Sigmund Freud wrote these words in his treatise on religion, “The Future of an Illusion”. While most of Freud’s theories on psychology have been pretty much thoroughly debunked, his ideas on where religion comes from (the mind), and how it developed in early man and early civilization, is what got me interested in understanding the genesis of religious thought in human beings.

I was in the bathroom when I read that passage, and its similarity to one branch of Pascal Boyer’s theory of religion—agency hyper detection—absolutely floored me. It made me think two things: the first, I’m not a very meticulous reader. I read “The Future of an Illusion” two years ago, yet somehow I completely overlooked this passage, and the second, Freud’s evidence to support the idea of humans looking for human agency in the non-human natural world was extremely shoddy, but the idea was nonetheless there. It would be another century before Pascal Boyer came along and reexamined Freud’s hypothesis with some much more solid evidence coming from twentieth and twenty-first century cognitive science.

The idea that human beings have a tendency to anthropomorphize non-human things has been around since well before the ancient Greeks, whose language we use to derive the concept of humanizing non-human objects. But the question lingered: Why do humans do this? Boyer claims that the cognitive mechanisms that create this behavior are an evolutionary trait humans acquired over time which boils right down to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest”.

Human beings in the wild, untamed, natural world were no doubt prey to a lot of critters out there. (Remember in the film 2001 when one of the monkey-humans gets attacked and eaten by a big cat? Yeah, like that.) So, a cognitive mechanism which Boyer calls agency hyper detection emerged in early humans which gave us the power to imagine that the rustling of leaves in the bushes was not simply happenstance, but instead caused by another living, breathing, thinking critter. And as evolutionary theory goes, the humans who thrived are the ones who got the hell out of the big cat’s way after hearing the rustle of leaves in the bushes.

Agency hyper detection is the modern interpretation of Freud’s idea that primitive man projects his existence outward. It’s not because of some ludicrous idea infantile sexuality or Oedipal complex. No. It’s based on something way more solid than that: The idea that cognitive functions in the brain are a product of evolution, and have a direct influence on human social behavior.

Anyway, yeah. That’s what I was thinking about in the bathroom this morning.

He needs to lay off the coffee.

Happy Draw Muhammad Day!

Jesus told me to hate you.

Religious fundamentalists make me angry. It’s not enough that the religion of Christianity dominates in Western society, but here in the United States, many Christians insist on playing the victim card. Their argument goes something like this:

If hate crime legislation passes, then we could be arrested for expressing our religious beliefs.

What they neglect to add is just what those expressions of religious belief are:

• Christian pharmacists refusing to do their jobs of filling prescriptions in the event the drug they are dispensing conflicts with their religious belief.
• Christian school board members who insist that creationism intelligent design be taught in schools as a legitimate science. (It’s not.)
• Christian politicians who insist that Congress swap out the Bill of Rights with the Ten Commandments.
• Muslim radicals who believe alcohol drinkers should be flogged and gays and lesbians be stoned to death.
• Fundamentalists who raise their children to believe that bullying another child is permissible if they believe that child is gay.

Their bullshit sob stories get played out over and over again, and these religious assholes continue to play the martyr every time a law is passed that gives equal rights or a ruling is made that challenges hate speech. They cry foul and hold up their holy books yelling out, “this is the law we should believe in!”

The people that piss me off are such a tiny minority, and yet they receive so much publicity that you’d think they were the only Christians that existed in America. It’s up to the rest of us to call these assholes on their bullshit.

ellejohara

God apparently told Congress to hate Hindus.

For the first time in the U.S. Senate, there was a Hindu opening prayer. As cool as that is to invite some diversity to the Senate, I have mixed feelings about the event. Namely: if the United States is supposedly about separating church and state, then why is there praying of any kind going on in the Senate? (But that’s just my beef as a supporter of the separation of church and state.)

There was genuine coolness going on however, when Harry Reid invited Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest, to lead an opening invocation on the floor of the Senate. It’s a great thing when the Senate Majority Leader chooses to bring in a healthy dose of reality to the crusty white male realm that is Congress.

Unfortunately, a darker shade of reality also reared its ugly head when three so-called Christians shouted in protest from the viewing gallery of the Senate. Our hero of the hour, Rajan Zed, was understandably rattled by the disruption, but he very quickly got his composure and finished his prayer.

(He looked pretty damn nervous though! He was probably thinking, “Fuck me! I’m leading a prayer on the floor of the Senate!”)

But let it be known to all the Christian yabbos out there that the United States is still a nation of religious freedom, and you’ll not soil that freedom by installing Jesus as President. Not as long as folks like me are around.

As in separation of, you useless halfwits!

This is a comic I put together for the Blogswarm Against Theocracy. One of the biggest things in politics that makes my hackles sit up and turn red is the disregard (typically by Republicans) for the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

It seems pretty simple and straightforward, a separation of Church and State. But the yabbos in Jesusland wand to “reinterpret” the First Amendment in order to make it fit their agenda: Making the United States into a Christian Nation.

Fancy an Apple?

Eris is the ancient Greek Goddess of discord. Sometimes She’s called Kali and has six arms. Other times, She’s only got two arms and is worshipped by Discordians everywhere. She’s also the crafter of the legendary Apple of Discord which led to a fracas at the wedding between Peleus and Thetis and ultimately led to the Trojan War.

Now there are some in the Discordian community that would have you know that Eris and Kali are not the same goddess. Well, they’re right. But I’m right too. That’s one of the great things about Discordianism. If you consult your pineal gland and Eris tells you Her name is ‘Ray’, then it’s Ray. Nobody tells a goddess how to behave, or what to be called.

I like her because of my fondness for ancient history and ancient religion, and my interest in modern Chaos Theory as well. (I’m sure She had a hand or three in that.)

Eris graces my web portfolio in honor of all the hectic chaos that has gone on this summer, preventing me from doing things such as updating my website.