Daniel Goldman

The Miseuse of the word Myth

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Feb 20

I wasn’t going to write this article, but I suppose it fits this month’s theme on Medium: reasonable doubt. In common parlance, “myth” is used to mean something that is false or something that people believe without justification, like an urban legend. But for a mythicist and anthropologist, like myself, that’s simply not the case. The use of the word, in this sense is in many ways very similar to how certain people use the word “theory.”

So what is a myth? Let’s get a bit more basic. What is a narrative? Wikipedia’s explanation is pretty easy to understand.

A narrative or story is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images, or both. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, “to tell”, which is derived from the adjective gnarus, “knowing” or “skilled”.

On Myths

A myth is a type of narrative. But it’s more than just any story. It’s a story about ourselves. A myth is narrative, which is written with the intention of being truthful, which tries to establish our place in the world.

One can see now why history is a form of myth. It is written with the intention of being truthful, and its goal is to not only explain the past, but to connect the dots from the past to the present, explaining why things are the way that they are today.

History also has other components that other forms of myth don’t have. For one thing, a proper history should have a rough outline explaining how the information was transmitted from the observer to the historian, something I refer to as the genealogy of knowledge [1]. That’s one reason why the bible is myth, but not history.

I want to reiterate that a myth doesn’t have to be true or false. That’s not the point. History is overturned with new information all the time. What’s important is that it is written with the intention of being truthful.

Religion as Myth

One of the most frequent topics in which I hear the abuse of the word “myth” is in discussions on religion. Often it’s used to demean religion and religious people — “ah those people and their Bronze Age myths” — in a way which shows one’s own ignorance of the topic.

Religion does indeed have myths, or at least, that’s one of the cultural dimensions of religion described by Ninian Smart’s seven dimensions of religion. But pretty much every culture has some form of myth, because we all like to have an idea of where we’re from. It’s all a part of trying to find order in nature.

The post The Miseuse of the word Myth appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

The Pseudoscience and Science of Astrology

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Feb 18

There might be something to astrology after all, but not in a mystical sense. I’ve been thinking about writing this article for a while, but I just wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested. Some people might even take it as a defense of astrology. I’m still not sure, but after reading Martin Rezny’s review of a season two episode of The Orville, I’ve decided to at least write a short version of it, though it does deserve being turned it into a full scholarly paper, and might do so one day.

While I am one of the first to admit that the majority of astrology is pseudoscience, or at the very least protoscience, there is actually something to astrology. But it has nothing to do with the mysticism generally attributed to the practice.

It has nothing to do with the alignment of the stars or planets, or anything like that. But when you are born has a real world impact on your life. It was likely true even more so in the past. Let’s think about it. The first few years of development are very important for long term health. Malnutrition in youth, and also during gestation, can have long term consequences.

In “Fetal malnutrition and long-term outcomes,” Caroline HD Fall goes over a number of ways in which prenatal nutrition can influence long term health outcomes. And in the past, the distance between harvest season, as well as other related factors, could have a significant influence on prenatal nutrition.

The issue is that these factors are fairly local. After all, one half of the planet’s summer is the other half of the planet’s winter. But even still, it wouldn’t be surprising that, coupled with a desire to attach order to nature, that people would recognize similarities in health outcomes, and other related outcomes, based on when a person was born, and create a system which sought to improve their ability to predict the future.

These systems would also act as self fulfilling prophecies. Once people identify patters in groups of people, based on when they’re born, they’ll act in ways that will reinforce those patterns. It’s kind of like getting cursed. If you believed that you’re cursed, odds are you’ll start to make mistakes, you’ll focus on the negatives in your day, and so on. And if a person is burn in an unlucky month, and they believe it, they’ll start to be unlucky.

Evolutionary Dynamics of Culture

While some of astrology is just an attempt to impress order on an apparently unordered reality, the possible link between birth month and health outcomes may also be reinforced by evolutionary dynamics. Just like with biological systems, cultures evolve, and they are subject to natural selection. Traits which are beneficial to the culture, or at least allow the culture to persist and pass on those traits, tend to continue, while those that are harmful tend to die out. The recognition that there is a difference between health outcomes and related outcomes, by time of birth, could have helped those cultures prepare in ways that we’re not aware of.


Sources

Mary Regina Boland, Zachary Shahn, David Madigan, George Hripcsak & Nicholas P Tatonetti (2015). Birth month affects lifetime disease risk: a phenome-wide method. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22, 1042–1053.

 

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A Parasocial Relationship with God

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Dec 15

Two people, on Twitter, posed an interesting question about the ability to have a parasocial relationship with god. I think it’s quite possible. However, I want to go further and question whether or not peoples’ relationship with god is parasocial, even under the assumption that god is purely fictional. Please be aware that these are just some ideas that I wrote down quickly, in the few hours following the initial discussion on Twitter. I won’t guarantee that the argument makes sense. But feel free to leave a comment or two. 

Definition

Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars. (Source)

Initial Idea

That’s a really interesting question! Can you have a parasocial-esque relationship with something that is a cognitive construction? There are external influences shaping the conceptualization of the construct. You would assign it personal properties and personality traits. Humm? https://t.co/WAhahzJlXM

— Shannon Q (@Shann_Q0) December 15, 2018

Shown above is the series of tweets which began my consideration of the issue. I want to start by saying that I do not believe that a god exists nor that one does not exist. But there is a presupposition in Shannon’s discussion. It suggests that gods are purely imaginary and that they do not interact with us. Of course, if a god does exist, then we can certainly have a parasocial relationship with it. One might worship the a god, but this god-thing might not want anything to do with a mere human. And of course if a god does interact with us, it’s just social, not parasocial. But what if this god-thing is purely fictional? Is there even a parasocial relationship? Not only can someone still have a parasocial relationship with a god, I ague that they can have a two way relationship with this god-thing.

Parasocial Relationship with Gods

Before talking about gods, I want to consider the example of a celebrity. Our relationships with celebrities are generally one sided. Our interaction with the celebrity is essentially all media driven. We receive information about the person, hear what the person thinks, how they look, and so on, from indirect sources, such as the TV, through stories about the person, and so on.

We receive very similar types of information about this god-thing. I asked Shannon what she thought of when she heard the word “god.” She said that she envisions a “typified Christian beard cloud guy.” It’s interesting that she would envision the same type of being as so many others, unless there is a god. Well, unless of course she formed her perception of a god from the same body of information and stimulus that others did. And that is what happens. Our models of things, whether they truly exist or not, are formed by sensory information that goes well beyond personal interactions with the thing. It includes what we absorb from all forms of media.

It is also clear that there is a strong social relationship, on the side of the believer. The way that a believer acts, when this god-thing is criticized, can be very aggressive. The believer will often take the criticism personally. The same can be true with other characters related to gods. Consider how some Muslims react to depictions of Muhammad. It’s hard to argue that the believer isn’t expending emotional energy.

Not so Parasocial Relationship with Gods

However, is the relationship between believers and gods really one sided? I argue not. This is especially true, if this god-thing is indeed imaginary. In fact, I argue that no matter how much a person needs a god, the gods need people even more. Consider the following. Homosexuality was once highly criticized among Christians. But that view is changing. While homophobia has not been eliminated, Christians are becoming more accepting of homosexuality (PEW). More is changing than just the personal view of the believe however. The very concept of what god accepts and does not accept is changing. Soon people will come to believe that god accepts homosexuality, not because it is what they want, but simply because “god” has changed. God is mutable, especially if it doesn’t really exist. And if this god-thing is purely fictional, then its very existence rests on our own involvement with it. For this reason, gods are far more dependent on us than we are on them. This makes the relationship two sided, rather than one sided.

The post A Parasocial Relationship with God appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Is Penguinism a Religion?

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Jul 26

In my last article on Penguinism, I pointed out that Sq’wak, The Divine Penguin, is not a god. So is Penguinism a religion if it doesn’t have a god belief?

This discussion will be heavily based on science. Do not worry; Penguinism and science are not mutually exclusive, and when science suggests something to us, we accept the science. More will be discussed about Penguinism and science in a later article.

So first off, Sq’wak is not a god. Sq’wak is not supernatural. Often I see religion defined as “belief in the supernatural, especially gods.” However, this definition is not widely used in anthropology, sociology, or psychology, and fails to capture a lot of the nature of religion. It also happens to be rather vague, as it requires a definition for “supernatural” and “god.” Even if we say that supernatural is beyond nature, then we need to know what is and is not natural, before calling something “supernatural.”

There are a number of scientific definitions available to us. But religion is notoriously difficult to define. Ninian Smart avoided it entirely, with his seven dimensions of religion, by instead providing a descriptive framework of elements generally found in religion. Jan Van Baal, on the other hand, defined religion as “all explicit and implicit notions and ideas, accepted as true, which relate to a reality which cannot be verified empirically (Modern Societies & the Science of Religions).” I liked this definition, and relied upon it in development a definition used in “A Novel Definition of Religion” and “Towards Being Secular.” However, even this definition is not complete enough. Instead, I now rely on a unified psychological and anthropological model of religion.

This definition takes into account cognitive signatures of religious belief, and cultural dimensions of religion. To really tell if Penguinism constitutes a religion, we would need to find a religioid belief, as described in the paper. But the belief in Sq’wak is very similar to other existing religious beliefs, including the belief in gods and Kami. There is also an afterlife belief. So it is reasonable to say that we have our religiod beliefs. There are also numerous cultural dimensions, such as the visage of The Divine Penguin (renderings will be posted eventually), and other elements of doctrine, including the harmony between Penguinism and science, which again will be addressed in detail later. So it is reasonable to call Penguinism a religion.

Further Reading

  • Is The Divine Penguin, Sq’wak a God?
  • Penguinism: More Detail

The post Is Penguinism a Religion? appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Is The Divine Penguin, Sq’wak a God?

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Jul 20

While Sq’wak is labeled, “The Divine Penguin” she is not actually a god, at least not as they are generally viewed. Here is why.

What is a god? That’s a very difficult question. There are a number of candidates for gods. There’s YHWH, who turns out to be a usurper deity. as discussed in my previous post on Penguinism. There are the Greek and Roman gods. There are the Kami of Shinto. There’s the Buddha. Many of these things are called gods by some.

However, there are many times where believers reject the notion of godhood. The Buddha is considered a normal person who happened to achieve enlightenment, something that any of us could do. He is not viewed as a god by Buddhism. Similarly, the practitioners of Shinto do not view the Kami as gods. They are manifestations of a fundamental force known as Musubi. Sq’wak is the same. She is not a god, in the sense that we usually view the world. She is a product of nature herself. She is confined by the fundamental laws of nature.

Therefore Sq’wak should not be viewed of as a god, in the sense of a being which has agency and ability to violate natural law, but rather a being, which is closer to the fundamental essence of nature. In this way, Penguinism is an atheistic religion, much like Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, etc.

The post Is The Divine Penguin, Sq’wak a God? appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Penguinism: More Detail

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Jul 14

Last year, I wrote a little bit about Penguinism, and provided the first passage of the Penguinomicon. Here I will provide more detail on the religion.

For your reference, here is the first passage.

…And so it came to pass that the eternal dishwasher stopped. No longer could the countless souls be cleansed and be reborn. The very rhythm of the universe ceased to exist. But this was not the end, only a new beginning. For in that brief moment—or was it an eternity—the penguin Sq’wak arose from the ashes of that great battle, and with her last breath, started the eternal washer again. With that, Sq’wak’s spirit became a part of the washer. Now an integral part of the universe itself, Sq’wak, the Divine Penguin, shall be praised for all time.

First and foremost, the Divine Penguin, long may she squawk, is a deity that protects and forgives. However, she is in an constant struggle with YHWH, an evil and jealous usurper deity. It is YHWH which caused the eternal diswasher to stop. She works alongside the bears in order to keep YHWH at bay. This is why there are polar bears near the North Pole and Penguins near the South Pole.

If you not believe this, try to answer the following question. The word arctic comes from the Greek word for “bear.” However, it was not named for polar bears, because it was named long before they were discovered. Instead, it was named for Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (big bear and little bear), two constellations in the northern sky. So why is it that the northern sky has these bears, and it is also near the northern pole that polar bears reside? Is this not clear evidence that there is divine recognition of the polar bear?

Speaking of these bears, why are they working with the penguins? The answer is simple. The penguins and bears are really two sides of the same coin. They are the manifestation of the fundamental forces of reality. This reality has shown itself, in religion, in various ways throughout history. One of the most well known examples is the concept of yin and yang. The knowledge of the fundamental force has also been realized in another of religions. There is the Tao in Taoism, and Musubu in Shinto.

It is also understandable as to why the bible is so inherently contradictory. Sq’wak tried to provide wisdom to all, but YHWH influenced the interpretation of her words. And so while there are elements of Sq’wak’s wisdom, much of what we read in the bible today is a product of the jealous nature of YHWH. This influence has also warped the understand of hell.

The concept of hell is viewed in a variety of ways. Originally, hell was simply the term for the eternal dishwasher. Judaism still has remnants of this understanding, as it is recognized that one’s presence in hell is not eternal, but is a temporary condition, where the souls of the dead are cleansed. It should be noted that “dish” in no way refers dishes we have in our dining rooms. It is not a plate for food. The “dish” refers to the pure shape of the soul. Now that Sq’wak is part of this dishwasher, YHWH’s influence cannot reach it. For this reason, Christians in some cases interpret hell as a place of torture, as it is devoid of the presence of YHWH. But it is not torture, for it is filled with the warmth of Sq’wak.

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Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Flawed Study

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Jun 3

Vaccine Banner

In a recent article, posted on Atheist Republic, there was a suggestion that fundamentalist religion was positively associated with PNIMRs. However, the analysis seems to be an interpretation, of an interpretation, of maybe even one more level of interpretation before getting to the actual study. Furthemore, the study itself faces significant methodological errors. 

The study, “Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Community-Level Investigation of Denominational Variations in Postneonatal Deaths,” conducted by Garcia, Bartkowski, and Xu, and published in May of 2018 attempts to test the following hypotheses.

H1: Counties with a greater proportion of Catholic adherents will exhibit reduced PNIMRs.
H2: Counties with a greater proportion of conservative Protestants will exhibit higher PNIMRs.
H3: The effects of religious ecology on PNIMRs will be more pronounced in 2010 than in 1990 because of medical advancements and public awareness campaigns implemented after 1990.

There are a number of issues with the study. First off, an ordinary least squares regression was used, without any real justification. The model was assumed to be linear, without any justification. And the variables were assumed to be independent, even when there is evidence rejecting that assumption. Admittedly, it is an easy to use model, so it’s not too surprising, but I don’t see any initial analysis of the data which justifies a specific model, at all. The adjusted R-squared also suggests a very poor fit for the model. That being said, sometimes even with a poor fit, we can glean some information out of such a model. But in most cases, the regressed variables were not statistically significant.
The study therefore does not reasonably justify the claim that religious affiliation is related to PNIMRs. There are a few exceptions, but even in those cases, the impact on PNIMRs seems to be very small: orders of magnitude less than some of the control variables, and they may be due to an inability to properly capture how poverty relates to religious affiliation: poverty and religious affiliation are not independent variables as religious affiliation tends to be used as a way to gain access to a social network, counseling resources, etc and it seems to provide some level of stress reduction (APA).
Another interesting point is that the theory being tested suggests that technological advancements would reduce PNIMRs and make the effects of religious opposition to medical treatment more pronounced. However, even limiting the analysis to conservative protestants, the regression model for 2000 gives a coefficient of 0.003 for the relationship between adherence to conservative Protestantism and PNIMRs and a coefficient of 0.001 for 2010. So there is an apparent drop in the relationship between conservative Protestant affiliation and PNIMRs. H3 does specifically look at the change from 1990 to 2000, but there should be a similar change between 2000 and 2010, as medical technology continues to evolve.
The analysis for H3 is problematic. The issue is that no test for significance was used. Generally, when a researcher wants to test to see if there is a change over time, the researcher would employ some statistical test for difference. Instead, a simple observation between the two statistics was made. Moreover, the comparison was made between a value which did not reach statistical significance, and a variable which did reach statistical significance.
I understand the desire to show results consistent with the initial theory being tested. There is a great deal of positive publication bias. A peer reviewed journal is much less likely to publish a paper if there isn’t an apparent result which is “interesting.” However, the following errors are glaring:
  • Failure to justify the model used, including justification for linearity and independence.
  • Weak R-squared
  • Dwarfing of the relationship between religiosity and PNIMRs, by control variables
  • Apparent reduction in the effect that conservative Protestant affiliation has on PNIMRs, in the years between 2000 and 2010 , along with a lack of use of actual statistical testing for differences, and relying on data which was not statistically significant, there is no reasonable justification for the conclusion that was made.

For these reasons, the study should be thrown out as being incredibly flawed. The conclusion of the paper is not justified based on the actual findings of the paper.

Study Source: https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12487

The post Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Flawed Study appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Flawed Study

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Jun 3

Vaccine Banner

In a recent article, posted on Atheist Republic, there was a suggestion that fundamentalist religion was positively associated with PNIMRs. However, the analysis seems to be an interpretation, of an interpretation, of maybe even one more level of interpretation before getting to the actual study. Furthemore, the study itself faces significant methodological errors. 

The study, “Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Community-Level Investigation of Denominational Variations in Postneonatal Deaths,” conducted by Garcia, Bartkowski, and Xu, and published in May of 2018 attempts to test the following hypotheses.

H1: Counties with a greater proportion of Catholic adherents will exhibit reduced PNIMRs.
H2: Counties with a greater proportion of conservative Protestants will exhibit higher PNIMRs.
H3: The effects of religious ecology on PNIMRs will be more pronounced in 2010 than in 1990 because of medical advancements and public awareness campaigns implemented after 1990.

There are a number of issues with the study. First off, an ordinary least squares regression was used, without any real justification. The model was assumed to be linear, without any justification. And the variables were assumed to be independent, even when there is evidence rejecting that assumption. Admittedly, it is an easy to use model, so it’s not too surprising, but I don’t see any initial analysis of the data which justifies a specific model, at all. The adjusted R-squared also suggests a very poor fit for the model. That being said, sometimes even with a poor fit, we can glean some information out of such a model. But in most cases, the regressed variables were not statistically significant.
The study therefore does not reasonably justify the claim that religious affiliation is related to PNIMRs. There are a few exceptions, but even in those cases, the impact on PNIMRs seems to be very small: orders of magnitude less than some of the control variables, and they may be due to an inability to properly capture how poverty relates to religious affiliation: poverty and religious affiliation are not independent variables as religious affiliation tends to be used as a way to gain access to a social network, counseling resources, etc and it seems to provide some level of stress reduction (APA).
Another interesting point is that the theory being tested suggests that technological advancements would reduce PNIMRs and make the effects of religious opposition to medical treatment more pronounced. However, even limiting the analysis to conservative protestants, the regression model for 2000 gives a coefficient of 0.003 for the relationship between adherence to conservative Protestantism and PNIMRs and a coefficient of 0.001 for 2010. So there is an apparent drop in the relationship between conservative Protestant affiliation and PNIMRs. H3 does specifically look at the change from 1990 to 2000, but there should be a similar change between 2000 and 2010, as medical technology continues to evolve.
The analysis for H3 is problematic. The issue is that no test for significance was used. Generally, when a researcher wants to test to see if there is a change over time, the researcher would employ some statistical test for difference. Instead, a simple observation between the two statistics was made. Moreover, the comparison was made between a value which did not reach statistical significance, and a variable which did reach statistical significance.
I understand the desire to show results consistent with the initial theory being tested. There is a great deal of positive publication bias. A peer reviewed journal is much less likely to publish a paper if there isn’t an apparent result which is “interesting.” However, the following errors are glaring:
  • Failure to justify the model used, including justification for linearity and independence.
  • Weak R-squared
  • Dwarfing of the relationship between religiosity and PNIMRs, by control variables
  • Apparent reduction in the effect that conservative Protestant affiliation has on PNIMRs, in the years between 2000 and 2010 , along with a lack of use of actual statistical testing for differences, and relying on data which was not statistically significant, there is no reasonable justification for the conclusion that was made.

For these reasons, the study should be thrown out as being incredibly flawed. The conclusion of the paper is not justified based on the actual findings of the paper.

Study Source: https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12487

The post Religion and Infant Mortality in the United States: A Flawed Study appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Breaking the Spell: Unreasonable Views on the Nature of Religion

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Apr 20

Recently, I came across an article discussing Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. I have not focused on Daniel Dennett’s work, but I wanted to respond to the discussion in the article, and will be adding more to this discussion as I read through the book. One of the largest issues is that Dennett’s position seems to be that Dennett, or at least the author of the blog article, seems to view religious behavior as being indistinct from non-religious belief: “from the meme’s-eye-view, there’s no difference between a Muslim who prays five times a day because he truly believes in Allah and the truth of the Koran, and a Muslim who prays five times a day because that’s what Muslims do.” The second issue is the view that religion perpetuates itself because there is a belief that religion is good. 

Are these statement reasonable? I want to tackle the idea that there is no difference between actions taken because of religious belief and because of the idea that the behavior is just something that we do. While beliefs which have received heavy investment can be somewhat difficult to break, there are differences between religious and non-religious belief. That is a fundamental component of the unified psychological and anthropological model of religion that I have developed. Harris’ work on the neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief are consistent with the theory that there is indeed a difference between religious and nonreligious belief and that the presence of a religious belief activates various parts of the brain related to emotion and identity. It makes no sense that the way people behave would be unaffected by whether or not they actually hold a religious belief relating to the behavior. Indeed, the working definition of belief that I used is “a learned peristant cognitive state which modulates behavior.”

In the discussion with the author of the article on the topic, I tried to explain this point by suggesting a very silly example of rituals arising purely out of tradition, and those backed by a religious belief:

Let’s consider a ritual where a person cooking a turkey breaks the legs off before putting it into the oven. Now suppose there’s another person that does the same thing. The first one just does it because “that’s how you cook a turkey.” The second one does it because “god said so.”

Now how do we break this ritual? In the first case, we can just show that there’s no point to it and that the ritual started because, let’s say the grandmother’s oven was too small so she had to do it to fit the turkey. Do you think the person will persist in the ritual? Probably not. Now let’s consider the second person, and we say that there’s no reason to perform the ritual. Of course the person is going to reject and state quite firmly that god commanded it. Now you either have to break the connection between the ritual and the god belief, or you have to break the god belief.

So even fro the “meme’s-eye-view” there is a difference.

Yes, the example is silly, but it does work as a useful thought experiment. We know that some behaviors are harder to adjust than others, and we see that it can be very difficult to alter rituals that are a result of religious belief. There is an entire additional variable that must be addressed. So the first idea promoted by the author, and possibly Dennett as well, seems to be contrary to our general understanding of the topic, and also neural imaging data. The second issue is just as problematic.

Perhaps the most extreme counter example to the claim that religion perpetuates itself through a belief that religion is positive is Religious Rejectionism. While it is not a critical element of the religion, the negative view of religion, possessed by Religious Rejectionists, and exemplified by those like Harris, Dawkins, et al., acts in opposition to the notion that religion is perpetuated by a positive view of religion itself. Additionally, not all cultures even have a concept of religion vs non-religion. The practitioners of Shinto do not view Shinto as a religion. The word “shūkyō” generally refers only to western conceptualizations of religion. Indeed, while religion has probably existed for well over a hundred thousand years, the concept of religion is fairly new. So in such instances at least, the idea that religion propagates due to belief in religion simply makes no sense.

Now, I admit that there are indeed people do often view their beliefs and practices as being beneficial, and indeed this does act as a motivation resulting in continuation of the cultural elements, but the view presented in Shem’s article is just too simplistic and in many ways counter-theoretical.

The post Breaking the Spell: Unreasonable Views on the Nature of Religion appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

Those Who Claim Religion is a Delusion are Delusional

By alcanthro Leave a Comment Dec 29

Prominent individuals in psychology have stated or implied that religion is a delusion. These people are often delusional themselves. I have explained why religion is not a delusion or mental illness in “The Pervasive Nature of Religiophobia” and “Religion is an Illness and Evolution is Wrong (Not).“

In these articles, I have explained that a delusion requires a perception of reality which is contrary to the cultural understanding of the perceiver. Those who believe that “god is talking to them” or has left a sign believe this because their cultural upbringing has taught them to interpret sensory information in that way. But people like Richard Dawkins have a different cultural understanding of the world. Their understanding is one based purely in mathematics and science. If the current scientific body of evidence points in a specific direction, that is what is interpreted as being “true” and if current theory and evidence contradicts a position, that position is interpreted as being false.

So what is happening with Dawkins and others like him call religion a delusion or mental illness? In order to make this claim, their perception of reality must be different from the current body of scientific theory and evidence on the topics of mental health and the anthropology and psychology of religion. Their perception contradicts the cultural understanding of reality. By the definition of delusion then, Dawkins et al. are the delusional ones.

So while “religion is a delusion” is wrong, or at least inconsistent with current scientific understanding, that thought process is delusional itself. It is ironic, but it is not surprising. In some ways, these people, who are clearly Religious Rejectionists, have two very different domains of thought: their mundane thought processes, which center around science, and their religious thought, which is centered around the belief that there are no gods, afterlives, etc. It is the latter domain which other religions contradict and therefore result in the conflict which drives them to make the claims that they do.

The post Those Who Claim Religion is a Delusion are Delusional appeared first on The Spiritual Anthropologist.

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