David Lahti is an evolutionary ecologist in New York city, but also has a Ph.D. in philosophy. That can be a dangerous combination, leading to all sorts of strange pronouncements. Sure enough, in Tuesday’s Guardian, Lahti ponders the conflicting tendencies of humans to be both cruel and cooperative. One might expect both of those tendencies, of course, to evolve in a social species like ours. But we can also, as Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer have emphasized, use reason and empathy to exercise a degree of altruism beyond that vouchsafed by our genes.
None of this has anything to do with religion. Nevertheless, in a piece called “Why does religion keep telling us we’re bad? (subtitled “Evolution has carried us a long way, but we can become complacent, which is where religious admonitions come in”), Lahti somehow manages to slip in some gratuitious praise for faith as a way to keep us on a moral path:
Many of the evolutionarily savvy among us have chosen one of two roads with regard to describing our moral nature. One is the comforting notion that we are generally prosocial nice folks except for those odd meanies who must be explained as having some strange allele or bad childhood environment. The other common option is a descent into moral scepticism or nihilism where nothing matters anyway because it’s all just a product of our evolution. These alternatives together look remarkably like a sour grapes attitude: either we are fundamentally good, or else forget it there’s no such thing as good and bad. The main reason for Isaiah’s admonition to remember how we fall short, as for most Jewish and Christian moral admonitions come to think of it, is to counteract our tendency to look at ourselves with rose-coloured glasses and become complacent. It looks like we could use a dose of my father’s old time religion after all.
Well, we’re neither “fundamentally” good nor bad; we have evolved (and cultural) tendencies in both direction, and different aspects predominate at different times—precisely as you’d expect if those tendencies evolved to be adaptive in different situations. Sometimes it paid our ancestors to be aggressive, or even murderous; at other times our best interests were served by being cooperative.
Let us accept this, then, and work on the good parts. We don’t need religion to remind us of how often we go “bad,” particularly since religion is a particularly powerful stimulus for that behavior. I have no idea why Lahti saw fit to mention scripture.
Meanwhile, also at the Guardian, atheist Andrew Brown continues to osculate the rump of religion, reminding us that social democracy in Sweden has failed because it couldn’t replace the authority of God (his piece, called “Social democracy and the loss of trust,” is subtitled, “The rejection of God by Social Democrats and societal values by neoliberals has left a moral vacuum that will be difficult to fill”):
Taken together, these scandals show that both left and right are in trouble. The old Social Democratic model is completely broken, but the new, competitive model doesn’t work very well, either. In both cases, people don’t believe in society partly because they no longer have any reason to fear it.
The conformism of Sweden is something almost every visitor notices and complains about. But many foreigners suppose that it is imposed from above, on a duped or unwilling population. I don’t think that was ever true. The way it really worked was written in gothic script outside the German church in the old town of Stockholm: “Fürchtet Gott! Ehret den König!” – “Fear God and honour the king!”
Of course, very few people fear God in Sweden today. At some stage in the 20th century, God was replaced by the future. The future, which everyone was confident could be trusted, appeared to have the attributes of God, an inscrutable wisdom that could nonetheless be trusted, and was, in any case, authoritative. In the end, the future could talk to you with the crushing authority of God talking to Job. . .
. . . Social democracy spent decades smashing up the old authority structures, among them God and the traditional family, in order to take over their authority. From the 1980s onwards the neoliberals spent decades smashing up Social Democratic beliefs. And at the end of this process, the future has let both sides down. The idea of society as a place of mutual service has disappeared or at least attenuated to an ideal.
Our Swedish readers may want to weigh in on this nonsense. It really is time for the Guardian to retire Andrew Brown. He’s lost even his ability to be controversial—for he no longer makes sense.
<sigh />
We are good because, in evolutionary terms, the good are more successful than the bad.
A society in which murder, rape, and theft runs rampant will have members that devote most of their resources to avoiding being murdered and raped and having possessions stolen.
In a peaceful society, the members will devote those same resources to making the world a better place.
The “bad” society will self-destruct while the “good” society will thrive.
I’m amazed that an evolutionary ecologist can’t figure this out.
Cheers,
b&
How has social democracy failed, in Sweden or elsewhere? It is the best system around.
What is very evident is that the neoliberal market model doesn’t work does not work at all. If anything, 20 years of Thatcherims and neoliberalism are undermining society in all its aspects.
Yes – how can one talk of a society in terms of an outcome – all societies constantly evolve, they are not rigid, they are subject to external changes as well as internal, so there can be no ‘final’ assessment until that society or nation has ended, or until the future when one can look back and say that ‘at such and such a point, that was a successful society’. If you dig my drift…
Yet more reasons not to read that whimsical fashion obsessed newspaper.
reminding us that social democracy in Sweden has failed because it couldn’t replace the authority of God (his piece, called “Social democracy and the loss of trust,” is subtitled, “The rejection of God by Social Democrats and societal values by neoliberals has left a moral vacuum that will be difficult to fill”):
Strangely enough, the Scandinavian societies which enjoy such high quality of life and secularity mostly have official state churches:
Denmark to approve gay weddings in church
Yes, but their state religions have been diluted into a vaguely religious humanism in practice, even though if one looks at its official doctrines, they are still quite Lutheran.
State churches are a form of inoculation.
A fatally weakened strain that alerts one’s bullshit-detection system.
I already commented on Andrew Brown’s piece on Sweden over at choiceindying.com. The man is clearly in his dotage and should be put out to grass. As for Lahti. Why would anyone, who knows anything at all about evolution, suggest that religion still has something to contribute? It’s not religion he’s talking about, but morality, and morality can do quite well without religion — no, much better without religion. But I do not think it is philosophy that is at fault here. It is a confusion often made that philosophy is cousin to religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Philosophy challenges religion at every point, especially when it is most trying to be theological.
“Socialist” countries have, by far, the best performing stock markets. Of course.
So that was the “great sucking sound” — thought it wuz our vacume clnr.
This clearly calls for the deity Janus, you see. For Janus alone can navigate both the past and the future to be.
Bollocks. Janus is for janitors. Jupiter’s the one to worship. Or Juno, IF you MUST. Frankly, this planet would be a much better place if all Janus worshippers were rounded up, ground into fertilizer, and spread throughout the fields as an offering to Saturn.
you can prove evolution is true by reading the book of genesis in the bible, which poses a contradiction to an all-powerful supreme being.
in genesis, god created man first. then he wanted to create a partner for man and began with the tiniest of creatures and worked his way up through the tree of life, the taxonomy of classifications, such as kingdom, phylum, etc. none of those creations was sufficient to be man’s partner, so god continued until eventually he created woman.
so, if god is all-powerful and knowing, why did it take him that many attempts before finally arriving at woman? why didn’t he get it right the first time?
bible thumpers will say that there are two versions within genesis, and the other version shows god making woman immediately after man.
No, no, no! You’re reading it rationally. That’s all wrong.
Actually in the other version, Genesis 1, god creates men and women at the same time and apparently of equal value and as the climax of all the previous creation. Obviously this is anathema to patriarchal religions so they simply ignore it.
I was born and bred in Sweden and went outside the country for the very first time (seriously!) in moving to England at age 20 to study at university. I like to tell people I “fled” Swedish conformity (with the term used only half-jokingly), because I felt the country was no place where I could happily spend the rest of my days. The country (to me) comes across as quite foolish; carrying its head in the clouds and believing itself very much too good for criticism. As an effect, what is thought good is believed to be good, and there have been many infringements (always minor, but effect is cumulative) on what is considered politically correct, and what is considered as permissive. It’s all summed up by the statement “You shan’t believe yourself better than anyone.” (The Jante Law.) And believe me, that horrible way of seeing life permeates Swedish society (and its people!). It’s policing by the people to keep dissidents en par with the rest of society. But that’s not relevant to the discussion.
What is, is that I do not recognise the claim that the future is taking the form of a substitute saviour to the Swedes. The future is just moderately important. It’s just the future! What matters is the now. But I think that’s true for most people… However, important to note is that Swedes have no substitute for belief. Most people just don’t believe. Belief in a deity has not been replaced with belief in the government, nor belief in science, or the future. Swedes respect the government, and they respect science, and they recognise the future as important. They simply don’t believe because there’s no need to. And without a need to believe, there’s no need for substitutes either.
Ah – Aksel Sandemose and Janteloven! I was only telling a friend about that yesterday. very interesting to hear what you say. Every country has its faults and critics both internal and external, and we each find annoying things about our own and others’ lands. In this bloody country (England) it is the ridiculous respect given to tradition, and the way people moan if it is a bit cold or rains (which it does not anymore in London anyway)… and then the ridiculous Andrew Browns of this world etc
When you say “carrying its head in the clouds and believing itself very much too good for criticism” I recall the Stranglers lyric (they spent time in Sweden) “Let me tell you about Sweden; the only place where the clouds are interesting.” 😉
“Too much time to think, too little to do”.
As for Britain, I’m not sure we’re particularly respectful of tradition in comparison to other countries.
Well, traditionally we haven’t been anyway.
We certainly don’t bang on about our founding fathers the way some USers do…….
It seems fair to remark that leaving Sweden for England had its perks. The universities in England are incomparable to the Swedish ones. (I’ve studied biology/archaeology/nursing/Japanese in Sweden and genetics in England.) Also, the English weather is bloody amazing! It’s warmer, drier and sunnier than what I grew up with. So it’s like home, but better. And with the lower British taxes, everything is half-price. And most importantly, everyone is happier in England (and I’m even in London!). My sister who bounded off to the USA said the same thing. People are happier, in general. And that actually counts for a lot.
My husband used to visit Sweden occasionally for work, he didn’t like it much. He found it too full of ‘group-think’ and rather dull.
I’ve only been in Sweden once, spent a week in Stockholm last year.
A beautiful city, pedestrian friendly, we toured the old city center for a week entirely by walking.
My acid test for the health of a society is the running test, if I see solitary females running at night then I know that the society is healthy, Stockholm certainly passes this test with flying colours.
I’m Swedish. I’m married to an American. We both live in Sweden. Now, with that said:
I have no idea what Andrew Brown is trying to say. I don’t know what “conformism” really means, either, or how it pertains to the current scandals being discussed in newspapers.
Yes, the leader of the social democratic party is under pressure for at best being sloppy about filling out a form and at worst trying to cheat the system by intentionally lying on the it. This is hardly a “current” news event, though, this was a hot potato a few months ago. And yes, there’s a current scandal unravelling with private caretakers of old people. Agreed. The implication of the article is that… What? And how does “conformism” play into it?
Is “conformism” (you will not make me take it out of quotes until you’ve explained what it’s supposed to mean) that we somehow accept these scandals, are complacent about them? That can hardly be true; they’re SCANDALS for crying out loud. The very definition of the word tells that we’ve reacted to it, that we’re not OK with it, that we’re not complacent to it. So what does it mean?
As best as I can tell, he’s trying to draw a line from “not God, therefore bad things” and leaves it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how and why. FFS.
Yeah, we have problems to deal with in this country. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get “if only we were more God-fearing” into any of them. And, if “conformism” is our problem, isn’t religion the biggest conformismator (right back atcha, Andrew!) of them all?
tl;dr: I have no idea what he’s trying to say.
+1
I was going to make the same point, but you (rather eloquently) beat me to it. What is this phantom menace “conformism” Brown invokes? The simple fact that many Swedes have concluded that the best way to proceed is with a rational and realistic outlook?
I imposed upon my Swedish neighbour the thankless chore of reviewing Brown’s eructation. She couldn’t understand it either. The words, yes; recognisable facts and concepts, none. The equivalent of “here be dragons” on ancient maps.
There seems to be in irrational hope for achieving God’s perfection that infects the religious, and perhaps Brown has caught the bug too. Social democracy in Sweden has failed? By God’s standards (OK, I know: not God, the Abrahamic psycho but the really nice but equally fictitious Jesusy one who loves everyone) all human social constructions are mixed and flawed affairs, by virtue of being the products of lots of imperfect humans that don’t all see things the same way. So, to say a system has failed, especially since it’s still around, doesn’t seem to be quite right. Perhaps Soviet communism failed, by virtue of it not being around any more – but even then I guess that it succeeded for some people at the top; as does capitalism. I wonder what, if anything, Brown would call a success.
A theocracy.
Iran? Though I wonder what the Iranians fear most, the god or the religious.
I’ve lived in Sweden for the past 8 years. Andrew Brown’s piece is just lazy. He takes two examples and extrapolates them out to create a completely unsupported conclusion.
For people unfamiliar with Sweden and its religion it is worth reading up on the Swedish Lutheran church to compare its policies with those of the predominant religions in other countries. The Swedish chuch is very liberal – gay marriage, women priests, no campaigning against abortion rights etc and tends to keep its head down in the political arena.
I think an ironic result of this is that the people in Sweden who have the most animosity towards religion tend to be foreigners (ex-Catholics, ex-muslims etc) rather than natives. There’s lots of atheists here but not so many gnus!
I went to a talk yesterday at the Nobel forum in Stockholm where the eminent tumor biologist George Klein discussed his feelings about life. During his lecture he discussed ‘The Selfish Gene’ and ‘The God Delusion’ (praising both books – although he said that while he is an atheist too he doesn’t think it is likely that Dawkins will be able to convert many to atheism)
At the end of the talk George put up a slide which he described as the most horrifying scientific result he had seen for years!
It was a survey of religious and other beliefs of the US population – showing for example that more people believed in angels, heaven and hell compared to the percentage the believed in the theory of evolution.
The lecture hall was packed with people and there was no attempt by George to accomodate religious sensibilities. It was taken for granted by him and his audience that belief in Jesus etc, was equivalent to other choices on the list (like UFOs, ghosts and angels).
The treatment of religion like this (as a quaint mythology that serious people don’t regard as factual) is pretty normal in scientific and academic circles here. As others have mentioned, there is no ‘gap’ that is missing when God is removed from society. We bring up children to know what is right by teaching them from example and highlighting the value of cooperation and empathy.
As for Andrew Brown, he’s just trolling again – mixing up political left/right ideology with religious questions and hoping to stir up some hits for the Guardian.
I smiled at reading that you were at the Nobel Forum listening to George Klein both to know that at 86 he can still hold forth and since I know exactly where the NF is. I suspect that much of what he said may be in his book, The Atheist and the Holy Land, which I enjoyed.
Apparently I left Sweden for the US about the same time Sigmund showed up in my Motherland. I just wanted to add that I wholeheartedly agree with Sigmund’s paragraph about the treatment of religion in Sweden. Also, Andrew Brown doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Interesting point of view, I still believe that healthier modern societies will tend to move toward somewhat like Scandinavian societies (with all their issues, of course).
In the past most countries are like Saudis nowadays (or Sudan, if you’re not in the leader group). Then they modernize, becoming like Japan, and China nowadays, majority tribe / culture. Then more like Canada / Australia, multi cultural, non-homogenous culture. Lastly it will be a multicultural modern society.
Current Scandinavian culture I think is the closest to the final, maybe a bit less on the multicultural part.
Most Western European cultures are going nicely toward that goal. US is a special case, too religious for its current multicultural state (I’ve seen a graph to this effect, forgot where).
The resolution will be coming soon(I think current craziness of GOP candidates will hasten that process).
Whatever it is, every country is facing its own issues, in their respective positions. The interesting part is in understanding where they stand, and where they’re going from there ..
(Saudi will be an interesting case study, maybe it won’t blow as fast as Egypt did, but the more we’re waiting the bigger the blowout, the more interesting case study it will be .. :D)
Born and bred Swede here, and I most definitely agree with everything Sigmund said about religion here in Sweden.
I read the Andrew Brown piece and I have no clue what it’s all about, I recognise all the words he’s using but the way he put them together makes no sense to me. “Conformism” what is that about? To me it sounds like he’s a closet christian that is cranky about the fact that a society can function just fine without a daily dose of fairytales and godbothering.
Except neither of the alternatives Lahti offers is really savvy, or common for that matter. The first option seems like a somewhat standard Bleeding Heart Straw Liberal, while the second one really is the canonical Straw Atheist. I especially don’t understand where he thinks all those nihilists are. He should have just left that whole paragraph out.
Yes, that bothered me too.
“Common option?” Lahti thinks this is a standard moral inference most scientists — or most people who are scientifically literate — draw from the theory of evolution? On what planet?
I don’t know where he thinks all those nihilists are either. I don’t know where he thinks he can find even one of them — unless there’s something out there from Nietzche in a particularly bad mood. On the contrary, it sounds like what a theist comes up with if he imagines how awful he would feel if he didn’t believe in God anymore.
I want names. Give us some quotes and some modern quotes too, sir, or stfu.
Andrew Brown’s articles have long been stupid and dishonest, but now they’re starting to decline into incoherence. It’s estimated that Alzheimer’s disease usually starts about 10 years before it’s actually diagnosed. Would anyone here be that surprised if this is the case for Brown?
I don’t know about Alzheimer, but any day soon now I bet we’ll be hearing of Brown’s conversion. I think he’ll be going for the cosy Catholic God, not the angry protestant one.
Since living in Sweden for ~3.5 glorious years in the early ’80’s I’ve noticed numerous times that Limeys seem almost breathlessly eager to bash anything Swedish in print. It must sell newspapers. Andrew Brown may be grasping at this to justify himself.
Really? Why would the English be interested in bashing Sweden? It’s hardly an historical enemy.
The only reason I can think of (and I’m not English but originally from a Commonwealth country) is historical – Sweden’s neutrality in WWII, which I believe was seen as consorting with the Axis, in contrast to the resistance by, say, Denmark and Norway.
Sweden was even so neutral Nazi trains were allowed to run through while the Swedes turned their backs to it!
Yes, and so did the neutral Swiss. This proves what, exactly?
Sweden was wedged between Nazi-occupied Norway to the West, Nazi-occupied Denmark to the South, and Finland allied to Nazi Germany to the East. Anything but complacent neutrality and time-biding would have been suicidal. The Churchillian pose is tempting, but if you use outsize rhetorics, you’d better carry an outsize bat. Churchill barely had that, the Swedes didn’t have a prayer.
Right. Plus, the Norwegian resistance would not have been able to be nearly as effective if they hadn’t had a neutral Sweden to escape to (Resistance agent Gunnar Sønsteby’s ‘Report from No. 24’ is highly recommended, and, wow, I didn’t realize till just now that he’s still alive!) Some years back I read Churchill’s view of Sweden during the war, after the fact (wish I could remember the source), and his reply was something like, “You were in a difficult position and you did entirely correct.”
The English are interested in bashing anything European (the Continent that is) and they can’t get Sweden on the Euro.
We slag off europe all the time (and its not just idiot journos), but scandinavia much less so than the rest.
I’ve certainly never noticed any remotely concerted criticism of Sweden, not even when Eriksson made a pig’s ear of the squad for the 2006 world cup.
If anything we tend to idealise it as a place full of willowy blondes…..
Wish I could remember some recent examples – they all seemed not worth gloating over in print – but some certainly were about some English word being adopted into Swedish.
Another much earlier example that I do remember appeared in a scientific journal in 1951, altho I’ve forgotten which one, by an English author making a strenuous case that the symbol for the Ångström unit should be A and not Å. He lost that one.
“Well, we’re neither “fundamentally” good nor bad; …”
I beg to differ. My observation is that humans are “fundamentally” stupid, ignorant and vicious by nature. It takes family and society to pressure anything better out of them and very little for most to slip back to savagery.
I don’t agree. My observation is that most people are decent, most of the time.
However, when I see how easily people are duped into making bad choices (e.g., when I see the current GOP lineup and their ‘positions’ or the more extreme historical example of widespread public public support for fascism), I have my doubts.
I do think that just about everyone is capable of doing some very bad stuff, if the motives are strong enough. Being aware of one’s capacity for wrongdoing can help prevent actually acting it out, though.
How many people who grew without a family and society do you know? We were all born ignorant, but stupid and vicious?
I was just hearing on the BBC that there was a scandal in the UK about the elderly getting abused, or neglected by their carers. Its just one of those problems that societies always have to be on the lookout for.
It is no secret that I am a swede I believe, with the exception of 2 years spent in [gasp!] Texas. Unfortunately I am no student of history of politics, which I mostly consider “just so” stories.
But I can easily note this anyway:
Brown has picked up on some current history of politics analyses while visiting, he has added some false beliefs on current events, and he has a godshaped hole in his brain regarding religious history.
In historical order:
– Scandinavian kings have AFAIU aligned themselves with and used churches to solidify their authority before and after the christian evangelization, changing from asa tro to christian belief to concentrate power.
– The protestant church was introduced when king Gustav Vasa needed to break danish dominance with its catholic church support, and constitute a state. Famously one can see most all castled cities having their castles on hills with cannons facing the churches. This was a reminder to the church of where the ultimate authority lay, constituted and enforced by Vasa.
– The popularized tale of the “Jante law” and its correlated social conformity has gone out of popularity with the current generation. But it is believed to be caused by the secular social equality which was always a tradition, going back to the empowered viking women. [Sw Wikipedia & National Historical Museum; use Google Translate.]
– Swedish elder care has gone from the folk tale of ättestupan, where you pushed out your elders when they no longer could help the family [hey, it is only an unsubstantiated popular tale!], to a socialized care which for many elders have provided a popular, liberating housing AFAIK the statistics. Elder people here are generally very healthy, and now they can enjoy that.
[I honestly think Brown has fallen into the cultural trap of judging from his own point of view here. Freedom can be scary and absence of ties look emotionally cold.]
– The current scandals of elder care is, unfortunately, not a new problem. There is as of yet only one investigation comparing state owned with private care AFAIK. While the neoliberals and libertarians expected private care to be less costly and of higher quality, the conclusion was that it was no better or no worse. FWIW.
If someone has a better analysis I am all eyes!
Sounds like a good analysis to me, found the Jantelag one interesting haven’t run into that one before.
“Why does religion keep telling us we’re bad?”
Because traditionally that has been the method that they have used to keep the sheep in line and exploit them. You are very very bad and God is very very angry with you. Keep doing what we tell you and keep giving us your money and we will put in a good word for you and try to get you off the hook. Can’t promise anything but we’ll do our best. Paradice or an eternity being roasted on a spit, it’s your choice.
I suspect religion also pulls from our memory of one of our earliest, darkest fears: chastisment. We have been naughty. We have been bad. Our parent is angry with us. Our fault. We feel shame.
The whole Christian song and dance about Original Sin and our unclean humanity might have originated in being scolded when, as toddlers, we pooped and made a mess — and were suddenly held accountable and beheld with horror.
Yes. The catholic’s original sin idea resonate with most of adults – ex-children – since it encapsulates the details of being (normally) naughty as kids.
This is one angle that I am interested in, since a lot of (religious) people told me: if (my) religion is mistaken as you said, why it stays for millenia? I said because it was forced down out throats since we’re kids – in every generation.
But there may be something intrinsic on the teaching itself, and the above is one of them. (the others: fear of fathers, loving but emotionally unstable mothers, sibling rivalry)
God! these gods are not fools!
Why does (say) the common-cold persist for millennia?
It is the same answer in both cases: It certainly serves not the host, but the parasite. In this case the parasite is the meme that we call religion.
Totally agree with memes, but we need to talk without memetics with most people ..
Religions are inherited, from parents (with help from society) to children. On and on, from generations to generations.
Before memetics, things like this are implausible. Common sense says that no one compels each generation unfailingly (except god). We now know that meme-plex will have its own interest, that may not even the same with the priests, let alone laymen. The virus is actually non-material.
The next will be the complex-system-emergence, the whole is more than its parts. Even weirder.
Andrew Brown’s writing is so godawful.
And there’s your religious rhetoric put to good use!
Let’s see, Andrew Brown says that almost all visitors to Sweden complain about conformism…and this is somehow related to the loss of religious authority? When Swedes bowed down to the authority of the church they were less conformist?
For a long time, I couldn’t believe that self-loathing gays existed. But after David Brock, then Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, etc. I finally understood that they’re real creatures. Andrew Brown is a self-loathing atheist and I wish he’d shut the hell up.
I visit Sweden regularly, and complaining about their ‘conformism’ never occurred to me. I think it’s a great place.
Did you see this piece by Andrew Brown:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/18/antibiotics-cold-placebo
His ignorance is exceeded only by his lack of moral sense.
“The idea of society as a place of mutual service has disappeared or at least attenuated to an ideal”
Lolololol.
Maybe he’s talking about Arbetsförmedlingen. Lazy bastards. I’ve been awaiting a phonecall since April 19th.
The comments in the Guardian closed quickly after 500+ responses, which rather explains why Andrew Brown retains his position.
The post was nonsense throughout,but my favourite was the suggestion that the godless attributed to themselves the nature of god.
Any modern human with the attributes of the JC god would be on the run, incarcerated for life, or sequestered in a secure treatment facility.
Its amazing that a respectable newspaper will
publish this kind of uninformed nonsense.The
social-democratic party in Sweden never tried
to destroy God.There still is and have always been a “brotherhood” of christian social-democrats.
The decline of that party(after more than 40
years in power!)have other reasons. And there is still religious people in Sweden including
some nut-cases.True God is fading away in all
the Scandinavian countries, social-democratic or
not. That is probably what happens if there is
a reasonably developed social security and,at
least some basic schooling.
I’m the author of the first post Jerry rants at. I largely agree with his general approach to the issue, but I also think that religion has been very successful partly because it formalizes and encourages the kinds of behaviors that we as cultures want to promote, particularly in cases where those behaviors are not so much encouraged by our evolutionary heritage– i.e., in cases where our culture has changed too fast for evolution to catch up.
The reason I’m commenting, however, is merely to answer his question as to why I “quoted scripture” in The Guardian. The reason is simply that I used my fundamentalist father’s admonition to consider us fundamentally bad as a rhetorical starting point to the piece (which was titled by the Guardian, by the way, not by me– I don’t think religion “keeps telling us we’re bad”). I ended on Isaiah simply because that’s how I began it. I do think there is a germ of truth there, however. Science and Nature love to report fuzzy hippy ideas that we are fundamentally good, and in this context perhaps a dose (just a dose, mind you, not an overdose) of the reactionary idea that we can be pretty bad (not just some of us but all of us to some extent) can help to balance out this easily polarized issue. I do think that religions, from Taoism to Christianity to Buddhism to local or “tribal” religions, have been very effective at exploring the eclectic, diverse, and conflicted nature of the human moral personality.
I also think that religion has been very successful partly because it formalizes and encourages the kinds of behaviors that we as cultures want to promote
strange.
I always thought laws were how we did that.
I don’t think religion “keeps telling us we’re bad”
it’s inane to generalize such a statement.
I do think that religions, from Taoism to Christianity to Buddhism to local or “tribal” religions, have been very effective at exploring the eclectic, diverse, and conflicted nature of the human moral personality.
You know what’s been far, far better at it?
anthropology, psychology, sociology….
yes, even behavioral ecology.