RE:Religion a figment of our imagination
by Avinash on Apr 28, 2008 03:36 PM Permalink
Cont'd: "One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even though one never comes in contact with the other members of it. Moreover, the composition of such groups, whether they are clans or nations, may equally include the living and the dead," he added.
He argues that no animals, not even our nearest relatives the chimpanzees, can do this. Instead, he says, they're restricted to the routine and Machiavellian social interactions of everyday life.
The reason for this, he says, is that they can't imagine beyond this immediate social circle, or backwards and forwards in time, in the same way that humans can.
Bloch believes our ancestors evolved the essential neural architecture to imagine before or around 40-50,000 years ago, at a time called the Upper Palaeological Revolution, the final sub-division of the Stone Age.
"The transcendental network can, with no problem, include the dead, ancestors and gods, as well as living role holders and members of essentialised groups," he said.
"Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words transcendental," he added.
RE:RE:Religion a figment of our imagination
by Avinash on Apr 28, 2008 03:37 PM Permalink
Cont'd: But Bloch argues that religion is only one expression of this exceptional ability to form bonds with non-existent or distant people or value-systems.
"Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society," he said.
"Once we realise this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion," he added.
Bloch has detailed his findings in the journal of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B .
RE:RE:RE:Religion a figment of our imagination
by younus siddique on Apr 28, 2008 04:04 PM Permalink
AVINASH ...please stop this pick and copy paste business ...which you yourself dont like ..
