Re: Jaynes's View of Religion
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:32 am
Religions are the inventions of a calculating conscious mind.
I wish to take issue with the above statement. Although this thread seems to have ended in 2006, I can see that many more people read the thread than continued it. Perhaps it will come back to life.. I have recently read the book and more recently revisited what I think is the most important idea in the book. It is very much the theme of this thread.
The best line in the book, I think, is about Jesus Christ reforming Judaism into "a religion for conscious men". It is interesting that the words and deeds of Christ are written of by others, and perhaps this - the written form - is what makes Christianity seem like a pernicious conscious invention. I absolutely disagree with the above statement. I also do not understand the book as an attack on religion. I agree that it is more a conscious explanation of the internalisation and, subsequently and inevitably, the personalisation of the notion of God.
I think that Jaynes does not give his personal view of religion (how he relates to the notion of God) other than
1) in the final paragraph where he states that he was most occupied during his conscious and professional life with the nature and origin of his introcosm, linked back to his finding it in the first chapter of book III as "a fervent search for what I shall call archaic authorization".
This suggests that he was maybe one of those individuals who may have differed from the culturally normal mentality at any given time and lived in conscious isolation as a result, and perished ostensibly alone. I wish I could have met him, looked in his eyes, and smiled at him.
2) in the first chapter of book III:
"mankind as a whole has not, does not, and perhaps cannot relinquish his fascination with some human type of relationship to a greater mysterium tremendum ... what in our time can be more truly felt when least named, a patterning of self and numinous other from which, in times of darkest distress, none of us can escape"
Religion, as a form of conscious social control from within its followers, is also a product of the unconscious. It is different from God. God as the "source" of knowledge of right action, of scientific fact, of equality and human rights, of anything, is within us. Religion is an organised form like art, science, music. Therefore, to me, it seems that Jaynes recognises the validity and value of religion, regardless of how he personally relates to it.
My suggestion for the reason why Jaynes' book is so monumental is that he is saying we need to look differently at the past again, because the logical tradition of western philosophy is wrong, and we need not look forward to finding certainty in new forms or guises either. It is in the archaic authorization of the bicameral mind that we lost due to the written form among other causes.
Therefore, what I take from the book, which is liberating, is that the answer is that we are not alone. We feel alone. But, in fact, we are together, and we are one, and we can talk about this in conversation without consciousness of a subjective, private, egotistical, agenda. Heaven to me is the understanding smile of a companion in conversation with me, beside me under a clear blue sky. This is why I believe in marriage, in the marrige rite of Chirsitianity, in the sanctity of marriage.
The only question for me, which is another thread in the forum, is where the above leaves Islam, which chronologically post-dated Christianity and created a 'different cultural norm' apparently hostile to Christianity because its formers were, I imagine, already 'different'. It is beyond the scope of this thread: Can Chistianity, Atheism, and Islam (the 'opposing' monotheism) co-exist peacefully? I think yes, first individually and then, ages hence, collectively. The hurdles are the same as it was first time around: language, Gods, behaviour, state of mind. How little we and the nature of consciousness have yet evolved from its origin!
I wish to take issue with the above statement. Although this thread seems to have ended in 2006, I can see that many more people read the thread than continued it. Perhaps it will come back to life.. I have recently read the book and more recently revisited what I think is the most important idea in the book. It is very much the theme of this thread.
The best line in the book, I think, is about Jesus Christ reforming Judaism into "a religion for conscious men". It is interesting that the words and deeds of Christ are written of by others, and perhaps this - the written form - is what makes Christianity seem like a pernicious conscious invention. I absolutely disagree with the above statement. I also do not understand the book as an attack on religion. I agree that it is more a conscious explanation of the internalisation and, subsequently and inevitably, the personalisation of the notion of God.
I think that Jaynes does not give his personal view of religion (how he relates to the notion of God) other than
1) in the final paragraph where he states that he was most occupied during his conscious and professional life with the nature and origin of his introcosm, linked back to his finding it in the first chapter of book III as "a fervent search for what I shall call archaic authorization".
This suggests that he was maybe one of those individuals who may have differed from the culturally normal mentality at any given time and lived in conscious isolation as a result, and perished ostensibly alone. I wish I could have met him, looked in his eyes, and smiled at him.
2) in the first chapter of book III:
"mankind as a whole has not, does not, and perhaps cannot relinquish his fascination with some human type of relationship to a greater mysterium tremendum ... what in our time can be more truly felt when least named, a patterning of self and numinous other from which, in times of darkest distress, none of us can escape"
Religion, as a form of conscious social control from within its followers, is also a product of the unconscious. It is different from God. God as the "source" of knowledge of right action, of scientific fact, of equality and human rights, of anything, is within us. Religion is an organised form like art, science, music. Therefore, to me, it seems that Jaynes recognises the validity and value of religion, regardless of how he personally relates to it.
My suggestion for the reason why Jaynes' book is so monumental is that he is saying we need to look differently at the past again, because the logical tradition of western philosophy is wrong, and we need not look forward to finding certainty in new forms or guises either. It is in the archaic authorization of the bicameral mind that we lost due to the written form among other causes.
Therefore, what I take from the book, which is liberating, is that the answer is that we are not alone. We feel alone. But, in fact, we are together, and we are one, and we can talk about this in conversation without consciousness of a subjective, private, egotistical, agenda. Heaven to me is the understanding smile of a companion in conversation with me, beside me under a clear blue sky. This is why I believe in marriage, in the marrige rite of Chirsitianity, in the sanctity of marriage.
The only question for me, which is another thread in the forum, is where the above leaves Islam, which chronologically post-dated Christianity and created a 'different cultural norm' apparently hostile to Christianity because its formers were, I imagine, already 'different'. It is beyond the scope of this thread: Can Chistianity, Atheism, and Islam (the 'opposing' monotheism) co-exist peacefully? I think yes, first individually and then, ages hence, collectively. The hurdles are the same as it was first time around: language, Gods, behaviour, state of mind. How little we and the nature of consciousness have yet evolved from its origin!