ELEMENTS OF "RELIGION"

(Big picture identified “axial” religion and Christian subcategory denominations are determined by socio-economics and become institutions.)

compassion (this is most often the emphasis of women so female clergy tend to push thinking in this direction.)

empathy

therapy

morality  (this is most often the emphasis of men, so

  patriarchal societies tend to produce this

emphasis but the “morality” is in the favor of the 

most powerful men’s interests.)

maintaining stigma

evil

worthiness (obedience)

see morality

safety (see compassion)

see morality

government

war/military

righteousness

habits and icons, possibly unconscious

parental

God is Papa — or maybe Mama

power

participation — access

can you take communion

do you tithe?

sexual  (so powerful and so often unacknowledged)

food/weather (famine, disasters, aesthetics)

ecology 

terrain: is your god on the mountain or in the desert or on

the sea? Is any god in the jungle?

group/community

how big is your circle of inclusion  

anthropology

what is a human being

specialness

uncanniness  (miracles, Jesus face on toast)

worthiness (obedience)

see morality

safety (compassion)

see therapy

government

war/military

righteousness, control

awe/wonder

I made the last entry a color to signify that it is my current focus because it is a place where the misleading separation of “religion” from the rest of human life in the name of secularism or science is no longer relevant.  This is a spot of convergence where the only limit is the limit of the person.  Once “religion” and nation were the same. We separated them by creating the “secular” but now it’s time to go the other way.

You see how complicated the references, uses, and meanings of so-called “religion” can be when one person means morality/punishment and another means compassion/therapy.  It’s not just gender that makes the distinction but also the times, particularly whether they are fortunate and generous or severe and depriving.  In times when one situation is exchanging with the other, “religion” is very little help, provoking conflict. 

In any situation the real “religion” is usually Simple Simon’s strategy of doing what worked last time.  It may be fatal, but it feels too dangerous either to ignore the old rules and too impossible to imagine new ones.  Taking “religion” apart is a good reason for a brainstorm list like this.

The problem with “religion” is that when we get to the level of “irreducible structure of the world” (which very few people think about, but act according to) what we actually have is the earliest structure of the specific human brain — what you figured out earliest remains what you think is universally most basic.  The only reason we agree at all is the culture has to be maintained various ways, most significantly child-raising practices that either teach an infant that there is a big being who will protect and please you, or that there is no one there for you.  Or that higher forces are present but what they do depends on whether they are pleased.  Not you.  “Be still and know that I am God.”

The human brain is not able to think in a “feeling” way beyond this earliest structure except through experience.  (Feeling is seen here as a form of thinking in a sensory way.)  We pretend we do this when using logic, but there is no way to confirm many theories.  We end up by saying, “It’s more purple than purple” but still can’t see that color.  Our eyes only evolved to see certain wavelengths and if we don’t have names for something, previous experience with it, we can’t compute it.  The limitation of God is the limitation of human bodies. We only accept the code of our senses.

But there is more beyond that.  We can feel the awe and wonder of existence.  The very forces that dissolved God as a big white man in the sky have given us far more splendour and power than we can process.  Any “religion” that ignores this conflation of science with theories of supernatural existence is not going to survive much longer.  But National Geographic and the Smithsonian are no real substitute for the complex that is a map for living.  Awe and wonder are vital but they are not a system.

One of the main centralities of this new awareness is that it keeps anthromorphs from thinking they are god.  It also prevents the idea of finding a safe perfect place and dwelling in it.  Time is rapids, not the serene stream. And it can cut your life short without warning or cause you torture for years before letting you go like a cat releasing a mouse to death.

Big male experts who constantly argue about God are just stand up comics exploiting old obsessions with bad dads.   It’s strange that it sells books and creates reputations.  It’s a peripheral issue that doesn’t change much.  Mostly it’s about familiar words and pledges, prayers and curses.

The sentiments above, based on science and imagery provided by science, is the inevitable shared understanding of how things work that can transcend all cultures whether based on agriculture, trading, bookkeeping or war.  But no one is willing to call this new vision “religion” yet and the morality that goes with it has not been worked out in terms of life and work for everyone.  It’s still the pressing reality of survival in many different contexts, with or without the help of the rest of us.

There are so many of us and we have constructed so much that we need to do a lot of clearing away, which isn’t easy when it’s metal and concrete.  Still, people go on inventing windmills that are not huge revolving spears, ways of desalinizing water that doesn’t demand major machinery, systems for recycling excrement whether food fiber or exhaled gases.  When it comes to raising children we tend to do too much or too little.  Someone pointed out that we always sacrifice our eldest people when there is a major catastrophe. The first step towards change is facing the evidence and discovering we’re not doing what we thought we were doing.  We might not be progressing at all.  But we keep on keeping on.