Is God a silverback? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, July 04, 2016, 15:01 (2846 days ago)

A fascinating essay by David Barash in which he compares the development of monotheistic religion to a harm keeping alpha male silverback:-https://aeon.co/essays/how-monotheists-modelled-god-on-a-harem-keeping-alpha-male?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5ab9734f19-Daily_Newsletter_4_July_20167_4_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-5ab9734f19-68942561-"Evidence for human polygyny is not confined to physiological differences. Prior to the cultural homogenisation that came with Western colonialism and missionary coercion, more than 80 per cent of traditional human societies were preferentially polygynous. Moreover, genomic data tell the same story: there is considerably more variation when it comes to mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from mothers, than in Y chromosome DNA, bestowed upon subsequent generations exclusively by fathers. In other words, over the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, a relatively small number of men produced children with a relatively large number of women. As a species, we have had a greater variety of mothers than of fathers.-***-"Each of the three major monotheistic traditions focuses on a male figure, one who strongly resembles an alpha male at the head of a social group. Sophisticated theologians typically emphasise that their deity lacks a physical body, somehow transcending physicality. More rarely, God might be conceived as non-gendered. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that the great majority of believers imagine a personal god who can be spoken to, who answers prayers, who has strong opinions and often discernible emotions, too: sad, angry, pleased, displeased, vengeful, jealous, forgiving, loving, and so forth.-"Not everyone buys into a sky-god with a long white beard, a serious and all-knowing mien, capable of rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad. But it doesn't take much imagination to recognise that God, as worshipped in most of the world, is remarkably humanoid, widely perceived as a great, big, scary, wilful, yet nourishing and protective guy… in short, a silverback gorilla writ large.-***-"Scary': it is dangerous to challenge the status of the alpha harem-master. After all, he got there by being not only omnipotent and omniscient, but also omni-destroying - or at least, highly threatening - when crossed. For the monotheist, fear of God is more than a prerequisite for belief in Him: the two are nearly identical.-"‘Wilful': God generally has very strong opinions, not least that He must be obeyed. A truly omnipotent being presumably could orchestrate things as He chooses, but instead - like an alpha male harem-master who is currently in charge but who has to constantly guard against intruders (against takeovers by other wannabe alphas - or in religious terms, competing gods) - he is jealous, vengeful of those who disobey, vigorously prohibiting any backsliding or counter-revolutionary support for competitors.-***-"There is much in the evolutionary psychology of Homo sapiens that renders our species susceptible to God as portrayed in the Abrahamic religions, that is, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We are deeply sensitive to dominance hierarchies and especially to the need to respect the silverback male and His prerogatives. We are subject to sexual impulses that in our evolutionary past contributed to the success of our ancestors, but that also risked serious trouble if they were not deployed cautiously. Hence, we are endowed with urges that are powerful but that we also intuitively recognise as potentially dangerous to ourselves, especially if they evoke jealous anger from the powerful male. -***-"The big three Abrahamic religions most especially maintain that God strongly disapproves of various sexual practices, not just adultery. The Abrahamic God is likely to be incensed by pretty much any kind of sexual pleasure, including homosexuality, masturbation, oral or anal sex, revealing clothing, even libidinous thoughts. Sexual restraint is a terrific way to avert jealous anger on the part of any dominant harem-keeper."-Comment: It is worth reading all of this lurid approach to the 'invention of God'. It is quite opposite to Karen Armstrong's 'A History of God". As a former nun she is a believer, but as she was frightened by the implied threats in Catholicism, her view of God is much softer and observes that the best way to view God is through His works, with the Quran viewed as the most mature. I follow her and start with viewing God as the mind that planned everything. Nothing more.