Humanity in the current day of global industrial society is at an unprecedented point in history. With seven billion people on the planet, a higher level of technology and scientific understanding as well as a longer lifespan humans have ever seen are some of the greatest achievements that our species has ever accomplished. Why is it then, to quote a particular comedian, that “everything is amazing, and nobody’s happy”? We basically live in the future – we can take pictures of the inside of your body with a magnet, a radio antenna, and a computer. Computers alone are some of the most amazing machines humanity has ever devised – use machinery for mental labor, with subatomic moving parts. We can send messages to each other across the globe, written in packets of lightning. We live in an amazing time.
While on one end of life is the wonder that our accumulated knowledge over tens of thousands of years that can give us these things that make our lives infinitely easier, on the other end is a grotesque monstrosity from which most would avert their attention – the revolution of global economics has not been equal in its share of the bounty, perhaps most easily observed in the Third World. Economic disparity seems to cause a large portion of the problems that plague these people – low levels of education/technological aptitude means that productivity for most countries comes from peasant farmers using medieval farming techniques, perhaps with a few extra tools or chemicals from the modern global economy, imported from the industrialized world. And when one considers the underbelly of this already-discomforting arrangement, the ugliness is too much for many to handle – human trafficking, narcotics trading, and organ harvesting are just few examples of the monstrosity that we find in our world.
One thing is constant across the entirety of the planet, and perhaps the universe: nobody chooses to be born into this ocean of chaos that we call Reality. For thousands of years, Religion was used to explain the unexplainable: why do we exist? From a historical perspective, the various different religions across the many human cultures across the planet have generally had a few things in common – an answer to the questions of “what happens after you die?” “what causes lightning?” among many others. Most become reflections of their society, coupled with the culture and integrated into the society at the individual level. Over time it has evolved with human society and technology to help remedy the suffering of living in on a planet, and in a reality, like the one we all share. Our evolution from an upright ape on the plains of Africa (the oldest human remains have been found in the Great Rift Valley in Africa) has not been a simple or peaceful affair. Nature selection and Evolution are quite indiscriminate in the ways that they affect species, and as biological animals that evolved on this planet, we are subject to the same environment as the rest of the species on Earth. The difference is, we’ve learned to adapt to almost any environment by using our understanding of our very surroundings – we learned to heat and shape metal, plant seeds in rows for crops, and keep animals for wool and milk.
While human history has been a competition between individuals and groups of varying sizes, often becoming quite a brutal contest of life and death, I would argue that it is just a symptom of an Imperfect Solution to a previous problem – food scarcity and the difficulty of hunting and gathering for sustenance put a lot of pressure on human populations in this period, so the development of a sustainable food supply is quite desirable. The issue is that a side-effect of a reliable food supply is that a higher population can be supported, and as the descendants of animal organisms, as soon as a higher food supply is obtained, the population will quickly expand to match it. The environment humanity evolved in was full of predators and other hazards, so life expectancy was fairly short – to keep the species from being put extinct from external pressures, a relatively high reproductive rate is desirable. A low food supply means that the population should stay relatively low, but once agriculture lead the way to a larger sustainable food source, a higher population will become supportable. While this sounds good on its face, the complex nature of reality means that every solution will have its flaws – a larger population of one species will result in a higher degree of competition between organisms of the same species. I think that the agrarian revolution caused such a spike in population that the human species began to fluctuate between periods of food scarcity and abundance, causing a fierce competition over resources for the former and a temporarily high reproductive rate in the short term to replenish the species. Every time we solve a problem, there are other problems that result from it, but Darwin basically figured out that the organisms/groups that find ways to overcome/adapt to the difficulties of their surroundings (from other species, or in humanity’s case, perhaps a large enough population of our own species) will succeed and reproduce more, while those that do not adapt as successfully will not have the same success in propagating their genes.
During the revolution of agriculture (historians generally put it around 20,000-10,000 years ago), humans as a species found many other ways to deal with the problems that stemmed from the intraspecies competition caused by a higher population. Some were survival-oriented, such as the development of walls and armies (Sumer is the oldest civilization discovered by historians, dated from around 4,500 BC – 1,900 BC), but perhaps after enough meaningless destruction that warfare provides, it would seem that the Abrahamic religions began to form as a mechanism to stop people from killing each other and instead cooperate towards common goals. The themes of these religions are generally (to my knowledge, at least, correct me if I’m wrong) based around a central theme of a common humanity that can be brought together by belief, and that the choices made should consider your fellow humans – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic (single-god) belief systems that evolved from the previous polytheistic (many-god) belief systems that only offered explanations for the events happening to people, and they all give moral guidance to their followers to promote altruistic and cooperative behavior among the faithful. People are never perfect, so any solution they come up with to solve a problem will inevitably have some flaws – the dehumanization of other groups that do not follow the beliefs strong enough, or worse an entirely separate set of beliefs, has resulted in quite a lot of the aforementioned “intraspecies competition”, such as the crusades or other forms of religious violence.
The Enlightenment, perhaps starting with the publication of the Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton in 1687 (i know wikipedia isn’t “scholarly” but it’s good enough – look at their sources if you really want more info on “the Age of Enligtenment”) really went into full swing in the 18th century. The significance of this work is that it explains something that had been only explainable by religion and “magical thinking” (ie. creating a fantastical explanation for a phenomenon) had been deciphered and available to all of mankind – the mystery of gravity. The motion of planets and the reason why we feel the pull of the earth are quite mysterious to consider, but Newton was able to discover a workable, objective fact and data-based solution to the intellectual problem of explaining why things move in general, and why the planets appear to drift in some sort of observable pattern that we can measure and, with enough calculation and effort, essentially “predict” the future and position of the planets. With the mathematical models and intellectual tools created by Newton, we can understand something as fundamental and unexplainable as “why do the planets move the way they do”?
The Renaissance Humanist movement took place in Europe around the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, and perhaps provided the conditions for Isaac Newton to do the work he did. Other historical factors influencing the development of the Principia were the Inquisition of Galileo for basically embarrassing a religious authority figure at the time in his famous work the Starry Messenger, which basically puts forth a proposal for a view of the solar system in which the earth revolves around the sun, which opposed the classical position of the Catholic church.
In the 21st century, religious institutions still exist in many forms, but many are a shadow of their former selves, or have been twisted into ideologies that only serve the interests of a small set of the overall population, instead of all of humanity as a whole. I think that this is a result of the advancement of science into another topic which had only been explainable by religion up to that point – where do we come from? We are notably different from the animals around us, because we do totally different things and behave in a very different way. It would seem that it would make sense to most that we were created by a divine other, as the power of religion as a force of order in human society can be seen in almost every facet of life. When Darwin challenged this notion, suggesting that humans were animals just like the rest of the organisms that have evolved over the millennia that preceded our existence as intelligent creatures, I think it eroded the authority that religion once had as a compelling set of beliefs, at least to many that see science as a method for human progress, in a similar way that Galileo and Newton did before.
Another factor is that Science has never ceased in its unrelenting ability to explain the observable phenomena around us. The most recent development in this area is perhaps the Quantum Revolution of the 19th century – I think because it has happened so recently and so quickly, humanity has not had a chance to consider the implications of the work of Modern Physics. More and more phenomena in the reality we exist in has been explained by the works of Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford, Planck among countless others. Hand-in-hand with scientific advancement comes new technologies – like the aforementioned MRI, Computer, or Power Grid. The miracles of science are everywhere. Where are the miracles of God? Making the Westboro baptist church protest soldier’s funerals? Making Islamic extremists detonate themselves to shuffle off the mortal coil and usher themselves into paradise? Rising out of the science movement is an anti-religious sentiment as well, as many hold the stance that religion has been abused for power by the unscrupulous, and that science and reason are the best ways to counter the potential for this abuse of power.
But, unfortunately, the problem that religion was once employed to solve has returned – nothing is ever truly gone or destroyed, just removed or displaced. Tribalism, Nihilism, Selfish Hedonistic Greed, all sorts of mental problems can find their way into the psyche of any modern human and make them miserable – they might not be starving or afraid for their lives, but they may wish they were dead to end the suffering that they endure without any significant meaning.
Personally, the erosion of religious institutions as sources of moral guidance seems to be the cause of many issues in modern life. Why should I listen to anything the priests have to say when they abuse their power in such monstrous ways? Science seems like a better alternative to have faith in. Once again, humanity is a perpetually imperfect being in this chaotic reality – even Science is not the perfect panacea to every single problem. It cannot answer a few questions: what happens after you die? Why should you be a good person if its so difficult to be one?
Athiesm casts one adrift in the ocean of chaos of life with only the cold comfort that you can live your life as freely as you wish. When faced with enough drawn-out suffering, this does not provide support for a critical question that any person would ask when faced with the unfair circumstances that life can (and often does) bring. Why should one not end their suffering if peace is what they truly seek? Even the pain of watching a mourning family cannot be felt if the end of existence is truly a dark empty void.
Not a very comforting or supportive notion in the extremes that life can bring. Perhaps this is why many of those that suffer alone have turned to people such as Jordan Peterson – by offering the mental support that religion can provide with a scientific, psychology-based framing that can pierce one’s skepticism of religion. Presenting the Bible as a collection of psychologically significant ancestral stories, written to provide guidance to those in times of adversity, is a very effective way of providing mental health support in a constructive way (at least, in my opinion).
Another work I have found inspirational in the Post-Enlightenment world is Ruminations by Marcus Aurelius. One does not have to take every single idea presented by a person, and understanding that Aurelius was an Emperor of the Roman Empire inspires a fair amount of respect. He speaks quite plainly about life, and the historical context of living in a time as brutal as early human history, filled with warfare and adversity, provides a bit of background as to the mental fortitude that would be required to survive in a time like that.
The most inspiring quote from his Meditations in my opinion is this:
Marcus Aurelius:
Hippocrates cured many illnesses—and then fell ill and
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,
Caesar—who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so
many thousand foot and horse in battle—they too departed
this life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared
with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,
Socrates by the human kind.And?
You boarded, you set sail, you’ve made the passage. Time
to disembark. If it’s for another life, well, there’s nowhere
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body—so
much inferior to that which serves it.One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage.
Life is not easy for anyone. Life is unfair to everyone. But all of humanity has a few universal things in common – none of us choose to be born. We are all subject to the same fate and circumstance that forms our current reality. The religions of the past tried to explain the world around us, even the dissatisfaction that we can feel with our lives at times. But Science has grown through time and the advancements of humanity have accumulated through the ages of history. We can see the evidence all around us. And yet, some of us still find ourselves suffering. I believe that Aurelius argues that the hopelessness we feel when confronted with the nature of our mortality and the uncertainty of existence after death should not obstruct the ways we navigate obstacles in life. For suffering, another quote is suitable.
Marcus Aurelius:
Everything that happens is either endurable or not.
If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.
If it’s unendurable . . . then stop complaining. Your
destruction will mean its end as well.
Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can
make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.In your interest, or in your nature
The meaning is, in my opinion, quite clear: suffering is a temporary problem that can be overcome with enough effort and thought.
Perhaps an “Ancestral Humanism” centered around the common human spirit, treating the greatest works of those who came before as knowledge to be actively put to use in our very own lives could be the answer to the decline of religion as a moral institution? We are all human, born into this reality – we all come from the same fractured and tumultuous lineage that has lead us to this point in history. We have agency in this world – but we are also subject to the difficulties of our environments. We have been able to overcome so many obstacles as a species, but the complexity of reality seems to imply that any solution we come up with for a problem will have its very own problems. In this way, Science has eroded the mental support of religions (to a large degree, I would argue) and has caused its own set of issues.
If I could offer a single principle to consider, it would be that it appears that regardless of what you believe, once life is over for every person, time goes on and history records the actions you have taken as they ripple across the world. Some people can influence a large degree of history. But one thing we all have in common: we are all responsible for some measurable effect on the world – physically speaking, as a living creature you are significant.
Thanks for reading. What do you think?
Box of Soap 