further speculation

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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    • ...on God and chocolate... by Mary Elizabeth Coggins, 5/21/98
      
      

Mary C's post ends with:

"Will "man's next step" (Couch) be to find a replacement for religious practice if and when this practice no longer promotes optimum genetic survival, regarding reciprocity?"

I think this is an interesting question and there remain furthur questions. While religious, ceremonial, and ritual practices may have served to provide social coherence and normative behavior, were these an 'overlay' on 'natural behavior' which might otherwise have resulted in social fragmantation via extreme individuation? (Freud?) Is "Higher Authority" required to which our 'natural wills' and knees must bend?

Belief systems may serve several purposes at the same time. Along with the universal desire to make sense out of chaos (our brains are marvelous pattern makers - linking cause and effect), there is the possibility that heirachical relationships within groups could be maintained by appeals to myth.

The field is wide open. Donald Brown in his book on Human Universals speaks of two future directions of research. "One looks toward the fields of psychology and biology and is particularly concerned with explaining universals. The other traces the causal chain in the opposite dirction, is concerned with using an understanding of universals and human nature to make sense of human affairs, and engages anthropology, the other social sciences, and the humanities."

It seems to me that both these directions are critically important at this point in human history. It has been some time now that, was it Thoreau?, who wrote- "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind". It's hard not to feel a certain sense of desparation as global technology with its market philosophy seems to exert an ineluctable force, obeying economic rules of which most feel no connection or control.

Of course it is to be expected that those who find themselves in positions of advantage will be expected to formulate a philosophy or ideology of explaination and justification.

bill (sorry to end in my cynical mode)

• On Religion... by Mat Huff, 7/14/98