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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
In recent years, evolutionary psychologists have come increasingly close to establishing a neural basis for religion. As one acquaintance put it, "the predilection to enter that state which Freud characterised as 'oceanic' and which Otto labelled as 'numinous' is hard-wired within humans to a greater or lesser degree," serving in evolutionary terms as a means of enforcing social cohesion. The localisation of a 'god module' within the brain, which becomes active during prayer is suggestive of much spiritual experience being essentially noetic, that is, independent of any external entity.
Of course, this is far from being conclusive since it does nothing to disprove external involvement, but it does suggest other explanations and tallies well with anecdotal evidence, e.g. correlation between drug induced and mystical experiences. However, much of these 'hardwired for god' arguments, while an interesting diversion, are somewhat unhelpful, since establishing a genetic basis for religion only serves to simultaneously discredit and perpetuate religion; not a helpful combination. In addition, such explanations do little to explain why some societies have seen organised religion decline (e.g. much of Europe) and others have seen this to a much less marked extent (e.g. The United States). For example, 48% of people in the UK claim to belong to a religion, compared with 86% of people in the US and 92% of Italians. In order to explain that, you need to look to environmental influences, the classic account of which being this:"The general conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain, or recreate certain mental states in these groups. So if the categories are of religious origin, they ought to participate in this nature common to all religious facts; they should be social affairs and the product of collective thought. At least -- for in the actual condition of our knowledge of these matters, one should be careful to avoid all radical and exclusive statements -- it is allowable to suppose that they are rich in social elements."(Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)
As such, explanations of secularisation might well stress distinctions between urban and rural areas. Churches tend to play an important role in the social life of villages, while urban societies have many competing social centres. Accordingly, in a small and relatively closed community like a village, religion can inculcate and reproduce shared values. In a larger society, religion ceases to be a public performance and becomes a private consolation. As such, urban areas may be more conducive to secularisation than rural ones. A shift from local to national or transnational society (e.g. Europe) due to improved transportation may also have a role to play, in so far as migration is greater and religion has ceased to be a geographical marker to the same extent.
A second explanation lies with dogmatic conceptions within Churches. Since a church is a social system, it develops and seeks to reinforce group norms, which may prove to be self-limiting in the long term. An evangelical church promoting conservative doctrines may create a strong sense of affiliation amongst its existing adherents but may limit the available pool of potential adherents. Bear in mind at this point, that most European countries have had state churches, so lapsed believers are likely to fall into passive observance or non-belief. The US has historically had more of a free-market in religion and lapsed believers may have greater choice of alternatives.
Thirdly, the displacement of religious institutions. The rise of new roles and specialist institutions handling functions (e.g. education, health care, social security, even art and culture.) previously carried out by religious institutions, often based on increasingly rational principles (again an area where Europe is different to the US and is suggestive of policies that involve faith groups in public service provision).Labels: Religion
posted by Richard 9:46 am
