Why Did Early Humanity Develop a ‘Religious’ Instinct?
By Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD
‘For man (and his existent material condition), we are used to expressing Marx’s view using two propositions. One proposition states man is a conscious animal. His essence is free and comprised of self-conscious activity. Man is what he ‘thinks’ or ‘manifests’ himself to be; the other proposition regards man as “the ensemble of his social (material) relations” - as a real individual inhabiting a specific historical era. The former represents the thinking and consciously ‘aware’ mind of man which underlies his active side, whilst the latter stresses man’s finite and given physicality (his ageing body and corresponding changing environment). These two propositions are not contradictory, and only when the two are combined can an understanding of the thought of Marx be truly comprehended and understood.’
Wang Nanshi & Xie Yongkang: Marx’s Practical Materialism: The Horizon of Post-Subjectivity Philosophy, (2006), Canut – Page 255
(This extract is excellently conceived and written in the original Chinese-language – but has been so poorly translated by the Universal Translator employed by Canut Publishers that I had to re-translate and tidy-up the text to bring-out its intended meaning in the English language - author).
Marxism begins with the criticism of a) all established (existential) religious institutes, and b) all forms of primitive religion (usually defined as ‘theism’). In the case of ‘a’ Marx is usually talking about the Judeo-Christian tradition and its tendency to support the forces of predatory capitalism whilst in the service of the bourgeoisie. This type of religion serves the purpose of psychologically and physically ‘inoculating’ the working-class against the casting-off of its ‘false-consciousness’ and the developing of a class-wide appreciation of ‘Socialism’. Religion then, ‘prevents’ the working-class from self-organising in a manner that best represents its own class interests. Within Judaism there are the ‘Zionists’ who support both predatory capitalism and White Supremacism, whilst within Christianity there is the Catholic Church which supported fascism and German Nazism before, during and after WWII, and is today at the forefront of the neo-Nazi movements sweeping Eastern Europe. The Catholics and Zionists support the bourgeoisie and the predatory capitalism that class enforces upon the working-class. Although the Catholic Church makes a public show of supposedly opposing ‘Freemasonry’, in reality the Freemasons and the Catholics both support predatory capitalism but vie with one another over how much of the working-class should each entity be controlling and exploiting! Of course, Marx ascribes the collapse of the First International as being due to the infiltration of its ranks by the ‘Freemasons’ - who are often much deadlier in their unperceivable activity!
Organised religion is a distinct branch of the bourgeoisie – which controls the means of production. It is in the best interests of the bourgeoisie that the working-class continues to be relentlessly exploited so that every ounce of profit can be forcibly extracted from each individual worker. As religion assists in this task by keeping the minds of each individual worker ‘shackled’ to outdated and superstitious concepts – religion is the enemy of the people. This is politicised or publicly active religion supported by the State or its agents. This is why a Marxist State converts ‘public’ religion into ‘private’ religion – removing all ties of political power and direct association with the bourgeoisie. Religion in this model, becomes a personal point of view rather than a class-based political policy. In regards to ‘b’ mentioned above, Marx gets to the root of the matter. Theistic religion is the product of an ‘inverted’ mind-set which misrepresents (and distorts) the reality of material existence. The ‘inverted’ mindset of religion misrepresents material reality and generates an alternative set of ridiculous (but ‘seductive’) sets of hypotheses, which despite their deficient content, creates a world-view completely out of step with how material reality functions (as described through scientific thought). This ‘inverted’ mindset is devised of a ‘thought in the head’ regarding a disembodied ‘god’ or similar ‘spirit’ entity – that is ‘imagined’ as existing ‘somewhere out there.’ This imaginary principle does not exist, but is treated as ‘real’ and ‘all powerful’, with these concepts serving to psychologically and physically ‘shackle’ the individual believer to the belief system at hand and the corresponding social-cultural system.
The argument Marx deploys is powerful and no one who believes in the literality of religion has managed to counter it with an equally logical theory. The work of Marx must be attacked, distorted and suppressed to prevent the working-class from encountering it in a manner that ‘frees’ their minds and bodies! The forces of conventional and established religion cannot prove Marx wrong, so they deceitfully attempt to link his work to all kinds of ‘evil’ - but still it devastatingly stands strong emitting the light-rays of logic and reason for all to see! Ironically, theology is the proverbial iron statue built with feet of clay – and the incisive observations of Marx are the ‘pebble’ that does all the damage and gives humanity the freedom that religion only pretends to provide. This being said, I want to discuss why it is that humanity feels the need to a) devise religions and b) worship shadows that do not exist. In Dr Ben Robinson’s (2021) book entitled ‘England's Villages: An Extraordinary Journey Through Time’, he mentions a Bronze Age building (c. 1,500 BCE) found in the UK (I believe on Dartmoor). This building was well made of stone with a flat and level floor, with four equal walls and a flat roof. Despite all the time and resources that these humans spent on this construction project, it was not used for ‘housing’ people and not used for anyone or any animal to ‘live in’! Soon after its construction was finished, this building was permanently sealed and never re-opened until its rediscovery (as a collapsed and buried object) in modern times.
These early humans had also selected a suitable rock which they then ‘worked’ into an exquisite axe-head with a sharp-edge (presumably it originally possessed an attached wooden handle), and then they placed this axe in the centre of this room as an act of ‘veneration.’ Just as the axe was not used for its usual or expected function, it was also placed in a room which was not used in a way that a modern human would think was relevant or apt. Furthermore, other archaeological finds suggest that human-beings tended to construct rooms for mundane storage and/or religious purposes – rather than ‘living’ in these safe and comfortable spaces. This suggests that the religious urge was present even before human-beings developed the ability of civilised living in purpose-built dwellings! This being the case, the question becomes why is it that an evolving ape-like creature, or a creature related to apes (that eventually became ‘human’) developed the urge to believe in religious modes of behaviour? How did an ape-like (or related) pre-human ancestor - who had to contend with the immediacy of the material world around him – develop the idea that there might be an ‘unseen’ world somewhere beyond this reality that can be sensed? Of course, as far as science can tell, monkeys and apes live exclusively in the present moment, and deal with reality exclusively through the agency of ‘instinct’ and blatant ‘physical force’! There is no evidence of religiosity in these animals - but given that they are the nearest (genetic) relations to humans – how did a sub-species breakaway group jump from the immediacy of countering the danger inherent in physical existence – to assuming that there exists a world other than that apparent to the senses?
The human brain can ‘remember’ the past, is ‘aware’ of the ‘present’ and can ‘predict’ the future – whereas the pre-human ancestors were only aware of the ‘present.’ These developments occurred due to physical challenges in the material environment which forced the human brain to adapt and become larger as a consequence. Pre-human ancestors went through these changes whilst the other apes and monkey ancestors (not related directly to modern humans) did not experience the same environmental pressure – or reacted in different ways. The point is that although the human brain grew in size, this was the direct result of material change in the environment, and that this development should not be responsible for the religious urge. My theory is that when the savanna formed and large open spaces developed between clumps of forests – a new world and a new reality opened up for the early humans. Whereas they had only lived in trees with the canopy being their entire experience of life (and reality), a new reality unfolded when they had to stand-up to look around and ‘run’ from one clump of trees to the next – traversing these new open spaces. Prior to this, when an early human went ‘up’ to the top of the canopy he would encounter sunlight and return to tell others about this strange world ‘above’ that had no branches and was full of empty space (air) and bright light! Downwards was associated with ‘danger’ because far down below there were predators which took advantage of those who fell and injured themselves. When an early human died – their body ‘fell’ into the abyss below (a negative process which saw the ‘downward’ direction associated with darkness, death and decay). It may be that if an early human died whilst lying on their nest atop the branches – the living humans would ‘tip’ the body so that it would be ‘buried’ in the depths below.
I suspect that the canopy life of pre-humans and early humans inscribed in the human consciousness a vague appreciation of the totality of the canopy (a sense of ‘something greater’ than the individual), with ‘up’ being ‘positive’ and ‘light’ and ‘down’ being associated with ‘negativity’ and ‘darkness’! These assumptions are the rudiments of most religious thought. When this is coupled with a substantial and life-transforming environmental change, although all of this is happening and unfolding strictly within the material world, it does not, in itself, imply a netherworld beyond the present moment of experience. Returning again to Marx for coherence, the ‘American’ Editor - John Raines - in his 2002 book entitled ‘Marx and Religion’ (Temple University Press) – adds much clarity to this subject. For instance, the bulk of Marx’s work on religion was written between 1844-1849 – although religion does reoccur with a startling regularity throughout all his works, including Das Kapital. It is clear that religion in the established and modern sense, is both the underlying and eternal enemy of the masses, the close friend of capitalism and the motivator of all over-arching oppression. Even so, it is clear that Marx recognises that religion per se is a genuine human effort to escape existential oppression, regardless of its thoroughly delusive quality. In other words, Marx recognises the human need behind religious structure, but deems such an endeavour as doomed to failure because religion ultimately involves the maintenance of the very oppressive structures it is attempting to overthrow!
Marx views Hegel as a ‘theologian’ even though Hegel himself tends keep one foot in the secular and the spiritual worlds. Raines points-out that Marx wanted to dedicate his masterpiece – Das Kapital – to Charles Darwin, but that the Darwin family opposed this as they did not want Charles associated with the social radical. Having spent many hours visiting Down House (in Kent) - the former home of Charles Darwin and his family – I researched this association between Darwin and Marx and discovered a number of lies and inconsistencies permeating the public space. For instance, the Darwin family have released virtually all of Charles Darwin’s letters into the public domain – except for those involving his dialogue with Marx! Instead, the museum did display the copy of ‘Das Kapital’ that Marx had given Darwin and I saw with my own eyes that its previously ‘sealed’ pages had been ‘cut’ and the book had been opened and read! Furthermore, short extracts of the exchange of letters between Darwin and Marx were quoted on a number of associated displays – including the Darwin family ‘accepting’ an array of impressive medals from the Soviet Union (issued in 1959) celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origins of the Species’! The Darwin family has also issued a statement ‘rejecting’ any and all associations with the political right-wing or far-right – including the ‘eugenics’ work of Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton! It is clear from all this jockeying for position and Cold War lies and disinformation that Marx and Darwin were closer in both opinion and political ideology than many would find comfortable, and that a major plank in this association was the fact that both men acknowledged that human-beings had evolved in an ever-changing material environment.
The development of the neocortex in the brain and the opposable thumb in the hand allowed human-beings to interact with their environment in an ever-increasing complexity of mind, body and environment. On the one hand, the human brain and body evolved through natural selection, whilst on the other the natural environment was ‘changed’ through the force of ‘labour’ applied to it by the human mind and body. Therefore, as the body changed so did the environment in a self-fulfilling loop of activity. Humans learned that through their labour the conditions of the physical world could be transformed, with this process of transformation being potentially limitless. Although the evolutionary process is not always progressive (the human toe, for instance, is a ‘deformed’ thumb that lost virtually all its gripping ability to facilitate the much more advantageous ability to walk upright), the effect of natural selection is that the ‘sum total’ of all the changes of the human mind and body allow for the maximum manipulation of the natural environment. This still leaves the problem as to why early humans developed a sense of ‘other’ as if it existed beyond or behind the material world (as if physical reality was an obscuring ‘curtain’ that had to be ‘pulled-back’ to reveal what was hidden). Resources and labour would occasionally be spent upon purely spiritual projects similar to that explained above – as if the exerted effort and the finished project was something ‘more’ than its material dimensions. The implication seems to be that this material world, if manipulated in a certain manner, a) changes itself, b) changes a ‘hidden’ world beyond this one, or c) is changed by a ‘hidden’ world beyond this one. Whatever the minutiae of the situation, the purpose of this type of ‘spirit’ building is ‘communication’ between this world and a ‘hidden’ world located somewhere else (but not in this world). It is another realm or plane that exists behind, above or both in regards to this physical reality. Labour not only transforms the world of nature, and nature not only transforms the human mind and body – but labour also serves as an agency that opens a conduit or pathway to another dimension – one that cannot be perceived with any human sense-organ but which is ‘believed’ (without any evidence) to be present nonetheless. This divergence from the common-sense of everyday experience is the issue that this article is exploring, as the science of archaeology has proven existed very early within human evolution and seems to be a peculiarly human trait (not present in any of humanity’s nearest genetic relatives).
John Raines suggests a certain chain of events transformed human ‘not knowing’ (or ‘ignorance’) into religious belief. He takes an example of a piece of rock that was accidently ‘heated’ (either by fire or lightning, etc), and which was transformed into a glass-like structure. This would have been like no other object seen before which possessed almost impossible qualities. When looked through it distorted or magnified reality, and when light was channelled through it, it produced intense heat and eventually fire! Such unusual objects may have triggered the human urge toward religiosity at a time when the human mind did not scientifically understand the material reality that created it. Eventually, through dialectical change and development, (an ongoing process), the human mind began to understand and solve nearly every problem humanity had to face – and yet the urge toward religiosity still continues into the modern age. I suspect, however, that the religious urge existed before humanity left the canopy, at least in its most primitive form, and yet this primitive dichotomy of light-good and dark-bad lies at the heart of virtually all religious thinking in every culture. Marx clearly reminds us that humanity is not a ‘soul’ or a ‘spirit’ trapped in a body – but is only a body living within a material world – the conditions of which have engineered the dimensions and functioning of the body. In other words, humanity possess a physical body which exists surrounded by a natural body. Human existence, then, is an organic body living within a natural body. Having established this fact, John Raines then quotes Marx as follows:
‘Nature is man’s inorganic body, that is to say nature in so far as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature, I.e., nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is to itself. For man is a part of nature.’
Karl Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 - Estranged Labour
To add vigour and depth to his ideas, John Raines further quotes Marx when he writes:
‘The animal is immediately one with its life activity, not distinct from it. The animal is its life activity. Man makes his life activity itself into an object of will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he immediately identifies... Only on that account is his activity free activity. Alienated labour reverses the relationship in that man, since he is a conscious being, makes his activity, his essence, only a means for his existence.’
Karl Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 - Estranged Labour
There is the ‘inside-the-skin' body – and there is the ‘outside-the-skin' body. The former is unique to the individual whilst the latter is ‘shared’ by humanity as a ‘collective’ - but both are needed if the individual and the collective are to survive. Indeed, the ‘individual’ is only a facet of the ‘collective’ - whilst the ‘collective’ reflects all ‘individuality’ within its complexity. In this set-up there is no place for (theistic) religion and if this is the case, where is religion to be located? Where does it reside? Why is it that religion cannot be seen or measured? Theistic religion is human self-consciousness ‘misplaced’ and diverted away from reflecting the materiel environment from which it emerged and instead ‘imagining’ a pseudo-world of disembodied spirits and mysterious phantoms! Whereas humanity’s inner-body must ‘relate’ to its outer-body in a practical manner – this imagined world of spectres and ghosts must be ‘worshipped’ even though it cannot be seen in the conventional sense! What humanity does not understand in the physical environment – he reinterprets in a mystical manner that alienates and distorts the naturally occurring phenomena. Although early humans understood that above the canopy and below the canopy there existed very ‘different’ places to the area they routinely inhabited on a daily basis, these ‘other’ places were at least ‘real’ in the material sense. Although their material realities were not existentially present ‘in the canopy’ they were discoverable with effort (perhaps the origin of the ‘quest’ in human culture). The urge toward religion seems to be a fixation in the human mind which ‘fabricates’ the existence of another realm that because it has no materiality cannot be discovered anywhere in the physical world! If the discovery of rare and unusual objects in the natural world suggested an ‘unseen’ realm, surely this was because early humanity lacked the scientific knowledge to understand the individual causes and effects that led step by step the formulation of the ‘unusual’ object. If this knowledge was to be present in early humans, then it is doubtful that the urge toward religion would not have developed as an alternative view of reality. Working backwards through the likely chain of events explains how and why religion was created, but the problem religion has become for humanity is to do with the seductive nature of theology and political power structure of the Christian Church (and related entities). Individual human-beings are ‘conditioned’ to make the same errors in logic from one generation to the next. Invariably, religion in the modern-age has supported capitalism and conservatism in equal measure. This is the reactionary nature of modern religion which has no hesitation associating itself with fascism or neo-Nazism, etc. Without a doubt, a lack of understanding of how natural processes operated led to early humans generating the pseudo-reality of religiosity.
Humans believe that they are accessing a different realm (or dimension of being) through the ‘belief’ that it is there. It is this ‘belief’, or so they think, which grants them access to this netherworld – but only when their physical body is ‘dead’ and no one else can see the ‘journey’ or the ‘destination’, but yet we are told this place is most definitely ‘there’ and the way to guarantee access to this realm is to a) accept its literal reality as being proven and obvious here and now, and b) subjugate our psychological and physical existence to any strictures and/or social attitudes associated with this ‘divine space.’ This would be tantamount to sitting in the centre of the dark canopy ‘pretending’ it was full of ‘light’ and that ‘everyone could see,’ A negative version of this religious urge might involve the same human individual sat in the centre of the dark canopy pretending he had already fallen to the ground below – whilst awaiting attack from a predator! This obviously demonstrates a ‘misinterpretation’ of the current events and is a very real problem when a substantial proportion of a population no longer literally believes in a religion, but has to exist side by side with those that do. Ironically, it is the forces of predatory capitalism which have destroyed the homogeneity of the Christian Church. The ecclesiastical collectivity has given way to a greed-orientated (hyper) individualism within which the earning of money (here and now) and the acquisition of goods (also here and now) as being the only reality worth striving for. Any religions that have survived the transition from feudalism (represented by the hierarchy of the Church) into the era of bourgeois dominance, capitalism and liberal democracy, have adjusted to survive and aligned their theology and everyday culture with the aspirations of the bourgeoisie (where they once followed the aristocracy who used to hold this power). The modern Church still retains its ideology of ‘another realm’ whilst heaping-up material wealth and political power on this material plane – here and now – and participating in the domination and persecution of the working-class, ethnic minorities and non-White people. This is where the danger of ‘imagining’ other realms has led humanity.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2022.
Wang Nanshi & Xie Yongkang: Marx’s Practical Materialism: The Horizon of Post-Subjectivity Philosophy, (2006), Canut – Page 255
(This extract is excellently conceived and written in the original Chinese-language – but has been so poorly translated by the Universal Translator employed by Canut Publishers that I had to re-translate and tidy-up the text to bring-out its intended meaning in the English language - author).
Marxism begins with the criticism of a) all established (existential) religious institutes, and b) all forms of primitive religion (usually defined as ‘theism’). In the case of ‘a’ Marx is usually talking about the Judeo-Christian tradition and its tendency to support the forces of predatory capitalism whilst in the service of the bourgeoisie. This type of religion serves the purpose of psychologically and physically ‘inoculating’ the working-class against the casting-off of its ‘false-consciousness’ and the developing of a class-wide appreciation of ‘Socialism’. Religion then, ‘prevents’ the working-class from self-organising in a manner that best represents its own class interests. Within Judaism there are the ‘Zionists’ who support both predatory capitalism and White Supremacism, whilst within Christianity there is the Catholic Church which supported fascism and German Nazism before, during and after WWII, and is today at the forefront of the neo-Nazi movements sweeping Eastern Europe. The Catholics and Zionists support the bourgeoisie and the predatory capitalism that class enforces upon the working-class. Although the Catholic Church makes a public show of supposedly opposing ‘Freemasonry’, in reality the Freemasons and the Catholics both support predatory capitalism but vie with one another over how much of the working-class should each entity be controlling and exploiting! Of course, Marx ascribes the collapse of the First International as being due to the infiltration of its ranks by the ‘Freemasons’ - who are often much deadlier in their unperceivable activity!
Organised religion is a distinct branch of the bourgeoisie – which controls the means of production. It is in the best interests of the bourgeoisie that the working-class continues to be relentlessly exploited so that every ounce of profit can be forcibly extracted from each individual worker. As religion assists in this task by keeping the minds of each individual worker ‘shackled’ to outdated and superstitious concepts – religion is the enemy of the people. This is politicised or publicly active religion supported by the State or its agents. This is why a Marxist State converts ‘public’ religion into ‘private’ religion – removing all ties of political power and direct association with the bourgeoisie. Religion in this model, becomes a personal point of view rather than a class-based political policy. In regards to ‘b’ mentioned above, Marx gets to the root of the matter. Theistic religion is the product of an ‘inverted’ mind-set which misrepresents (and distorts) the reality of material existence. The ‘inverted’ mindset of religion misrepresents material reality and generates an alternative set of ridiculous (but ‘seductive’) sets of hypotheses, which despite their deficient content, creates a world-view completely out of step with how material reality functions (as described through scientific thought). This ‘inverted’ mindset is devised of a ‘thought in the head’ regarding a disembodied ‘god’ or similar ‘spirit’ entity – that is ‘imagined’ as existing ‘somewhere out there.’ This imaginary principle does not exist, but is treated as ‘real’ and ‘all powerful’, with these concepts serving to psychologically and physically ‘shackle’ the individual believer to the belief system at hand and the corresponding social-cultural system.
The argument Marx deploys is powerful and no one who believes in the literality of religion has managed to counter it with an equally logical theory. The work of Marx must be attacked, distorted and suppressed to prevent the working-class from encountering it in a manner that ‘frees’ their minds and bodies! The forces of conventional and established religion cannot prove Marx wrong, so they deceitfully attempt to link his work to all kinds of ‘evil’ - but still it devastatingly stands strong emitting the light-rays of logic and reason for all to see! Ironically, theology is the proverbial iron statue built with feet of clay – and the incisive observations of Marx are the ‘pebble’ that does all the damage and gives humanity the freedom that religion only pretends to provide. This being said, I want to discuss why it is that humanity feels the need to a) devise religions and b) worship shadows that do not exist. In Dr Ben Robinson’s (2021) book entitled ‘England's Villages: An Extraordinary Journey Through Time’, he mentions a Bronze Age building (c. 1,500 BCE) found in the UK (I believe on Dartmoor). This building was well made of stone with a flat and level floor, with four equal walls and a flat roof. Despite all the time and resources that these humans spent on this construction project, it was not used for ‘housing’ people and not used for anyone or any animal to ‘live in’! Soon after its construction was finished, this building was permanently sealed and never re-opened until its rediscovery (as a collapsed and buried object) in modern times.
These early humans had also selected a suitable rock which they then ‘worked’ into an exquisite axe-head with a sharp-edge (presumably it originally possessed an attached wooden handle), and then they placed this axe in the centre of this room as an act of ‘veneration.’ Just as the axe was not used for its usual or expected function, it was also placed in a room which was not used in a way that a modern human would think was relevant or apt. Furthermore, other archaeological finds suggest that human-beings tended to construct rooms for mundane storage and/or religious purposes – rather than ‘living’ in these safe and comfortable spaces. This suggests that the religious urge was present even before human-beings developed the ability of civilised living in purpose-built dwellings! This being the case, the question becomes why is it that an evolving ape-like creature, or a creature related to apes (that eventually became ‘human’) developed the urge to believe in religious modes of behaviour? How did an ape-like (or related) pre-human ancestor - who had to contend with the immediacy of the material world around him – develop the idea that there might be an ‘unseen’ world somewhere beyond this reality that can be sensed? Of course, as far as science can tell, monkeys and apes live exclusively in the present moment, and deal with reality exclusively through the agency of ‘instinct’ and blatant ‘physical force’! There is no evidence of religiosity in these animals - but given that they are the nearest (genetic) relations to humans – how did a sub-species breakaway group jump from the immediacy of countering the danger inherent in physical existence – to assuming that there exists a world other than that apparent to the senses?
The human brain can ‘remember’ the past, is ‘aware’ of the ‘present’ and can ‘predict’ the future – whereas the pre-human ancestors were only aware of the ‘present.’ These developments occurred due to physical challenges in the material environment which forced the human brain to adapt and become larger as a consequence. Pre-human ancestors went through these changes whilst the other apes and monkey ancestors (not related directly to modern humans) did not experience the same environmental pressure – or reacted in different ways. The point is that although the human brain grew in size, this was the direct result of material change in the environment, and that this development should not be responsible for the religious urge. My theory is that when the savanna formed and large open spaces developed between clumps of forests – a new world and a new reality opened up for the early humans. Whereas they had only lived in trees with the canopy being their entire experience of life (and reality), a new reality unfolded when they had to stand-up to look around and ‘run’ from one clump of trees to the next – traversing these new open spaces. Prior to this, when an early human went ‘up’ to the top of the canopy he would encounter sunlight and return to tell others about this strange world ‘above’ that had no branches and was full of empty space (air) and bright light! Downwards was associated with ‘danger’ because far down below there were predators which took advantage of those who fell and injured themselves. When an early human died – their body ‘fell’ into the abyss below (a negative process which saw the ‘downward’ direction associated with darkness, death and decay). It may be that if an early human died whilst lying on their nest atop the branches – the living humans would ‘tip’ the body so that it would be ‘buried’ in the depths below.
I suspect that the canopy life of pre-humans and early humans inscribed in the human consciousness a vague appreciation of the totality of the canopy (a sense of ‘something greater’ than the individual), with ‘up’ being ‘positive’ and ‘light’ and ‘down’ being associated with ‘negativity’ and ‘darkness’! These assumptions are the rudiments of most religious thought. When this is coupled with a substantial and life-transforming environmental change, although all of this is happening and unfolding strictly within the material world, it does not, in itself, imply a netherworld beyond the present moment of experience. Returning again to Marx for coherence, the ‘American’ Editor - John Raines - in his 2002 book entitled ‘Marx and Religion’ (Temple University Press) – adds much clarity to this subject. For instance, the bulk of Marx’s work on religion was written between 1844-1849 – although religion does reoccur with a startling regularity throughout all his works, including Das Kapital. It is clear that religion in the established and modern sense, is both the underlying and eternal enemy of the masses, the close friend of capitalism and the motivator of all over-arching oppression. Even so, it is clear that Marx recognises that religion per se is a genuine human effort to escape existential oppression, regardless of its thoroughly delusive quality. In other words, Marx recognises the human need behind religious structure, but deems such an endeavour as doomed to failure because religion ultimately involves the maintenance of the very oppressive structures it is attempting to overthrow!
Marx views Hegel as a ‘theologian’ even though Hegel himself tends keep one foot in the secular and the spiritual worlds. Raines points-out that Marx wanted to dedicate his masterpiece – Das Kapital – to Charles Darwin, but that the Darwin family opposed this as they did not want Charles associated with the social radical. Having spent many hours visiting Down House (in Kent) - the former home of Charles Darwin and his family – I researched this association between Darwin and Marx and discovered a number of lies and inconsistencies permeating the public space. For instance, the Darwin family have released virtually all of Charles Darwin’s letters into the public domain – except for those involving his dialogue with Marx! Instead, the museum did display the copy of ‘Das Kapital’ that Marx had given Darwin and I saw with my own eyes that its previously ‘sealed’ pages had been ‘cut’ and the book had been opened and read! Furthermore, short extracts of the exchange of letters between Darwin and Marx were quoted on a number of associated displays – including the Darwin family ‘accepting’ an array of impressive medals from the Soviet Union (issued in 1959) celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origins of the Species’! The Darwin family has also issued a statement ‘rejecting’ any and all associations with the political right-wing or far-right – including the ‘eugenics’ work of Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton! It is clear from all this jockeying for position and Cold War lies and disinformation that Marx and Darwin were closer in both opinion and political ideology than many would find comfortable, and that a major plank in this association was the fact that both men acknowledged that human-beings had evolved in an ever-changing material environment.
The development of the neocortex in the brain and the opposable thumb in the hand allowed human-beings to interact with their environment in an ever-increasing complexity of mind, body and environment. On the one hand, the human brain and body evolved through natural selection, whilst on the other the natural environment was ‘changed’ through the force of ‘labour’ applied to it by the human mind and body. Therefore, as the body changed so did the environment in a self-fulfilling loop of activity. Humans learned that through their labour the conditions of the physical world could be transformed, with this process of transformation being potentially limitless. Although the evolutionary process is not always progressive (the human toe, for instance, is a ‘deformed’ thumb that lost virtually all its gripping ability to facilitate the much more advantageous ability to walk upright), the effect of natural selection is that the ‘sum total’ of all the changes of the human mind and body allow for the maximum manipulation of the natural environment. This still leaves the problem as to why early humans developed a sense of ‘other’ as if it existed beyond or behind the material world (as if physical reality was an obscuring ‘curtain’ that had to be ‘pulled-back’ to reveal what was hidden). Resources and labour would occasionally be spent upon purely spiritual projects similar to that explained above – as if the exerted effort and the finished project was something ‘more’ than its material dimensions. The implication seems to be that this material world, if manipulated in a certain manner, a) changes itself, b) changes a ‘hidden’ world beyond this one, or c) is changed by a ‘hidden’ world beyond this one. Whatever the minutiae of the situation, the purpose of this type of ‘spirit’ building is ‘communication’ between this world and a ‘hidden’ world located somewhere else (but not in this world). It is another realm or plane that exists behind, above or both in regards to this physical reality. Labour not only transforms the world of nature, and nature not only transforms the human mind and body – but labour also serves as an agency that opens a conduit or pathway to another dimension – one that cannot be perceived with any human sense-organ but which is ‘believed’ (without any evidence) to be present nonetheless. This divergence from the common-sense of everyday experience is the issue that this article is exploring, as the science of archaeology has proven existed very early within human evolution and seems to be a peculiarly human trait (not present in any of humanity’s nearest genetic relatives).
John Raines suggests a certain chain of events transformed human ‘not knowing’ (or ‘ignorance’) into religious belief. He takes an example of a piece of rock that was accidently ‘heated’ (either by fire or lightning, etc), and which was transformed into a glass-like structure. This would have been like no other object seen before which possessed almost impossible qualities. When looked through it distorted or magnified reality, and when light was channelled through it, it produced intense heat and eventually fire! Such unusual objects may have triggered the human urge toward religiosity at a time when the human mind did not scientifically understand the material reality that created it. Eventually, through dialectical change and development, (an ongoing process), the human mind began to understand and solve nearly every problem humanity had to face – and yet the urge toward religiosity still continues into the modern age. I suspect, however, that the religious urge existed before humanity left the canopy, at least in its most primitive form, and yet this primitive dichotomy of light-good and dark-bad lies at the heart of virtually all religious thinking in every culture. Marx clearly reminds us that humanity is not a ‘soul’ or a ‘spirit’ trapped in a body – but is only a body living within a material world – the conditions of which have engineered the dimensions and functioning of the body. In other words, humanity possess a physical body which exists surrounded by a natural body. Human existence, then, is an organic body living within a natural body. Having established this fact, John Raines then quotes Marx as follows:
‘Nature is man’s inorganic body, that is to say nature in so far as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature, I.e., nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is to itself. For man is a part of nature.’
Karl Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 - Estranged Labour
To add vigour and depth to his ideas, John Raines further quotes Marx when he writes:
‘The animal is immediately one with its life activity, not distinct from it. The animal is its life activity. Man makes his life activity itself into an object of will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he immediately identifies... Only on that account is his activity free activity. Alienated labour reverses the relationship in that man, since he is a conscious being, makes his activity, his essence, only a means for his existence.’
Karl Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 - Estranged Labour
There is the ‘inside-the-skin' body – and there is the ‘outside-the-skin' body. The former is unique to the individual whilst the latter is ‘shared’ by humanity as a ‘collective’ - but both are needed if the individual and the collective are to survive. Indeed, the ‘individual’ is only a facet of the ‘collective’ - whilst the ‘collective’ reflects all ‘individuality’ within its complexity. In this set-up there is no place for (theistic) religion and if this is the case, where is religion to be located? Where does it reside? Why is it that religion cannot be seen or measured? Theistic religion is human self-consciousness ‘misplaced’ and diverted away from reflecting the materiel environment from which it emerged and instead ‘imagining’ a pseudo-world of disembodied spirits and mysterious phantoms! Whereas humanity’s inner-body must ‘relate’ to its outer-body in a practical manner – this imagined world of spectres and ghosts must be ‘worshipped’ even though it cannot be seen in the conventional sense! What humanity does not understand in the physical environment – he reinterprets in a mystical manner that alienates and distorts the naturally occurring phenomena. Although early humans understood that above the canopy and below the canopy there existed very ‘different’ places to the area they routinely inhabited on a daily basis, these ‘other’ places were at least ‘real’ in the material sense. Although their material realities were not existentially present ‘in the canopy’ they were discoverable with effort (perhaps the origin of the ‘quest’ in human culture). The urge toward religion seems to be a fixation in the human mind which ‘fabricates’ the existence of another realm that because it has no materiality cannot be discovered anywhere in the physical world! If the discovery of rare and unusual objects in the natural world suggested an ‘unseen’ realm, surely this was because early humanity lacked the scientific knowledge to understand the individual causes and effects that led step by step the formulation of the ‘unusual’ object. If this knowledge was to be present in early humans, then it is doubtful that the urge toward religion would not have developed as an alternative view of reality. Working backwards through the likely chain of events explains how and why religion was created, but the problem religion has become for humanity is to do with the seductive nature of theology and political power structure of the Christian Church (and related entities). Individual human-beings are ‘conditioned’ to make the same errors in logic from one generation to the next. Invariably, religion in the modern-age has supported capitalism and conservatism in equal measure. This is the reactionary nature of modern religion which has no hesitation associating itself with fascism or neo-Nazism, etc. Without a doubt, a lack of understanding of how natural processes operated led to early humans generating the pseudo-reality of religiosity.
Humans believe that they are accessing a different realm (or dimension of being) through the ‘belief’ that it is there. It is this ‘belief’, or so they think, which grants them access to this netherworld – but only when their physical body is ‘dead’ and no one else can see the ‘journey’ or the ‘destination’, but yet we are told this place is most definitely ‘there’ and the way to guarantee access to this realm is to a) accept its literal reality as being proven and obvious here and now, and b) subjugate our psychological and physical existence to any strictures and/or social attitudes associated with this ‘divine space.’ This would be tantamount to sitting in the centre of the dark canopy ‘pretending’ it was full of ‘light’ and that ‘everyone could see,’ A negative version of this religious urge might involve the same human individual sat in the centre of the dark canopy pretending he had already fallen to the ground below – whilst awaiting attack from a predator! This obviously demonstrates a ‘misinterpretation’ of the current events and is a very real problem when a substantial proportion of a population no longer literally believes in a religion, but has to exist side by side with those that do. Ironically, it is the forces of predatory capitalism which have destroyed the homogeneity of the Christian Church. The ecclesiastical collectivity has given way to a greed-orientated (hyper) individualism within which the earning of money (here and now) and the acquisition of goods (also here and now) as being the only reality worth striving for. Any religions that have survived the transition from feudalism (represented by the hierarchy of the Church) into the era of bourgeois dominance, capitalism and liberal democracy, have adjusted to survive and aligned their theology and everyday culture with the aspirations of the bourgeoisie (where they once followed the aristocracy who used to hold this power). The modern Church still retains its ideology of ‘another realm’ whilst heaping-up material wealth and political power on this material plane – here and now – and participating in the domination and persecution of the working-class, ethnic minorities and non-White people. This is where the danger of ‘imagining’ other realms has led humanity.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2022.