Religion: invented to control the masses?

[chezlaw]

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I was talking about its origin. I think your wrong to expect more about children and sex in religons if this theory was correct. Firstly there's plenty about that in religon and more importantly its the willingness/ability to believe stories about how to live our lives that is being displayed by religon.

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I can see how showing that you care about morality would be a useful marker to sexually select on, but don't you think that still leaves open the question about content?

Are women going to equally choose the Moloch worshipper who belives in child sacrifice, and the Jain who refuses to kill anything? Just because they both believe stories about how to live? Surely by your model, there should be competition between stories that will determine what are successful religions, no? Otherwise how do new religions supplant old ones?

Assuming competition has occurred, we inevitably conclude that those which are successful should be those that are either very lucky, or have a greater reproductive advantage. I think the content of successful religions and their historical development gives us a clue that actually, reproductive advantage was not a big driver.

Think about what you would include in your story if you expected sexual selection to determine the fate of your fledgeling sect. Those things are not a priority in the successful religions as far as I can see. Jesus, for example, devotes almost zero time to instructing his followers in how to treat women or children. A lot of time talking about the kingdom of heaven, but not much about practical family raising. Why?

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because ideas take on a life of their own. Once the religous meme discovered the stratagy of exploiting the fears and hopes of the host then it no longer needs to rely on sexual selection (as long as its not a major turn off).

As soon as religon has reached the stage of being very infectious and once infected the host infects others then sexual selection becomes less important in a species like humans, where in modern times all have a high chance of reproductive success.

Christianity is a very succesful mutation of judaism which itself was a very successful mutation of more primative belief systems.

chez

[Copernicus]

Women are attracted to men who show strength, conviction and decisiveness. Adamant faith in any religion....the "I know there is a God, I dont need any evidence there is a God, I am right"...kind of faith, is one way that strength can exert itself.

[pvn]

I finally forced myself to click on this thread. I read about three sentences of the OP before I figured I was wasting my time.

Anyway, just wanted throw this hijack in:

Government: invented to control the masses?

[chezlaw]

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I finally forced myself to click on this thread. I read about three sentences of the OP before I figured I was wasting my time.

Anyway, just wanted throw this hijack in:

Government: invented to control the masses?

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Close enough. Invented by or evolved from an AC type society.

Historically its more a case of the organisation invented by the richest to control the masses taking control over the richest.

chez

[pilliwinks]

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Think about what you would include in your story if you expected sexual selection to determine the fate of your fledgeling sect. Those things are not a priority in the successful religions as far as I can see. Jesus, for example, devotes almost zero time to instructing his followers in how to treat women or children. A lot of time talking about the kingdom of heaven, but not much about practical family raising. Why?

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because ideas take on a life of their own. Once the religous meme discovered the stratagy of exploiting the fears and hopes of the host then it no longer needs to rely on sexual selection (as long as its not a major turn off).

As soon as religon has reached the stage of being very infectious and once infected the host infects others then sexual selection becomes less important in a species like humans, where in modern times all have a high chance of reproductive success.

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So you're saying that that the effective driver is actually idea infectiousness rather than sexual selection. I'd have to agree that this is far more plausible, for the reasons you cite. And I am left wondering if there was ever actually any role for sexual selection at all. No need, as far as I can see from your model. Shall we bother Mr Occam again?

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Christianity is a very succesful mutation of judaism which itself was a very successful mutation of more primative belief systems.

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Much as relativity is a successful mutation of Newtonian motion, which was itself a very successful mutation of more primitive belief systems?

Is is a common error, knowingly encouraged by Mr Dawkins (to his lasting shame among more honest biologists), to apply shoddy tests of causation to religious ideas (the same shoddiness he derides in the fundamentalists' criticisms of evolution. [/rant]. Sorry.).

To see how this works, just apply the Dawkins critique of religion to evolution: Do people believe in evolution because it is true, because they have seen incontrovertible evidence for it, or because they were indoctrinated from childhood? There is no doubt that many, almost certainly the vast majority of people who would claim to accept evolutionary origins, have never cast a critical eye over the data. They believe what they were taught because they trust their teachers/parents. And it made sense. And everyone else they respect believed it. Once you have an idea in the textbooks, it is an incredibly fit meme, regardless of whether or not it fits with reality. This has been amusingly described by Gould who gives examples of perpetuated errors such as heritability of IQ and Eohippus body size.

But what about causation? Is evolution a successful meme because it is regarded as true, or is it regarded as true because it is a successful meme?

The fundamentalists claim the latter about evolution (and plan to change it!). The atheists claim the latter about religion. In my humble opinion, both arguments are equally bankrupt. They deny that truth, or a search for it, has a significant impact on people's beliefs. And as a scientist, I regard that as both false and irrational.

[chezlaw]

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So you're saying that that the effective driver is actually idea infectiousness rather than sexual selection. I'd have to agree that this is far more plausible, for the reasons you cite. And I am left wondering if there was ever actually any role for sexual selection at all. No need, as far as I can see from your model. Shall we bother Mr Occam again?

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I just said it seems plausible that in primative societies there was a reproductive advantage to the type of beliefs that evolved into religon. If you don't find this plausible then fine. I think there's still a reproductive advantage though its diminshed rapidly since the enlightement.

Doc Blackmore goes further and thinks it was the sexual selection advantage of being able to sustain and develop stories that drove the expansion of the brain.

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But what about causation? Is evolution a successful meme because it is regarded as true, or is it regarded as true because it is a successful meme?

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Unless you're in the sharkey camp of claiming its not science then evolutionary theory is successful because the idea that science reveals nature is a successful meme.

I'm not going to get into your attack on Dawkins which I believe is ill-founded.

chez

[pilliwinks]

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I just said it seems plausible that in primative societies there was a reproductive advantage to the type of beliefs that evolved into religon. If you don't find this plausible then fine. I think there's still a reproductive advantage though its diminshed rapidly since the enlightement.

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Ah. I didn't notice that you were suggesting sexual selection primarily for primitive societies/religions. There it does become somewhat more plausible to me - tribal faiths do often have a lot to do with social behaviours.

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Doc Blackmore goes further and thinks it was the sexual selection advantage of being able to sustain and develop stories that drove the expansion of the brain.

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Yers well. A fine hypothesis, but the competing ones of 'big brains help you find food' or 'help you kill your neighbours' etc etc also have plenty of merit.

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But what about causation? Is evolution a successful meme because it is regarded as true, or is it regarded as true because it is a successful meme?

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Unless you're in the sharkey camp of claiming its not science then evolutionary theory is successful because the idea that science reveals nature is a successful meme.

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I absolutely do not deny that evolution is science. On the contrary. However I am uncomfortable with the idea that the reason evolutionary theory is successful has to do with cultural preferences (ie we like science because it works. Ergo, if it's science, we like it). That gets into the kind of relativism that the fundamentalists and fascists use to bolster their position. If fitness of ideas is all that governs what we believe, a reasonable response is to neuter, or intellectually disable the ideas or carriers thereof that we dispute.

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I'm not going to get into your attack on Dawkins which I believe is ill-founded.

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Fair enough. I readily agree that he's a highly intelligent, well informed scientist who has done much to publicise good science. I also think he lets the side down with his rhetoric.

[chezlaw]

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Ah. I didn't notice that you were suggesting sexual selection primarily for primitive societies/religions. There it does become somewhat more plausible to me - tribal faiths do often have a lot to do with social behaviours.


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okay, sorry I failed to make that clear. that's what I was getting at and having selected the propensity for such beliefs and with such beliefs in existence its then seems plausible that the landscape was very fertile for self- propogating religous ideas tapping in to the fear/pleasure/hope centers of the mind.

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Doc Blackmore goes further and thinks it was the sexual selection advantage of being able to sustain and develop stories that drove the expansion of the brain.


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Yers well. A fine hypothesis, but the competing ones of 'big brains help you find food' or 'help you kill your neighbours' etc etc also have plenty of merit.

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Agreed, I don't think anyone is arguing that this must be the case. Its just one theory for our massive brains.

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I'm not going to get into your attack on Dawkins which I believe is ill-founded.


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Fair enough. I readily agree that he's a highly intelligent, well informed scientist who has done much to publicise good science. I also think he lets the side down with his rhetoric.

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I agree with that to some extent. I've criticised him as well especially for his christmas lectures on the BBC which were beyond the pale imo. However, I don't think it has compromised his scientific works, just made some people more resistent to what he is trying to explain.

chez