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The Myth of Monogamy Part I

Mon, 03/15/2010 - 18:08
Submitted by Lawrence Lanoff

Recently, researchers at the UCLA evaluated brain activity in 15 devout Christians and 15 nonbelievers as they assessed the truth or falsity of religious and non religious statements.

To someone like me, a de-mythologist, the results are horrifying, explaining why it is so difficult for us to discern the irrelevancy of ancient religious thinking to our current daily life.

Here's why. Any statement-religious or not-causes activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, one of the areas of the brain associated with emotions, rewards, and self-representation. Here's what this means: our ability to evaluate truth or falsity is independent of the content of the statement.

Basically, if we can conceive it, we BELIEVE it. Evaluative thinking is nearly impossible for us, rationality even more remote.

Which brings us to the subject of monogamy. This week, in her article for The Guardian, Polly Vernon asks the question, are we less monogamous than we were before? Essentially, are the ideas of the past regarding relationships, remotely relevant to the life that we are living now?

A Little History

The essential ideas of cheating, fidelity, and faithfulness were ancient people's attempts to solve a very serious problem of the time; the insurance of paternity. Who's the baby's daddy really?

Before language, stories, religion, and myths, there was sex. And there was nothing to discuss. We had sex, babies were being born, and paternity wasn't really an issue - that is until ideas of property, ownership, and blood line took hold.

If we don't own anything, there's nothing to pass down. Sexual morality, rules and laws, controlling of female reproduction, and the invention of the ill tempered, all seeing, all knowing invisible man took hold as early culture took hold. To own anything immediately creates a need to protect and control.

With the beginning of cultural stability - farming, cultivation of land - we became concerned about "blood line". This is the ancient equivalent of our modern DNA testing. Once there is concern about lineage, there is concern about paternity. All of this is interwoven into religion, which is obsessed with lineage.

Even now, every religious group concerns itself with some version of the question, "are you a member of our group, or are you going to rot in hell?" Essentially, what is your spiritual blood line.

Now if we could think rationally, and if there really was a god, there could only be one blood line - because, de facto - we would all come from the same religious father - regardless of what we believe - which would render all of our religious bickering irrelevant. But as the UCLA study points out, there can be no rationality within our brain. It didn't evolve to be rational.

Clearly, irrationality has helped us to survive up to this point.

Reality Hacker. Sex Educator. Geek.
lawrencelanoff.com

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Rationality in the where?

NickN's picture
Mon, 03/15/2010 - 19:13
NickN

Dear Lawrence,

if not in the brain then where? Indeed, why think at all if rationality is so illusive? I can see that there are many irrational components to decision making and to the ways in which we react and act in every moment of our lives. But as we are the sums of our ancestors' evolution it is hard to see how rationality could even exist as a concept without there being some evolutionary benefit. Indeed, the fabric of our lives is as much a product of rationality as it is of irrational behaviour.

Is the Ventro Medial Pre-frontal Cortex also a figment of imagination? Can one use rational argument to say that we are not rational? 

Maybe our irrationality only applies to those with whom we disagree - hurumph.

Thus far, I am mystified by your rationale (is that a real word?)

Best wishes

 

Chu

 

That's why evidence matters

Sat, 03/20/2010 - 02:37
Sandara (not verified)

The only way humans have been able to increase their standard of living and climb to the top of the food chain is through rationale. The people that are best able to survive in this world are going to be the ones who understand it well. Understanding reality takes reasoning skills, critical thinking, and testing.

The thing about religion is that it takes advantage of the fact that people can create concepts in their heads and use that to decide what to do with their lives. But there is always a reality check. No matter how concrete the idea it's not going to hold up if it isn't accurate, testable, or useful. Many people are breaking away from religion because it doesn't survive a reality check. Just a little bit of research and criticism can bring it down.

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