On Religion, Part Four: Presumed Origin

The origin of religion, along with language, music, and art, as some of the products of human civilizations, are not so much understood. But, it is well-established that religion, even though it opposes evolution, in fact emerged from the evolution of human brain. This is why humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, like souls, and the possibility of life after death. To understand how religion developed, we can observe from individual sphere and social sphere.


Individual Origin


Supernatural concepts are heavily attached to humans' intuition. This intuitive and imaginative ability was first evolved circa 30.000-50.000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic, the final end of Stone Age. That time, arts (like petroglyphs, cave paintings), funerary*) artifacts, and more sophisticated and diverse rock tools begun to bloom. This intuition led to "agency detection," that is the tendency to "feel" or register the presence of agency even though there is only inconclusive evidence. "Agency detection" coupled with humans innate desire to find and seek meaning and other novel things led them into primordial supernatural concepts. When primitive humans, for instance, see lightning, which is outside their capability to explain (unlike now, we know how lightning can be formed.) and given its destructive power, loud sound of thunder, and majestic appearance of the lightning, it's easily to ascribe lightning as something that comes from God, or even that there is God of lightning.  If this intuitive capability is somehow diminished, then people will be less likely to believe in God or other supernatural concepts. There are at least three studies to support this:


1. The study that shows that people with autism are less likely to believe in God. It tells us that that religious belief relies on being able to intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to human beliefs, desires and concerns, a capacity known as "mentalizing." Autistic people, lacking the ability to imagine what other people are thinking, are having difficulty in conceiving the notion of a concerned God, and therefore less likely to believe in it.

2. The study that shows that people with analytical thinking are less likely to believe in God. Humans use two separate cognitive systems for processing information: one that is fast, emotional and intuitive, and another that is slower and more analytical. The first system innately assigns purpose, mental state, and personality to objects, leading to supernatural beliefs; but activating analytical thinking can override this intuitive system, leading to disbelief in God.

3. The study that shows that children have a natural propensity to regard the world as intentionally and purposefully designed. They instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose. It turns out that this bias can extend into adulthood, leading children into religious persons.

Social Origin

How did individual belief then develop into such organized religion? The key is on the size of society. At least until 12.000 years ago, humans lived in relatively small groups which mostly consisted of family or had some sort of familial relationship. Cooperation among them was ensured by kin cooperation and reciprocal altruism. But as the size of the groups grew vast, the interactions with strangers were inevitable and occurred more often, thus humans needed an extra safeguard to ensure the cooperation among them - safeguard to punish the violators and free-riders. Thus religion comes to rescue. Since humans at that time hadn't been able to conceive legal system as what we have nowadays, with its laws, legislators, polices, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and courts, the idea that there is an omniscient, omnipresent, watchful God made people cooperate and ensuring the contracts. This study tells us that thinking about God makes believers feel as if their behavior is being monitored, and, subsequently, increases their public self-awareness and socially desirable responding.

There are also some studies that support the notion that people will better cooperate if they're under the impression of being watched. This study, for instance, shows that even subtle exposure to drawing resemble eyes encourage good behavior among strangers. Another study shows that children's belief in an invisible person inhibits cheating. Another, shows that believers in omniscient-omnipresent God are more generous than those who believe in deities who aren't as omniscient and as morally concerned. Even, according to this study, exposing people to words like "God," "spirit," and "divine" increases their generosity in economic dictator game.

The role of religion (or belief in God) to maintain social cohesion is perhaps the reason why atheists have the lowest approval ratings of any social group, including other religions. Intolerance of atheists stems from the intuition that people will behave better if they feel that a God is watching them. Thus, outward display of disbelief in a watchful God can be perceived as untrustworthy.

When the concept of omnipotent-omnipresent-omniscient, interventionist, watchful God became increasingly common, religion then intertwined to morality; making the notions of supernatural punishments and blessings, damnation and salvation, heaven and hell, karma, etc. also became more increasingly common. As the society gets even larger, ritual became even more essential, as displays of strict religious devotion such as fasting, taboos, animal sacrifice, martyrdom signify a sincere intention to cooperate. Some prominent figures then rose with the claim that they were chosen by God or ever directly talked to God**). If people believe in them, then they started establishing some rituals and particular definitions/characteristic/descriptions of God and enforced them to other people. If not, then they might be considered crazy. These particular rituals and God concepts were passed to next generation via oral tradition or written scriptures. The era of organized religions thus begun.

Towards Post-religionism?

As development of secular morality such as secular humanism, and also the development of legal system to protect people from violation of each others' rights and/or bind them into their obligations, religion becomes more estranged in human lives. In secular countries, like Scandinavian countries, the role of religion to ensure social cohesion has been replaced by secular concept, yet still somehow retains the happiness and cooperation among their citizens. Interestingly, atheism increases along with the quality of life. First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be seen. Belief in God declines in more developed countries and atheism is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%. The reason that religion loses ground in developed countries can be explained by how religion, with the concept that there is/are God(s) who care to human being and cater their needs, slowly losing its importance in human lives. With the better science, medicines, government safety nets, security, and legal protection, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion.


The development of science to replace religion as something that can satisfy human's desire to find meaning and purpose, pushes religion even further. Creationism and intelligent design are challenged by cosmology, physic, and evolutionary biology. The infallibility of Holy Book like Qur'an or Bible is challenged by historical study and textual criticism. The claims of miracle are challenged by chemistry, archaeology, anthropology, and medical science. One thing is left: that belief in God is a subjective experience (thus, there is no way to prove to disprove it.) However, recent developments in evolutionary biology and neuroscience***) have tried to decode the thought process that gives birth to the notions of God and religion. One day, when human mind is finally mapped and it turns out that religion is just a mundane brain phenomenon and there is nothing supernatural or holy about it, what is left from religion? We don't know. But are we ready?

Post Scriptum:

*) Even though burial rites first came 300.000 years ago during Middle Paleolithic, there are still debates whether their purpose has supernatural meaning or just simply honoring the dead.


**) It has been suggested that religious figures like Moses (on Exodus 3 and Exodus 19), Saint Paul (on Acts 9:1-19a, Acts 22:3-16, Acts 26:9-18, and perhaps 2 Corinthians 12:7), and Seventh-day Adventists Church founder Ellen White (who once had brain trauma when she was 9) all had temporal lobe epilepsy, which may cause hallucination. This hallucination could be mistakenly perceived as religious vision or divine encounter. Some even wilder theory suggests that Moses was under the influence of psychedelic plants when Ten Commandments were given.


***) - For instance, the "light tunnel" vision during near death experience/NDE (in which some people ascribed that with a journey to the afterlife) can be explained by hypoxia/cerebral anoxia (lack of oxygen to brain.) When a person enter clinical death, brain is deprived of oxygen supply and higher brain areas (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe) in the cortex quickly blank out. The more primitive lower brain area (medulla, pons, midbrain, thalamus, hypothalamus) remains active for several minutes, causes "neural noise," or an overload of information sent to the brain's visual cortex, creating an image of a bright light that gradually grows larger, which may be interpreted as going through a tunnel. NDE can also be explained by a sudden REM sleep state while brain is still awake, that is triggered by extreme stress or trauma. Since the higher brain (to process spatial sense, logic, and bodily perception) is malfunctioning during NDE, sensory inputs that come from lower brain (in which also regulate memory) are not processed, resulting in out-of-body experience (OBE), "traveling in extra dimensions," and encounter with angel, demon, God, or dead people. NDE also triggers brain to release endorphin as coping mechanism, which may cause the tranquil, calm, heavenly sensation. Sensory malfunctioning and euphoric sensation from the endorphin together can be simply mistakenly perceived as "afterlife." See also God helmet.


- OBE or astral projection itself can be explained by malfunctioning in temporal parietal junction, causing brain unable to distinguish what is real or not.


- Transcendental feeling when people are meditating is now linked with increased activity in frontal lobes (makes people having more attention and focus.) The thalamus also shuts down normal sensory input during meditation. The parietal lobes (which regulate our spatial and temporal perception) is also less active. Add to that increased flow of endorphin, giving the sensation of having a sense of timelessness, a suspension of self, a feeling of bliss and being "united with universe."


- Speaking with tongue (glossolalia) is associated with lower activity in frontal lobes - the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do, as were the language centers. This gives the impression for the speaker that God is taking control of her body, and manifested in some unknown speeches.


- Ghost sighting is liked with infrasonic sound. Because the brain is not used to registering frequency so low (since it's not what is usually heard in normal situation,) it cannot associate such frequency to any object/definition, causing spooky feeling. The low frequency can also cause eyeballs to vibrate slightly due to resonance, and it might alter the vision for split seconds, creating ghostly images.

The Women Psych: Illusory Tragedy of the Commons

This is the second post in regards of my psychological quasi-research. This is the first one.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ever wondering why some bastards are so easy to get the girls, despite logically speaking, they are not good long term partners? Women, with their initial role of nurture, are evolutionarily wired with their emotional side more dominant. That's why women, in overall, are more skilled at decoding emotion using non-verbal cues including facial expression, tone of voice, and posture. But that also what makes (some) women are easily to be subdued by it. They (some of them, once again) are easily attracted to badboys who can bring them into some "emotional roller-coaster." Badboys, with their carefree nature, adventurous life, good communication skill, and aura of leadership, are surely more attractive than usual, face-in-the-crowd nice guys, despite maybe these nice guys are what constitutes a good last-for-life partners. It is animal magnetism, which of course does not address emotional maturity, love (not lust) and bonding, nor does animal magnetism apply to a woman's process of qualifying a man for character maturity as a potential lasting, committed mate or potential father.

What makes it worse, some nice guys just don't know how to make themselves attractive. They lavish woman they love with gifts, etc, in which it's more likely to be failed (unless the woman has some feeling with the man beforehand). Why?
First, that woman thinks that there is no need to escalate the relationship (no need to be girlfriend, with the risk of breaking up the relationship) to get the facilities.
Second, it's certainly boring, especially for attractive girls with lots of fans around them who do thing that's exactly the same, giving the woman lots of gifts. That treatment will not make this nice guy to stand out and have better chance to make a move.

This leads to a problem of an illusory tragedy of the commons, in which these poor nice guys thinks that relatively valuable women (either for their beauty, intelligence, sexiness, what say you) are difficult to get.

The Handicap Principle.

But, should we live a badboy lifestyle just to be able to get around with girls? No. You just have to mimic their impressions. Badboy is like the alpha-male gorilla. They are dominated by these primitive, masculine, animal instincts. Their robust masculinity is the ultimate attractor for women. In short, they are free men: free to express their opinions, emotions, and identity. They show a strong and leadership quality, even if they're not. Then, you should adopt that style, be communicative, flirty, able to take women down in cocky jerk jokes, hard-headed, decisive, adventurous, and show your high values.

Building a rapport.

Rapport is a term used to describe, in common terms, that two or more people feel in sync, or in short, chemistry. This is very useful to increase your receptivity, especially when you're about to approach a stranger with no prior connection. There are some techniques on the internet where you can learn canned opener, that is a sentence that you can memorize to open up conversation, directly or indirectly. But I prefer a more customized, situational one, but you have to be communicative or used to have a lot of conversations with random strangers. After you open up and have some conversations with her and want to escalate your chat further into a date, you have to look for the indicators of interest, then I assume you know what to do next.

How to Open Up

A lot of people are afraid to approach strangers, but the solution for this is quite simple. You don't need some motivational speeches from Mario Teguh to overcome this anxiety. You just have to approach as many strangers as possible. Feel the fear, go approach anyway, act nervously and stupid, be rejected (maybe), evaluate and learn from your mistake (did I become too creepy?) and become better at tackling your fear and at approaching.

Evolving Yourself

Your differences from badboy, supposed to lie on your genuine quality as a man. That's why aside from your outer characters of a badboy (that only become your clothes), you have to grow in emotional maturity, diplomacy (charisma), courtesy, character (confidence, belief in greater cause, fun and positive mental attitude, caring, etc, etc), and emotional skills of friendship, love, bonding, and mood management. You have to have wide networks and friends (in real life, not Facebook friends) as well.

And in the end, you'll become a man who's having a solid masculinity yet the ability to express friendly emotions that are heartfelt, genuine and real. You will not be boring in the eyes of girls, yet you are indeed suitable to be her long time partner.

The Women Psych: Stockholm Syndrome

In this post, I’m gonna talk about love. But not love in galau-ish sense. This is more into the psychology of women. There will be two parts. Part 1 will talk about how women can be stuck in abusive relationship. Part 2 will talk about how the bastards can get the girls :P. Go read!

---

Have you observed, or even experienced it by yourself, an abusive relationship? In which the woman suffered a lot of verbal, psychological, and even physical abuses? Yet despite after a lot of advices, still couldn’t let go her boyfriend. She even forgave him, and blamed friends and families, saying that they couldn’t understand her feelings? You might wonder how could this possibly happen. But yes, this is possible to happen. This is called Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm syndrome is a paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which the victim shows affection and emotional attachment to the abuser. The name Stockholm syndrome comes from a robbery that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1979, in which the robbers took bank workers as hostages for 5 days long. After released, they had attachments to the robbers and even defended their actions.

How can Stockholm syndrome shape a form of attachment? Firstly, the existence of threat and abuse. Verbal, mental, psychological, and physical abuses will degrade the victim’s confidence, creating a sense of helplessness. Threat will prevent the victim to report the abuser or get away from the relationship, even more if the abuser tells the victim that he “can’t live without her” and will commit suicide if the victim leaves.

Secondly, isolation and alienation. Be it physical, mental, or emotional. The abuser becomes so possessive and obsessive then creates a barrier for the victim to socialize. For instance, the abuser demands all the victim’s social networking passwords (Facebook, Twitter, Y!M, etc) or obsessive checking to the victim’s cell phone message inbox, or prohibition to contact someone, be it a male coworker, or male boss, or even male friend. This isolation will further dissociate the victim from her surrounding, and will worsen the sense of helplessness.

Thirdly, a form of compassion or love that is sometimes shown by the abuser. Because the victim is getting used from the pain and abuses, she becomes so “addicted” in waiting when the good thing will come. When this “good thing” is given by the abuser, this becomes something that’s so precious for the victim, creating false sense of hope that the abuser will change into someone better.

These all accumulate into helplessness and shame that will make the victim reluctant to tell to others, especially when her social life is so isolated by the abuser. The victim will then close herself from others and reject those who are trying to help her. She will feel that no one understands her feelings. This will be fatal, because the victim will gradually accept that “this is her fate”, and that the abuser is the only one that understands her. This will create an emotional addiction and she will think that this is “love.”

How to get out from such Stockholm syndrome? Well, for the victim, it requires a lot of effort. Usually the victim will realize that this is a destructive relationship after it’s too late, after the abuser almost kills her life or that the torture is so severe that it slap her back into the reality. As a friend, if you know this, it’s better to report to the police (because it constitutes a domestic violence), parents, and also psychiatrist (because this will leave the victim with deep emotional scar, even make the victim become too paranoid to start a new relationship)

But prevention is always better, right? Here is some guidance to know whether your current boyfriend will be a potential abuser:

1. Blamer: the one who blames his negative feelings or bad luck to someone/something else. Some of them are just good in seducing and making you feels good by comparing you to other person (“my stupid bitchy ex girlfriend”). You will come to think that what he needs is love from a good woman that you’ll provide. But beware; when you get closer to him, you’ll be the one that is blamed by him most of the time.

2. Entitlement: the one who always thinks that he is special and deserves special consideration/treatment. This type of person is highly egoistical and easily offended if he doesn’t get what he wants or what people should do to him. He will love to point out that he is smart and no one should disagree with him. He will have a very high self-esteem, a predatory self-esteem, and he will feel good if he succeeds in belittling others. The one who always thinks that life is unfair. This type of person is locked to his own sense of perspective, that he will neglect the rights and perspective of others, including his girlfriend.

3. Whiner: this type of person will focus on small mistake and exaggerate it. Be it the food in restaurant that tastes bad or that male friend who innocently ask you about how is your life currently. He will always complain about this and bring these little mistakes up every time you have a quarrel.

4. Sarcasm: that is directed to you, his girlfriend! Hostile sarcasm often means to devalue the girlfriend, to shake her confidence, and to get temporary ego gain to make his position in relationship higher than you.

5. Deceitful: the one who loves to lie, unintentionally or intentionally.

6. Controlling: if he starts defining boundaries over with whom you should go, urging you to block some of your male friends in Facebook, etc. That is.

If you feel that your boyfriend fulfills some, if not most or all the criteria, then be careful, maybe, at some point in the future you might fall into this Stockholm syndrome.