Imagine no religion

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Danger, Will Robinson! I'd be very wary of bringing genetics into this - this looks to me too much of another attempt to misuse 'science' in order to bolster preconceived beliefs or prejudices (like the Intelligent Design scam or the alleged finding of a gene for homosexuality a decade or two ago). If we think this out, the logical conclusion would have to be that atheism is a genetic defect, wouldn't it, and I don't want to go where that might lead us.

I grew up Catholic, so am comfortable enough in the Sunday School version of that world view. I'm now more of a secular humanist than anything else. I do sometimes play with the idea of how any human emotion or drive evolved to be of some benefit to the human race. Some drives such as love or mercy might be identified as 'good.' Others such as greed or aggression might be associated with evil. At some point, though, any trait that evolved to become human normal was once beneficial to the species.

When I look back at hunter gatherer cultures, it is easy to see how both the good and the evil drives were advantageous to the spreading of the human race. Showing love and mercy to members of one's own clan or tribe benefits the tribe. Securing resources and driving the other tribe off what was once their land might also be beneficial to one's own tribe.

On the other hand, love drives, or sex drives, can run amok, leading to rape and domestic violence. Selfishness and a desire to gather resource is a force that drives business, but many cultures find it necessary to curb excessive greed and desire to seize land and resources. If we do not enable a competitive energy to make a living, economics doesn't work. Yet these same drives easily become evil in excess.

I'd agree that using genetic pseudo science to advocate this moral system or that is dangerous territory, but we might also strive to understand ourselves. Until we comprehend the demons inside us we're going to have grave difficulties taming them.

Tolkien is hardly unique in using the themes of Good and Evil. I do see considerable evidence that his creations might be 'programmed.' The 'good' races tend towards the sort of friendly emotions that one might share with family and good neighbors. The 'evil' races tend towards anger and aggression, the same sort of feelings Americans of prior generations might have been expected to feel when fighting huns, japs, nazis, redskins, redcoats, reds, rebels or yankees.

Looking at Tolkien's origin stories, sure, it becomes easy to conjecture that Eru and the other singers 'programmed' many races to be inclined towards the good emotions, but Morgoth corrupted and over rode much of this programming with his own. As a story teller, Tolkien gets to say lots of interesting things working from such a premise.