A Day At The Bank

I was at the bank earlier today, during my lunch break, taking care of some financial chore (why else would anybody be in a bank). When my transaction was concluded the bank person looking after me asked if I am Filipino, a pleasant turn in the conversation, so I affirmed his guess. From there he cheerfully demonstrated his limited skill in the Filipino language, which he learned from his ex-wife who happened to hail from Davao.

He told me all about the wonderful memories he have visiting the country, especially the south. I appreciate comment like this, since not all those who have visited the country have similar delightful experience. A good buddy of mine who live in Sydney (I was the best man in his wedding) didn't have anything particularly good to say about my homeland after his first and only visit.

Just when I thought the conversation was over, his face turned serious and asked "You're a catholic?" I said "Yes" he then continued "So am I". I contemplated on being cheeky and say "What can we do huh? Nobody's perfect." but decided against it... the guy seemed too serious for that now. He then said "Manila is good too, except that there is a lot of prostitution.". The Philippines is known for a lot of things, prostitution is probably among one of them but it is not something that generally comes up in polite conversation. I wasn't prepared for that so I gave him a blank look and said "Well... it is a poverty stricken country. I think you'll find prostitution active in a lot of the poorer countries.". He didn't like that answer which on hindsight was not really the best. He then said "I know that most people in Manila are Christians". I thought to myself "Oh boy... I'm having that kind of conversation... in a bank of all places".

He went on "As Christians we have better values and we are better than that." or words to that effect. I thought about saying something about religion and "better values" being relative terms, that no religion can claim better moral code than the rest, but the discussion is not really about that. I'm sensing that he either want me to apologize for the prostitution in my country or empower me to do something about it. Either way my lunch hour is almost up, I haven't had anything decent to eat yet and generally I can't come up with good arguments when I'm full let alone with an empty stomach.

I thought about it for awhile then said "I think you'll find that most Filipinos are pragmatic and if forced between what's religious and what's practical, practicality wins most of the time." I heard myself as I said it and wondered if its really a general statement about me rather than my country men. I continued "Prostitution is an easy way out for a lot of poor folks with very little recourse ... not that the country doesn't have it's share of anti flesh-trade practices."

He clearly did not like that suggestion, I think he is one of those people who are totally convinced that conviction to one's moral values should overcome any and all adversity. But I didn't really want to defend prostitution, nor highlight the correlation between that and poverty. So I decided to switch gear, change my tact but I couldn't come up with a better one. Then again this guy wasn't looking for a justification he wanted to get rid of the thing altogether and he want to deputize me to the task. At that point people started pouring into the queue behind me and we both decided that this conversation is mostly likely over. I shook his hand and thanked him for his help and walked out of the building.

If his goal was to raise awareness or simply to boast about his moral superiority I guess I will never know, I have no intention of having that conversation again... but I will definitely be stewing on that thought for awhile.

Mythos

I am getting ready to watch the Power of Myth, a six hour conversation between Bill Moyers and the late Joseph Campbell back in 1988. I have

Joseph Campbell

always been fascinated by mythology and have high regard to the role it plays in society. I've only, however heard of Joseph Campbell recently through a friend, who is currently writing a book that involve this matter. Joseph Campbell is a prominent and respected academic figure  specializing in the field of comparative mythology. This interview was most likely the last major television appearance he did before he passed away. I expect this conversation to deliver powerful insights so I am recording my thoughts on the matter  before I watch it, so I can see if my perspective would somehow be altered after.

What makes mythology special? I dare say that it is one of the pillar if not one of the building blocks of religion.

Bill Moyers

Mythology is a primal need. It is evident in the way we try to elevate the highlights of our lifetime to this status. A social change, a sporting moment, a critical discovery, a disaster averted, we package this instances such that viewed in posterity it will deliver awe, grandiose and an epic sense of proportion. But what is it good for? By modern standards we can probably all agree that it is an exaggeration, a misunderstood natural phenomena or a product of imagination. I'll focus on two aspect of mythology that fascinates me the most.

Mythology induces culture. When I was under going my industrial technician course in MFI Institute more than 20 years ago, there  was this story going around the campus about a guy named Rey Barzebal. He was a few years my senior and already a graduate by the time I got there.  As a college freshman he was sent to Fuji Xerox for an on-the-job training (hover here for more info on OJT).

This is a yearly part of the MFI curriculum that make this learning institution a cut above the rest. Students go through a trimester of gruelling academic training. At year end all of them are sent out into the work force to practice their theory, absorb current industrial best practices and evaluate if the training is inline with industrial requirement. The participating company evaluates the student's performance and this becomes part of their grade for the year. This goes on for 3 years. There are no school-break for the students of MFI. The company was so impressed by his performance that they offered him a job. The story goes that there was some tension between the school and the company who both wanted to keep him. It was rumored that significant money were thrown around to help him decide. In the end he took the high road and went back to school to complete the rest of his course.

After that incident everybody in school wanted to have the same thing happened to them. Year after year students sent to OJT were out performing one another partly to this end. It became a "culture of excellence". Later in life, Rey and I became good friends when we hooked-up as engineering undergraduate. It was disillusioning to hear the actual story behind the myth. I told him at one point that, had the story been told the way it actually happened, it would not have created the "culture" that it did (of course Rey's story is not the reason why the institute's culture of excellence persist to this day, but during my day it added a colorful flavour in an incredibly grueling academic existence).

Mythology simplifies the transmission of messages to future generation. For better or worse this aspect of it is true. Think of the story of Atlantis, almost everybody have heard of this story yet the only time it ever appeared in ancient record was on the lost dialogue of Plato. its not just a cool title either, the dialogue is actually lost in the mist of history. There is no organized institution that tasks itself to preserve the story. The story lends itself for easy transmission between generations.

There was this famous experiment done on monkeys some years ago. It started with a cage and a banana hanging down from the ceiling. A stair is place underneath the hanging banana so that it is accessible. Five monkeys were then placed inside the cage. Every time a monkey climb the stair to grab the banana, all the monkeys in the cage were hosed down with cold water (poor monkeys, this is a terrible experiment but there is a point, I promise). After awhile all the monkeys learned to stay away from the banana. Once the behavior was set, they pulled one monkey out and put a new one in its place. When this new guy tried to climb the stairs to get the banana he was prevented from doing so by the other monkeys. The experimenters kept on pulling out one monkey after another until they got to the point where none of the original monkeys were in the cage. Still then, when a new guy comes in and tried to grab the banana, the other monkeys prevented that new guy from doing so. Of course this is behavior-conditioning rather than a myth but the point is if you package the information with easy to access symbolism you don't need extremely smart individual to act as agents in preserving the message.

Now think about the collective knowledge of modern civilization. We may think that all this knowledge is safely locked and stored away and will never disappear. The reality is, the custodians of these knowledge are but a small group of people. Quantum physics, theory of relativity, advance medical sciences... only a handful of people truly understand this in practice. If somehow all these people were to perish at the same time... they just might take these knowledge with them. The succeeding generations may try to regain these knowledge but it is definitely not going to be easy.

In the novel Decipher by Stel Pavlou he postulated that if somehow our current civilization collapse, the populace of the future would be in dire situation because of all the radioactive waist that we left behind. We need some way to communicate to them the dangers of these sites. It would be improbable that any of our written languages survives. Warning signs we left behind would be seen by these future people the same way we see cuneiform left behind by the Sumerians. He suggested that the way to convey this message is through Mythology. It may not tell an accurate story but it may create a culture of fear around these sites that may just save their lives until they regain the science to figure it out.

Civilizations comes and go... but the mythology persist.

The Question of God and Religion

Among the list of most asked questions of all time would include "Do you believe in God?" and "Does God exist?". Since these questions have been around for millennia, it is quite  presumptuous of me to downplay their significance. And yet, for this discussion I will... for I think these lines of thoughts to be less critical. The real question I believe is "Why do we have these belief?" and "Are these belief a necessity?".

Richard Dawkins tried to address the latter questions by suggesting that religiosity is a by-product of necessary mental processes, akin to moths being drawn to flames. The mechanisms that create this seemingly suicidal tendencies for moths are quite necessary for their day to day navigational tasks. Not the most inspiring explanation especially for those that are religiously inclined. But at least you get a physical process to latch this abstract notion into.

Perhaps in our case, since we are pattern seeking creatures we discern that we can create things that are useful and good. Consequently, we see our environment to seemingly do the same. We can then be forgiven for inferring, that we too were created for something purposeful and good. Ever since our ancestors figured out how to subdue nature to suit their needs, they would have seen the world through the filtered lens of utility...the world is there to provide for their needs.

So we have a hypothesis on why we have such belief, but then... is it a requirement? Is having religion a plus or a minus? Can we even objectively determine the answer to this question? I believe we can.

A lot of people at both ends of the religiosity spectrum are inclined to think that somehow religion is not subjected to the same natural-selection pressure that the rest of the world is a party to. You hardly hear about the evolutionary origins of religion. The argument is out there, a lot of prominent people discuss this publicly, Dan Dennett, Scott Atran and Robert Wright to name a few. And yet the argument remain relatively untouched. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have this tact at their disposal and yet choose the sentiment of equating religion to terrorism and evil.

Dan Dennett

Scott Atran

Robert Wrigth

Sam Harris

You have to be blind not to see the good that religion provide to society, however you will be in denial if you believe that only good things comes of it. For every argument you can raise in

Steel enabled us to venture into grand feats of engineering.

favour of religion, an equally valid counter-argument can be raise against it. Having religion is like having steel. Steel afforded us technology and

Agent of destruction afforded to us by steel.

progress through better architecture and tools, but it equally caused death and destruction through weapons and war-machines. Or like the Internet in free-ing up global communications and commerce and yet be a haven for fraud and piracy. Religion have good and bad effects, the question is... which effect is greater?

How do we determine if religion is a plus or a minus? Let us see what science can tell us. Natural-selection makes a prediction that characteristics that are advantageous to an entity's survival will have a greater chance of being pass on to the next generation. Inversely, characteristics that impede survival will be less likely to be passed on. Given enough time, the population of entities in question, will have differentiated between those that have the "positive" trait and those that have the "negative" trait (positive here does not mean innately good but rather a survival helping thing). Given more time, those positively endowed entities would outnumber their un-endowed counterparts.

Let us examine the historical landscape of human civilization. Given that there are gaps in our knowledge of history, we can still use what we know now and perhaps place a provision that we will re-evaluate our understanding as new information becomes available. As far as history is concern, civilizations have always

An artist's conception of the hanging gardens of Babylon

had institutionalized religion. Civilizations would fall but as new ones rise, religion is not far behind, if not leading the charge. In-fact religion has always been an integral part of administration. There are strong correlation between the rise and advancement of civilizations and the sophistication of its

The Aztec empire

religious protocols. If civilizations does not benefit from religion but arises nonetheless in spite of it, then where are all the civilizations that did not have religion? If religion is a "negative" trait then according to natural-selection civilizations that are non-theist, theist-light  or theist-neutral should outnumber the strongly-theistic civilizations. History rules in favour of religion as a necessity or at the very least a desirable characteristic.

Of course this does not mean that religion is innately good and that it will remain a necessity. Religion is amoral it can be use for both good and evil. Whether it remains a necessity depends on environmental and social pressures that will shape the future landscape of civilization. What we do know about nature in general and natural-selection in particular is that it very rarely start from scratch. If there is an existing mechanism that is good enough for a given task, it will commandeer that mechanism as a substrate on which to base the next stage of evolution. And what is religion good at? Organizing and mobilizing people... civilization would always need these.