Where Does Religion Come From?AUG 17 2011
A conversation with Robert Bellah, author of a new book about faith's place in evolutionhttp://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/where-does-religion-come-from/243723/Religion's place in evolution is a provocative topic to begin with. But when one of the nation's top sociologists produces over 600 pages on the matter from retirement, people tend to take special notice. Yes, that is famed social theorist Jürgen Habermas you see providing a back-cover blurb.
Robert Bellah, the author of this new book,
Religion in Human Evolution, spent his career at Harvard and Berkeley as a sociologist of religion, displacing plenty of rhetorical water in the late sixties with his essay "Civil Religion in America." There, he identified a number of American symbols and principles, "biblical archetypes" and ethical values, cohering into something of a national creed. This time, the scholar's microscope is trained not on the nation's political rhetoric, but on
the very heart of human religious experience.
Starting with the Big Bang, and reviewing tribal religion, "archaic" religion, and finally the crucial "
Axial Age" of classical Greece, ancient Israel, Vedic India, and Confucian China, Bellah—
a religious man himself, but by no means beholden to modern belief's sacred cows—advances a whole host of dinner-discussion-worthy arguments. To name a few:
Religion may emerge out of the mammalian "play" instinct, "
sheltered ... from selectionist pressures";
ritual has functioned as crucial social glue, enabling the expanded social groups integral to humanity's rise;
God, on the other hand,
is far from necessary, where human religion is concerned. ...
"This great book is the intellectual harvest of the rich academic life of a leading social theorist who has assimilated a vast range of biological, anthropological, and historical literature in the pursuit of a breathtaking project. Robert Bellah first searches for the roots of ritual and myth in the natural evolution of our species and then follows with the social evolution of religion up to the Axial Age. In the second part of his book, he succeeds in a unique comparison of the origins of the handful of surviving world-religions, including Greek philosophy. In this field I do not know of an equally ambitious and comprehensive study."—Jürgen Habermas
Alex's comment:
後宗教時代來臨
當宗教，作為人的至崇高情懷，也可以被進化解釋，科學業已解釋一切，人的一切經驗。宗教已被科學摧毀，還原至另一個心理、社會、文化現象，只是動物物種「智人」（
Homo sapiens）的眾多心理、社會、文化現象之一。宗教內容被取消。所以宗教與科學是敵對的。當我們說宗教是智人的現象，有趣的問題來了。智人以下的靈長目（primates）物種又如何，有沒有「宗教」現象？例如，猩猩互相捉虱是否一種「禮儀」（ritual）？
一個更重要的問題出現。我們須要為「後宗教時代」的來臨作好準備。當宗教被科學，尤其社會學，解釋（掉），宗教的神話內容便告失效，因為人不再相信。宗教有一個重要的社會功能，就是鼓勵人在無監管情況下之道德，以利社會運作。香港幾年前曾出現「短樁」事件，承建商偷工減料，導致建好的幾十層高公屋大樓必須拆卸。此事件一方面顯示監管之漏洞，另一方面，如果承建商有關負責人員有監管以外的道德制約，或可防止類似事件發生。即是在無監管之下，也選擇做好。宗教便可提供此類制約。西方猶太基督伊斯蘭一神宗教有一至高審判者充當此制約角色，一些東方宗教也有「業報」概念發揮類似制約功能。這些宗教聰明之處，在於利用人的自私本性，你做好，有好報（或得神喜悅及賞賜），你做惡，有惡報，於是，基於利益，自私的人也乖乖做好。後宗教時代的問題在於，這些宗教制約機制失效；如果人不再信「神」或「業報」，可以用甚麼誘使自私的人做好？人文主義的「普世人權宣言」固然已成為普世倫理標準。但是，毫無誘因，便需要強大的個人意志，亦即一個有非常高尚品德的人，才能戰勝貪錢、權、性的自私本能，遵守這個普世倫理標準。問題是大多數的人都未必有足夠高超的品德或自制能力，如何叫他們做好？不過，又不必太悲觀。雖然無神論的中國的道德水平令人懷疑（例如「毒奶粉」事件），西歐一些後基督無神論國家和東方的後佛教國家日本的道德意識，又不見得比宗教國家更差。似乎需要從這些國家歸納出一些普遍適用的道德制約機制，廣泛應用，以塑造一個和平的後宗教道德世界。
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