Paul Graham has an essay on the “Lies we tell kids”. The whole essay is pretty interesting, but one of the sections contains this startling insight (a little long, but worth it):
Some parents feel a strong adherence to an ethnic or religious group and want their kids to feel it too. This usually requires two different kinds of lying: the first is to tell the child that he or she is an X, and the second is whatever specific lies Xes differentiate themselves by believing.
Telling a child they have a particular ethnic or religious identity is one of the stickiest things you can tell them. Almost anything else you tell a kid, they can change their mind about later when they start to think for themselves. But if you tell a kid they’re a member of a certain group, that seems nearly impossible to shake.
This despite the fact that it can be one of the most premeditated lies parents tell. When parents are of different religions, they’ll often agree between themselves that their children will be “raised as Xes.” And it works. The kids obligingly grow up considering themselves as Xes, despite the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they’d have grown up considering themselves as Ys.
One reason this works so well is the second kind of lie involved. The truth is common property. You can’t distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people, you have to do things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are false. And after having spent their whole lives doing things that are arbitrary and believing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by “outsiders” on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes must be enormous. If they aren’t an X, why are they attached to all these arbitrary beliefs and customs? If they aren’t an X, why do all the non-Xes call them one?
This form of lie is not without its uses. You can use it to carry a payload of beneficial beliefs, and they will also become part of the child’s identity. You can tell the child that in addition to never wearing the color yellow, believing the world was created by a giant rabbit, and always snapping their fingers before eating fish, Xes are also particularly honest and industrious. Then X children will grow up feeling it’s part of their identity to be honest and industrious.
This probably accounts for a lot of the spread of modern religions, and explains why their doctrines are a combination of the useful and the bizarre. The bizarre half is what makes the religion stick, and the useful half is the payload.
I am not sure I buy the whole logic of the argument. But it certainly made me think and possibly view religion in a different way.
I spent a lot of my teenage years thinking of religion as a load of crap for weaker minds. Later, I read about how Tilak used Ganesh Chaturthi very effectively to bring people together. That got me thinking about the social value of religion. Here I am using “social” in the “making friends” sense of the word (not the “charity” sense of the word). Religion is the mother of all social networks.
In grad school, I would have arguments with my friend Frank, who used to go ga-ga over religion. He pointed out to me how many major artistic and architectural achievements over the centuries have been achieved because of the backing of religion.
And now Paul’s idea of separating religion into things that make it stick and the payload resonates with my view of religion. Basically, instead of focusing on the silly rituals that are the most visible aspects of any religion or specific religious activity, think instead about the payload. Think about what substantial things can be (is being) achieved (intentionally, or unintentionally).