I'm Korean. I'm not paid subscriber of Bertrand so I couldnt check the whole writings but as I check the open ones, it's just things u can know if u read eastern philosophy book or 101 class. why there was some arguements? can anyone tell me. it's the same story I learned. nthg controversial. And the time when the Sky domination transfered to Humanitarian, is when Iron come into the industry, farming, war so the structure of economics, hierarchy changed. My family and I never talked about anything about God for entire life. We r not christian. That concepts r western. If you don't have the concept you don't construct any prediction, including emotion instances(see, Lisa Feldman Barrett). As we always have been, China, Korea, national beuarecracy exam in the past, national exam to enter the university for now is the most important thing. In case of Korea, bc of our tragic history, after Japanese colonialism, Korean war, and US system introduced, not only bearacrat but plutocrat culture is mixed so now the exam and the money r the most important matters. And we never talk about life meaning. We say who think of life meaning when they live? Everyone just live hard, work hard to pay bills, feed children, care erderlys. And to live unselfish we don't talk about God. We should be unselfish bc we r "Human". We just think human should indeed be kind. I think achieving some life conditions, like job, school, marriage, money, feed myself and family is important and leading out life itself. We don't ask why those r important. Kinda empty, so including me many r exhausted, and lost to get Seoul National University, Samsung, house in Gangnam condition, kinda feel lost, wanna know what's the meaning of life, what's happiness. We suicide, don't make baby, politically divided, ...
That's what I want to know as well. But, predictably, I suppose the science is inconclusive or worse. That's why we need to buy the book, of course.
Like buying salvation from church or begging for mercy at the source.
Not a very attractive incentive scheme.
Social credit score might well be more effective and based on individual behaviour, as opposed to self censorship of (free) thought, and then confession and pennance when someone sins anyway, but that happens in private with no social oversigt or exposure of the freerider (or violent perpetrator).
Thanks, interesting thesis about the need for an all knowing God to overcome free riding. But “free riding” is an issue when people’s motives are narrowly focused on their self-interest. Whereas the solution that (I argue) Chinese-Confucian societies take is to expand our personal motivation to include the overall goal of living worth while lives, or being a gentleman (君子), so that our motives are no longer so narrowly focused. So here each person effectively “internalises” the free riding problem, as their goals go well beyond self-interest. Also, we can have commitments (eg to integrity, harmony) that go beyond self-goal choice. So I dispute the thesis that an omniscient God is needed.
Early Chinese religion, especially in the Shangshu and oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty, reflects a world animated by powerful natural forces and ancestral spirits, with ritual mediation directed toward figures like Shangdi rather than abstract deities. Over time, through the ancestral cult of the Zhou dynasty, the cosmology of Tian (Heaven), and later systematization in religious Daoism, these layered spirit traditions were organized into increasingly articulated celestial hierarchies without displacing their animist foundations.
Myths tell everyone that the Gods exist, but they only reveal their nature and power to those capable of knowing them.
Who, then, were these first teachers of humanity who explained to humankind Nature and its mysteries, life and its laws ? The tradition of all countries traces this first knowledge back to a « divine race ». Then, when modern religion came, which reduced all the Gods to one, it was declared that « Revelation comes from God ». But those who spoke thus relied on a corrupted tradition ; if we go back to its source, we find not one God, but many Gods, and if we seek the secret of their divine nature, we must go back even further, and in this distant past, we find not Gods, but Goddesses, and inevitably we find that it was this primordial Divinity, the Goddess, the superior (intellectual) power, who instructed humankind. We then understand that the source of all truth is the feminine spirit.
It should be noted that the term « Goddess » is the generic name for all superior women and at that time indicated only the moral qualities inherent to the female sex. There was nothing supernatural about it ; everywhere the same principles, that is to say, the same beginnings, were based on nature itself, still untouched. Furthermore, let us remember that among all decadent peoples we see the woman who has attained a high degree of intellect being the object of persecution by men. The « Witch » of the Middle Ages is the immortal archetype of this.
It is also important to clarify, regarding the term « God », that we must not confuse its meaning as the cosmic power that organizes the Universe (Macrocosm), that is, the radiation of incandescent stars, which was called « Elohim » by the Hebrews, « Brahm » by the Hindus, « Ptah » by the Egyptians, or « Allah » in Arabia, with that representing the Mother Goddess, the organizer of social life, that is, the woman who is the creator of the child (Microcosm), and therefore the earthly Divinity who creates humanity, creating it male and female, since the mother gives birth to both sexes, guides them, and instructs them. She alone is the Creator ; the « Elohim » organize, but do not create; they are physical powers, forces. Among the Egyptians, « Ptah », this cosmic power, this solar radiance, was personified by the Goddess-Woman, who was compared to the Sun because she possessed within herself the spirit that illuminates.
It is worth noting that the word « God » (en français : « Dieu »), initially written « Diev », comes from the Sanskrit word « Deva » or « Diva » or « Devi » (from « Div », to shine or radiate), which meant « Woman of Light », « Woman of Spirit » ; hence « Dyaus », « Zevos », and « Zeus » (the V and the U are combined) ; we find the same root in the « Div » of Zend (the language of the ancient Iranians), the « Dew » of Slavic, the Latin « Divos », and so many other derivatives... not forgetting Rabelais' « Dive Bottle ».
It was only in the Middle Ages that the V in « Diev » was replaced by a U, and that the word was written « Dieu » (« God »). In Russia, a young girl is still called a « Dieva ».
The first female rulers, the « Devas », the « Fatas », the « Genii », the « Almehs », the « Izeds », the « Archangels », and so on primarily represented the universal Spirit. Ancient art always depicted them as female figures. This is why the idea of motherhood became linked to the idea of Divinity. Later, following the evolution of the divine idea, after an intermediate period between the maternal and paternal systems, when Greece had coupled Hermes and Aphrodite to create a god-couple, the « Hermaphrodite » or "the « Androgyne », that is, the sharing of faculties, the equality of the sexes—there would be room only for a single, anthropomorphic, male God, useless, unknown, and unknowable, relegated to the realm of the world, to the throne of his desolate immensity, whose existence seems to serve only as a source of discord among humankind.
Symbolically, masculine religious power had three degrees:
It began with Poseidonism, the man of darkness who extinguishes the lights, drowns the Spirit; this is Tellurism.
From there, it ascends into the heavens, but occupies the second place: this is the lunar phase.
Finally, as man's ambition grew with his pride, he took center stage, becoming a solar god. Then, in the ensuing confusion, the sun became the Earth.
This is why the name of the radiant celestial body, « Sol » (Sun), became the name of the ground on which we walk.
« It is not surprising », says Bernard de Montréal (The Genesis of Reality), « that modern man, despite his science, is more medieval than the man of the past. Since the gods have not been replaced by his modern reality, man is without source and without identity, limited to his material life and the death that completes him. »
I'd remove "supernatural" and replace it with "cosmological" as it also encompasses modern ideologies like Communism and Secular scientific studies of morality, such as your own research!
today korean formal president Yoon got life sentence for his self coup. politically so divided, thanks for the democratic instituitions, decrease of violence in education at school or home, there was no serious violence event until now but it is risky. suicide rate top #1, fertility rate -#1, strong elite competition. everyone goes to college. disintegrative period is fear...
and why US is doing so many war w other country. Iran will do war w US..?
Very interesting post based on massive research requiring two books to report it, indeed.
I wondered : Why restrict the sense of religion to that of "moralizing religion”, Moralizing Supernatural Punishment (MSP). Clearly because Peter has researched it, and the academic terminology does reflect broadly what is referred to as religion. Including godless religions such as Buddhism.
Aren't social constructs. Intangible beings. such as nation, patrie, Rodina, and the likes creating a strong sense of identity, emotional attachments, religions as well? Don't they perform the same purpose to help cooperation and severe punishment for deviance, e.g. death penalty for traitors? In the US, one pledges alliance to the constitution as a substitute to the bible. And if course state ideologies play the role of religious dogmas. Essentially, Nations have replaced abrahamuc and karmic religions haven,'t they at least functionally so.
And yet, despite the supernatural essence of these social constructs, no one calls them religions, as they should be, probably because it would be self defeating, and risky: believing in it is so essential to the survival of the said nations.
Could there be more cohesion, harmony,tolerance, less hatred, violence without these state religions,? Maybe not, maybe Societies need indeed a whatever form of religion to impose some cooperation out of chaos.
Yeah. CHina always had an extremely compolex and involved religion, with a huge component of morality. The Emperor had to lead enormous rites to worship Heaven and Earth, and otherwise placate gods. The folk religion was open-ended about gods--they would incorporate any good new deity--some of my fisherfolk friends in Hong Kong in the 1960s added Jesus and Mary to their images of Laozi, Confucius, Mazu, and many other deities. The depth and importance of Chinese folk religion is underappreciated. The Jesuits of Enlightenment times loved the idea of a nation that kept religion on the back burner. They promoted China as an enlightened world, and the idea stuck. It is true that traditional Chinese were not particularly hung up on religion, but they did have it.
Any attempt to scientifically understand religion is doomed to an inherent paradox: the very act of scientific analysis tends to reproduce the structure of one and only one religious system. In this case, it becomes clear that the authors—consciously or not—frame their analysis within the assumptions of the Protestant tradition. This bias is reflected in their particular emphasis on the problem of "free riding" and the concept of a "Supreme Moral Authority." Ultimately, this suggests that defining religion from a neutral, external perspective may be impossible; the act of definition itself is a religious gesture.
Interesting commentary, but I am wondering about your frame of reference if this topic is discussed without mentioning Daoism. It's a hard topic to discuss in Manichean terms, but is at the core of Chinese thought even beyond religion.
Confucius said: Study what can be known, Don't study(bother with) what can't be known。**
Confucius made this comment, long before Karl Popper's empirical falsification, on a debate about whether or not there was a god or gods.
Arnaud Bertrand probably would have done better if he had hypothesized China was not strongly influenced in governance by "organized religion". All kinds of mad acts were and still are being carried out on the whims of high ranking officials, (particularly the imperial family / KMT war lords/ CPC cadres who often were not well educated) influenced by private religions/superstition. The important thing is these private religions/superstitions, with the exceptions of larger cults (Tai Ping Kingdom/Rebellion) and smaller cults(like the Roman Catholic Church in China). allow or rather didn't even think to control individual/idiosyncratic beliefs. Further, these individual beliefs mostly were considered talisman for the here and now, like a lucky rabbit foot. Whole or parts of these beliefs were not to be released/exposed to (edit: the public) as they were considered secret weapons in the business of getting wealthy/famous or simply avoiding the military draft. One could liken it to trying to ride herd on superstitious cats.
**Layer on top of this that the Confucian scholars who ran the bureaucracy from the capital down to the county level were educated to looked down on all religion, but particularly all organized religion as primitive and dangerous hocus pocus. They all probably were riddled with individual superstitions, but they would do their best to keep them secret. Interesting how this bias skipped through the KMT era to re-assert itself under the CPC.
nobody wastes much time debating what role played religion in exploiting a resource and getting rich when it comes to Dubai, everyone gets it the first time: Dubai exported oil and got rich.
Why then we need so complicated analysis for China exploiting 1.4 poor people and getting rich exporting their labour?
I'm Korean. I'm not paid subscriber of Bertrand so I couldnt check the whole writings but as I check the open ones, it's just things u can know if u read eastern philosophy book or 101 class. why there was some arguements? can anyone tell me. it's the same story I learned. nthg controversial. And the time when the Sky domination transfered to Humanitarian, is when Iron come into the industry, farming, war so the structure of economics, hierarchy changed. My family and I never talked about anything about God for entire life. We r not christian. That concepts r western. If you don't have the concept you don't construct any prediction, including emotion instances(see, Lisa Feldman Barrett). As we always have been, China, Korea, national beuarecracy exam in the past, national exam to enter the university for now is the most important thing. In case of Korea, bc of our tragic history, after Japanese colonialism, Korean war, and US system introduced, not only bearacrat but plutocrat culture is mixed so now the exam and the money r the most important matters. And we never talk about life meaning. We say who think of life meaning when they live? Everyone just live hard, work hard to pay bills, feed children, care erderlys. And to live unselfish we don't talk about God. We should be unselfish bc we r "Human". We just think human should indeed be kind. I think achieving some life conditions, like job, school, marriage, money, feed myself and family is important and leading out life itself. We don't ask why those r important. Kinda empty, so including me many r exhausted, and lost to get Seoul National University, Samsung, house in Gangnam condition, kinda feel lost, wanna know what's the meaning of life, what's happiness. We suicide, don't make baby, politically divided, ...
tradition, culture, national religion, hierarchy got destroyed after the korean war and then i think never systematically restored or newly invented.
So - was there a detectable variance in free rider behavior correlated with variances in dispersion of fully MSP theologies across the population?
That's what I want to know as well. But, predictably, I suppose the science is inconclusive or worse. That's why we need to buy the book, of course.
Like buying salvation from church or begging for mercy at the source.
Not a very attractive incentive scheme.
Social credit score might well be more effective and based on individual behaviour, as opposed to self censorship of (free) thought, and then confession and pennance when someone sins anyway, but that happens in private with no social oversigt or exposure of the freerider (or violent perpetrator).
Count me out.
Thanks, interesting thesis about the need for an all knowing God to overcome free riding. But “free riding” is an issue when people’s motives are narrowly focused on their self-interest. Whereas the solution that (I argue) Chinese-Confucian societies take is to expand our personal motivation to include the overall goal of living worth while lives, or being a gentleman (君子), so that our motives are no longer so narrowly focused. So here each person effectively “internalises” the free riding problem, as their goals go well beyond self-interest. Also, we can have commitments (eg to integrity, harmony) that go beyond self-goal choice. So I dispute the thesis that an omniscient God is needed.
Early Chinese religion, especially in the Shangshu and oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty, reflects a world animated by powerful natural forces and ancestral spirits, with ritual mediation directed toward figures like Shangdi rather than abstract deities. Over time, through the ancestral cult of the Zhou dynasty, the cosmology of Tian (Heaven), and later systematization in religious Daoism, these layered spirit traditions were organized into increasingly articulated celestial hierarchies without displacing their animist foundations.
Dieu ? (God ?)
Myths tell everyone that the Gods exist, but they only reveal their nature and power to those capable of knowing them.
Who, then, were these first teachers of humanity who explained to humankind Nature and its mysteries, life and its laws ? The tradition of all countries traces this first knowledge back to a « divine race ». Then, when modern religion came, which reduced all the Gods to one, it was declared that « Revelation comes from God ». But those who spoke thus relied on a corrupted tradition ; if we go back to its source, we find not one God, but many Gods, and if we seek the secret of their divine nature, we must go back even further, and in this distant past, we find not Gods, but Goddesses, and inevitably we find that it was this primordial Divinity, the Goddess, the superior (intellectual) power, who instructed humankind. We then understand that the source of all truth is the feminine spirit.
It should be noted that the term « Goddess » is the generic name for all superior women and at that time indicated only the moral qualities inherent to the female sex. There was nothing supernatural about it ; everywhere the same principles, that is to say, the same beginnings, were based on nature itself, still untouched. Furthermore, let us remember that among all decadent peoples we see the woman who has attained a high degree of intellect being the object of persecution by men. The « Witch » of the Middle Ages is the immortal archetype of this.
It is also important to clarify, regarding the term « God », that we must not confuse its meaning as the cosmic power that organizes the Universe (Macrocosm), that is, the radiation of incandescent stars, which was called « Elohim » by the Hebrews, « Brahm » by the Hindus, « Ptah » by the Egyptians, or « Allah » in Arabia, with that representing the Mother Goddess, the organizer of social life, that is, the woman who is the creator of the child (Microcosm), and therefore the earthly Divinity who creates humanity, creating it male and female, since the mother gives birth to both sexes, guides them, and instructs them. She alone is the Creator ; the « Elohim » organize, but do not create; they are physical powers, forces. Among the Egyptians, « Ptah », this cosmic power, this solar radiance, was personified by the Goddess-Woman, who was compared to the Sun because she possessed within herself the spirit that illuminates.
It is worth noting that the word « God » (en français : « Dieu »), initially written « Diev », comes from the Sanskrit word « Deva » or « Diva » or « Devi » (from « Div », to shine or radiate), which meant « Woman of Light », « Woman of Spirit » ; hence « Dyaus », « Zevos », and « Zeus » (the V and the U are combined) ; we find the same root in the « Div » of Zend (the language of the ancient Iranians), the « Dew » of Slavic, the Latin « Divos », and so many other derivatives... not forgetting Rabelais' « Dive Bottle ».
It was only in the Middle Ages that the V in « Diev » was replaced by a U, and that the word was written « Dieu » (« God »). In Russia, a young girl is still called a « Dieva ».
The first female rulers, the « Devas », the « Fatas », the « Genii », the « Almehs », the « Izeds », the « Archangels », and so on primarily represented the universal Spirit. Ancient art always depicted them as female figures. This is why the idea of motherhood became linked to the idea of Divinity. Later, following the evolution of the divine idea, after an intermediate period between the maternal and paternal systems, when Greece had coupled Hermes and Aphrodite to create a god-couple, the « Hermaphrodite » or "the « Androgyne », that is, the sharing of faculties, the equality of the sexes—there would be room only for a single, anthropomorphic, male God, useless, unknown, and unknowable, relegated to the realm of the world, to the throne of his desolate immensity, whose existence seems to serve only as a source of discord among humankind.
Symbolically, masculine religious power had three degrees:
It began with Poseidonism, the man of darkness who extinguishes the lights, drowns the Spirit; this is Tellurism.
From there, it ascends into the heavens, but occupies the second place: this is the lunar phase.
Finally, as man's ambition grew with his pride, he took center stage, becoming a solar god. Then, in the ensuing confusion, the sun became the Earth.
This is why the name of the radiant celestial body, « Sol » (Sun), became the name of the ground on which we walk.
« It is not surprising », says Bernard de Montréal (The Genesis of Reality), « that modern man, despite his science, is more medieval than the man of the past. Since the gods have not been replaced by his modern reality, man is without source and without identity, limited to his material life and the death that completes him. »
Blog (French): https://livresdefemmeslivresdeverites.blogspot.com/
Less God, more CCTV.
Sir
You discussed religion at length and missed the one religious system which has the same word describing religion and duty
I'd remove "supernatural" and replace it with "cosmological" as it also encompasses modern ideologies like Communism and Secular scientific studies of morality, such as your own research!
today korean formal president Yoon got life sentence for his self coup. politically so divided, thanks for the democratic instituitions, decrease of violence in education at school or home, there was no serious violence event until now but it is risky. suicide rate top #1, fertility rate -#1, strong elite competition. everyone goes to college. disintegrative period is fear...
and why US is doing so many war w other country. Iran will do war w US..?
Very interesting post based on massive research requiring two books to report it, indeed.
I wondered : Why restrict the sense of religion to that of "moralizing religion”, Moralizing Supernatural Punishment (MSP). Clearly because Peter has researched it, and the academic terminology does reflect broadly what is referred to as religion. Including godless religions such as Buddhism.
Aren't social constructs. Intangible beings. such as nation, patrie, Rodina, and the likes creating a strong sense of identity, emotional attachments, religions as well? Don't they perform the same purpose to help cooperation and severe punishment for deviance, e.g. death penalty for traitors? In the US, one pledges alliance to the constitution as a substitute to the bible. And if course state ideologies play the role of religious dogmas. Essentially, Nations have replaced abrahamuc and karmic religions haven,'t they at least functionally so.
And yet, despite the supernatural essence of these social constructs, no one calls them religions, as they should be, probably because it would be self defeating, and risky: believing in it is so essential to the survival of the said nations.
Could there be more cohesion, harmony,tolerance, less hatred, violence without these state religions,? Maybe not, maybe Societies need indeed a whatever form of religion to impose some cooperation out of chaos.
Yeah. CHina always had an extremely compolex and involved religion, with a huge component of morality. The Emperor had to lead enormous rites to worship Heaven and Earth, and otherwise placate gods. The folk religion was open-ended about gods--they would incorporate any good new deity--some of my fisherfolk friends in Hong Kong in the 1960s added Jesus and Mary to their images of Laozi, Confucius, Mazu, and many other deities. The depth and importance of Chinese folk religion is underappreciated. The Jesuits of Enlightenment times loved the idea of a nation that kept religion on the back burner. They promoted China as an enlightened world, and the idea stuck. It is true that traditional Chinese were not particularly hung up on religion, but they did have it.
Any attempt to scientifically understand religion is doomed to an inherent paradox: the very act of scientific analysis tends to reproduce the structure of one and only one religious system. In this case, it becomes clear that the authors—consciously or not—frame their analysis within the assumptions of the Protestant tradition. This bias is reflected in their particular emphasis on the problem of "free riding" and the concept of a "Supreme Moral Authority." Ultimately, this suggests that defining religion from a neutral, external perspective may be impossible; the act of definition itself is a religious gesture.
Interesting commentary, but I am wondering about your frame of reference if this topic is discussed without mentioning Daoism. It's a hard topic to discuss in Manichean terms, but is at the core of Chinese thought even beyond religion.
子曰：知之为知之、不知为不知。
Confucius said: Study what can be known, Don't study(bother with) what can't be known。**
Confucius made this comment, long before Karl Popper's empirical falsification, on a debate about whether or not there was a god or gods.
Arnaud Bertrand probably would have done better if he had hypothesized China was not strongly influenced in governance by "organized religion". All kinds of mad acts were and still are being carried out on the whims of high ranking officials, (particularly the imperial family / KMT war lords/ CPC cadres who often were not well educated) influenced by private religions/superstition. The important thing is these private religions/superstitions, with the exceptions of larger cults (Tai Ping Kingdom/Rebellion) and smaller cults(like the Roman Catholic Church in China). allow or rather didn't even think to control individual/idiosyncratic beliefs. Further, these individual beliefs mostly were considered talisman for the here and now, like a lucky rabbit foot. Whole or parts of these beliefs were not to be released/exposed to (edit: the public) as they were considered secret weapons in the business of getting wealthy/famous or simply avoiding the military draft. One could liken it to trying to ride herd on superstitious cats.
**Layer on top of this that the Confucian scholars who ran the bureaucracy from the capital down to the county level were educated to looked down on all religion, but particularly all organized religion as primitive and dangerous hocus pocus. They all probably were riddled with individual superstitions, but they would do their best to keep them secret. Interesting how this bias skipped through the KMT era to re-assert itself under the CPC.
nobody wastes much time debating what role played religion in exploiting a resource and getting rich when it comes to Dubai, everyone gets it the first time: Dubai exported oil and got rich.
Why then we need so complicated analysis for China exploiting 1.4 poor people and getting rich exporting their labour?