Most scientists and science activists have agreed that god is nonsense, delusional and cannot be accommodated in the theory of evolution. This opinion can be understood methodologically and I agree with the sentences. But so many behaviors are very real and occur in the field.
I am a fieldman who goes to the wild every day, along rice fields and forests to watch insects to plants, talk to people especially in villages, visit Hindu-Buddhist temples built in the 8th century, witnessing busyness in mosques, temples and churches.
I feel something is missing in the view of naturalists and Darwinians. There are short moments that are missed in analyzes in the timeline of human evolution. These little moments are small chronicles, but in my opinion have a very important role in the journey of this species, even the dominance of Homo sapiens in the past.
I will not discuss the existence of god because we are here talking about the origin of god. We have seen and found so many godly behaviors in the field. Perhaps these behaviors are tasks performed by anthropologists where godly behavior is a mythology and product of culture.
Before going further, I need to say that we have all agreed that Hominidae does not come suddenly. The small family that is occupied by Ponginae and Homininae has undergone a long process to have the appearance and behavior of today.
The adequacy of archaeological data has made it difficult for us to know the mythological behavior that spreads across species, but I see that observations by Christophe Boesch et al (2016) in the Pan troglodytes community are one good example of how behavior rather than foraging has become a culture.
The evolution is endless and even now the appearance and behavior of H. sapiens species is not final and will never be final, but at each point has phases including paleo, hunting and gathering, agriculture and industry. Humans create a series of cultures at each stage of the journey.
Let me express my opinion here that the accompanying culture, tradition and mythology is a survival tools or way to solve life's problems. Culture is a problem solving and these are forms of survival coping. Like bees, ants and even other solitary species where culture is inherited through genetics.
A method will develop when it is deemed to be able to solve the problem, but the method will be left when it can no longer solve the problem. Primates will continue to look for new ways, create new cultures and so on. New cultures develop and old cultures will be abandoned.
Humans create gods and mythologies are efforts to reduce pressures to answer about death. These existential anxieties require immediate completion and mythology to become a healing that evolves into concrete rituals. In the name of god, someone built social class and a society hoarded politics and weaponry too!
I would like to say that godly behaviors and mythological rituals have been lost for so long in the analysis of naturalists and the subject of evolution. It is indeed a difficult discussion to find links between morphology, anatomy and genetics with culture. But it is very clear that culture is a natural product too.
It is no exaggeration to think that mythological behavior has primordial roots in the course of human evolution. Belief and delusional behavior are forms of human instinct in response to an external and internal threat where mythology will also cause new forms of anxiety paradogically.
It is not clear to me whether a species must pass through this cultural phase of mythology as well as H. sapiens and P. troglodytes to become sophisticated species. But the most visible here is the proportion of skull volume or neurological complexity or environmental stress or competition and natural selection.
Allow me to say mythology is a response to survival of the fittest, a driver of group cohesiveness and the production of subsequent new cultures. This is very speculative, but I would say that mythology maybe also gave H. sapiens victory in destroying Neanderthals and other Hominini!
By Aryo Bandoro
Founder of Dlium.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @Abandoro.
Touche. Sound arguments. Keep up the good spirit.
ReplyDeleteHello, I enjoy reading all of your article post.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to write a little comment to support you.
Mas Aryo Bandoro allow me go say I very much appreciate your incursions - especially the fact that they are field experiences,always something new - talking to the villagers, being with and around various plants and insects. I have been an old fan of your YouTube science channel. The episodic nature of your encounters - has a mythological dimension as well, as if meeting and encountering different species there is no problem in calling them spirits, beings, entities or Earthling.
ReplyDeleteAs to the delusional character - even apart from from the Darwinian frame (which is definitely nor exclusively about survival of the fittest - but also the most extravagant, curious, underrated and most unusual) i want to bring an example from philosopher Alfred North Whitehead - Symbolism book 1927 regarding the dog that mistakes his image reflected in water. Yes this dog maybe mistaken, even delusional, but what he lost in truth, in mistaking his image for something reflective, delusional, he gained in imagination - he got fooled but found out that there's much more to be found out there.