<<<(but there has NEVER been a culture that was aethist -- that should tell you something!) >>>
Weeeel, there have been cultures that worshipped rocks and ones that worshipped old bones and ones that worshipped an airplane and ones that worshipped certain roots and ones that worshipped specific dead folks and ones that worshipped meteorological phenomena and ones that worshipped big statues and ones that worshipped meaty animals and ones that worshipped big hills and ones that worshipped hallucinogenic drugs and ones that worshipped fire and ones that worshipped goddesses with mammoth mammaries.... and what it tells me is not that these entities are 'real Gods,' or in any way 'worthy' of worship, (though at least many of them are demonstrably real things) but that this touching human spectacle of foolish worshipping is a manifestation of a strong impulse originating in the human brain, mind, nervous system, and if there's a rock there at the right moment, okay, a rock it'll be. Big milky breasts? Not a bad choice, really. Thunder? You can get behind that misunderstanding.
Much could be conjectured about where this impulse comes from and why it's there. A Freudian would say one thing, a brain chemist another, an evolutionary psychologist another. To me the most obvious thing it tells me is that it doesn't mean I should worship a rock. Or any collective of all these objects of worship.
When you are a small child, you 'worship' your parents. It behooves you to, in fact. And rewards you. My suspicion is that this fact is related to the phenomenon of adults getting on their knees and behaving adoringly, like supplicant children, toward something they invest with a power that they know existed once, the power of life and death, the power to feed or starve, the power to love or punish. My intuition tells me it's all in there, in all of us, and it needs to be there. When we are children.
The 'we' I meant was we who were reading the Feelings thread. I partly agree that 'morality' is cultural, and partly don't. Or I do, but... it's too late right now for me to think about. Later, dude. |
