Very interesting perspective on play. "The religions that emerged with agriculture and feudalism have promoted horrors that would be unimaginable to hunter-gatherers." Greed, resentment and sociopathy can all lead to horrors, with or without religion. Some just use the cover of religion to act on the worst impulses. Others (Stalin, Mao, etc.) use manipulation and terror. Are perhaps our problems today stem from the loss of time to use imagination and play?
I’m afraid your argument on faith is specious. It makes some interesting connections and may give insight into specific traditions, but it makes some leaps that are hard to swallow. I wrote you this essay to explain my reasoning. *sweatdrop*
To start: “The essence of all religion is faith.” This is a rather bold statement. Belief is important to many religions, but ritual or right living may be much more essential. Buddhism, Confucianism, or Hinduism, for example, can be practiced without holding to particular supernatural beliefs. Judaism has prominent branches that are primarily cultural practices; and many call themselves Christians out of cultural loyalty without even considering personal faith or regular ritual. Islam has a high view of faith, yet it calls for piety - the Five Pillars - much more than ascribing to detailed articles of belief. So to call faith the essence of all religion is exaggerated at best.
Now to the worst part of your argument: “To have faith is to believe without evidence. That’s the definition of faith.”
That’s… not the definition of faith. It does somewhat resemble one of the secondary definitions Oxford offers: “strong belief…based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.” But the main definition is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something”. That can be based on excellent evidences or it can be a ‘blind faith’; the term itself is neutral as to whether any make-believe is required. For another example, the Christian definition of faith, “the assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen,” can apply to evidenced things such as confidence that 911 is coming when I call, that black holes and human imagination exist, and that Washington crossed the Delaware.
The same economic evidence is given very different causes depending on if one accepts Keynesian or laissez-faire premises. But imagine if Friedman said Keynes based his theory on a game where he just decided how he would like economics to work. “Obviously Keynes’ ideas were based on very sacred intuitions about how we ought to behave with money, and it’s a bit unfortunate that he held those views so strongly that he was unwilling to admit what he secretly knew, that his ‘evidence’ is completely irrelevant to the empirical world.”
That’s about how I felt when you excluded scientific and religious truth from mutual relevance. As an evolutionist, you can say an intelligent design interpretation of the evidence is wrong. But it’s ridiculous to say that there is no evidence about the history of existence; it’s like a bizarre cousin of gaslighting.
Compare cacti and euphorbias, from different families and continents yet indistinguishable when not in flower. One explanation is convergent evolution due to common pressures, another is parallel utility due to a common designer. One argument may be more convincing, but neither is without empirical evidence.
There are certainly religions that don’t expect the spiritual to intersect with the practical or to even be consistent with other stories, and maybe you can define that sort of faith as imagination - a game based on our decree rather than an external reality. If you are a materialist, then I certainly see the appeal. But there are a good number of philosophies that consider the supernatural as an observable reality, not simply poetic truths, and therefore to have mutual implications with the material world. Are you really going to come along and say considering such an idea means someone’s confused about how make-believe works? It’s almost as bad as the behaviorists who deny the existence of the mind.
Our worldview can always interfere with our understanding of the physical world, ancient crusader or modern social Darwinist. Using some anthropological studies to claim the only original and healthy way of viewing religion is a sacred, playful fiction and that all other views are fearful distortions of this original - well, I found it pretty awkward, and distracting from your more modest arguments. Statements like the Aztecs sacrificed to angry gods did not help boost my confidence in your neat analysis of religion- it is my understanding that the Aztecs considered their gods to have sacrificed themselves to create the world, and that their human sacrifices were typically avatars of the gods, nobly laying down their lives in an act of renewal. That sounds like cooperating with generous gods and the requirements of nature, not appeasing King Minos.
I love the way play and fantasy allows us to process our world, and I’ve seen for myself how valuable a playful approach to life is. But I have no interest in living double-minded or insisting on taking something poetic literally. Fiction can be truthful and religion can be playful - but a simplistic view of faith is not helpful in interpreting either.
Karissa, thank you for this thoughtful "essay." I appreciate it and I'm sure other readers do too. With some regret, I'm not going to try to respond to it. There is so much here and to truly engage in dialogue about all this would take me too far off track. I agree with some of what you have said here, disagree with some, and don't understand some. Once we get into issues like this, so much depends on semantics (term definitions). I'll plod on in my next letter. One thing your essay reinforces is that nothing I say should be regarded as gospel, just as something to think about. Your essay has stimulated further thinking in me and I'm sure in others.
" ... it is my understanding that the Aztecs considered their gods to have sacrificed themselves to create the world, and that their human sacrifices were typically avatars of the gods, nobly laying down their lives in an act of renewal. That sounds like cooperating with generous gods and the requirements of nature, not appeasing King Minos."
Whether having its source in Religion or otherwise, this propensity to embrace self-sacrifice seems to become a kind of Siren Song to many throughout history. Ayn Rand was less tolerant, and called it evil, which she defined in terms of being antilife. She even seemed to make a rather curious attempt to invoke natural selection in an attempt to define an objective morality, which I am not quite able to follow. More simply though, I'm inclined to suspect that people who don't value their own lives aren't going to value mine either, and so they aren't really safe to be around. An arbitrary value judgement of my own, perhaps.
I think we might also describe the Scientific Worldview as a form of Make-Believe, in that it assumes (or pretends?) that:
(1) An Objective Reality exists
(2) That Reality is patterned and rule governed
(3) It is possible for humans to have knowledge of what some of those rules are.
We could say, of course, that if we don't assume these things, there isn't much point in talking. In that case, to what could our words and sentences refer? How could we hope to understand each other?
In the case of Religion, it seems that some might make a similar point: if we don't assume a source of ethical order in the Universe, a source of Right and Wrong, then what difference does it make what we do?
While I'm inclined to think that Objective Good exists independently of the need for a Deity, it is not at all easy to verify its existence, or even to define. In fact, I think the best way to get at it is through stories. Stories which we find find compelling, which intrigue us and move us, seem to be the best way of getting at what is true.
In that sense, the story of Jesus' life is a great story. And I can relate to Tolkien describing it (in an essay "On Faery Stories") as "It's a good story, and all the better for being true".
Or as the Quakers put it "That spake to my condition."
Very interesting article. If I recall correctly, a Pagan Studies scholar has pointed out that Pagan rituals are playful and joyous, and that Pagan beliefs are often tentative and hypothetical and playful — and I’ve often said that if your religion is not fun, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve also frequently said that the best religions are the ones that can laugh at themselves (the ones who tell the most jokes about themselves are Pagans, Jews, and Unitarians / Unitarian Universalists). And I have often said that Pagan rituals are sacred play.
Regarding this bit:
“But the ceremonies were clearly not rituals in the sense of strict, uncreative adherence to a prescribed form.”
That isn’t a useful definition of ritual. Ronald Grimes, anthropologist of ritual, identifies five modes of ritual: liturgical, magical, creative, ceremonial, and repetitive. Check him out-- his ideas are very much in tune with what you’ve written here.
In 2008, I attended an academic conference on ritual at Heidelberg University and there were academics of various disciplines attending and one of the things that was very clear was the creativity involved in most rituals, even “high church” liturgical ones. Humans don’t like repetition, we get bored; and everyone wants a piece of the action, so more ritual roles get added.
Yvonne, thank you for this expanded understanding of "rituals." I'm sure that when anthropologists refer to the hunter-gatherer "rituals" they are implicitly using an expanded definition. I was just pointing out that these are not "rituals" by the common dictionary definition, which is: "a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order."
There is nothing inherently ‘religious’ about mnemonic ritual. That ritual (and ‘worship) is now defined as ‘religious’ is a very modern Christian recontextualization, noting that recontextualization functions as erasure.
The last time I was in Church was around 1972; at that time our Lutheran Church was beginning to occasionally host young singers with guitars singing gospel songs, quite a novelty at the time. But of course we know now that was about the last generation before entering the era of severe play deprivation. I wonder if that has influenced what innovations may or may not have occurred in Church services since then.
'Make belief' is not only the essential ingredient of what we call 'civilization' but also it's our main contribution to (what we call) reality.
Our very ability to make true what we believe in - otherwise known as our ability to play - is fueled by what we call 'survival instinct'. Our need, expressed individually, to conserve our consciences
God, money and even human rights - all of them tools we use, collectively, towards the goal mentioned above - are here simply because we believe in them.
Ancient mnemotechnical traditions were not ‘religion’. There isn’t a shred of evidence that the concepts of ‘religion’ or ‘supernatural’ (above and beyond natural / universal law) which the concept of religion necessarily depends on, existed anywhere in the world until their very modern invention in the 13th century by Christian High Scholastics who aggressively exported these anti-science / irrational concepts globally backed up by economic incentives / threats, imprisonment, barbaric torture and the slaughter of millions of people.
The very ancient, global, mythopoetic, rational mnemotechnical tradition was securely rooted in advanced astromathematics, astrophysics, geophysics, ecoscience, an extensive historical record and complex medical philosophies (high sciences in their own right) and psychologically sophisticated moral / social codes that were seamlessly consistent with, and reflective of, the science and history. No woo woo.
“This very ancient tradition was a complex technology of memory, noting that according to mainstream science / anthropology, ancient people around the globe and tens of thousands of years ago, necessarily cross-generationally, were tracking vast cycles of time in the tens of thousands of years and more specifically, nearly every significant premodern / ancient culture, seemingly obsessively, tracked the approx 26k year cycle of equinoctial precession.”
“Noting that mainstream modern science and anthropology tells us that ancient people around the globe, tens of thousands of years ago and necessarily cross-generationally, seemingly obsessively, tracked the approx 26k year cycle of equinoctial precession (precession of the equinoxes) and passed info / data along for (at least) 3,000 generations.”
I agree, there's something sacred and fundamental about the act of play, which is a creative act, an act of joy and speculation and curiosity and imagination. Playfulness is a kind of love for the things and people you play with. Intercourse is a kind of play. And so is prayer, when it's an engagement with something we feel as a higher power that embraces us. You are right, play does makes us human.
Because most religions threaten some sort of eternal punishment as consequence of ‘not believing’ can it ever truly be considered as ‘playful’?
I suppose it could be argued that notions of heaven and hell form the greatest reward and punishment in the ‘game’ of life for those who ‘subscribe’.
Whilst some religions have tempered their treatment of non believers in general, others still mete out medieval style treatments to those who criticise their faith.
Julie, I agree. That is my point. Religions that posit a judgmental god that punishes or rewards people have, to the degree that people take them seriously, lost their playfulness, even though all religious beliefs depend on our cognitive capacity for make-believe which originated with our capacity for play.
Religions that attempt to proscribe dogmas rather than tell stories seem to (inevitably?) become incoherent, ie self contradictory. Thus, "youll go to hell" and "judge not" don't seem to fit together very well.
Liberal religions accept that there are many paths available. I once heard a Unitarian minister joyfully point out that the Christmas story is only a story. Most Pagans recognize that our rituals are sacred play, and that there are many paths available.
I remember as a child thinking that the Nativity scene was a celebration of childhood, of birth, as holy - which fit rather well with the Santa Claus myth after all.
I remember feeling somewhat offended to find out it applied only to one, "special" child.
I went through that same emotion - what's so special about that baby? Just because I actually made love with my husband, my baby is lesser? I was working as a soloist in an Episcopalian church and was a new mom, and these incongruities irritated me. I had to think of the nativity as a celebration of all new life.
Very interesting perspective on play. "The religions that emerged with agriculture and feudalism have promoted horrors that would be unimaginable to hunter-gatherers." Greed, resentment and sociopathy can all lead to horrors, with or without religion. Some just use the cover of religion to act on the worst impulses. Others (Stalin, Mao, etc.) use manipulation and terror. Are perhaps our problems today stem from the loss of time to use imagination and play?
Good point, kmick. I did not mean to imply that all of humanity's horrors have been conducted in the name of religion.
Yes! I blame the Protestant work ethic.
I’m afraid your argument on faith is specious. It makes some interesting connections and may give insight into specific traditions, but it makes some leaps that are hard to swallow. I wrote you this essay to explain my reasoning. *sweatdrop*
To start: “The essence of all religion is faith.” This is a rather bold statement. Belief is important to many religions, but ritual or right living may be much more essential. Buddhism, Confucianism, or Hinduism, for example, can be practiced without holding to particular supernatural beliefs. Judaism has prominent branches that are primarily cultural practices; and many call themselves Christians out of cultural loyalty without even considering personal faith or regular ritual. Islam has a high view of faith, yet it calls for piety - the Five Pillars - much more than ascribing to detailed articles of belief. So to call faith the essence of all religion is exaggerated at best.
Now to the worst part of your argument: “To have faith is to believe without evidence. That’s the definition of faith.”
That’s… not the definition of faith. It does somewhat resemble one of the secondary definitions Oxford offers: “strong belief…based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.” But the main definition is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something”. That can be based on excellent evidences or it can be a ‘blind faith’; the term itself is neutral as to whether any make-believe is required. For another example, the Christian definition of faith, “the assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen,” can apply to evidenced things such as confidence that 911 is coming when I call, that black holes and human imagination exist, and that Washington crossed the Delaware.
The same economic evidence is given very different causes depending on if one accepts Keynesian or laissez-faire premises. But imagine if Friedman said Keynes based his theory on a game where he just decided how he would like economics to work. “Obviously Keynes’ ideas were based on very sacred intuitions about how we ought to behave with money, and it’s a bit unfortunate that he held those views so strongly that he was unwilling to admit what he secretly knew, that his ‘evidence’ is completely irrelevant to the empirical world.”
That’s about how I felt when you excluded scientific and religious truth from mutual relevance. As an evolutionist, you can say an intelligent design interpretation of the evidence is wrong. But it’s ridiculous to say that there is no evidence about the history of existence; it’s like a bizarre cousin of gaslighting.
Compare cacti and euphorbias, from different families and continents yet indistinguishable when not in flower. One explanation is convergent evolution due to common pressures, another is parallel utility due to a common designer. One argument may be more convincing, but neither is without empirical evidence.
There are certainly religions that don’t expect the spiritual to intersect with the practical or to even be consistent with other stories, and maybe you can define that sort of faith as imagination - a game based on our decree rather than an external reality. If you are a materialist, then I certainly see the appeal. But there are a good number of philosophies that consider the supernatural as an observable reality, not simply poetic truths, and therefore to have mutual implications with the material world. Are you really going to come along and say considering such an idea means someone’s confused about how make-believe works? It’s almost as bad as the behaviorists who deny the existence of the mind.
Our worldview can always interfere with our understanding of the physical world, ancient crusader or modern social Darwinist. Using some anthropological studies to claim the only original and healthy way of viewing religion is a sacred, playful fiction and that all other views are fearful distortions of this original - well, I found it pretty awkward, and distracting from your more modest arguments. Statements like the Aztecs sacrificed to angry gods did not help boost my confidence in your neat analysis of religion- it is my understanding that the Aztecs considered their gods to have sacrificed themselves to create the world, and that their human sacrifices were typically avatars of the gods, nobly laying down their lives in an act of renewal. That sounds like cooperating with generous gods and the requirements of nature, not appeasing King Minos.
I love the way play and fantasy allows us to process our world, and I’ve seen for myself how valuable a playful approach to life is. But I have no interest in living double-minded or insisting on taking something poetic literally. Fiction can be truthful and religion can be playful - but a simplistic view of faith is not helpful in interpreting either.
Karissa, thank you for this thoughtful "essay." I appreciate it and I'm sure other readers do too. With some regret, I'm not going to try to respond to it. There is so much here and to truly engage in dialogue about all this would take me too far off track. I agree with some of what you have said here, disagree with some, and don't understand some. Once we get into issues like this, so much depends on semantics (term definitions). I'll plod on in my next letter. One thing your essay reinforces is that nothing I say should be regarded as gospel, just as something to think about. Your essay has stimulated further thinking in me and I'm sure in others.
Re:
" ... it is my understanding that the Aztecs considered their gods to have sacrificed themselves to create the world, and that their human sacrifices were typically avatars of the gods, nobly laying down their lives in an act of renewal. That sounds like cooperating with generous gods and the requirements of nature, not appeasing King Minos."
Whether having its source in Religion or otherwise, this propensity to embrace self-sacrifice seems to become a kind of Siren Song to many throughout history. Ayn Rand was less tolerant, and called it evil, which she defined in terms of being antilife. She even seemed to make a rather curious attempt to invoke natural selection in an attempt to define an objective morality, which I am not quite able to follow. More simply though, I'm inclined to suspect that people who don't value their own lives aren't going to value mine either, and so they aren't really safe to be around. An arbitrary value judgement of my own, perhaps.
I think we might also describe the Scientific Worldview as a form of Make-Believe, in that it assumes (or pretends?) that:
(1) An Objective Reality exists
(2) That Reality is patterned and rule governed
(3) It is possible for humans to have knowledge of what some of those rules are.
We could say, of course, that if we don't assume these things, there isn't much point in talking. In that case, to what could our words and sentences refer? How could we hope to understand each other?
In the case of Religion, it seems that some might make a similar point: if we don't assume a source of ethical order in the Universe, a source of Right and Wrong, then what difference does it make what we do?
While I'm inclined to think that Objective Good exists independently of the need for a Deity, it is not at all easy to verify its existence, or even to define. In fact, I think the best way to get at it is through stories. Stories which we find find compelling, which intrigue us and move us, seem to be the best way of getting at what is true.
In that sense, the story of Jesus' life is a great story. And I can relate to Tolkien describing it (in an essay "On Faery Stories") as "It's a good story, and all the better for being true".
Or as the Quakers put it "That spake to my condition."
I plan to play with some of these philosophical issues in my next letter. Thanks for raising them.
Very interesting article. If I recall correctly, a Pagan Studies scholar has pointed out that Pagan rituals are playful and joyous, and that Pagan beliefs are often tentative and hypothetical and playful — and I’ve often said that if your religion is not fun, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve also frequently said that the best religions are the ones that can laugh at themselves (the ones who tell the most jokes about themselves are Pagans, Jews, and Unitarians / Unitarian Universalists). And I have often said that Pagan rituals are sacred play.
Regarding this bit:
“But the ceremonies were clearly not rituals in the sense of strict, uncreative adherence to a prescribed form.”
That isn’t a useful definition of ritual. Ronald Grimes, anthropologist of ritual, identifies five modes of ritual: liturgical, magical, creative, ceremonial, and repetitive. Check him out-- his ideas are very much in tune with what you’ve written here.
In 2008, I attended an academic conference on ritual at Heidelberg University and there were academics of various disciplines attending and one of the things that was very clear was the creativity involved in most rituals, even “high church” liturgical ones. Humans don’t like repetition, we get bored; and everyone wants a piece of the action, so more ritual roles get added.
Yvonne, thank you for this expanded understanding of "rituals." I'm sure that when anthropologists refer to the hunter-gatherer "rituals" they are implicitly using an expanded definition. I was just pointing out that these are not "rituals" by the common dictionary definition, which is: "a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order."
There is nothing inherently ‘religious’ about mnemonic ritual. That ritual (and ‘worship) is now defined as ‘religious’ is a very modern Christian recontextualization, noting that recontextualization functions as erasure.
The last time I was in Church was around 1972; at that time our Lutheran Church was beginning to occasionally host young singers with guitars singing gospel songs, quite a novelty at the time. But of course we know now that was about the last generation before entering the era of severe play deprivation. I wonder if that has influenced what innovations may or may not have occurred in Church services since then.
'Make belief' is not only the essential ingredient of what we call 'civilization' but also it's our main contribution to (what we call) reality.
Our very ability to make true what we believe in - otherwise known as our ability to play - is fueled by what we call 'survival instinct'. Our need, expressed individually, to conserve our consciences
God, money and even human rights - all of them tools we use, collectively, towards the goal mentioned above - are here simply because we believe in them.
https://nicichiarasa.com/2024/03/20/1-2-3-4-5-a-b-c/
Ancient mnemotechnical traditions were not ‘religion’. There isn’t a shred of evidence that the concepts of ‘religion’ or ‘supernatural’ (above and beyond natural / universal law) which the concept of religion necessarily depends on, existed anywhere in the world until their very modern invention in the 13th century by Christian High Scholastics who aggressively exported these anti-science / irrational concepts globally backed up by economic incentives / threats, imprisonment, barbaric torture and the slaughter of millions of people.
The very ancient, global, mythopoetic, rational mnemotechnical tradition was securely rooted in advanced astromathematics, astrophysics, geophysics, ecoscience, an extensive historical record and complex medical philosophies (high sciences in their own right) and psychologically sophisticated moral / social codes that were seamlessly consistent with, and reflective of, the science and history. No woo woo.
“This very ancient tradition was a complex technology of memory, noting that according to mainstream science / anthropology, ancient people around the globe and tens of thousands of years ago, necessarily cross-generationally, were tracking vast cycles of time in the tens of thousands of years and more specifically, nearly every significant premodern / ancient culture, seemingly obsessively, tracked the approx 26k year cycle of equinoctial precession.”
https://medium.com/@jeffmiller_14689/our-ancient-ancestors-remembered-2ec0c303e45f?source=friends_link&sk=a77bf92308511e57faadbee9b192345b
“Noting that mainstream modern science and anthropology tells us that ancient people around the globe, tens of thousands of years ago and necessarily cross-generationally, seemingly obsessively, tracked the approx 26k year cycle of equinoctial precession (precession of the equinoxes) and passed info / data along for (at least) 3,000 generations.”
https://medium.com/@jeffmiller_14689/religion-mythology-and-ancient-knowledge-1a0b6c59a31d?source=friends_link&sk=ab8cb337a1d255a9b239602b617dd78e
[ no paywall ]
I agree, there's something sacred and fundamental about the act of play, which is a creative act, an act of joy and speculation and curiosity and imagination. Playfulness is a kind of love for the things and people you play with. Intercourse is a kind of play. And so is prayer, when it's an engagement with something we feel as a higher power that embraces us. You are right, play does makes us human.
very like the Navajo and Hopi and their Kachina.
Because most religions threaten some sort of eternal punishment as consequence of ‘not believing’ can it ever truly be considered as ‘playful’?
I suppose it could be argued that notions of heaven and hell form the greatest reward and punishment in the ‘game’ of life for those who ‘subscribe’.
Whilst some religions have tempered their treatment of non believers in general, others still mete out medieval style treatments to those who criticise their faith.
Julie, I agree. That is my point. Religions that posit a judgmental god that punishes or rewards people have, to the degree that people take them seriously, lost their playfulness, even though all religious beliefs depend on our cognitive capacity for make-believe which originated with our capacity for play.
Religions that attempt to proscribe dogmas rather than tell stories seem to (inevitably?) become incoherent, ie self contradictory. Thus, "youll go to hell" and "judge not" don't seem to fit together very well.
Most *fundamentalist* religions threaten that.
Liberal religions accept that there are many paths available. I once heard a Unitarian minister joyfully point out that the Christmas story is only a story. Most Pagans recognize that our rituals are sacred play, and that there are many paths available.
I remember as a child thinking that the Nativity scene was a celebration of childhood, of birth, as holy - which fit rather well with the Santa Claus myth after all.
I remember feeling somewhat offended to find out it applied only to one, "special" child.
I went through that same emotion - what's so special about that baby? Just because I actually made love with my husband, my baby is lesser? I was working as a soloist in an Episcopalian church and was a new mom, and these incongruities irritated me. I had to think of the nativity as a celebration of all new life.