Читать книгу The Cosmic Ocean - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 20

In the previous Erich Fromm quote, he said animals live in harmony with nature. What did he mean? His statement seems absurd at first glance, because animals in nature suffer from hunger, thirst, fear, pain, physical injuries, old age, and death just as we do. Many of them also experience the terror of being hunted, which is certainly not a harmonious feeling.

Furthermore, scientific evidence shows that many animals can form deep emotional bonds with other creatures. Since elephants can bond deeply with members of their herd, how can an elephant experience harmony with nature while seeing its family members die from drought? And since animals fear being eaten alive, how can a panicking zebra experience harmony with nature while being killed by hyenas?

Although animals in the wild are vulnerable to many of the same forms of suffering experienced by human beings, what Fromm meant is that these animals live in harmony with a certain part of nature. They live in harmony with the purpose and meaning of their existence. As I mentioned earlier, human beings must seek purpose and meaning as other animals search for food and water. If human beings are unable to find purpose and meaning in their lives, they can suffer enormously, even if they have food, safety, good health, and freedom. Because other species live in harmony with the purpose and meaning of their existence, we have never seen an animal in the wild experience a midlife crisis, the need to explore religion, or the desire to scientifically explain the origin of the universe.

All organisms except human beings live in harmony with another part of nature—the mystery of life and death. As far as we know, only human beings are troubled by the following mysterious questions: Why are we here? Where did the universe come from? Where did life come from? Is there a God? What is death? Is there life after death? What is the meaning of life? These questions are central to human existence, and both religious people and atheists feel a need to answer these questions, often in different ways. People can attempt to answer these questions through religion, science, philosophy, a fanatical ideology, or some other means.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a metaphor for our heightened human awareness. In the story of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve live in paradise where there is no old age or death. In the garden they experience harmony, happiness, and innocence, but when they achieve heightened human awareness by eating the tree’s forbidden fruit, their harmony with existence becomes disrupted and they are evicted from paradise. All adults have had an experience, or series of experiences, that disrupted the harmony of their childhood, causing them to feel evicted from the happiness of their youth.

Before my father attacked me in my sleep when I was four, I remember being such a happy child. I remember my kind and gentle father carrying me on his shoulders when we went to the store and being a protective force in my life. Back then the world seemed magical, beautiful, and full of wonder. But when my father made me fear for my life, the happiness and innocence of my childhood became disrupted. The traumatic experience of being attacked by my father gave me a new awareness that evicted me from the metaphorical paradise of my happy childhood.

Many different kinds of experiences can disrupt the happiness of our childhood. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden they were not vulnerable to old age or death. Today science has revealed that very young children are not aware of the inevitability of old age and death. Becoming aware of these laws of nature can disrupt the harmony and innocence of our youth. Puberty can also disrupt our harmony.

When I was in the army, a sergeant I worked with told me, “When I was a child I used to be so happy. I didn’t seem to worry about anything. I was so carefree, and every day seemed like an adventure. But becoming aware of sex during puberty messed it all up. During puberty all I could think about was sex, nearly all the time, to the point where it stressed me out.” Like many people, this sergeant was more content before puberty than he was as a confused, insecure, and hormonal teenager.

Many women experience a disruption of their childhood happiness when they grow older and people in society value them based on how they look. One of my female friends told me, “At the age of eleven, breast size became a pressure. Girls would harass each other over who was able to fill out a bra and who could not.”

When I was in eighth grade, I was sitting in science class with the other students, waiting for the teacher to show up. Sitting in the back of the class was a girl who some called “flat-chested.” In front of all the students, another girl yelled across the room at her, “If you didn’t have feet, would you wear socks? Then why do you wear a bra?”

Most young children are not as self-conscious about their appearance as teenagers and adults. Most three-year-old girls experiencing the innocence of childhood are more carefree than a teenage girl who is picked on because of the way she is dressed, or an aging supermodel who has to compete with younger supermodels constantly flowing into her industry. Boys can also become painfully self-conscious about their appearance. When I was three years old, I did not hate my Asian eyes, but my youthful innocence was shattered when I grew older and people insulted me because of my race.

If we contemplate our lives, we may remember an experience, or series of experiences, that disrupted the harmony of our youth. Perhaps our parents were divorced, and this shattered the happiness and innocence of our childhood. Perhaps it was the death of a family member, and this made us painfully aware of human mortality. Perhaps it was puberty or being bullied. Philosophy, religious traditions, and scientific evidence all agree upon a basic fact of the human condition: achieving a new and heightened awareness about our world can cause us to feel confused and disillusioned, like a metaphorical eviction from paradise. To quote the old adage, “Ignorance is bliss.”

Ignorance may seem like bliss during the harmony, happiness, and innocence of our childhood, but when we make peace with the problem of human existence and learn to live in harmony with the mystery of life and death, we can achieve a higher bliss than ignorance. Although philosophers, religions, and growing scientific evidence reveal the possibility of a higher bliss than ignorance, we will question if this is true by first exploring something rarely talked about today: the wrath of Greek gods.

The Greek gods Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades were brothers. After Zeus overthrew his father, the titan Cronus, the brothers drew lots to decide who would rule the various parts of the world. Zeus gained dominion over the sky, Hades became ruler of the underworld, and Poseidon became lord of the ocean. In the Greek epic poem the Iliad, Poseidon says, “The world was split three ways. Each received his realm. When we shook the lots I drew the sea, my foaming eternal home, and Hades drew the land of the dead engulfed in haze and night and Zeus drew the heavens, the clouds and the high clear sky, but the earth and Olympus heights are common to us all.”7

To understand why so many ancient Greeks worshipped these gods, imagine living in Greece three thousand years ago. Imagine having no scientific explanations for why earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters happen. Furthermore, no one has ever seen a virus because the microscope has not yet been invented, so when a plague kills a large number of people in your city, you don’t know why it happened. You don’t even know what causes lightning and thunderstorms.

Now imagine you are a kind and generous person, living in ancient Greece, who takes care of your family and provides for your community. Suddenly, without any warning, a massive earthquake destroys your house and kills your child. How would you explain the destruction of your house, death of your child, and cause of the earth shaking beneath your feet? Why did these bad things happen?

A feature on the landscape of our shared humanity, something we all have in common, is that we ask why when bad things happen to us. But why do we ask why? When the September 11 attacks occurred, causing thunderous explosions and the sky to fill with smoke, we do not know of any other species that debated “why did this happen?” When a murder or mass shooting occurs, the people affected by the tragedy, along with many not affected, will ask why. The question “why did this happen?” results from humanity’s craving to understand underlying causes. I use the word “underlying” because this craving searches for causes that go beyond the immediate range of our senses.

Not only do we want to know the underlying causes of tragedies, but we also want to know the underlying causes of natural phenomena. When I was a child I asked countless questions such as “why does it rain?” and “why does the sun go away at night?” Children possess innate curiosity that leads to these kinds of questions. When our nomadic ancestors lived on the harsh African savannah, their craving to understand underlying causes allowed them to make complex connections between cause and effect, empowering them to control many aspects of nature. For example, the question “why did this happen?” allowed our early ancestors to discover the underlying causes of fire, empowering them to create fire and use it for light, warmth, and protection.*

When a plant sprouted from the ground, the question “why did this happen?” allowed our ancestors to comprehend how plants grow when seeds are put in a certain kind of dirt. If they planted seeds in the right kind of soil, they could create and control their own food supply. When Sir Alexander Fleming noticed a mold had inhibited the growth of bacteria in a Petri dish, the question “why did this happen?” began an intellectual journey that allowed him to discover penicillin. Asking “why did this happen?” can be extremely useful for human survival, but this question can also be dangerous.

To understand this danger, we must recognize a basic fact about the human condition: human beings yearn to know.** We need answers that help us make sense of our world. When bad things happen to us, we search for explanations. These explanations can assume many forms.

For example, when a tragedy happens and people say things such as “everything happens for a reason” or “God works in mysterious ways,” these vague answers serve as explanations. Or when people say a tragedy was caused by “fate” or “bad luck” or “bad karma,” these are also explanations for the underlying cause of the tragedy. When people say crime is caused by “evil” or “original sin,” they are trying to explain the underlying cause of crime. When people say human behavior is a product of “nature” or “nurture” or a combination of both, they are trying to explain the underlying cause of human actions. As far as we know, no other species searches for scientific and religious explanations for the underlying causes of events. We do not know of any other species that debates concepts such as fate versus luck, the existence of evil, or nature versus nurture.

Like two arms emerging from the human body, science and religion both emerge from humanity’s yearning to know—our craving to understand underlying causes. Like two arms searching for objects in darkness, the arms of science and religion search for answers in the mysterious world around us. Human beings are unusual, because all other animals seem at peace with the causes of nature. When scientists observe their behavior, other animals exhibit a deep connection with nature that many human beings aspire toward. Other animals can better protect themselves in the future if they observe a catastrophe and learn what to avoid next time, but they don’t search for underlying scientific and religious explanations that transcend what they can observe.

Our craving to understand underlying causes gives us an immense survival advantage, because it makes us want to know at a deep level why harmful and helpful things happen to us. This makes us more effective at preventing those harmful things and creating the conditions for those helpful things. Because our yearning to know is so powerful, if we do not have enough evidence to find accurate answers for how our world works, we can feel tempted to invent an explanation. This is why ancient Greeks explained the existence of lightning by saying Zeus hurled lightning bolts across the sky. This is why every ancient culture had mythological explanations for the forces of nature.

When our ancestors lacked the scientific evidence to arrive at accurate answers for how our world works, their craving to understand underlying causes tempted them to create stories that most people no longer believe today. How many people in the twenty-first century literally believe that Zeus causes lightning bolts? Our ancestors did not make things up due to a lack of intelligence, but because the human yearning to know is a craving that must be fed.

The question “why did this happen?” becomes dangerous when we arrive at inaccurate answers. If you lived in ancient Greece three thousand years ago and an earthquake destroyed your home and killed your child, the question “why did this happen?” could lead to strange answers when you lacked a scientific explanation for natural disasters. To understand how our brilliant reasoning ability and vivid human imagination can cause us to arrive at odd conclusions when we lack scientific evidence, consider the following logic.

An earthquake seems like a violent and destructive act. After all, earthquakes destroy things and kill people. When human beings become angry, they can also destroy things and kill people. So maybe an earthquake happens because nature is angry, similar to how an angry person might shake a table, smash a piece of furniture, or knock someone down. But why would nature be angry? People often become angry when someone does something hurtful and offensive to them. Did we do something hurtful and offensive to nature? If we change our behavior, can we stop nature from being angry, and will nature stop hurting us with earthquakes?

In ancient Greece and many other parts of the world, gods were personifications of nature. Instead of saying an earthquake was caused by “nature,” most people living thousands of years ago would have said the name of a deity who symbolized nature. Many ancient cultures believed violent gods caused earthquakes, but because our vivid human imagination can invent many different explanations for earthquakes, numerous ancient cultures believed gigantic divine animals were the underlying cause of earthquakes. Among the Tzotzil people in southern Mexico, a story emerged that a cosmic jaguar caused earthquakes by scratching itself against the pillars of the world. And in Mongolia many believed that a massive frog that carried the earth on its back caused earthquakes by twitching.8

Today science has revealed that earthquakes are caused by shifting “tectonic plates” rather than angry Greek gods or gigantic divine animals.* In addition to creating inaccurate divine explanations for the causes of earthquakes, our ancient ancestors also created inaccurate natural explanations. Journalist Andrew Robinson tells us:

In classical antiquity Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, was usually considered to be responsible for earthquakes—perhaps not surprisingly, given the destructive power in the Aegean and Mediterranean of earthquake-induced tsunamis. Poseidon was said to cause earthquakes while striking his trident on the ground when he became annoyed. However, some Greek philosophers proposed natural, rather than divine, explanations for earthquakes. Thales, for example, writing around 580 BC, believed that the earth was floating on the oceans and that water movements were responsible for earthquakes. By contrast, Anaximenes, who also lived in the sixth century BC, proposed that rocks falling in the interior of the earth must strike other rocks and produce reverberations.9

According to Greek mythology, Poseidon caused earthquakes because he was angry, using his massive trident to violently shake the earth. The Iliad refers to Poseidon as “the god of the quakes who grips and pounds the earth.”10 In Greek mythology, Poseidon was a personification of the ocean that caused earthquakes, floods, droughts, and storms.

Why was Poseidon portrayed as angry and violent? Imagine if you did not have a scientific understanding of the ocean or the causes of weather, and you believed the ocean had a human personality. How would you describe the ocean’s personality? The ocean can be calm, gentle, and generous. It can give us fish to eat and the means for travel and commerce. Many ancient societies built their economies on professions that relied on the ocean.

But the ocean can also be a destroyer. It can sink ships, drown people, and devastate the land with storms and other natural disasters. If you lacked a scientific understanding of the ocean and imagined it behaved like a human being, and you tried to describe its personality, you would probably say it was fickle, moody, and prone to anger and violence. It could be generous today and destructive tomorrow. This is the way many ancient Greeks viewed Poseidon, a god who was known for his abundant gifts and terrible wrath. Classics scholar Walter Burkert explains why the ancient Greeks saw earthquakes and storms as violent acts of wrath: “Poseidon remains an embodiment of elemental force; sea storm and earthquake are the most violent forms of energy directly encountered by man [emphasis added].”11

Why did the ancient Greeks believe that a violent god, rather than the innocent movements of a divine animal, caused earthquakes? Perhaps environmental, architectural, and cultural reasons made the Greeks more likely to believe in violent gods. Environmentally speaking, earthquakes and tsunamis were especially destructive in ancient Greece. According to the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, “The maximum intensity [of earthquakes] is much higher in some parts of the Aegean because they lie close to the edge of tectonic plates.”12 Because of the catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis that affected the Aegean, nature may have seemed more “violent” to a person living in ancient Greece than a person living in many other parts of the ancient world.

Architecturally speaking, the ancient Greeks constructed stone buildings that could collapse and crush people during an earthquake, and entire cities could be devastated when the ground shook. Consequently, earthquakes posed a greater threat to the ancient Greeks than to many other cultures. Professor Amos Nur tells us, “The nomadic people who dominated most of North America in the distant past were probably affected only slightly by any but the greatest earthquakes. Their lightweight construction materials made their homes neither particularly dangerous in earthquakes nor particularly difficult to rebuild.”13

Culturally speaking, perhaps the religious views of the ancient Greeks shaped their attitude toward natural disasters, although it could be that severe natural disasters in Greek prehistory actually shaped their religious views. Nevertheless, the bottom line is this: if the ancient Greeks saw nature as violent and dangerous because of the devastating earthquakes and tsunamis that killed their families and destroyed their cities, can we really blame them?

To appease Poseidon’s wrath, the Greeks often sacrificed animals. Why did they do this? One reason is because Poseidon could seem like a psychopath who might murder you and your family when he was upset. Helen Scales explains: “Sailors and fishermen made sure not to incur the sea god’s wrath; they built temples to worship him, drowned sacrificial horses in his name, and implored him for safe passage across the seas.”14

When we project a human personality onto the destructive forces of nature, then nature can seem psychotic. Although some ancient Greeks such as the politician Pericles, playwright Euripides, and poet Diagoras seemed to believe Poseidon was a metaphor rather than a real personality, many believed if they spilled blood on Poseidon’s behalf, perhaps he would not massacre their families. Many ancient Greeks believed that their gods expressed anger through natural disasters and plagues. Hesiod, a Greek poet who lived around the seventh century BC, wrote, “But for those who practice violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronos, ordains a punishment. Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins … [Zeus] lays great trouble upon the people, famine and plague together, so that the men perish away.”15

Many ancient Greeks also believed that Poseidon and other Greek gods could become so enraged that they would slaughter children. Just as natural disasters and plagues do not spare the lives of children, the Greek gods were capable of killing without mercy or remorse. If a human being were diagnosed with these behaviors, we would call that person a psychopath.

Although my other books offer abundant evidence showing that human beings are not naturally violent, for many years I wondered, “If human beings are not naturally violent, why did so many of our early ancestors worship gods capable of psychotic wrath?” An obvious answer is that when people personify nature in their quest to understand the underlying causes of natural disasters and plague, nature seems to have psychotic tendencies. Later in this book we will explore various religious systems, including the violent rituals of the Aztecs, to further show how psychotic nature can seem when we imagine it has a human personality.

A natural disaster can slaughter your family, but it can also save your family. After the Mongols conquered China and Korea, they attempted to conquer Japan. In the book Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, Kerry Emanuel describes how Japan was saved from two Mongol invasions by typhoons. Like the ancient Greeks and countless populations throughout history, the Japanese personified nature and saw the typhoons as acts of divine intervention. Emanuel explains:

In the year 1259, Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, became emperor of Mongolia … Thus it came to pass that Kublai mounted an invasion to conquer Japan … On October 29, 1274, the invasion began. Some 40,000 men, including about 25,000 Mongolians and Chinese, 8,000 Korean troops, and 7,000 Chinese and Korean seamen, set sail from Korea in about 900 ships … The Japanese defenders were horrified by the Mongol cavalry charging off the beaches, steeped as they were in the tradition of hand-to-hand combat between knightly warriors. With fewer troops and inferior weapons, the Japanese were rapidly pushed back into the interior. But by nightfall, the Korean pilots sensed an approaching storm and begged their reluctant Mongol commanders to put the invasion force back to sea lest it be trapped on the coast and its ships destroyed at anchor … The ships of the time were no match for the tempest, and many foundered or were dashed to bits on the rocky coast. Nearly 13,000 men perished, mostly by drowning. The Mongols had been routed by a typhoon …

The second Mongol invasion of Japan assumed staggering proportions. One armada consisting of 40,000 Mongols, Koreans, and north Chinese was to sail from Korea, while a second, larger force of some 100,000 men was to set out from various ports in south China. To gauge the size of this expeditionary force, consider that the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066 engaged 5,000 men …

On the fifteenth and sixteenth of August [1281], history repeated itself. Once again, the Korean and south Chinese mariners sensed the approach of a typhoon and attempted to put to sea. But the fleet was so unwieldy and poorly coordinated that many of the ships collided at the entrance of Imari Bay and were smashed by the typhoon, as were most of those that made it to the open ocean … The wreckage and loss of life was staggering. Once again, Kublai Khan’s designs on Japan were defeated by a typhoon, and never again did he attempt such an invasion. As a direct result of these famous routs, the Japanese came to think of the typhoon as a “divine wind,” or kamikaze, sent by their gods to deliver their land from invaders.16

When our ancestors lacked the scientific means to explain the underlying causes of natural disasters, they often personified nature. To understand how the personification of nature affected the behavior of our ancestors, we can look at the Spartans. Today pop culture and action movies have glorified the Spartans as the bravest and fiercest warriors who ever lived, but when I studied military history at West Point, the reality of the Spartans surprised me.

Most people today don’t realize how extremely superstitious the Spartans were. Their superstitious rituals can seem very odd to us today, but their behavior makes sense when we recognize their lack of scientific explanations for natural disasters and their belief in fickle gods capable of psychotic behavior. Historian Alfred Bradford describes how the superstitious beliefs of the Spartans caused them to sacrifice animals to the gods, look for omens in the organs of these sacrificial animals, and change their military plans if they believed the gods were upset:

The [Spartan] kings’ most important sacred duty was to determine the will of the gods and, in particular, the will of the king of the gods, Zeus, their ultimate progenitor, before they led the army out of Sparta and out of Laconia [the Spartan territory]. The kings conducted sacrifices in Sparta to Zeus the Leader and to Athena and the other gods associated with Zeus. They observed the soothsayer as he conducted the sacrifice and examined the liver [of the sacrificial animal], its general shape, its texture, and its lobes; then they would determine if the omens were favorable. If they were, the kings instructed a Spartan known as the “Fire-Bearer” to light a torch at the altar and lead the army to the border of Laconia: at the border the kings again would conduct sacrifices to Zeus and Athena. If they determined that the omens were still favorable, then, and only then, would they lead their army across the border.

The kings stood between their people and the gods—to recognize and avert, or circumvent, divine displeasure and to curry divine favor. If the resident god of a river forbad them to cross, could they go around without risking divine retribution? If the enemy declared a certain month sacred, only to prevent an attack by the Spartans, could the Spartans ignore the declaration? If they were shaken by an earthquake while they were on campaign, was the earthquake a warning to the Spartans or an ill omen for their enemies?

On the day the kings expected to fight, if they had detected no cautionary signs, they initiated the religious ceremonies preparatory to a battle—they sacrificed to the Muses (to invite them to witness the courage of the Spartans and to inspire poets to write about their heroic deeds); and they sacrificed a goat, not to examine its liver, but simply to offer it to the gods as a treat. After they had completed these preliminaries, they ordered the Spartans to form their phalanx, and, at the first sight of the enemy phalanx, they instructed their men to put wreaths on their heads (as portents of victory), and they told the flute-players to play the royal battle song, “The Song of Castor,” and they sang it, too.17

The Spartans were so superstitious that when the Persians invaded Greece in 490 BC, the Spartans did not join Athens in the Battle of Marathon because they thought fighting before the full moon would upset the gods. Historian Peter Krentz describes how Philippides, the runner who inspired the race that became known as the “marathon,” tried unsuccessfully to enlist the help of the Spartans:

Before they left Athens, the generals sent Philippides, a professional distance runner, to Sparta. Probably running barefoot, Philippides reached Sparta the day after he left Athens—that is, he covered roughly 150 miles (on the most likely route) in not more than about 36 hours. If the story once seemed incredible, it does no longer. In 1982, two RAF [Royal Air Force] officers ran from Athens to Sparta in 34 and 35.5 hours, demonstrating that Philippides could have done what Herodotus says he did …

When he reached Sparta, Philippides asked for help. “Spartans,” Herodotus reports that he said, “the Athenians beg you to rush to their defense and not look on passively as the most ancient city in Greece falls into slavery imposed by barbarians. For in fact Eretria has already been enslaved, and thus Greece has become weaker by one important city.” In reply, the Spartans expressed their willingness to help, but said that they could not act yet. It was the ninth of the month, and a law prevented them from marching until the moon was full. The law in question probably applied only to the month of Karneia, during which the Spartans celebrated the festival of [the god] Apollo that gave its name to the month. Scholars of an earlier generation tended to dismiss Spartan religious qualms as specious excuses for inaction, but today it is generally recognized that the Spartans paid particular attention to the gods in their military life.18

Wanting to protect Greece from a Persian invasion, and looking for military victory and glory, the Spartans departed after the full moon to help Athens, but when they arrived the Athenians had already won the Battle of Marathon. The Spartans, who wished to be celebrated by future generations as brave warriors who fought in famous battles, had missed an opportunity to fight in one of the most famous battles in history—because of the moon. Greek historian Herodotus said, “After the full moon, 2,000 Spartans marched to Athens in such great haste that they arrived in Attica [the Athenian homeland] on the third day out of Sparta. They were too late to engage in battle.”19

West Point never taught me that winning a military campaign had anything to do with sacrificing animals in a religious ceremony, finding omens in a goat’s liver, or fighting battles on days that will please rather than anger the gods. When I studied the reality of the Spartans that differed from the pop culture glorification of the Spartans, I could not help but think, “The Spartans were really weird.” I am not trying to make fun of the Spartans, but to show how much warfare has changed due to our greater scientific understanding of the natural world.

Could you imagine General Dwight Eisenhower—Supreme Allied Commander during World War II—not invading the beaches of Normandy because a soothsayer saw bad omens in the bloody liver of a sacrificial goat, or not fighting a battle on a particular day because it might offend the gods? Nobody at West Point ever explained to me why the Spartans were so superstitious, but my journey to unlock the mysteries of the human condition has increased my understanding and empathy for the Spartans and all human beings.

Many American soldiers find comfort in prayer, but the modern American army does not practice animal sacrifice to appease the gods, which was common in the ancient Greek and Roman armies. Describing the Persian invasion of Greece, the Athenian general Xenophon discussed the use of animal sacrifice to win divine favor: “The Persians and their friends came with an enormous army, thinking that they would wipe Athens off the face of the earth; but the Athenians had the courage to stand up to them by themselves, and they defeated them. On that occasion they had made a vow to [the goddess] Artemis that they would sacrifice to her a goat for every one of their enemies whom they killed, but, since they could not get hold of enough goats, they decided to sacrifice five hundred every year, and they are still sacrificing them today.”20

Although animal sacrifice to appease the gods is not as common today, the modern world is still filled with superstitious rituals. What is the underlying cause of this superstition? I have heard people say, “Human beings are superstitious because they are stupid,” but science shows that an underlying cause of superstition is not stupidity, but lack of control. One of the most disturbing experiences we can have as human beings is feeling helpless in a stressful situation.

Superstitious rituals give people the illusion of control, and conspiracy theories give people a “personified evil” where they can direct their anger over feeling helpless. In an article in the Chicago Tribune, Jeremy Manier discusses how lack of control is an underlying cause of superstition in baseball and many other areas of life:

Baseball may be the most superstition-filled sport, with bizarre traditions that range from players who insist on chewing the same gum each day during a hitting streak to the Chicago Cubs’ yearly reminder of the infamous billy goat curse. Now a new study by Northwestern University researchers has found that all such superstitions may have a common source: the feeling of a lack of control, which spurs people to concoct false patterns and meaning from the noise of life’s chance events.

The Chicago group found that making experimental subjects remember a time when they lacked control actually changed the way they viewed the world, and created a temporary need to see patterns where none existed.

The study in Friday’s edition of the journal Science represents the first experimental confirmation of a link that psychologists long suspected was behind superstitions, conspiracy theories, rituals and even some aspects of religious belief … “Most of the time the groups you see with vast conspiratorial theories are those that don’t have much control over the outcome of something,” said [Jennifer] Whitson, now an assistant professor at the University of Texas’ department of management …

In baseball, experts believe superstition and ritual pop up most often around tasks where players have the least control. Batters and pitchers often develop elaborate preparation routines, in part because their success often depends on random factors such as where a fly ball lands or whether the batter anticipates a pitch correctly. Anthropologist George Gmelch once wrote of a pitcher who insisted on washing his hands after every inning in which he gave up a run.

Fielders, by contrast, maintain few rituals—perhaps because a pro player’s success in fielding a ball is so high. “Unlike hitting and pitching, a fielder has almost complete control over the outcome of his performance,” Gmelch wrote in a 2000 article called “Baseball Magic.” “He knows that, in better than 9.7 times out of 10, he will execute his task flawlessly. With odds like that there is little need for ritual.”

Gmelch said in an interview that he grasped the possible link between religious rituals and the ingrained routines of ballplayers during college, when he also was a minor league baseball player. “In both cases you’re looking for confidence, some sense that you have control over things,” said Gmelch, professor of anthropology at the University of San Francisco … Baseball rituals can be calming even if they’re irrational, Gmelch pointed out.21

What do the superstitious rituals in war and baseball have in common? They both result from humanity’s craving to understand underlying causes, along with the discomfort we feel when lacking control in stressful situations. Our craving to understand underlying causes gives us a powerful survival advantage when we discover the actual causes of our problems (such as the discovery that plagues are caused by microorganisms rather than angry deities). But when we are unable to discover these underlying causes, we may invent one in the form of a superstitious ritual. For example, if the Spartans could not figure out why they lost a battle, it was easy to invent a cause. A Spartan could reason, “The underlying cause of losing the battle was angering the gods, and to prevent the gods from being angry at us in the future we must conduct more animal sacrifice.”

Another feature war and baseball have in common is they both involve a lot of luck. Carl von Clausewitz, arguably the most influential military strategist of all time, said, “There is no human affair which stands so constantly and so generally in close connection with chance as War. But together with chance, the accidental, and along with it good luck, occupy a great place in War.”22

Thucydides was an ancient Greek who thought differently from most Greeks of his era, because he attributed unforeseen disasters in war to luck rather than the Greek gods. Born in the fifth century BC, Thucydides was a general, historian, and veteran of the Peloponnesian War. He tells us that during the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian tried to discourage the Spartans from invading Athens by saying, “Think, too, of the great part that is played by the unpredictable in war: think of it now, before you are actually committed to war. The longer a war lasts, the more things tend to depend on accidents.”23

When Thucydides wrote about the Spartan army surrendering to the Athenians at the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC, he discussed how being killed by an arrow had less to do with one’s amount of bravery and more to do with luck. Thucydides explained:

The general impression had been that Spartans would never surrender their arms whether because of hunger or any other form of compulsion; instead they would keep them to the last and die fighting as best they could. It was hard to believe that those who had surrendered were the same sort of people as those who had fallen [in battle]. Indeed, there was an occasion afterwards when an Athenian ally in order to insult one of the [Spartan] prisoners from the island asked him whether it was the ones who had fallen who were the real Spartans. The reply was that “spindles (by which he meant arrows) would be worth a great deal if they could pick out brave men from cowards,” a remark which was intended to show that the ones who died were simply the ones who came in the way of the stones and the arrows.24

Most action movies make it seem like the strongest and bravest soldiers survive in combat, but many military strategists and veterans know that war has more in common with Russian roulette than a Hollywood film. Vietnam veteran Gene Dark said, “I arrived in Da Nang, with thirty-five marines. Only four of us were left, and all but one had a Purple Heart. I was so fortunate to be alive. Why had I survived? Was I faster, smarter, or tougher than the other marines? Of course not; in fact, the opposite was probably true. Was it just fate? I felt guilty that so many braver men than me had died. Every marine who ever fought a war feels the same way. Ask him and he will tell you about the guilt that he carries deep down inside for surviving when so many others died.”25

When people lack control in war, baseball, or any situation in life, superstitious rituals can create the illusion of control. Superstitious rituals exist in many shapes and sizes, from harmless baseball traditions to bloody Aztec ceremonies that involved human sacrifice (I discuss human sacrifice in a later chapter). Also, people’s reactions can vary when they do not know an underlying cause. Some people may be more prone to settling for easy answers, and others may be more willing to follow the truth, no matter where it takes them.

The reason our reactions to the unknown can vary is because we have different personalities and life experiences. Despite our differences, however, we all share a craving to understand the world around us. Without a “worldview,” we would not be able to function. For some the craving is small and for others it is large, but it is a human craving that helped give birth to philosophy, religion, science, and the most fanatical ideologies in the world.

Our craving to understand underlying causes is embodied in the question “why”—a word used by children to find out why it rains, by adults to make sense of their lives, by scientists to explore the mysteries of the universe, and by theologians to question the nature of existence. New paradigms emerge when someone asks “why” to the questions so many others take for granted. “Why” is one of humanity’s most powerful ideas, an idea that can liberate us, empower us, or ruin us.

It is important to increase our understanding of the human condition, because the less we know about our humanity and the many ways our human vulnerabilities can be exploited, the easier we are to manipulate. Since the question “why” can create such a strong craving to know, we will often settle for answers that are easy, oversimplistic, convenient, inaccurate, and even made up. Knowing this about our humanity, we must be vigilant by not allowing our craving to overpower our reason. When our country encounters a tragedy or serious problem, for example, our craving to find a cause is especially strong, which gives people in power an opportunity to manipulate us with propaganda.

If you ever doubt that human beings have a craving to understand the causes of events, look at how people react when a terrorist attack happens. Virtually everyone wants to identify a cause (even if the cause is as general as “evil”), which gives those in power an opportunity to spread misleading explanations. When a mass shooting happens in the United States, people debate whether it was caused by an evil gene, mental illness, not enough gun control, too much gun control, violent media, bad parenting, bullying, a “false flag operation” (a conspiracy where our own government orchestrated the shooting), or a combination of factors. When our economy descends into a recession, there is always an intense debate to identify the underlying causes.

In our quest to understand the world around us, our desire for certainty can overpower our curiosity. In The End of War and Peaceful Revolution I discuss how children are naturally curious, but their curiosity is often repressed. Healthy curiosity and critical thinking are necessary to overcome manipulation. The Plato’s Cave allegory in my book The End of War shows how our craving to understand the world allows people to manipulate us with deceptive shadow images. These images can also hypnotize us with distractions that suppress our minds, like a lullaby putting us to sleep during a time when the survival of humanity requires us to be awake.

If human beings could move away from harmful superstitions such as animal and human sacrifice to appease the gods, can we move away from other harmful superstitions? Can we understand the underlying causes of problems such as war, injustice, oppression, racism, sexism, trauma, and environmental destruction? Can we use our heightened human awareness to work together to solve these problems? Can we make the arms of science and religion cooperate in a way that better serves humanity and our planet? And can we achieve a higher bliss than ignorance? Humanity can achieve all of this if we increase our understanding of the human condition, learn the art of waging peace, and recognize nature’s cruel kiss.