Religion as Early Ecology

When I was a child, I remember chasing burnt joss paper, wondering if it was the same as monopoly money.

My monotheist parents would always remark on how silly those other religions were, with their rituals.

Joss paper is fake money made out of bamboo paper. Now there's even joss iPhones and the like. The idea is that your ancestors still need money in the afterlife. So you burn joss things for them, and it goes to them in the afterlife.

The same goes for the gods.

Which is why you might burn joss paper for them at a shrine, or leave a coke and orange out for them. Which is how I first had a Coca-Cola. My parents didn't let me have soda for the most part, however, people left perfectly good coke cans out for their gods and ancestors.

Under the cover of night, I would take them.

The Hindu gods were similar. Less like a WesternUnion for the afterlife, they just needed to be fed. So people would leave milk out for them, or fruits.

I took the fruits on occasion, of course.

Silly polytheists. Always feeding me!

And what about all those people in villages, or who lived in the jungle? They saw spirits everywhere! That tree? A demon. That bridge? There's a ghost there. The stoop in front of that Uncle's house? You have to leave some food for the spirit there, or it will get angry!

Growing up among believers of various religions was, in the end, an advantage for looking at religion as a whole.

I could compare and contrast them.

It wasn’t until I was about 11 that I turned this inward. If all these rites seemed silly, well, what about our rites? And everyone had some sort of rite- things they did as a habit, where the explanation of why they did it didn't quite make sense.

We clasped our hands, closed our eyes, prayed, and studied the Bible every day. Sure, this seemed very different from the burning of incense or pouring milk on a statue, but...look at it closely, and it starts to be similar. They all included four things.

1. Some set of things are taboo, for these there are typically no satisfying explanations

2. There are group practices that are said, in some way shape or form, to bring balance to the world.

3. There are sacred values.

4. A tradition of rites to venerate.

Group Practices that Balance the World

For the Taoists and the like, giving your ancestors money in the afterlife shows your devotion to them. After all, they brought you into this world. For most polytheist gods, they represent something in nature, or beyond the control of small groups of humans, that needs to be negotiated with. So sacrifices are made. For animists, individual elements of nature have to be placated. These might turn out to be ant colonies and the like, at times! For Christians, well, this world is full of sin and you must accept Jesus to be freed of that sin- to bring balance back into the world!

Sacred Values

Sacred values are tied to the taboo. Another way to say this is that there are things a member of that religion would never trade away. An absolute. For Taoists this might be filial piety. The various Christian denominations are mostly divided on what aspect of being Christlike is sacred in this way. This is also used to separate those who are a part of the religion from those who are not. Without this boundary-making criteria, it is not a religion. For this reason, religions that thrive today tend to have sacred values that make them taboo something that everyone else thinks is normal. A costly signal.

Rites to Venerate

The observation of the set of habits that bring balance to the world according to the fundamental worldview is what ties people together into a religion. All religions begin in some state of extreme Aliveness. If you go back far enough this is always an animist way of life, but in the times after that for a given culture, there is a period of a return to extreme Aliveness. When this affects enough people, they solidify it into a set of rituals. Something Good happened from that period of Aliveness. What caused it? Let's do that, again, and let's stick to it well so that our descendants will continue it.

You can see this in the emphasis of memorization of mantras, chants, and other symbols. I think this is when religion as we know it today really took off. When the memorized series of words could really freeze rituals in place, so that you could know that the ritual you're taking part in has gone back forty generations or more.

You can burn the joss paper, and know that, for forty generations, people have been burning joss paper. Your ancestors have been burning joss paper! And now you're joining them. An unbroken chain, one in a long line. With that, you know you are not alone. You know are a part of something much bigger.

You have a past, and you are reminded of it EVERY TIME YOU BURN JOSS PAPER. You make sure your children burn joss paper, SO YOU HAVE A FUTURE.

It is against that foundation that culture can be freed to learn.

In this sense, a world religion is the beginning of the memory system necessary for a culture to grow a civilization.