Religion, Technically

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Technology World HistoryOne of the truths of history is that technology has always been with us. Reading Steampunk stories always boosts my historical sense of the interaction of technology and civilization. Civilization, to the best of our knowledge, coalesced around the idea of religion. Kings rule at the behest of gods because, if it came down to just a matter of swords and games of thrones, there’s always somebody who’s willing to die for the sake of challenging authority, or taking it over. Unless the gods give it to someone. With this in mind I read Daniel R. Headrick’s Technology: A World History, a brief exploration into how we progressed to a hive mind (not his word) through smartphones from an initial band of scared apes two-footing it across the savanna with pointy rocks. The whole trip may have taken millennia, but once we reached a couple of flash points (the “Big Bang” of about 70,000 years ago when abstract artifacts began to appear, and then the birth of civilization about the time Sumer was organized) things sped up at a dizzying pace. Despite the anti-science rhetoric of the Religious Right, there’s no denying that we’re not in Eden any more.

We are accustomed to think of technological development as being cold and rational. Trial and error, based on brute mental power willing to bully through the dark forest of superstition, leading us to new heights. But from the early technology that led to Stonehenge and the pyramids to the coded message “What hath God wrought?” religious wonder has stood behind technological development. Indeed, in reading Technology it became clear that up until very recent times scientists got along with god, and sometimes even shared the credit for the devices they created. Reading about the Antikythera mechanism had me thinking along these lines: if someone had invented a kind of computer millennia ago, why didn’t it transform society in the first century before the Common Era? The answer can’t be that it sank beneath the Mediterranean, because other such devices likely existed. Why no Roman Empire Industrial Revolution?

Headrick makes it clear that early societies sometimes did not promote technologies. Technology was not just a matter of what we could do, but it was a means of social control. Those who charted the flow of wealth and power would have interest only in technologies that enabled the continued growth of that system. All the rest was just icing. People knew the basics of electricity long before a practical use was found for it. Petroleum products were known even to the Sumerians. The wheels of industry, however, are greased by more than just oil. We construct worlds, and gods used to direct our efforts. Now we let our technocrats call the shots. We write blogs wondering how religion fits into a nano-tech world. There may be some logic in it, but once we’ve left our footprints on the moon—who used to be a god—we’ve replaced the deities in the celestial sphere with those in our own heads. And there’s no going back.

The Ethics of Swallowing

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GulpMary Roach never fails to please. I first discovered her during a jaunt to my local, lamented Borders (not a weekend passes when I don’t mourn the chain’s closing anew) on an autumn evening when Spook leaped out at me (metaphorically) from the science section. I have read layperson-digestible science since I was in junior high school, having been a charter subscriber to Discover magazine. I was, therefore, amazed when I realized an author with some scientific credibility would take on the topic of ghosts. This was followed by Stiff, Bonk, Packing for Mars, and now, Gulp. The subtitle of Gulp, Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, captures the flavor of this book about eating. While some live to eat, we all eat to live, and it makes perfect sense that religion could come to shine a little light in this facet of human existence. Actually, although Roach doesn’t emphasize it, the ethics of eating has become a major interest in embodiment theology over the past few years. Food and faith, it turns out, are closely connected.

In Gulp, the one instance where religion comes into major play regards, ironically, rectal feeding. Roach points out that the question of its effectiveness had been part of discussions of fasting in the contexts of convents. Some traditions in various religions advocate denying oneself food as an act of penance or contrition. The question of whether nourishment taken without the satisfaction of eating counted, however, is one that the church took up. Characteristically not making a definitive answer, the practice mutely continues. Roach notes that clergy have been among the avowed supporters of colonic irrigation as well, making one wonder why the upper half of the alimentary canal has typically caused religions so much trouble. Of course, Roach is not writing about religion, but about eating. But still…

Religion, broken out abstractly from everything a person does, is a modern phenomenon. In fact, it is questionable whether religion can even be considered as a phenomenon of ancient societies at all since it was so thoroughly integrated into everything a person did. When priests separated themselves from laity, at least as early as ancient Sumer, the idea that one class of people could handle the requirements of the gods while the rest of us got along with the secular business of living life took hold. But religious specialists still maintained control over morals. Food, in a world of unfair distribution, will forever be an ethical issue. Instead, most religions have brought the focus down to the individual. What you eat may very well reflect your religious beliefs. Whether we feed the world or not we have, unwisely, left to politicians. As I ponder this indigestible topic, I recommend reading Gulp for a bit of relief from the serious business of the ethics of eating.

Darwinian Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins seems like he’s probably a nice guy in person. You can tell quite a bit about somebody from their writing, and even when Dawkins is being abrasive in script, you can almost see a gleam in his eye. When I read The God Delusion, for example, I found myself nodding in agreement quite a bit. Not that I agree with everything he wrote; as an academic I can’t, in principle, agree with everything anyone writes. Nevertheless, Dawkins expresses himself with passion and clarity, if with a bit over overstatement. I was interested to read the interview with him in the 10 Questions section of this week’s Time magazine. When one is building a case, it is easy to pile on rhetoric, and pretty soon the force of an argument takes on its own life and sometimes a few casualties are left bleeding in the wake. Still, it is a good exercise to sharpen the mind.

Wikipedia Commons, photo credit: Mike Cornwell

Wikipedia Commons, photo credit: Mike Cornwell

The last of Time’s 10 questions deals with how Dawkins can be certain there is no God. Dawkins, in a conciliatory move, declares that there is much of which we can never be certain. Noting that future science will discover realities that we simply don’t foresee, he suggests, “it’s extremely unlikely that it would happen to home in on an idea from a Bronze Age tribe in the desert.” I found this final sentiment a touch off-kilter. We have plenty of scientific developments that have come out of the “Bronze Age tribes,” but God is not one of them. “Desert tribes” gave us metal smelting, bovine and caprid domestication, and, perhaps most importantly of all, writing. God, however, comes from a much earlier evolutionary strata. In fact, by the time that the Sumerians appeared, multiple gods were already in their train.

In fact, evolutionary scientists seem to indicate that our brains have contrived some need for God/gods. That God isn’t a semitic desert mirage, however, is attested by people all over the world developing the idea independently. Not only did the Israelites and their forebears have deities, so did the Vedic cultures that we now call Hinduism. So did the Native Americans, indigenous African religions, and those who developed in isolation on Australia. Gods evolved everywhere. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that this means that we have some need of them. I like what Richard Dawkins writes. I enjoy his candor and passion. We do, however, have to credit the desert tribes with much of the thinking that leads to science, but the gods, they are far more ancient than that.

Heat Wave

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Stewing in the heat of the wave washing over much of the east, my thoughts sometimes turn to the cool, refreshing flood of Genesis. I’ve been Tweeting the Bible for some months now, and I am in the midst of the stories of the flood. Noting the many contradictions and discrepancies, it is a wonder to me how many of the religious are able to overlook or harmonize infelicities for the sake of a consistent faith. Most famously the story states that Noah took one pair of the clean animals, but also seven pairs of clean animals. The rain came down forty days. Or was it 150? One of the reasons that people continue to believe this story may be its specificity. No approximations or guesses, the numbers are precise, as if written down by an eyewitness at the scene. In actual fact, the story is among the oldest of recorded civilization and has its origins at least as far back as ancient Sumer. For as long as people told stories about the gods, they told stories about world-wide floods.

As a species that is able to think ahead, we have long been concerned with the fate that might befall us. Consider the amount of hype about the end of the world that has accompanied the random calendrical dates we’ve assigned to the cosmos: the world has been expected to end nearly every year since 2000, and that is only the most recent incarnation of this foreboding. If there are gods out there, they must have it in for us. The very fact of our being human seems to anger the deities. Even after God promises the world will never again be destroyed, he adds a caveat—not by flood, anyway. By the time we reach the letters near the end of the Christian Scriptures the future torment has turned to fire. There’s always something out there looming on the horizon.

“Prometheus teacher in every art brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends,” so reads the quote from Aeschylus behind Paul Manship’s statue of Prometheus. Prometheus was the Greek god (Titan, actually) favorably disposed toward humanity. His name means “forethought.” When humanity cowered and shivered in the dark, Prometheus brought the light and warmth of fire. It is easy to suppose the Greeks to have been more enlightened than earlier or contemporary civilizations, but Prometheus had offended Zeus and was subject to eternal torment for his thoughtful gift. Perhaps it is just the divine way—gods are jealous of us although they hold all the power. As I continue to tweet the good news of an angry god, I am starting to understand the power deities will always have over their vulnerable creatures.

Malleus Practice

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Misfortune takes a quiet seat in the back of the bus for many people, but it is always there riding behind you. My recent trip to Salem is now over, but it has left me with that haunted feeling that sometimes tragedy just won’t let go. Reading up on the history of witches and the belief therein, it is pretty clear that the whole idea began as a form of theodicy. Misfortune happens. When a one-to-one correspondence attends it, people don’t worry too much. (John has a stomachache. We know that John slapped Bob, and Bob punched John in the stomach so there’s no supernatural agent at work here.) When the adversity comes out of nowhere, to all appearances, we naturally look for a cause. As long ago as ancient Sumer, and probably before, the answer was sometimes the baleful influence of enemies with supernatural powers. The witch was born.

This idea has remarkable longevity. Even as the eighteenth century dawned, just a few short years after the tragedy at Salem, Puritans and politicians embarrassingly looked at their feet and admitted this mockery of justice had been an unfortunate error. Yet they still believed witches existed. The concept is alive even today in parts of the world minimally influenced by schooling in science and logic. (I taught at a seminary where various witch hunts still took place; books were even burned.) Who doesn’t know the feeling that a totally natural disaster was in some way targeting them? Whether tornadoes, tsunamis, or rain on your Memorial Day picnic, the normal human response is one of a minor (or major) persecution complex.

To solve the riddle of witches, horseshoes and witch bottles are not necessary, but education is. Witchcraft was not considered Satanic until the late Middle Ages when apocalyptic fever raged through Europe with the Black Death. Not understanding microbes, the populace supposed a great war presaging the end of times was escalating between God and Satan. The minions of the Dark Lord were spawned by witches and demons. (Add Tim LaHaye and you’ve pretty much got Left Behind.) To solve the problems of the righteous, sacrifice a few innocent victims. If we call them witches—actually any undesirable name will do, eh, Senator McCarthy?—we will feel justified in doing so. The real solution, namely, working together to overcome natural and human-made afflictions, is really just too hard.

Ice Father in Heaven

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The Internet can be a window into the collective consciousness of a nation. In a world where even the Weather Channel invites comments on its forecast page, the outlook of many Americans is laid bare. This latest shot of winter weather on the northeastern quarter of the country is an excellent example. It is still March, the tempestuous month of the war god, so a little snow in the northern latitudes should come as no surprise. An unnamed dean at a state school here in New Jersey had just sent out an email blast the week before stating, with decanal authority, that there would be no more weather delays this year. Yesterday there was still snow on the ground after the storm. Frustrated citizens cursed – actually cursed – the winter on weather.com.

For years I have maintained that the weather is key to understanding the human perception of the divine. From ancient Sumer’s An and Enlil through classical Greece’s Uranus and Zeus, the gods unquestionably in charge are the sky gods. The guys who control the weather. In Israel Yahweh took that job description from a reluctant Hadad – aka Baal – and many people considered this a serious mistake. Don’t mess with the weather god! As the snow begins to melt once more, even those of us in the enlightened twenty-first century should be reminded that our sense of what the world should be is an illusion. Nature evolved our brains, and now our brains think they have the right to take over.

Once, back in Wisconsin, I stepped outside on a chilly June morning and saw flecks of snow in the air. It wasn’t “snowing” – it doesn’t snow in June – but there was definitely a frozen sort of precipitation hanging tentatively in the air. I was teaching at the most self-righteous of seminaries at the time, and it became clear to me, once again, that we are not in control. Among the scariest books I read in Wisconsin was Brian Fagan’s The Little Ice Age. I was at work on my book on weather language in the Psalms (still unpublished) and the unsettling truth drifted around me like this winter’s snows: if a new ice age settles in, there is nothing we can do to stop it. Geologists still can’t state what triggers these periodic events, or even what their timetable might be. If earth’s ice caps again begin to grow, however, I am certain that we will also see a dramatic increase in religiosity. For the gods, we all know deep down, are in the skies.

Old Father Hubble

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“Space. The final frontier.” So I grew up hearing as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock raced through the galaxy and plucky Will Robinson explored the cosmos with Robot despite the machinations of Dr. Zachary Smith. In Seattle a few years back I visited Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Museum and as I stood before the original Enterprise console and viewed Robot in person, it was almost a personal epiphany. This was my childhood all in one room.

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, courtesy Gnu

NASA has just announced the release of more deep space images snapped by the new and improved Hubble Space Telescope. These images show objects, galaxies, back to a mere 600 million years after the Big Bang. Look any further back and you’re liable to find yourself staring God right in the eye! These incredibly ancient images are humbling to a scholar of ancient times. In the cosmic calendar Sumer isn’t even on the map. And now we can see back almost to the Big Bang itself. It is another kind of epiphany.

Here's lookin' at you, kids - Hubble's new view

Cosmology is inherently religious. Even Stephen Hawking leaves room for the unknown, “religious” entity in his popular writing. As the infinitesimal biological apex of evolution on our own planet, we are somewhat less than cosmic dust on the grand scale. When we reach out to that cold blackness of outer space metaphors fail us until we fall back on God language. I look forward to the day when the Big Bang is captured on film (or digitally). I am almost certain that when that happens science will become far stranger than fiction.

Care of the Dead

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Stretching back before the advent of writing, back before civilization itself began, people have shown reverence for their dead. Paleolithic era grave goods attest to care of the dead residing among the earliest strata of human behavior, and it is a behavior that continues to evolve to reflect the belief structures of the Zeitgeist. The idea of constructing cemeteries in a garden where family and friends might visit their departed is a relatively recent innovation. Increased population and concerns about epidemics led to the landscaped, garden-variety cemetery outside of populated areas in the 18th century. Before that graveyards could be located within the city itself, often near a church or sacred location.

While visiting Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, my niece asked me why people left pennies on gravestones (H. P. Lovecraft’s tombstone had one on it, and others around it). My thoughts went to Wulfila’s recent blog post on the Black Angel tomb in Iowa City and the pennies scattered there. I also recalled La Belle Cemetery in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin where a “haunted statue” was always richly endowed with pennies in her cupped hands. LaBelleThe specific form of penny offerings seems to go back to Benjamin Franklin’s burial, at least in America. A few years back while in Philadelphia, I saw for myself that people still leave pennies on Franklin’s grave in Christ Church Cemetery.

Franklin

Franklin pennies (and a few nickles)

There is no universally accepted reason explaining why Benjamin Franklin should have been the first to have received such treatment — in fact, I would argue that it is much older than Dr. Ben.

Money to accompany the dead has a long history. Pennies on the eyes or under the tongue of the deceased originated in the need to placate the ferryman across the river of — what’s it called? — Oh, yes, the river of forgetfulness. The classical Greek form of this mythic character is Charon, the boatman who punted the dead across Styx. He required payment, and since coinage had been invented, it was a convenient way to pay. (Today the truly devoted might leave a credit card in the casket.) The ferryman must have his pay, as the movie Ghostship warns, but the idea is much older still. The earliest references to being poled across the river go back to ancient Sumer, the earliest known civilization. As soon as people became civilized they began to pay homage to the gloomy captain of souls.

While in Prague just after it opened to western visitors, my wife and I stopped by the famous Jewish cemetery where the tombstones are so tightly packed in that they are barely legible. My wife asked why so many of the tombstones had smaller stones on top, placed there as dedications.JPrague I recalled having seen stones on tombs outside Jerusalem some years back, and I even had a student bring me a stone from Israel to keep as long as I promised to put it on her grave after she died. This practice in its recent form is associated with Judaism, but again, it has ancient roots. The building of cairns, or piles of stones, is often associated with the Celts or the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles. On our many wandering through the highlands and islands we saw several Neolithic examples in Scotland, particularly in the Orkney Islands. The practice of putting stones atop the dead also goes back to ancient times. One plausible suggestion is that it was intended to keep the dead in their graves. A more prosaic conclusion is that digging deep holes takes more work than hauling over a pile of rocks.

No matter what the origin of the practice may be, one of the surest signs of civilization is care for the welfare of the dead. Today a penny is easily left, costs the bearer little, and creates a memorable image for all who follow.

Biblical Lyres

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lyrelyre

The head of Ur’s bull harp stares at me from the article announcing Penn Museum’s “Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery” exhibit down the road in Philly. Despite recent questions of the ethics of laying off yet more academics, this exhibit beckons to those of use who’ve only ever seen pictures of the famous finds from the ancient world that we’ve spent our lives reading about. Penn’s museum is famous for its holdings from Sumer, and I’m trying to scrape together the change to go and take a gander.

Still, I was not surprised to see that the biblical angle was tied into the article as well. “The royal tombs of Ur (the city believed to be the home of the Bible’s Abraham) date to 2,600 to 2,500 B.C.” it reads. The article doesn’t go as far as to state that Abraham, not historically attested, if he ever lived, dates to at least a millennium later than Sumer’s heyday. No, Abe never strummed that beautiful bull-headed harp nor thought on Isaac as he stared at the “Ram-in-the-Thicket.” The only way to get the paying public in, however, is to play the biblical card. Were it not for Abraham, however, Sumer would likely have remained the orphan child of early antiquity.

Among the great civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Sumer failed to make it into the Bible. Its Mesopotamian successors Babylonia and Assyria marched into Holy Writ when they sacked Jerusalem and Samaria, and even the Hittites merit a mention with Abraham’s poignant loss of Sarah. Sumer was a civilization that stood on its own. No Bible story was necessary for any to see its greatness, yet there was no public interest without biblical bating. Nevertheless, this is a road-trip worth the taking. It will be nice to see the glory of Ur, even without Abraham lurking in the shadows.