E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
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If the religious mythos did not exist in a culture, it would be quickly invented, and in fact it has been everywhere, thousands of times through history. Such inevitability is the mark of instinctual behavior in any species. That is, even when learned, it is guided toward certain states by emotion-driven rules of mental development. To call religion instinctive is not to suppose any particular part of its mythos is untrue, only that its sources run deeper than ordinary habit and are in fact hereditary, urged into birth through biases in mental development encoded in the genes.
E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge:
Early humans invented [the arts] in an attempt to express and control through magic the abundance of the environment, the power of solidarity, and other forces in their lives that mattered most to survival and reproduction. The arts were the means by which these forces could be ritualized and expressed in a new, simulated reality
E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge:
The most distinctive qualities of the human species are extremely high intelligence, language, culture, and reliance on long-term social contracts. In combination they gave early Homo sapiens a decisive edge over all competing animal species, but they also exacted a price we continue to pay, composed of the shocking recognition of the self, of the finiteness of personal existence, and of the chaos of the environment.
These revelations, not disobedience to the gods, are what drove humankind from paradise. Homo sapiens is the only species to suffer psychological exile.
E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge:
Where cultural relativism had been initiated to negate belief in hereditary behavioral differences among ethnic groups – undeniably an unproven and ideologically dangerous conception – it was then turned against the idea of a unified human nature grounded in heredity. A great conundrum of the human condition was created: If neither culture nor a hereditary human nature, what unites humanity? The question cannot be just left hanging, for if ethical standards are molded by culture, and cultures are endlessly diverse and equivalent, what disqualifies theocracy, for example, or colonialism? Or child labor, torture, and slavery?
E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
We know that virtually all of human behavior is transmitted by culture. We also know that biology has an important effect on the origin of culture and its transmission. The question remaining is how biology and culture interact, and in particular how they interact across all societies to create the commonalities of human nature. What, in final analysis, joins the deep, mostly genetic history of the species as a whole to the more recent cultural histories of its far-flung societies?
The Guardian published a ridiculous editorial by JoEllen Murphy just before Christmas. Murphy headed a fundraising campaign to run signs on buses reading “Why believe? Because I love you and I created you, for goodness sake – God.” These signs are a reaction to American Humanist Association signs that say “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
Let’s start with the wording on her signs.
“Why believe? Because I love you and I created you, for goodness sake – God.
There isn’t much of a rational argument here. “Because I love you” is the answer to a question like “why did you buy me flowers.” If someone told you unicorns existed because they loved to use their horns to magically heal all disease, would you believe them? And, god didn’t say I love you and I created you. JoEllen Murphy says god says it. I wonder what gives Christians the idea that they can speak for god. Can’t he speak for himself? Keep reading below the break…
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As more and more healthcare workers refuse to provide women with medical care for “moral” reasons – from refusing to perform abortions to refusing to write prescriptions for EC to refusing to dispense contraceptives – it is reassuring to read this physician’s reasons for becoming an abortion provider.
There are very few of us willing to do these procedures. Most obstetrician-gynecologists do not offer them to their patients. With the history of anti-choice extremism we have witnessed in this country, it is easy to understand why a physician would decide not to offer abortion services in their office. They may be afraid of being protested or worse. What I do not understand is how someone could call refusing to provide abortion care, or at least provide a referral, a ‘moral choice’.
What is moral about telling a woman with a terminal illness that she has to continue her pregnancy? What is moral about telling a woman who can not afford to support the children in her home to have another one? What is moral about bringing a child into this world that will not receive the love, support and attention it needs because its mother has to work two jobs just to pay the rent and their father is long gone? Frankly, I do not see it.
Abortion is a moral choice. It is about a human being’s right to determine their own destiny and the destiny of the family surrounding them here on Earth. It is never an easy choice, but it is always moral.
Via AbortionClinicDays:
I think stories are incredibly important, especially the ones we tell about our lives and our collective past. They make absolutely horrible experiences bearable and often meaningful. Pain without a purpose is terrifying. The Royal de Luxe tells stories to cities with giants. It is storytelling on a very grand scale.
Each time Royal de Luxe plays a new location – and this was their Scandinavian debut – Jean-Luc Courcoult, the company director, writes a story especially for the people of that place, a simple story that will reach deeply into their trove of archetypes yet be understood by children under 10. It must be performable by the Giants, too, who are between 20 and 40 feet high, made of carved wood and operated not only by cranes but by numerous actor-technicians manning pulleys and ropes, swarming all over the marionettes. Learning this, one might assume there was a lid on the expressive potential of the Giants. There is, but not in the way that springs to mind. And which is more important? What a giant marionette does, or how it makes you feel watching it? “For years, I wondered how one could tell a story to an entire town,” Courcoult has said. “On a plane to Rio, the idea of using out-size marionettes came to me… People have believed in giants since the year dot. Every culture on earth has stories about them. I find the giant more powerful than God or religion – because it is more make-believe yet more human.” [link]
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