Figure 1.-- |
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The relationship of psycology and religion is another interesting topic. Some authors believe that religion may be a natural psycological adaptation to managing individual and social anxiety. This may be rooted in our species'early development. Notably all primitive people developed similar beliefs--vrying forms of animism. Primitive man had no way of answeing the big questions or to explain the natural phenomenon encountered. Psychological theory posits that anxiety is part and parcel of the human condition and that we use various methods–called defense mechanisms–to keep it at bay. Most of the big existential questions of life, such as why we exist, why evil persists, why we die, etc., are essentially
unanswerable. (Science does make attempts at explanations, but what, for example, came before the “singularity” of the Big Bang?) A major defense mechanism against such anxiety is religion itself, which
purports to answer these questions. This is why nearly all religious belief systems posit some kind of afterlife, tell us we are here because a god wills it, and so forth.
Some authors believe that religion may be a natural psycological adaptation to managing individual and social anxiety. This may be rooted in our species'early development. Notably all primitive people developed similar beliefs--varying forms of animism. Primitive man had no way of answering the big questions or to explain the natural phenomenon encountered.
Psychological theory posits that anxiety is part and parcel of the human condition and that we use various methods–called defense mechanisms–to keep it at bay. Most of the big existential questions of life, such as why we exist, why evil persists, why we die, etc., are essentially
unanswerable. (Science does make attempts at explanations, but what, for example, came before the “singularity” of the Big Bang?) A major defense mechanism against such anxiety is religion itself, which
purports to answer these questions. This is why nearly all religious belief systems posit some kind of afterlife, tell us we are here because a god wills it, and so forth.
A major issue in human socienty has been the stuggle between faith and reason. The different religious faiths have dealt with this issue differently. Two religions, Islam and Christianity, confonted the issue at about the same time in part because science began to develop as aerious discipline (13th-14th centuries). The two religions reached very different conclusions. The other religions did not confront the issues a drectly, perhaps because science did not develop in their societies until much later. The issues culminated in the Christian West with the Enlightenment. Islamic society never experiences the Enlightenment. Islam gravitated over the
years to religion and faith whereas in the West the rise of reason diluted religious faith. But even in the West, maintaining reason against religion is not universal and fundamentalism is not absent, especiallky in the United States. One reader suggests, "The ferocity with which a belief is defended is often testimony to the fear of the individual that it may be invalid."
It takes courage to admit we don't really have the answers in this world. And with the Enligtenment tht ws just where the West was hgeaded. Atheistic thought developed fir the first time (19th century). This began the demise of the old cultural certainties. Karl Marx even aserted tht religion the 'opiate of the masses'. The interestibg thing here is that Marxist socialism developed along the lines of a secular religion. Marx presented aset of answers to replace traditional religion. Marx preached a kind of predestination. Social developmnt was controlled by economics rather than a dier=ty's guiding hand. And socialism even proposed a new moral code. Morality was essentially anything that promoted the progress toward socialism. Sociakism had many appeals and one was providing the psycological undepinnings and mkoral undepinings for aew stable social order.
Carl Jung, the Swiss German psychologist, argues for the existence of a “collective unconscious,”
which he believes is a kind of societal unconscious similar to the individual unconscious. A reader writes, "I think Jung would have observed that the pull of the collective unconscious is especially strong in Islamic societies. Why this often doesn’t hold for Christianity as well is something of a mystery." We think it probably did. Were the Crusades not in part a example of collective unconscious. Apparently the weaking of regious faith with the Enlightenment affected the ull of the collctive in the West.
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