So despite it's many flaws interacting with other humans in a society has always been the realm of organized religion, including interactions with humans across a spectrum of mental health issues. The Bible, for one, is backed with such examples and the Golden Rule has found root in many others. Notions of selfless behavior do not conform to biological evolution since there are simply no observable payoffs in testable scale. Although some of that is changing. However, the biological evolutionists are quite possibly correct thus we are presented a profound conundrum. Whereas atheists such as Dawkins might believe behaviors at molecular scale have no room for a God or grand design, they offer no explanation for the emergence of such as thing as the Golden Rule. Yet here it is...although I am troubled it took you 40 years to discover it...
Hi Mooch, I really appreciate your comments, although I’m a little frustrated that you think it’s all readily available from our various religions. I strongly think TCBT and related efforts are dramatic improvements on past parables or moral teachings. In some deep sense I quite agree with you that some wisdom in regards to social being or “morality” is captured in various religions and related texts like the Talmud, Bible, Gita etc. Turning the other cheek and being selfless are perhaps good starting points for moral consideration, but I find the lessons generally very unsatisfying from both the texts and their modern institutions. Of course, if you bend anything enough you can make it all fit to keep a vague definition. This is like having an unfalsifiable claim like everything is made of fire, wind, water and earth...vague semantic truisms. Yet, I also find Dawkins very unsatisfying, and I agree that the materialist worldview poses an existential threat to our religions which are critical human institutions we evolved to expect, or expect features of and from. There are a number of public intellectuals articulating the solution space to the meaning crisis of which I like John Vervaeke, and Alain de Botton among many others.
I totally disagree that selfless behavior and sacrifice are missing from evolution. I see it written all over biology. Generally species sacrifice only a parent for direct offspring (see Octopus moms) , but as species become more social the payoff to kith and kin and then the wider community grows. Some animals will even go so far as to sacrifice for other species...and they do not need a bible or sky god to do so. I have a great deal to say about the evolution of morals such as the golden rule, but for now note that game theoretic strategies like ‘tit-for-tat’ are well studied by evolutionary theorists. The golden rule is not so hot as it breaks down quickly when evolution allows for sociopaths and free riders, which is why populations need both religion and self sacrificing vigilantes and other more sophisticated players mixed in. The folks that get enraged at X, Y, or Z injustice are sacrificing their equanimity for the social good, as religious members or not. Most if not all behavior is moral behavior and it’s contextual and emergent, specific religions are mostly just manifestations rather than sources of morality. The subcomponents of religion have social and evolutionary functions even if Dawkins or whomever can’t figure out how to find the relevant literature. I personally leave only an openness to where we might bring back God or something greater than our previously imagined deities, in a less specified becoming which encompasses everything we can figure out materialistically and experientially and then remains to be further experienced and uncovered as we all become - it needs to imbed our wide ignorance. Yet, even writing the above I know it does little for the groups of humans who need explicit coordinating behaviors and beliefs to define who will be with and against them when the water next dries up and population far exceeds its carrying capacity as ultimately the evolutionary purpose of religion is the relative reproductive success of its adherents.
As per my not learning the critical lessons of communicative empathy until 40ish. Firstly, I’m still working on it, so that even reduces my claim. As far as I can tell the awareness of what I posted is almost entirely absent in our culture, and especially so amongst those who espouse the golden rule or pray to the prophet of corporeal sacrifice. Being familiar or exposed does not imply embodying or enacting. When I have been in tense interpersonal communications as a participant or observer the wisdom of what one really wants done or what one should do is missing...hence the very high value I place on the simple EAR empathy list of descriptions. When couples are in fierce arguments their minds want resolution and connection, but the specific steps are missing and often counterintuitive to their overactive amygdalae. Some contemplative traditions are likely to quiet that responsiveness, but do so over significant hours and years of practice. So why not use essentially a simple checklist to get it right in the most important situations without all the upfront costs. Note the value of checklists for so many domains outside empathy and communication (see also The Checklist Manifesto), also note complete absence of checklists in the New Testament, the Koran, or the Upanishads.
I'm a big fan of the checklist. Nothing wrong with that... Ultimately I'm glad Gawande wrote that book... https://www.amazon.com/review/R3DYDSV4NKJHPT/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B003YD00RS&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode= I wasn't trying to criticism your method or approach beyond saying... there is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes 1:9. Things we discover existed before we discovered them. The Bible is fundamentally a checklist. Not sure why you are saying it is not... I think, in coming weeks and months of this blog, you will be addressing psychological theory, not human behavior as a whole. Behavior hasn't changed. How we describe what we believe is happing will change. Freud's Illusion, will prove not to be a problem with organized religion, rather his own interpretation of human behavior will prove to the the illusion. I think in general, tying metabolism to behavior puts you on far more solid ground than the social thinkers...
Just wanted to again say thank you! and yes to: "How we describe what we believe is happing will change." There is much captured in the bible and other books of wisdom for much of human behavior. Hopefully, I will add another level of detail or analysis to consider. My work on locusts has me referencing the good book in your honor. lol
So despite it's many flaws interacting with other humans in a society has always been the realm of organized religion, including interactions with humans across a spectrum of mental health issues. The Bible, for one, is backed with such examples and the Golden Rule has found root in many others. Notions of selfless behavior do not conform to biological evolution since there are simply no observable payoffs in testable scale. Although some of that is changing. However, the biological evolutionists are quite possibly correct thus we are presented a profound conundrum. Whereas atheists such as Dawkins might believe behaviors at molecular scale have no room for a God or grand design, they offer no explanation for the emergence of such as thing as the Golden Rule. Yet here it is...although I am troubled it took you 40 years to discover it...
Hi Mooch, I really appreciate your comments, although I’m a little frustrated that you think it’s all readily available from our various religions. I strongly think TCBT and related efforts are dramatic improvements on past parables or moral teachings. In some deep sense I quite agree with you that some wisdom in regards to social being or “morality” is captured in various religions and related texts like the Talmud, Bible, Gita etc. Turning the other cheek and being selfless are perhaps good starting points for moral consideration, but I find the lessons generally very unsatisfying from both the texts and their modern institutions. Of course, if you bend anything enough you can make it all fit to keep a vague definition. This is like having an unfalsifiable claim like everything is made of fire, wind, water and earth...vague semantic truisms. Yet, I also find Dawkins very unsatisfying, and I agree that the materialist worldview poses an existential threat to our religions which are critical human institutions we evolved to expect, or expect features of and from. There are a number of public intellectuals articulating the solution space to the meaning crisis of which I like John Vervaeke, and Alain de Botton among many others.
I totally disagree that selfless behavior and sacrifice are missing from evolution. I see it written all over biology. Generally species sacrifice only a parent for direct offspring (see Octopus moms) , but as species become more social the payoff to kith and kin and then the wider community grows. Some animals will even go so far as to sacrifice for other species...and they do not need a bible or sky god to do so. I have a great deal to say about the evolution of morals such as the golden rule, but for now note that game theoretic strategies like ‘tit-for-tat’ are well studied by evolutionary theorists. The golden rule is not so hot as it breaks down quickly when evolution allows for sociopaths and free riders, which is why populations need both religion and self sacrificing vigilantes and other more sophisticated players mixed in. The folks that get enraged at X, Y, or Z injustice are sacrificing their equanimity for the social good, as religious members or not. Most if not all behavior is moral behavior and it’s contextual and emergent, specific religions are mostly just manifestations rather than sources of morality. The subcomponents of religion have social and evolutionary functions even if Dawkins or whomever can’t figure out how to find the relevant literature. I personally leave only an openness to where we might bring back God or something greater than our previously imagined deities, in a less specified becoming which encompasses everything we can figure out materialistically and experientially and then remains to be further experienced and uncovered as we all become - it needs to imbed our wide ignorance. Yet, even writing the above I know it does little for the groups of humans who need explicit coordinating behaviors and beliefs to define who will be with and against them when the water next dries up and population far exceeds its carrying capacity as ultimately the evolutionary purpose of religion is the relative reproductive success of its adherents.
As per my not learning the critical lessons of communicative empathy until 40ish. Firstly, I’m still working on it, so that even reduces my claim. As far as I can tell the awareness of what I posted is almost entirely absent in our culture, and especially so amongst those who espouse the golden rule or pray to the prophet of corporeal sacrifice. Being familiar or exposed does not imply embodying or enacting. When I have been in tense interpersonal communications as a participant or observer the wisdom of what one really wants done or what one should do is missing...hence the very high value I place on the simple EAR empathy list of descriptions. When couples are in fierce arguments their minds want resolution and connection, but the specific steps are missing and often counterintuitive to their overactive amygdalae. Some contemplative traditions are likely to quiet that responsiveness, but do so over significant hours and years of practice. So why not use essentially a simple checklist to get it right in the most important situations without all the upfront costs. Note the value of checklists for so many domains outside empathy and communication (see also The Checklist Manifesto), also note complete absence of checklists in the New Testament, the Koran, or the Upanishads.
I'm a big fan of the checklist. Nothing wrong with that... Ultimately I'm glad Gawande wrote that book... https://www.amazon.com/review/R3DYDSV4NKJHPT/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B003YD00RS&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode= I wasn't trying to criticism your method or approach beyond saying... there is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes 1:9. Things we discover existed before we discovered them. The Bible is fundamentally a checklist. Not sure why you are saying it is not... I think, in coming weeks and months of this blog, you will be addressing psychological theory, not human behavior as a whole. Behavior hasn't changed. How we describe what we believe is happing will change. Freud's Illusion, will prove not to be a problem with organized religion, rather his own interpretation of human behavior will prove to the the illusion. I think in general, tying metabolism to behavior puts you on far more solid ground than the social thinkers...
Just wanted to again say thank you! and yes to: "How we describe what we believe is happing will change." There is much captured in the bible and other books of wisdom for much of human behavior. Hopefully, I will add another level of detail or analysis to consider. My work on locusts has me referencing the good book in your honor. lol