Religion as an Ego-modulator

Like many people, I draw a distinction between religion (read: organized religion) and spirituality. From what I can see, religion can have the effect of hardening the ego, by creating an us-vs-them mindset. As an American, I see this as perhaps the fundamental dynamic driving our country at a national level, both in domestic politics and foreign policy.

On a personal level, I was raised in a very religious household. In our particular fundamentalist Baptist church, there were strains of ego minimization, in the sense of subordinating the individual to the identity and outlook of the group. But within that identity, I saw ego maximization, in the sense of the feelings of superiority of our creed.

As I became alienated from organized Christianity and its dogma, I've found that I am thankful for many of the ego minimizing aspects. And now, as a parent, I'm interested in the ways in which I can raise my children to have these benefits, without all the harms I experienced and see from organized religion.

Incidentally, I just read all of the books from Arbinger Institute: Leadership and Self-Deception, The Anatomy of Peace, and The Outward Mindset. The Arbinger Institute was founded by Latter-Day Saints folks, and while I definitely register the vibes of Christian thought, they are fundamentally secular books, devoid of dogma. I do think it's very possible to draw from the more positive, ego-dissolving parts of religious spirituality and teaching, while rejecting the divisive parts.

Completely aside from the ego conversation, another thing I have noticed about raising kids outside of a church is that my family lacks the same community that the Baptist church my household growing up attended. I think this is one of the major functions of organized religion. Provided you can remain in good standing with the church, you get a community, which serves all sorts of useful functions. Outside of a church, you have to manually find this, through friendships and other organizations. But there's big replacement cost to everything a church community gives you "batteries included". I'm very pro secular society, but I don't think we've come up with great answers to this problem, leading to potentially catastrophic levels of social fragmentation and susceptibility to cult-like online movements.

> I don’t think there’s a demonstrable pattern of high-profile scientists or science advocates getting away with destructive, narcissistic behavior (at least no more than in other professions)

I nearly laughed out loud. Academia is notorious for having toxic, hierarchical dynamics. I'm not sure if the author is really unaware, or if they're blinded by wanting to form a science > religion narrative, but this last part seriously undercut what was otherwise a great article.

But yes- growing up southern baptist in Dallas, the thesis strongly resonates with my experience. You'd see powerful business-men who should have had outsized egos being genuinely humbled by their beliefs. Those beliefs had a lot of flaws - I left them behind for a reason - but there was something unique and valuable about the way they cut through egos.

> One of the primary attributes of any religion is its creed. Each world religion professes a unique set of metaphysical beliefs, which is central to its identity. Anyone who contradicts or denies these beliefs is condemned or cast out as a heretic.

Consider also other aspects of religion (daily practices, restrictions on diet and behaviour, rituals, ceremonies, striving, seeking, penance, purity, community) — they support the central thesis and in other traditions are more central than creed. (See e.g. https://blog.gaijinpot.com/japan-religious-atheist-country/ and comments thereon.)

For that matter, the "scientism" mentioned in the article itself can be either monotheism-inspired (only believe scientific things, believing anything without proof is "unclean", we're better than the ones who came before), or focus more on other aspects (the attitude of discovery and humility, improvement of self and the world, …).

As someone who was raised in Christianity, and who later participated in the US Army and social dance, I think that a big part of ego modulation is:

* Synchronized activities - especially physical movement

* Shared suffering

* Shared effort towards a common goal

It just so happens[1] that most religions use both techniques heavily. Christian services typically involve the congregation speaking and singing in unison for an hour at a time. There is also a notion of universal suffering that is built into Christianity, that is typically emphasized through cultural activities and sermons.

A big thing within Christianity is practical expressions. We used to host a men's shelter, did a variety of charity work, and supported missionaries.

I've also done a buddhist meditation retreat. Everyone sat and meditated for an hour+ at a time, several times per day. I'm on the fence if that meets the criterion of "synchronized activities", since all of the action is entirely mental, but it definitely qualifies as "shared suffering". Same with not being able to speak for a week. And there was pretty strong encouragement to donate at the end, as well as participate in weekly "sits".

Social dance is almost entirely "synchronized activity". And it leads to a very intimate, trusting community. Sort of. Depending on the dance, dancing through the night and being part of the "breakfast club" is also a right of passage for some, which, along with beat up feet, is a sort of "shared suffering".

The military is pretty big on this stuff as well. Everyone thinks of basic training, but the experience is constantly repeated (although to a lesser level of discomfort) through training exercises. And marching is heavily emphasized during basic - not for any combat effectiveness reason - but because of its ability to engender trust and cohesion.

I'm sure there's probably some mystery sauce in religion that I'm missing, but I think a lot of it is down to those 3 factors.

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1. Maybe it's on purpose. Maybe it's convergent evolution. Heck - maybe it's divine will. I don't really care about the cause here.

On the one hand I like that William James is mentioned, he's one of the fathers, some even consider him the father, of Religious Studies. The Varieties Of Religious Experience was the first serious academic attempt to _describe_ this extraordinary human aspect that we call, not for want of a better term, Religion. What had tended to happen up till then, and indeed what continues to happen, is that academia tries to _explain_ Religion. Religious Studies isn't fundamentally opposed to explaining its subject matter per se. But rather it is more fundamentally concerned with, well, _studying_ Religion. Which of course does mean at least being open to theories, such as the ego one in the article, but ultimately it's primary concern is more to create a dedicated space in which Religion can _present its case on its own terms_. Humanity _needs_ Religious Studies, just because Religion is Seriously Fucked Up™, doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve serious academic attention, quite the opposite.

So, on the other hand I'm a little hesitant about this article, because it is both invoking Religious Studies and trying to explain Religion in the same breath. I actually like the ego-control theory, I have no bones with that. And we were certainly not discouraged from coming up with our own theories at university. But what I took the most inspiration and value from during those undergraduate years was the sheer power of dedicating the entire weight of an academic discipline to the uncompromising _study_ of a subject matter _without_ the explicit agenda of trying to explain it away. Like I said, that does not at all mean that Religious Studios wouldn't welcome an overarching Grand Unified Theory of Religion, it's just to say that, if you learn anything about Religious Studies today, it's that a GUT is way, way down the list of Religious Studies' priorities.

I think the unhelpful ego is thinking I know things without evidence through faith and belief. Then judging others on how closely they align with my beliefs. My unhelpful ego sets me apart from others and sometimes causes me to circle the wagons with like minded people in opposition to others. Life is a competition for survival, so even this ego is helpful in some circumstances, but is often problematic and starts wars, murders, lawsuits and other hostilities.

I don't know what happens after I die. I don't know where loved ones who passed went. I don't know why I was born or what I'm supposed to do here. I don't know that if I wire up enough transistors that my machine will become spontaneously conscious. I don't know that God exists or has a plan for me. I don't know if I am an individual with free will who acts independently from others. I don't know if I am living in a simulation. The list of things I don't know is immense.

When I start pretending I know things is when I start getting in trouble.

I've always consider this less as a command and more the code that is already running on every human operating system. After all the summarizer is claiming to be close with the creator. Something worth considering.

So if our code is we will be consumed whatever we choose to be our god (science, religion, ourselves...) we will also love or harm others the way we love and harm ourselves. The most consistently kind, life giving people I have ever encountered are treating others the way they treat themselves. The people who I've been abused by, with hindsight can see they were harming me the way the harm themselves.

This is critical for our own self diagnostics, alignment, and ultimately how we build healthy civilization. I would invite anyone reading this to use science to rigorously form, and reform questions. Science is a lousy religion in my opinion, however I have found rediscovering my own heritage through the Spanish Mystics, science applied to religion or perhaps better referred to as ones on personal faith has unlocked a peace within my own inner development and facing universe spanning unknowns.

I hope this note finds you well.

I grew up in essentially a cultish variation of southern Baptist and have extensive experience with other denominations of “Christianity” and there is no way in fucking hell I would ever say a damn positive thing about the social clubs that are 99% of churches. Religion is almost entirely about control.

The current state of this country is due to the evangelical movement and all the bullshit that has come with it.

American “religion” and its followers can rot.

Is it?

In Jesus's teachings, the ones who were most egotistical were the scribes and pharisees. While the one with arguably the smallest ego was the good Samaritan. There's no real evidence that religious people (even by religious teachings) are immune to the issues of selfish, self-centered thinking.

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I say ego is independent. Religion doesn't affect it really. An ego-centric individual could be drawn into Religion for selfish reasons (ex: purely for the hope to get into Heaven without thinking about others), for example. There are certainly teachings within the religion about society and working together, etc. etc. But I don't think people necessarily follow those unless they were already predisposed into thinking about other people.

I would argue that any religious scholar (at least, of Christianity), would point out that the Bible has numerous examples and stories to remind us that "Religionism isn't good by itself". There are plenty of priests and holy people throughout the ages who have failed to live up to the ideals of the religion.

Ex: Moses's brother Aaron worshiped the golden calf with the rest of the Isrealites. Jesus was betrayed by an Apostle named Judas. The scribes / pharisees were some of the hardest set against Jesus, forcing Jesus to preach to non-believers (ie: Gentiles)

What does make religion unique, as the article also states, is that it prescribes conquering the ego as one of its primary goals. The more of this we can get in the world, the better.

Surrendering/forgiveness, constant reflection on death, and separation of the self tend to come to mind.

Most religions instill these ideas/virtues which may "modulate" the ego. For devout practitioners, they tend to live by these virtues and actually "reduce" the ego to near extinction.

The question is, do people naturally come across these ideas without religion/spirituality/etc? I was raised non-religious and didn't come across many of these ideas until my late 20s when I started to read again. Most of that came from reading religious/spiritual types of texts.

If someone is constantly being told how different they are from people in a group, they are less likely to closely identify with the group. Or with any single group. The end effect is that everyone becomes isolated, purposeless, and egotistical.

Obsessing over intersectionality achieves this purpose flawlessly. One can slice a loaf of bread only so many times before all that’s left are crumbs.

It’s a mixed bag with religion. The non-red flags to look for is acceptance and a surrender to providence and nature. Everything else is fertilizer for the ego industrial complex.

One likely advantage throughout human history is that those with strong egos are more likely to survive extremely difficult challenges - they might keep going when others lay down to die. If this concept of ego is expanded to an entire society, then a shared sense of identity is also a kind of 'community ego' which leads to social cohesiveness, the willingness to help other members of the group with their problems, leading to overall group success. This is often called the utilitarian argument for religious faith (but not for multicultural mixed religion, which is said to cause schisms in the group).

In evolutionary terms, this might be called 'group selection'- although many religious people don't like to talk about evolution. For some reason, common heredity with 'the lower animals' upsets them deeply - a concept I've never been able to understand myself. This is't true of all religions of course, it seems more a hallmark of the Abrahamic traditions (Judeo-Christian-Islamic). I guess it's really about replacement of religious authority with scientific authority when it comes to origin stories, genesis, etc.?

Where the inability to turn off the ego causes problems is in social interactions. Every academic department, for example, tends to have at least a few narcissitic Napoleon types who view every interaction with others as a winner/loser competition, in which one party is dominant and the other submissive (rather like chimpanzees really). If they don't come out on top, they show 'wounded ego' syndrome, which requires future retaliation of some sort against the other party to restore their dominant position. Generally such people are described as 'a real piece of work' and everyone dreads interacting with them. Typically they try to control and abuse their staff and students as well (look up UC Berkeley professor abuse scandal for about half a dozen recent examples).

Incidentally, this academic phenomenon shows that 'Scientism' isn't any better than 'Religionism' at moderating the negative aspects of ego. It seems to be something some people learn how to do, and others don't. There don't seem to be any guaranteed routes to learning this either - some people say prayer and meditation, some people say psychedelic drugs, some people say extreme physical exercise. I often wonder if it's actually somewhat genetic in nature, a sort of narcissistic gene issue, perhaps an inability to feel empathy for others? Go figure.

Could you say that any system of thought, where belief is active rather than knowledge, is a religion? I think so.

If so, aren't many systems arguably capable of being called religious? What exactly is the difference between religion and science?

I think that science can be considered as a religion to most, as, in general, people don't verify information or what they are told. Instead they just believe it is true and trust that it has been verified. I really don't see much difference.

While living in physical reality we must interact with other people. But since there's a huge variety of people that may have varying moralities and concepts of what's good and bad, what's a favor and what's an offence and what's both it can be really hard to think about dealing with people.

Religion makes things easier by substituting all the real people with all their specific peculiarities with virtual entity and excuses you from real moral interactions if you interact with that entity instead. Offence is no longer offence against your neighbor. Now it's offence against God (or karma or whatever) first and it becomes less relevant if your neighbor really perceives your action to be offensive or not or what kind of amendment he requires. When you are religious you need only to concern yourself with how you offended this virtual entity and what amendments are required for that entity which information religion helpfully provides on demand through priests and writings.

This vastly simplifies things and was probably necessary step in development of human race as we switched away from small villages where you could remember what's offensive to whom and who appreciates what and started to live in larger settlements where caring about actual morality towards unique people would be too much work. Religions usually provide also ready made fake communities based not on interpersonal moral interactions, like natural communities, but on sharing interactions with this virtual entity. It also provides you with substitute devices so you can still feel the same feelings that were in smaller populations provided by real moral interactions. For example instead of actually helping someone, you might just pray for him and still feel a lot of the same feelings that come from successfully helping which would require putting in work in getting to know that person, their actual needs and what they consider a favor.

This virtualization of morality wasn't a great solution though because it robbed people of authenticity of large part of their moral interactions and of their accuracy and adequacy. Now when we move to highly connected societies where we can survive in very large and dense population centers completely anonymously choosing our own small circle of other humans to interact with, to depend on, with our emotional, financial and physical security, we can finally get back to more authentic and varied moral interactions that we as a species have evolved the capacity for. It's one of the reasons, I think, why religion looses ground in recent decades. One of its key functions is no longer needed by most people.

In fact, the most common use of religion is fraud and manipulation, from tele-evangelism and Brazilian IURD to the American religious right, Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro and Tecep Erdogan.