Quotes:
"Collective commitment to the absurd is the greatest demonstration of group love that humans have devised."
"An examination of eighty-three utopian communes of the nineteenth century indicates that religious groups with more costly rituals were more likely to survive over time than religious groups with fewer rituals."
"Religious beliefs, then, are more likely to spread in a population and promote cooperation through mutual commitment than secular beliefs alone."
From: Scott Atran: "Talking to the Enemy: Violent Extremism, Sacred Values, and What it Means to Be Human"
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5 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Reading these quotes immediately reminded me of the mass suicides of the besieged Zealots and Sicarii at Masada, as well as the Peoples Temple cult. Other than religion, what motivates such collective commitment behavior?
p-nullifidian
Level 8
July 21, 2018
1
@Matias Be careful around 'social glue.' Like flypaper, it may make even you a victim!
I’m not sure I understand about group love. I’ve never really thought about rituals being “group love”. Commitment to the absurd, yes. Do you think that group love is just a feeling of unity?
The desire of humans to belong to a tightly-knit group might explain a lot of behavior. Religious organizations accommodate that need very well. Perhaps the adherents are only pretending to have ridiculous beliefs and the beliefs are of no importance to them—it’s all about being a member. Clearly a church could provide a greater sense of unity than just a social club, and a city gang could also, with its blood rituals. Maybe a crucial element is the sense of elitism, of standing strongly together and being in the right. It doesn’t matter if you really are right—it’s the feeling of righteousness that matters.
Then there are we steppen-wolves who got tired of the group strictures and go it alone.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
July 21, 2018
1
Sure! BLING BUYS! Look at how the Catholics used it to impress/enslave the ''heathens.'' Rituals involve the ignorant and make them feel a part of something really, reallyreallyreally important!
LucyLoohoo
Level 9
July 21, 2018
1
America has always been a cradle for cults:
7th Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Branch Davidians, all apocalyptic. Blue Oyster, rock and roll. And now Orange Peckerwood, a celebration of ignorance and bigotry.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
July 21, 2018
0
Not to mention Mormons.
We sometimes forget that, with a Constitution that completely ignores the existence of a God--any God--that the United States of America was founded as a free market, entrepreneurial, ground floor opportunity for religions--any of them! Consider all religions and churches as your basic, run of the mill hollow enterprise, with hucksters, false claims and marketing geniuses. The US was ripe for the freewheeling startups of Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists, not to name the plethora of re-constituted Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists!
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