar behavior/psychology, which makes it hard to come up with testable hypothesis for how such networks would be selected for in evolution.

Which isn't to say it's impossible, or hasn't been done, it's just the good examples I've seen rarely try to be overly specific in terms of behaviours. 

[Rippounet]

9 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I think maybe it would be productive if you understand what hypothesis and falsifiability mean, before we discuss your wonderful ideas on levitation. 

32 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

It's actually a very scientific hypothesize that "life doesn't have to be carbon based" because it's dubious to call single observation inferences as absolute truth, and certainly not very scientific.

Uh... No offense, but I think I'll pass on the discussion and just wrap it up by going back to the original statement that piqued my interest:

Quote

Theoretically, at least, there's plenty of ways for religion to evolve. You seem to think it must be caused only by how our brains work, but I see no reason to assume that. 

I personally don't see any reason to assume anything else.

[fionwe1987]

3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Uh... No offense, but I think I'll pass on the discussion and just wrap it up by going back to the original statement that piqued my interest:

I personally don't see any reason to assume anything else.

Yeah I don't see much value to your assumption, if you won't explain it. Thanks for chatting.