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Article by Chris on Religion at Aeon

🕑 Added 2021-11-22 12:44:16 +0000 UTC

Comments

Christopher Kavanagh

Cheers!

Christopher Kavanagh

I don't know him but religion as blood sacrifice is I think an interesting angle but one that only captures a very specific aspect of a rather specific category of religion.

Christopher Kavanagh

My impression from what I know about the China situation is that overt religious displays and membership of specific religious traditions was substantially suppressed by the CCP but this has done very little to impact supernatural beliefs and ritual practices which are both common and resurgent. And thanks for the kind words about the writing, I still like this article!

Tom Allison

Wow. I‘ve dabbled in numerous academic branches and I have to say in terms of well-written, lay-approachable, but still rigorous, and grappling with tremendous definitional problems while still remaining sound and comprehensible, this is some of the best writing I have come across. Very impressive. Also, a great read in terms of getting a feel for a subtle aspect of another culture - in this case the role of the supernatural in Japanese culture. You mention at some point that China and Hong Kong rate lowest in surveys on religious belief (or was it affiliation?). Is there any way to get at the “cognitive architecture” aspect of this? Presumably the Chinese case where overt religiosity has been explicitly suppressed (or do I assume too much?) would make an excellent case study for what components of religion are unavoidable - is superstition and belief in supernatural entities still as prevalent in China as elsewhere despite a the punishment of any recognizable religious organization by public authorities? (I must admit, I have not studied the state of such matters in China at all, so my comments are coming from a very broad, half-informed picture of the status of organized religious affiliation there).

Noj

This is dredged up some old memories of Rene Girard. Do you have any thoughts on him and his whole conception of the formation of religion revolving around sacrificial violence? I am personally quite skeptical of grand explanatory theories of everything, especially when they apply to religious phenomenon and society at large. He isn't quite a guru, but he has many followers who definitely are (Peter Thiel is one, but not really a Guru), I don't know if you have ever poked your head into the Girardosphere, but it can get pretty weird.

YellowDreams

Well written thanks for sharing Chris

Christopher Kavanagh

There is good evolutionary type research on the possible social role of religion in human societies. See Norenzayan's Big Gods or Johnson's God is Watching You. Also, any of Pascal Boyer's are very good.

MaxPlan

Pretty interesting article, personally coming from the Richard Dawkins view of religion, I had not given this much thought, but it makes sense. Is there any scientific work that studies the "benefits" of each system? Richard Dawkins was good for me to reason my way out of "western religion" and he proposed that the world would be better without religion, I still think this way if we are talking about "western" style religion, but it is just a hunch I have. Is there any research on what would be better for the world? Probably too broad of a question and probably requires assumptions about values?