Religious propagation, Gameboard, Stoicism

New ish format, let me know what you think.

1.

I had spent close to 9 hours over two days in a temple for Yom Kipper. This gave me a lot of time to think. I like to put on my evolutionary glasses sometimes and attempt to try and figure out why or what is adaptive about a specific human behavior or shared belief. In this case, religion, being one of the most successful memes in human history, was the target of my inquiry. I have previously written about internal vs external locus of control and the psychological literature that backs up the claim that you achieve far greater outcomes with an internal locus of control.

One of the themes however in the language and stories of the Torah was that it generates an external locus of control, G-D. Why then I asked myself, is religion able to withstand the natural selection process which selects only for that which can successfully propagate itself. It is not necessarily the case that this external locus of control leads to better outcomes, although I will argue that it is a special subcategory of external LOC, but it leads to further commitment to and distribution of religion itself.

One of the main themes in nearly any religion is that you are powerless to the almighty, he has complete control of the universe and you should be grateful that he has allowed you to exist within it. It strips you of any agency and places your entire density in the hands of G-D.

Back to the subcategory statement, if the external LOC is placed within religion it can be equally beneficial as an internal LOC. The ILOC focuses on agency and self determination while external focuses on outside, uncontrollable events. The reason religious ELOC is different is that it places a benevolent figure in control of the uncontrollable. You can now trust the unknown.

ILOC requires an incredible amount of bravery and self belief that many people cannot muster, RELOC provides a security blanket that helps those people face the world. Their belief in their capability to affect the world is now braced by the knowledge there is an almighty figure on their side. 

2.

Religion also falls under the category of useful but not necessarily empirically true (not saying that it's not possible that it's true, just that science has not allowed us to verify its validity). It gives you the answers to many difficult existential questions such as what is moral, where do we come from, what is right or just, and gives you rules on how to conduct yourself given those answers.

It builds the game board and lays out the rules so that all you have to do is sit down and play it. The alternative is fumbling around trying to mash mismatched pieces together and not even knowing the rules if you managed to get an operational gameboard. 

Interesting fact: 

Marcus Aurelius used opium multiple times throughout the day. I would be stoic too if I was off my ass on opium all day. 

Question of the week: 

Why is protecting the ego and self image an integral part of being human? 

This builds upon a research paper I wrote a while ago that I'll link below. 

The Thought-Action Discrepancy

Cool Guy From History: 

Wild Bill Hickok born in the late 1830s has one of the wildest wild west, gunslinging, poker playing, bear fighting stories out there. He was also known for being a bit of an over exaggerated so take all of these stories with a grain of salt. According to Bill, he found the road he was driving his freight on to be blocked by a bear and her cub. He claims to have shot the mother bear in the head but the bullet ricocheted off, pissed, the mother bear attacked him. He then goes on to say that she bit onto his arm but he was able to grab his knife with his free hand and slash its throat. See, likely story. He was most famous for his run of shootout wins. One of which was a duel over unsettled gambling debts and interest in the same woman. He beat his opponent Davis Tutt and was promptly arrested. He was acquitted however not on the basis of self defense, which they found he did not act in, but on the basis of the unwritten law of “fair fight”. He later became a sheriff, however this did not stop his killing streak. The first was a drunk troublemaker who would go through town shooting out windows and bottles and being a general nuisance. When warned by the townsfolk that Hickok didn't play any games like the last sheriff he threatened to kill him. When he showed up in town again Hickok promptly sent a bullet through his temple. The second was another drunkard who was causing a disturbance in the saloon and making threats against Hickok, he dealt with him just as he did the last. In his later years Bill created a circus. He had a bear, monkey, and six buffalo along with three cowboys and six Native Americans to accompany him. His first show was a disaster as one of the buffalo refused to act, causing Hickok to fire his gun into the sky. This scared the animals and they broke free, starting an impromptu running of the bulls for the audience. The end of his life was spent playing poker. He played with Jack McCall who had lost badly to Hickok the night prior. McCall walked into the saloon and shot Bill at point blank range in the back of the head. His hand was two pairs, black aces and black eights, now known as dead man’s hand.