You know you want to…

This is what I’ve been working on for the past month instead of art and comics:

• Graduating from the University of Oregon (B.A. in Religious Studies, duh.)
• Switching the Outdoor Program website over to Wordpress
• Looking for meaningful employment
• and… fucking around with CSS and Javascript so that I could bring you this:

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A [Enter]

It’s the Konami Code, for those of you who didn’t have their childhood in the 1980s. Try punching it in on the keyboard now. Go on… you know you want to!

el jo

P.S. This link will make it safe again if the newness is too much for you.

Grey Matter Origins of Religious Thought

Here is my final paper for my Theory of Religion class. It’s also the final paper of my academic career at the University of Oregon. (Come to me Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies!)

This seminar has introduced me to a number of different thinkers and theories of religion ranging from early 19th century writers Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazier, to contemporary scholars such as Clifford Geertz and J. Z. Smith. Since my primary interest in religion is religious thought rather than religious institutions, I’ve leaned toward more functionalist theories of religion as opposed to substantive theories. The functionalist approach often involves reducing religion to a core function in human society while substantive theories look at religion as a complex system deserving to be studied in all its myriad aspects. Among the theories we have studied in this seminar, functionalist theorists include Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud. For Marx, religion is little more than a tool of oppression. Durkheim viewed religion as a method in which society can worship itself. Religious thought, in Freud’s opinion, was akin to a mental delusion, and would eventually be supplanted by scientific rationalism. While Freud’s views of religion might be construed, especially among the religious, as critical or even disparaging, I found some of them useful as a jumping off point to further study how religious thought could be viewed as a product of the human mind. In this paper I want to look at the origins and development of religious thought in the context of psychology and cognitive science by reviewing Freud’s theory of religion, one of Freud’s academic influences William James and his psychological approach to religious thought, and contemporary scholar Pascal Boyer and his cognitive theory of religion. I hope that after reading these authors I might develop a better understanding of the mechanisms which drive human beings toward religious thought.

In his book The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud sums up the task of religion into three points: religion must temper human fears of the natural world, reconcile human fears of death and the unknown, and compensate individuals for enduring social limitations imposed by civilization (Freud 22). I want to focus on these points primarily as they relate to the psychology of religious thought rather than the sociology of religious institutions. Freud argues that “every individual is virtually an enemy to civilization” because human instinctual behavior is naturally destructive to society (Freud 6). It is the resentment felt toward civilization because of this repression, as well as the fear of nature, death, and the unknown, which creates psychological distress. This distress then drives human beings to escape emotionally by creating religious thought. Using his oedipal complex model, Freud proposes that the mind invents godlike father figures to create a sense of protection from natural fears just as a fearful child would look to his father for protection. Freud claims that this escape mechanism is thus the product of an infantile mind and he likens religious thought to the obsessional neurosis of children (Freud 55). Religion itself is little more than a sociological tool for placating resentment felt toward civilization. Religious thought on the other hand is a psychological tool for abating fear and neuroses created as a result of repression. Freud then suggests that it is simply education and intellectual development which will eventually allow human beings to slough off the shackles of religious thought and move toward an enlightened, secular society. Freud’s theory of religion clearly comes from the school of nineteenth century social evolution. Despite the shortcomings of Freud’s theory, it inspired me to delve deeper into a psychological origin of religious thought and turn to an earlier contemporary of Freud, psychologist William James.

William James was an American psychologist who lectured on the subject of religion in the early years of the twentieth century. His lectures were compiled in a collection titled The Varieties of Religious Experience. A cursory glance at James’ work reveals a superficial similarity with Freud regarding religion and neurosis. James seems to argue that a certain degree of neurosis is necessary for an individual to hold religious beliefs. Indeed, “[i]f there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity” to religious beliefs (James 20). Initially it seems as though James holds a similar opinion of religion as Freud. However, James comes at the study of religion from a different angle than Freud by making a distinction between the existential judgement of religion and the spiritual judgement of it. Existential judgements can include questions such as the origin of religious thought while spiritual judgements address the value of religion toward individuals or society. This distinction is similar to the difference between a functional theory versus a substantive theory of religion. James favors the spiritual approach, and this preference marks the key difference between his theory of religion and Freud’s theory. Although religious thinkers “have been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological,” James argues that these psychological states are necessary for the development of religion and religious thought. (James 7).

James’ definition of religion is “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (James 24). While Freud proposes that religion is a neurotic reaction to natural and sociological phenomena, James argues that religious thought is intimately personal and subjective from one person to another. Using some of his religiously-minded contemporaries such as George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, as examples, James argues that “when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce … in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries” (James 19). Only a select few individuals will possess the right combination of intelligence and neurosis which when combined create profound religious thought. These individuals then transmit their religious experiences to the masses, establishing the institutions of religion as we know them today. However, the complex interaction between intelligence and neurosis suggests that “there is no ground for assuming a simple abstract ‘religious emotion’ to exist as a distinct elementary mental affectation by itself, present in every religious experience without exception” (James 22). James proposes that religious thought does indeed have its origin in the mind, but he limits it to only a handful of individuals who possess the right balance of intelligence and neurosis. The remaining masses who do not possess this proper balance can only follow blindly under the guidance of these individuals. It seems illogical to me that only a tiny percentage of people according to James are capable of having religious thought. A contemporary author, Pascal Boyer, offers a theory that all human beings are capable of religious thought and not merely a scarce few.

Pascal Boyer is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and in his book Religion Explained, he proposes a theory that religious thought stems from a natural evolutionary process. While Freud and James both sought to explain religion as a psychological reaction to the world, Boyer offers a theory that religion is a byproduct of natural cognitive processes in the human mind. Boyer’s cognitive theory of religion is by no means easy to summarize succinctly, but I will do my best. According to Boyer, “the mind does not work like one general ‘let’s-review-the-facts-and-get-an-explanation’ device. Rather, it comprises lots of specialized explanatory devices, more properly called inference systems, each of which is adapted to particular kinds of events and automatically suggests explanations for these events” (Boyer 17). These inference systems run so deep in the human mind that people are not consciously aware of them. The mind also uses a system of discrete abstractions, called ontological categories, so that “seeing or otherwise perceiving an object activates a particular set of inference systems” (Boyer 99). Thus the mind uses ontological categories and inference systems to help explain all kinds of different phenomena, and religious thought is one type of inference system among many which humans use to explain things. Humans can also tag special exceptions to objects within these ontological categories that describe counterintuitive phenomena: that is to say, supernatural phenomena. Boyer provides several examples of counterintuitive tags, but the one that stuck with me was an example of an ebony tree which is just like a normal tree except that it can hear conversations spoken beneath it.

The human mind also has a strong tendency to anthropomorphize non-human things. “That is, we tend to interpret even very faint cues in terms of human traits; we see faces in the clouds and human bodies in trees and mountains” (Boyer 143). The human tendency to anthropomorphize things is a natural aspect of cognitive processes. However, an unintended byproduct of this process is that humans also tend to assume human agency in natural phenomena. Boyer refers to this as “agency hyperdetection.” Agency hyperdetection is the cognitive process that helps animals, and human beings, stay aware of their surroundings in the event a predator comes near. However, in cases of counterintuitive (supernatural) phenomena, agencies becomes the disembodied minds of gods and spirits. Despite the mind’s readiness to create gods, spirits, and supernatural phenomena, “[t]here is no religious instinct, no specific inclination in the mind, no particular disposition for these concepts, no special religion center in the brain, and religious persons are not different from nonreligious ones in essential cognitive functions” (Boyer 329). According to Boyer’s theory, religious thought is instead a byproduct of natural cognitive functions. Boyer presents an excellent line of reasoning as to how human beings create religious thought, but the question of why people have religious thought remains unanswered.

I must admit that I tend to favor functionalist theories of religion, though I do my best to avoid blatant reductionism. Freud’s theory is definitely functional reductionist, but despite that it did provide me with a profound starting point in my own personal quest to understand religious thought. By looking at Freud’s contemporary William James, I was able to see how one could use the same argument of religion as a neurosis and turn it into something positive. James’ idea that religious thought is a delicate balance between rational and irrational led him to suggest that there are a handful of individuals who can have religious thought without being considered ignorant, neurotic, or delusional. Both William James and Pascal Boyer suggest that there is no single part of the mind responsible for religious thought, but Boyer’s cognitive theory expanded James’ theory, thus giving religion to everyone. However, Boyer’s conclusion that religion is little more that a byproduct of evolutionary biology almost seems as reductionistic as Freud’s claim that religion is a product of the oedipal complex. Despite this, I’m still far more comfortable with Boyer’s theory of religion rather than Freud’s theory because Boyer has cognitive science, neurobiology, and evolutionary biology to support his claims. According to Boyer’s theory, all individuals have the capacity to hold religious thoughts, yet not everyone does. People hold on to religious thought only when there is a need to do so. Even if religious thought is little more than a cognitive hiccup, it still remains a powerful force in the world today. I think that as long as there are still unanswered questions about life in the world, there will always be a need for religious thought.

Works Cited

Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Tr. James Strachey. Standard Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1961.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Touchstone, 2004.

Bicycle Faire Poster ©

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TuacARRR-tini

I bought myself some Tuaca today because I was looking for something a little different. I threw this little ditty together since it’s so sunny and nice out today.

3 oz. light rum
1 1/2 oz. Tuaca
1/2 oz. orange liqueur
splash of lime juice

Mix ingredients in a shaker with ice and serve up in a chilled glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Yummy!
el jo

Freud and Geertz: Theories of Religion

[This is my midterm paper for my theory of religion class. Enjoy! ~el jo]

There are probably as many theories of religion as there are religions themselves. These theories can be categorized into various types, among which include functionalist, substantive, realist, anti-realist, individualist, and collectivist. Functionalist theories are often, though not always, reductionist in nature. These theories claim that religion in human society can be distilled down to a core function or purpose. Sigmund Freud’s theory of religion falls into this category. An alternative to the functionalist approach would be a substantive theory which seeks to understand religion on the basis of beliefs, customs, and rituals. Clifford Geertz’s approach to religion would fall into this category. Realist and anti-realist theories, the belief or non-belief in gods respectively, can play an important role in the study of religion. However it is possible, as I will demonstrate with Geertz’s work, that a belief or non-belief in gods is not necessarily required in analyzing religion as it pertains to the study of culture. Individualist theories look at religion as it relates to a single person while collectivist theories address groups or even whole societies. Freud’s theory is largely individualistic though he does offer his insight into group dynamics. Geertz, as a cultural anthropologist, looks at religion from a collectivist perspective, analyzing religion by how it affects a population. While there doesn’t seem to be a ‘correct’ way to study religion, there are some approaches that seem to work better than others. In this paper I will discuss the theories of religion proposed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, and show that a substantive theory of religion is perhaps more beneficial to the study of religion than a reductionist approach.

Smith Rock

Smith Rock in the Moonlight

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Comedy Night at the CDC

A PSA From Assholes For Jesus

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Lotus Martini

I found this recipe in my Pocket Cocktails app for iPod Touch. Try it. Eez deelish!

2 oz. gin
2 oz. lychee liqueur
1/2 oz. blue curacao
1/2 oz. grenadine

Stir ingredients over ice and serve up. Garnish with a sprig of mint or a maraschino cherry. If you mix it right, it makes a stunning rich purple.

elle jo

Chicken

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