the evolving mind

All humans are innately prepared to engage in dominance-and-submission behavior, either in orthodox hierarchies or in reverse hierarchies that are operated decisively by the rank and file.
- Christopher Boehm (1)

To believe there is a single reason for belief in a god is probably as naive as believing there is one reason people commit murder. There are likely many factors involved. It is therefore possible that different people may believe in a god for different “reasons.” I put that word in quotes because, as psychologists are discovering, what we frequently call a reason is simply a conceptual bowtie — a thought clip-on, a fully manufactured rationalization even — placed over unconscious mechanisms after-the-fact. Reasons are words that may or may not accurately reflect the actual underlying processes.

In this book I will be exploring a class of unconscious mechanisms that contribute to belief in gods. Namely, that we are a hierarchically-inclined species that misinterprets and misapplies these inner motives when we create and uphold an invisible realm of beings.

The Bible itself provides many examples of human-to-human hierarchical relations. Consider Genesis 42:6: Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the one who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.

Because modern people in democratic/egalitarian societies infrequently engage in such overt displays of dominance/submission, we will be looking at our primate cousins the chimpanzees, and periodically other species, for clues to the form and function of social rank.

Thanks to the work of Jane Goodall, Frans de Waal, and others, our understanding of chimpanzee behavior and their complex social relations has progressed tremendously. In fact, it is my belief that we understand chimps as well as we do human beings, perhaps better, in part because of those obstructive conceptual bow-ties that have been hastily pinned to human behavior, making us believe we have tied a true knot in the matter and can thus move on.

Is it appropriate to compare chimpanzee and human behavior? I’ll answer that question in greater depth later, but for now we can recall that DNA studies have demonstrated that humans and chimpanzees (and their very close relative, the bonobo) share more genetic material than do chimpanzees and gorillas, or any other two primate species. In the animal kingdom — a kingdom consisting of nucleic acid sequences that encode for the proteins that form our bodies and inform our behavior — the human and the chimp are close kin. Although there are profound differences between the two species, by observing the behavior of one we may more productively train our spotlight on attributes of the other.

Sometimes the similarities between our species are so blatant, primatologists can’t help but draw parallels. In one of her first books, consisting largely of field notes of chimpanzee behavior, Jane Goodall shared this observation: “When Mike arrives in any group the other chimps invariably hurry to pay their respects, touching him with out-stretched hands or bowing, just as courtiers once bowed before their king.”(2)

Has this really anything to do with religion?

Traditional forms of domination nevertheless always include some mutual obligation. The Lord, honored by submission, grants protection and ensures security.
- Walter Burkert (3)

While other students of human behavior, including Walter Burkert, have given some consideration to role of “primitive” social urges in the formation and practice of religion, I hope to more fully develop the topic. How big a role do human hierarchical tendencies play in religion, both ancient and modern?

Of course, that question begs the more fundamental question: Do they?

In his widely popular translation of the Bhagavad Gita (song of God), AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada states that it is only with a submissive spirit that a person can understand the religious text.(4) Why a submissive spirit? Why not a dominant spirit? Or an equal spirit?

Here in a society with a Christian majority, the text people consider sacred and full of higher truth contains a multitude of passages that blatantly portray the importance of rank.

Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them. But the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the one you must worship. To him you shall bow down.
(2 Kings 17:35-36)

Why is and/or was rank, an ordered hierarchy, important to human beings? By understanding how hierarchical relations are important to other primates we will better recognize how it is important to us . . . and has become enshrined in religious belief.

—

(1) Boehm, C., Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., 1999, p. 154
(2) Goodall, J., My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1967. p.140
(3) Burkert, W., Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996. p.82
(4) Prabhupada, A.C. Bhaktivedanta, Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Collier Books, NY, 1972.

[July hiatus automated re-post.  First appeared here: http://almightyalpha.blogspot.com/2007/09/hierarchy-enshrined.html ]

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