If God fills the the whole Land with his honor (Isaiah 6:3), then does that mean seeing God is being amazed at the world around us? See this New Scientist article on how religion serves our physical needs.
ג וְקָרָ֨א זֶ֤ה אֶל־זֶה֙ וְאָמַ֔ר קָד֧וֹשׁ ׀ קָד֛וֹשׁ קָד֖וֹשׁ יְהוָ֣ה
צְבָא֑וֹת מְלֹ֥א כָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ׃
Full text of one of the New Scientist Belief Special Robin Dunbar articles at this blog (comment):
RELIGIOUS belief is a conundrum. In our everyday lives, most of us make at least some effort to check the truth of claims for ourselves. Yet when it comes to religion, studies show that we are most persuaded by stories that contradict the known laws of physics.
We like our miracles, and those who perform them, to have just the right mix of otherworldliness and everyday characteristics.
On the face of it, religious behaviour seems to be at odds with everything we biologists hold dear. The reductionist view sees us as merely vehicles for our selfish genes – yet religions embrace charity to strangers, submission to the will of the community, and even martyrdom. No self-respecting baboon or chimpanzee would ever willingly kowtow to the good, the bad or the ugly in quite the same way humans do.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block for evolutionary biologists has been recognising that religion might have a functional advantage
But in recent years, evolutionary biologists including myself have come to realise that there are some important aspects of religion that do seem to have benefits.
Evolutionary biologists have identified at least four ways in which religion might be of benefit in terms of evolutionary fitness. The first is to give sufficient explanatory structure to the universe to allow us to control it, perhaps through the intercession of a spirit world. The second is to make us feel better about life, or at least resigned to its worst vagaries – Marx’s “opium of the masses”. A third is that religions provide and enforce some kind of moral code, so keeping social order. Finally, religious belief might bring a sense of communality, of group membership.
The second hypothesis, Marx’s opium, seems more promising. In fact, it turns out that religion really does make you feel better. Recent sociological studies have shown that compared with non-religious people, the actively religious are happier, live longer, suffer fewer physical and mental illnesses, and recover faster from medical interventions such as surgery.
Religions bond societies because they exploit a whole suite of rituals that are extremely good at triggering the release of endorphins, natural opioids in the brain.
This may be why religious rituals so often involve activities that are physically stressful – singing, dancing, repetitive swaying or bobbing movements, awkward postures like kneeling or the lotus position, counting beads, and occasionally even seriously painful activities like self-flagellation.
The endorphin-based group-bonding effects of the rituals only work if everyone does them together. Which is where the theology comes in – it provides the stick and the carrot that make us all turn up regularly. But to create a theology our ancestors needed to evolve cognitive abilities that far exceed those found in any other animal species (see “The origins of religion”). It is these psychological mechanisms that have been exploited down the ages by political elites in various attempts to subjugate the rest of the community. Marx, it seems, was right after all.
But add a fifth level [of intentionality] (I want you to know that we both believe that god wants us to act righteously) and now, if you accept the validity of my claim, you also implicitly accept that you believe it too. Now we have what I call communal religion: together, we can invoke a spiritual force that obliges, perhaps even forces, us to behave in a certain way.
The majority of human activities can probably be dealt with using second or third-order intentionality. The two extra layers beyond this undoubtedly come at some considerable neural expense. Since evolution is frugal, there must be some good reason why we have them. The only plausible answer, so far as I can see, is religion. And that’s where this line of reasoning can throw light on the origins of religious belief.
So, it seems religion serves a useful purpose, whether God exists or not. I truly believe that religion is about wonder, Heschel’s “radical amazement”. A good religion successfully submilates that wonder into communal social service, doing mitzvot (good deeds/commandments), and treating others as you’d like to be treated (Hillel, Shabbat 31a).
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