Suddenly, you hear a rustling in the grass directly in front of you, but you can't see anything because the grass is so tall.
Freeze time!
Ok, let's think this thing through while time is frozen. Realistically, you have two options:
- It's just the wind (or some other completely harmless thing).
- It's some terrible creature who plans on turning you into its lunch (let's say, a tiger, for example).
Ok now, we've established that it's either the wind, or a tiger. You can't gather any more information, because it might be a tiger. If you try to gather more information, you might get eaten. So you have to make a snap decision, with only the information available to you. Which one should you assume that it is? Let's run through the possibilities:
- You correctly assume that it's a tiger: You have a chance to back away slowly, hopefully avoid being attacked by a tiger, and survive.
- You correctly assume that it's the wind: You keep going on your walk, have a lovely time, and survive.
- You mistakenly assume that it's a tiger: You slowly back away, because you think that a tiger is there. If you somehow become aware that it really is just the wind, you might be a bit embarrassed, but either way, you're alive.
- You mistakenly assume that it's the wind: You keep going on your walk, and have a lovely time right up until the moment where the tiger turns you into its lunch.
Let's review. Either way, if you assume that it's a tiger, you have a pretty decent shot of survival. Meanwhile, if you assume that it's not a tiger, you have a pretty decent shot of being turned into lunch.
Ready? Unfreeze Time!
You have a split second to make your choice! What are you going to do?
If you're still reading this, the odds are pretty good that you backed away, very slowly. If you didn't back away, and decided to assume that it was the wind… well… I'm sure that the computer that you were reading this blog on will make a fascinating discovery for some future archeologist, because you probably just became lunch.
Let's come back to the present day. You are the descendant of those people who chose option #3. You are the descendant of people who instinctively made Type 1 errors (false positives) and mistakenly assumed that a tiger was there, because the people who instinctively made Type 2 errors (false negatives) and mistakenly assumed that there was no tiger, got eaten. As such, people in general are Type 1 thinkers. We instinctively make Type 1 errors because that is what enabled our ancestors to survive. In short, we instinctively make Type 1 errors because predators don't give you time to gather more information!
This is partially why many criminal justice systems have enacted a policy of "innocent until proven guilty". Because people are Type 1 thinkers, and therefore are prone to Type 1 errors (false convictions), we set up the criminal justice to favor Type 2 errors (false acquittals) to counter, and hopefully cancel out, our innate biases.
Now, let's look at one more difference between the tiger, and the wind. Let's assume that it really was just the wind. Does it matter if you run away, keep going, spin in circles, or dance the Macarena? No. Why not? Because it's just the wind, it's going to blow regardless. It doesn't have any plan or design for you. Now let's assume that it really was a tiger. Now does it matter if you run away, keep going, spin in circles, or dance the Macarena? Absolutely! Why? Because a tiger has agency. A tiger has the ability to act in certain ways, to bring about certain effects, and can do so consciously! How you act around a tiger can have a huge influence on the outcome of a situation, whereas the wind is going to blow the same way, no matter how you act towards it. We are also the descendants of people who instinctively assumed that things had agency. This should be evident if you've ever known anyone who yells at a toaster. (In the interest of full disclosure, I personally have been known to yell at toasters, microwaves, wood boards, plates, rope, and gravity. I'm fully aware that none of those things can hear me, but that doesn't stop me from yelling at them from time to time.) Yelling at things despite the fact that they are inanimate objects is an example of "agentive" thinking.
By now, I'm sure some of you are saying "Well this is all well and good, but what does any of this have to do with the invention of deities?" Well, I'm glad you asked! I'm just about to get to that, but first lets go back in time again, but not quite as far. (Don't worry, I promise it's relevant.)
Imagine that you live in a small village in Africa. Let's say that you live in a village where homes are primarily made of grass or straw, maybe some animal hides, with the fallen limbs of trees providing a frame for your home. The year is 100,000 BCE. You're on the outskirts of your village enjoying the evening breeze when it starts to rain. Of course, this is nothing new to you, it has rained plenty of times before. You don't really mind the rain, so you decide to just stand there and enjoy getting cleaned off. All of a sudden, it really starts coming down hard, and you decide to run for your hut. At that exact moment, a bolt of lightning comes down, strikes your hut, and you watch as your hut burns to the ground (unfortunately for you, fire extinguishers don't exist yet).
Here again we find ourselves in a familiar predicament. The cloud where the lightning came from is far above your head. You can't gain any additional information about how lightning works. You simply don't have the technology. So once again you are faced with two possible options:
- Lightning is a natural occurrence, and you're simply the victim of misfortune. You should therefore rebuild, and hope that lightning will strike somewhere else next time. Or...
- There might be a conscious being up there. A deity, if you will, who is angry at you, or perhaps simply toys with human lives for its own pleasure. If all you do is rebuild, it might take that as an act of defiance and do something worse. Maybe you should do something to try to appease this being, and avert its wrath.
Bearing in mind that we are Type 1 thinkers, what do you suppose you're going to decide? If you assume that it's a deity and you do something to appease this deity, it doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong, you probably won't have your house burned down again. Similarly, if lightning is just natural, you probably won't have your house burned down again. But… if you assume that lighting is just natural, and it really was a deity's displeasure… That deity might get angrier and punish you again. For a Type 1 thinker, with a tendency towards assuming that other things have agency, the choice seems pretty obvious. You assume that there's a deity, just to be on the safe side.
If you're noticing that this is eerily similar to Pascal's Wager, you're absolutely right! While Pascal didn't live until the 1600s CE, the type of thinking that led to the formulation of his wager, is exactly the same type of thinking that gave birth to the gods in the first place!
Of course, when the gods were first imagined in the minds of people, they were not the loving, benevolent, celestial father-figures that many of us grew up being told about. These were the gods described by Gloucester in Shakespeare's "King Lear":
"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, they kill us for their sport." ~ King Lear Act 4, scene 1, 32–37
The first deities were horrible creatures. Spiteful, vindictive, blood-thirsty beings who slaughtered human being with about as much remorse as a young boy feels when he pulls the wings off of a fly. These beings were not worshipped out of love and adoration, but were given sacrifices and praise in the hopes that the gods would take more pleasure from groveling and sacrifice, than from smiting.
As time marched on, and people became used to the idea of the gods being there, people began not only asking for the gods to avert their wrath, but also making contracts with the gods. People began offering praise and veneration in exchange for victory over their enemies. This practice continues even today as religious people pray for strength (physical and/or emotional), wisdom, good fortune, victory in battle, etc.
As time marched on, and civilizations became more advanced, gained knowledge of metal-working, and began experimenting with medicine to treat illness, the fear of the gods steadily declined. By the first century CE the Greco-Roman cultures had essentially turned their gods into humorous caricatures. Think about it, virtually every problem in the Greco-Roman mythology arose because Zeus/Jupiter was utterly unable to control his own libido, and the rest are caused by a human who is better than the gods in some respect or other. Meanwhile, Ares/Mars is a war god who is also routinely depicted as a coward. No longer are the gods typically angry at humans (although this does still sometimes happen); suddenly the gods are routinely at each others throats. While the gods are still taken seriously in some respects, a society that prided itself on logic and reason essentially reduced them to caricatures that were only fearsome on certain occasions.
As time has progressed even further, towards the present day, our understanding of (and ability to predict) natural disasters has increased to such an extent that we typically only refer to them as "acts of god" in a metaphorical sense. As our fear of the gods has decreased, we've found ourselves in need of an new reason to keep them around. As such, as our fear of the gods has withered, our ideas of the gods god as benevolent and loving father-figures has arisen to keep them relevant. This can most easily be seen in the transition from the brutal god of war that is written of in the old testament, to the "meek and mild" god of the new testament. Among Christians, very few actually believe that Yhwh would ever punish anyone. Maybe he'll help the police track down a serial killer, but that's about the most that most Christians think that Yhwh will do. In fact, a growing number of Christians have done away with the idea that Yhwh condemns people to hell; choosing instead to believe that hell is some kind of default setting and Yhwh is desperately trying to save people from that ghastly fate! Our ancient ancestors would find this - among other things - incredibly confusing.
As a final step in our development, we've begun to learn that people can love one another, and do good to each other, without a deity commanding them to do so. When the world understands this, the gods will finally die and return to the recesses of human imagination from which they came.
And so we've come to the end of our journey together. We've watched the gods be born, and in so doing we have discovered their "ambrosia". Ignorance is the ambrosia of the gods. The gods were born of ignorance. This is not to shame ancient people; they were ignorant, yes, but they could not have been reasonably expected to know any better and took what they perceived to be the safest course of action. However, in this day and age, ignorance has largely become a choice. We now know that natural disasters are just that, natural. In fact, many types of natural disaster can be accurately predicted. We now know that they are not the expression of a deity's displeasure. No, in this day and age willful ignorance continues to be the ambrosia of the gods, and has kept the gods on life support for much of the past century. It is now time to let go of the gods, and allow them to return to the ignorance from which they came. Let go of the gods. You have nothing to lose but your ignorance.
As time marched on, and people became used to the idea of the gods being there, people began not only asking for the gods to avert their wrath, but also making contracts with the gods. People began offering praise and veneration in exchange for victory over their enemies. This practice continues even today as religious people pray for strength (physical and/or emotional), wisdom, good fortune, victory in battle, etc.
As time marched on, and civilizations became more advanced, gained knowledge of metal-working, and began experimenting with medicine to treat illness, the fear of the gods steadily declined. By the first century CE the Greco-Roman cultures had essentially turned their gods into humorous caricatures. Think about it, virtually every problem in the Greco-Roman mythology arose because Zeus/Jupiter was utterly unable to control his own libido, and the rest are caused by a human who is better than the gods in some respect or other. Meanwhile, Ares/Mars is a war god who is also routinely depicted as a coward. No longer are the gods typically angry at humans (although this does still sometimes happen); suddenly the gods are routinely at each others throats. While the gods are still taken seriously in some respects, a society that prided itself on logic and reason essentially reduced them to caricatures that were only fearsome on certain occasions.
As time has progressed even further, towards the present day, our understanding of (and ability to predict) natural disasters has increased to such an extent that we typically only refer to them as "acts of god" in a metaphorical sense. As our fear of the gods has decreased, we've found ourselves in need of an new reason to keep them around. As such, as our fear of the gods has withered, our ideas of the gods god as benevolent and loving father-figures has arisen to keep them relevant. This can most easily be seen in the transition from the brutal god of war that is written of in the old testament, to the "meek and mild" god of the new testament. Among Christians, very few actually believe that Yhwh would ever punish anyone. Maybe he'll help the police track down a serial killer, but that's about the most that most Christians think that Yhwh will do. In fact, a growing number of Christians have done away with the idea that Yhwh condemns people to hell; choosing instead to believe that hell is some kind of default setting and Yhwh is desperately trying to save people from that ghastly fate! Our ancient ancestors would find this - among other things - incredibly confusing.
As a final step in our development, we've begun to learn that people can love one another, and do good to each other, without a deity commanding them to do so. When the world understands this, the gods will finally die and return to the recesses of human imagination from which they came.
And so we've come to the end of our journey together. We've watched the gods be born, and in so doing we have discovered their "ambrosia". Ignorance is the ambrosia of the gods. The gods were born of ignorance. This is not to shame ancient people; they were ignorant, yes, but they could not have been reasonably expected to know any better and took what they perceived to be the safest course of action. However, in this day and age, ignorance has largely become a choice. We now know that natural disasters are just that, natural. In fact, many types of natural disaster can be accurately predicted. We now know that they are not the expression of a deity's displeasure. No, in this day and age willful ignorance continues to be the ambrosia of the gods, and has kept the gods on life support for much of the past century. It is now time to let go of the gods, and allow them to return to the ignorance from which they came. Let go of the gods. You have nothing to lose but your ignorance.
This has been your Sunday Sermon, go without the gods.
[End note: Please note that the years that I've mentioned, as well as the specific details of given events, are my speculation. In no way am I implying that religion was absolutely invented in the year 100,000 BCE, when a primitive man's grass house was struck by lightning. The years and specific details are provided solely for the purpose of creating an interesting narrative. That said, I think that the overarching psychological themes (i.e Type 1 thinking, and assumptions of agency) almost definitely played a huge role in the invention of deities. So while this probably is not a perfectly accurate historical account, I think that - taken with a grain of salt - it very plausibly illustrates how deities were first created.]
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