Skip to main content

God is tools

OPINION - God and spirit are controversial discussions in science and even mythology will have no place among naturalists and for Darwinians. Apparently this has been final that mythology is a delusional, mystical and superstitious concept that cannot be empirically proven in the world of science.

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.

Dlium God is tools

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 X: @Abandoro.

More opinions:

Popular Posts

Sandbox tree (Hura crepitans)

Sandbox tree ( Hura crepitans ) is species in Euphorbiaceae, a tropical tree, growing up to 60 meters tall and with a trunk circumference of up to 13.2 meters, the trunk is covered with long and sharp thorns and exudes a poisonous sap. H. crepitans has large, oval leaves, 15 cm wide and 20 cm long. The petioles are 22 cm long. The flowers are red and lack petals. Male flowers grow on long stalks, while female flowers grow singly in leaf axils. The fruit is a large, flask-shaped capsule, up to 10 cm in diameter, with 12-16 radially arranged carpels. The seeds are flat and about 2 cm in diameter. The capsule bursts when ripe, dividing into segments and ejecting the seeds at a speed of 70 m/s, a distance of 30-100 meters. This tree prefers moist soil and partial shade or partial to full sun, a warm, humid environment. It is often cultivated for shade. The wood is light and used to make canoes. The sap is used to poison fish. Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphylum: Angiosperma...

Bitter melon (Momordica charantia)

Pare or bitter melon ( Momordica charantia ) is a plant species in Cucurbitaceae, grows climbing or spreads with spiral-shaped tendrils, many branches, long fruit and jagged surface, grows well in tropical regions and is usually cultivated for vegetables and medicinal ingredients. M. charantia has green stems with white hairs. Single leaf stemmed and arranged alternately, length 3.5-8.5 cm, width 4 cm, divided into 5-7 fins with many bones, heart-shaped base, green, wrinkled surface and jagged margins. A single flower has a stalk, male and female flowers in the tree, the crown has five fins and is yellow. The fruit is long oval shaped, has 8-10 linear ribs, irregular nodules, 6-30 cm long depending on subspecies and varieties, bitter taste, young green, ripe to orange and broken with three parts. Bitter melon has several subpsecies including Momordica charantia macroloba , Momordica charantia charantia and Momordica charantia abbreviata . Some varieties include Momordica charantia ...

Fivefingers (Syngonium angustatum)

Donglimo or fivefingers ( Syngonium angustatum ) is species in Araceae, epiphytes, grow to climb large trees up to 20 meters high, produce milky sap, dark green, internodes up to 50 cm long, petioles up to 35 cm long, green and live in areas tropical. S. angustatum has roots in the soil to absorb nutrients and air roots that grow in each segment to attach themselves to a support. Wild plants that live in forests often cause trees to be uprooted by heavy loads. The main stem produces a row of stems, up to 60 cm with the ends of a group of leaves with 3-7 separate leaflets, but connected by horizontal stems. The middle leaf has a length of up to 25 cm and a width of up to 12 cm. The flower has a veil, round in shape and a pointed tip, green and facing up with a stalk up to 15 cm long. The head of the pistil is tubular, stands 3-5 cm long and is white. The fruit is in a veil, rounded with a pointed tip and green when young to turn bright red when ripe and grow on the tip of the ...