A Chaos of Delight

Science, Religion and Myth and the Shaping of Western Thought

Geoffrey Dobson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315478715
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Humans throughout history have sought ways of understanding their place within the world. Religion, science and myth have been at the forefront of this quest for meaning. A Chaos of Delight examines how various cultures – from the early Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks to contemporary Western society – have looked at the same phenomena and devised totally different world views. The rise of modern science is examined, alongside questions of evolution and the origins of life. This comprehensive volume is an essential read for students and scholars interested in the history of ideas and the role of religion, science and myth in the development of Western thought.

We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe compasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret. Symmachus (c.345–c.402)¹

CHAPTER 1

Science, Religion and Myth: Making Sense of the World

The universe, sense-experience and reality

For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about great matters, for example, about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun, and about the stars and about the genesis of the universe.

Aristotle²

Imagine for a moment that you and a small group of friends were dropped off in some remote area of the country with all your memories and accumulated knowledge erased. Overnight your world would be transformed from one of global information to one of local experiences. Each day would be a survival adventure with every sensory encounter exposing another deep mystery wanting explanation. Like our early ancestors, you would wonder about day and night, the changing phases of the moon, the positions of the shimmering stars, the daily and seasonal movements of animals, the seasons and the mystery of life and death. Superimposed on these regular patterns you may experience a thunderstorm, a tsunami, a torrential flood, a bush fire, an earthquake, a solar eclipse, a sudden injury, sickness or premature death. How might you and your group explain these events, and in what forms might those stories appear?

Our journey begins further down a path of cultural advancement, around 3500 BC. The place is the ancient Near East and the people are the Sumerians and Egyptians. As in our mind game, we shall assume that all the events in space and time were once deep mysteries to these people. We shall further assume that the five basic senses have remained the same over time; for example, a reed growing along the Euphrates or Nile Rivers five thousand years ago would have possessed sensible qualities similar to those of a reed today. The major differences between now and then are how we imagine and reflect upon a reed. The ancient Sumerians or Egyptians believed that as soon as a reed was fashioned into a basket or musical instrument, or used as a writing tool, it appropriated magical powers of divine origin. This mythopoeic way of thinking dominated human thought for thousands of years until the Greek philosophers used new methods of reasoning and logic to seek alternative explanations involving physical objects and their relations. Mythopoeic belief still exists today in many of the hunter-gatherer cultures of Australasia, Africa, the Americas, the Arctic and the Pacific Rim.

Over the millennia, not only has our thinking about world events changed, but so also has the stratum of our perceptions (apprehension of an idea of sense). For example, in the sixteenth century the telescope extended the human senses far beyond their “normal” physiological limits, as did the microscope in the seventeenth century, which unveiled countless new worlds within worlds never before experienced by human beings. In recent years, with the aid of science and technology, our perceptions have extended from the smallest of subatomic particles that exist for only fractions of a second to the largest of distant galaxies that are billions of years old.

What we perceive as real, therefore, is something actual or experienced as part of developed knowledge of objects of sense and not merely an idea.³ Experience links us to the wider world and the society in which we live; it defines who we are as individuals through community, ownership, self and identity. Thus we are not impartial spectators, but active participants who seek meaning in the things we experience around us. As societies change, human thought patterns change and so do our perceived realities. The most we can know singly or collectively is the sum of our reflections and perceptions cultivated through art, crafts, music, mythology, religion, literature, science, technology, medicine and history How the external world is experienced by the common chimpanzee, family pet or bird is another question altogether.

Science, religion and myth as “truth-seeking” systems

Wisdom is the daughter of experience, truth is only the daughter of time.

Leonardo Da Vinci⁴

Like aspects of reality, truth is an extremely elusive concept. Truth can be a verifiable fact such as the earth being roughly spherical, or it can be a feeling such as loving someone, or it can be the belief (or disbelief) in God. Truth can also be a moral judgement that is beyond the reach of verifiability or logical proofs. The moral judgement that murder is a hanging offence is held as a “truth” by some people, but that “truth” may or may not be part of contemporary civil law and ethical standards. In broad terms, truth is the product of knowledge manifest in statements, arguments, practices and beliefs considered to be true. The difficulty is that what you consider true, another may consider wrong or downright offensive. Disagreement or controversy, however, does not mean that the truth is out of human reach, only that there is a lack of consensus about what is considered true.

Since time immemorial human beings have perceived the sun rising in the east, moving across the sky during the day and setting in the west at night. It was not until many thousands of years later that the truth emerged: day and night were produced by the earth rotating about its axis every 24 hours, and the seasons by the earth revolving around the sun once a year. Similarly, for thousands of years heaven was believed to be above the earth and the underworld (or hell) below it. On a flat earth, the concepts “up” and “down” were relatively straightforward. However, when the earth was found to be spherical these directions became more problematic. “Up” for people living in the northern hemisphere would be “down” for people living on the opposite side of the globe. Belief in a flat earth by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians and most ancient Greeks – and perpetuated by members of the Flat Earth Society – is now generally considered to be wrong. Reasons for groups such as the Flat Earth Society deviating from the norm relate to an unwillingness to let go of tradition and a refusal to accept new knowledge from science and technology. The moon landing on 20 July 1969 and spectacular pictures of Earth sent back by Apollo 11 astronauts were believed by some to have been a complete fraud sanctioned by the US government.

Whatever the belief, its truth evokes a sense of rightness in a person, cultural group, state or nation. Over the millennia, a rich diversity of worldviews has arisen in part from a different mix of mythopoeic, religious and scientific truths, and each system still profoundly influences Western thinking today.

Myth: early mode of explanation

[Myth] is not a mere mass of unorganized and confused ideas; it depends upon a definite mode of perception. If myth did not perceive the world in a different way it could not judge or interpret it in its specific manner. We must go back to this deeper stratum of perception in order to understand the character of mythical thought.

Ernst Cassirer⁵

Myths: from stories to a way of life

Most of us associate myths with stories,⁶ fun, fantasy and fabrications. Western children believe in the myths of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Little Red Riding Hood. These stories are larger than life in our early years. They only become less significant as we grow older and learn that the world is not make-believe and whimsical but highly ordered and intelligible. As we age, realities change and so do our myths. Myths are also associated with our identity. Some urban myths include America’s Wild West, Ground-Hog Day and Halloween, and Australia’s Waltzing Matilda and Man from Snowy River, and the list goes on. Each country has its own stories that assist in providing national identity: America, “the land of the free” and “land of opportunity”; Australia, the land of sun-bronzed Aussies, Gallipoli and “mate-ship”. Each myth may have some seed of truth but has become stylized over the years to take on “larger than life” status.⁷

Other forms of myth help appropriate and personalize history. As stories of major events such as a flood, fire, drought, sickness or war are passed down from one generation to the next they can enlarge out of proportion and no longer represent objective accounts of history. Historical myths can also be used to incite despotism and hatred against others. A chilling example in the twentieth century was Adolf Hitler’s use of the Aryan myths of superiority to inspire the German peoples to sacrifice themselves for the Fatherland. Unfortunately, the myth lives on today in the white supremacy movement and other splinter groups. There are many other examples of myths used by individuals and groups that violate human rights. Indeed, my...