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April 6, 2006
The Invention of God
More from Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov -- a snippet of a conversation:
"Damn it all, what wouldn't I do to the man who first invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for him."
"There would have been no civilization if they hadn't invented God."
A scientific response -- based on current understanding of evolutionary psychology, etc. -- might be that, yes, the habits of mind that enable agriculture and civilization also created gods.
Historical and political response: God certainly did play a role in building and bonding societies -- as glue, as moral enforcer -- but was it often a reactionary role -- supporting powers that were? Philosophical response: Hard to overlook the squashing of the spirit of inquiry for all those centuries in the West under a dogmatic, unquestioning faith. Cultural response: Religious themes sure made for some fine painting. Could other themes have stepped in if, somehow, God had not been invented?
Posted by Mitchell Stephens at April 6, 2006 9:43 AM
Comments
You write: "Hard to overlook the squashing of the spirit of inquiry for all those centuries in the West under a dogmatic, unquestioning faith."
Hard to overlook because of how incredibly it has been exaggerated. The catholic church came down hard on scientific innovation in the 17th century not so much out of the normal conservatism of political insittutions, let alone some innately squashing dogmatism, but as a public relations tool in the battle with the protestant sects. Mostly religion has furthered science if only in maintaining bloodlessness and rudimentary educational systems where otherwise there was darkness; and of course for a long time science and religion were the same.
(This heroic spirit-of-inquiry is a popular modern religious figure that needs to be retired.)
Posted by: mark shulgasser at April 10, 2006 1:24 PM
My comment is based more on earlier centuries -- and the loss of Greek and Roman openness to rational investigation and discourse. The theologian Origen in the third century, for example, calling for people (the masses, at least) "to believe without thinking out their reasons." See Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind."
Posted by: mitch at April 11, 2006 2:10 PM
