HOW GOD WORKS
HOW GOD WORKS, the science behind the benefits of religion, David DeSteno, Professor of Psychology. Published 2021 by Simon & Schuster.
It has a comprehensive Index and listing of Contents
Page 17 – “With belief – that God will intervene, that ritual will heal, that a choice never to lie or cheat ensures the best outcomes – comes certainty. And with certainty comes a kind of inner peace.”
Page 185 – “The trick to a life well lived, then, becomes finding the right balance between focusing on our own needs and those of others.”
Page 186 – “The question for us going forward, then, centres on how to satisfy the yearning for spiritual tools that have traditionally enriched our lives.”
The book focusses on the value of rituals at various stages of life. It supports my developing theory of how unmet human needs lead to suffering and can block flourishing.
Chapter 2 is good on the relationship of morality to religion and supports my suggestion that its main success was the teaching of morality as human group sizes increased above a tribal level where everyone knew everyone else and how moral they were. Basically, morality is about behaviour and what is the right thing to do with regard to others and what is wrong. They had to do the “right thing” by other members of the tribe to survive. If they did wrong they could be ostracized and maybe worse. This would naturally lead to an inbred trait to automatically do the “right thing” by the evolutionary process of survival favouring those who were more moral.
Most of us humans automatically know what is right and what is wrong in most cases. Problems arise when it is not obvious, and we have to decide between the lesser of two “evils” or the best of two “goods”. The distinctive feature of modern humans is our complex language. I believe previously modern humans had an inbuilt morality trait, as did their predecessors, developed by evolution. I suggest that complex language added to the human capacity for cooperation and friendliness. We began to develop concepts like right and wrong, good, and evil, along with spirits, gods and many other concepts that helped develop popular religious themes. These, in turn, became popular stories, then dogmas and the written word proscribing the required behaviours of the more populous nation states.
Religions united populations. Everyone in the State knew how they were supposed to behave and what they could get away with. Then came the laws of the land so the State could deal with those who flouted the rules. Wars were fought between States when one tried to dominate another. Colonization took place when a dominant culture overtook a more primitive culture. Killing other people became accepted morally when the State was supported by the current religion. It has only been recent that some of humanity has become aware of these grossly immoral activities.
Many highly moral people are becoming leaders of public opinion and the communications revolution is showing just how immorality can operate globally. The general dissatisfaction with political processes and a global economic system that favours the rich is an indication the somethings need fixing.