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| Anytown, Canada, Apr. 11. |
Red,
theory; black, fact.
Preamble
As discussed in Post #48, religion
has a theory part and an applied part. I have termed the latter the ‘pragma’ of
religion, which is basically the modes of worship. Since our moral codes are
held by at least the Abrahamic religions to be commands from God, it would
follow that it’s pretty important to conform to them, and most of us have difficulty
doing this all the time. To help us, religion has developed a behavior-modification
role, the role of the pragma.
The behavior-mod role aims
at mitigating the human form of the Calhoun Effect–a tendency to aggression linked to rising
population density but not to actual want per se. (For an introduction to Calhoun's research, see paragraph 7, Post #37.) Population density would have
been an issue even millennia in the past when the world population was a
minuscule fraction of what it is today, when people began living continuously
inside walled cities for protection from their enemies. Within the inflexible
confines of such a city, you have the makings of a human Calhoun experiment. Not
coincidentally, the city of Jerusalem, sacred to three world religions, was a
walled city. Nowadays, at a world population of 7.5 billion, it can be said
that the world is our walled city. What can religion now tell us about how to
get along?
I focus
here on the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which
developed in that order, all in the Middle East, each of the last two
acknowledging its debt to the previous. I suggest that these three religions
form a series of progressively increasing effectiveness in mitigating the
Calhoun Effect, by an accumulation of folkloric knowledge. Thus, to see how
pragma works, the purpose of this post, we need only examine Islam, likely to
represent the most efficient solution. Form generally follows function most
transparently at highest efficiency.
The Human Calhoun Effect
In Post #40 I
surmise that the natural human population density plot
over time has a saw-tooth form, with linear increases alternating with abrupt
decreases that return population density to some repeatable reset value. In Post #2, I surmise that the linear segments are created by a negative-feedback controller
in the limbic system that controls rate-of-change of population density to a
constant positive value, not absolute density. At this writing, the world is
probably coming to the crest of one of these linear segments, which began in
1950. The sudden population-density decrease that ends the cycle is conjectured
to have two phases: a first phase that produces population-density decrease by
emigration, and a second phase that produces population-density decrease by
mass murder, if the first phase does not take the system all the way to the
reset value. The first phase accomplishes the biological function of dispersal,
which is generally important for long-term species survival. The second phase
guarantees overall stability on a multi-cycle time scale and wards off
Malthusian catastrophes.
Both
phases demand formally altruistic acts from individuals, but not of the
warm-and-fuzzy kind. The first phase uses an exchange of anger signals (The
“anger cycle,” see Post #41) to lock non-altruists out of the process so that the
behavior is stable over evolutionary time. The second phase locks out the
non-altruists using an asymmetric exchange of signals: contempt signals going
one way and sadness signals going the other way. (See “The Sadness Cycle,” Post #41). The second phase culminates in the mass murder of the sadness signalers by
the contempt signalers and the appropriation of all the resources of the sadness
signalers by the contempt signalers. The last step guarantees that the contempt
signalers will appear atrociously entitled to those outside the cycle.
Islam
Islam is
conveniently summarized for our purposes as The Five Pillars of Islam, which
are explained in the Quran, namely:
1) The
Creed. (“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”)
2) Prayer.
3) Charity.
(Concealed almsgiving is preferred.)
4) Fasting.
5)
Pilgrimage.
The Theory
The
creed is “The Great Why in the Sky” that people need for the control of their
most difficult emotions. Strong emotion can be overridden by reason if that is
required by a learned worldview, the validity of which the person is willing to
bet their life on. (Here, I attempt to supply a worldview based on evolutionary
psychology.) The creed, or “theory part” of a religion, also gets the rational
mind cooperating with the behavior-modification program, which acts on the
emotional self.
04-03-2019: Rational override based on some creed may begin the work of extirpating someone's anger or sadness cycle, but behavior modification by pragma may be necessary to finish it and produce a lasting improvement in the person's circumstances. These cycles may have deep roots inaccessible to consciousness and capable of perpetuating self-defeating behaviors if not treated appropriately.
Prayer
superficially is a deliberate wasting of time, which is not free in metabolic
terms because the worshipper has a basal metabolic rate that must be supplied
whether he/she works or not. Regular inactivity is surely a luxury of only
those enjoying abundance. This is implicitly saying to the anger and sadness/contempt
programs: “Food is still plentiful, so it’s not time to get nasty.” These
cycles may be triggered by signs of high population density, not actual want,
but they should still be sensitive to metabolic signals that speak to whether
actual scarcity exists. High population density acquired its potent
psychological effects, after all, because it usually predicted scarcity in the
environment of evolutionary adaptedness. <06-14-2021: Alternatively, prayer may work like meditation to turn off the internal voice and the unnecessary stress it causes (if unscripted).>
Charity,
on the receiving end, that is, is for contempt signalers, who, as you will
recall, are extremely entitled in the final stage of their emotional program.
Accepting charity–goods that you did not work for–tells the contempt program
that it has achieved its mission and can therefore halt. So, it does. In Islam,
almsgiving is said to be best done in secret, an effect of which will be to
spare the pride of the recipient. One tends to think that this will be an issue
with contemptuous types. Clearly, we are dealing here with someone whose
contempt-signaler role has caused them to become downwardly mobile.
Fasting–going
without the necessities of life–is for sadness signalers and it tells their
emotional program that they have given or lost all their resources to the
contempt signalers, and therefore their program has achieved its mission and
can halt. So, it does. <11-21-2020: On the other hand, based on my own experience with fasting, the practice may work by increasing the faster's energy level post-fast, and an increased energy level can solve a multitude of problems.>
Pilgrimage
is where you tell the anger-cycle program (with your feet) that you have been
driven out of your homeland forever and must resettle elsewhere. Therefore, the
program has achieved its mission and can halt. So, it does. This idea was
expressed as “giving something to the dispersal drive” in Post #35.
Thus,
the task of much religious behavior-modification can be likened to persuading a
devil to depart by showing him false evidence that he has accomplished his
purpose in coming, knowing that he is myopic. However, prayer tells him that he
doesn’t even have to come in the first place.
