Harari’s Sapiens on Religion
-- In which I discuss why I think Harari’s characterisation of religion - is inadequate because it’s too materialistic. -
- -- I’ve been slowly re-reading Yuval Noah Harari’s 2014 classic, - Sapiens, - which apart from being ridiculously over-scoped and hilariously - under-evidenced, is proving delightfully entertaining. -
- -- I’ve just finished chapter 12, covering the world history of all - religion in thirty pages. Of course, at that level of brevity, - there will be many deficiencies. But here’s some thoughts - not - terribly well organised - which stand out to me. -
- -- Hurari generally assumes a materialist metaphysic (a problem which - blights the book more generally). Nothing exists except physical stuff. - This gives him severe tunnel vision. As a consequence of this - restricting metaphysic, he is forced to adopt limiting accounts of what - the role of religion is in world history, and therefore what religion is. -
- --- -- The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman - legitimacy to [all social orders and hierarchies]. -
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-- Religion can thus be defined as a system of human norms and - values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order. -
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- It might seem a little unfair to criticise Harari for giving a - materialist account of religion. Sapiens is, after all, a - materialist world history. -
- -- But this account is just one extreme example of how that project, to - give a materialist account of world history, will inevitably lack the - metaphysical resources to really understand the human story. -
- -- On Harari’s view, any human enterprise which attempts to understand - that which transcends direct human experience is at best an effort in - imaginative story-telling. All scientific theory, theology, ethics and - metaphysics either contorted out of all recognition into a pragmatic - fiction or is cast to the flames. -
- -- In particular, it’s a view which is incapable of taking seriously some - of the most important questions human beings have grappled with in the - course of their history. Those who know me won’t be surprised at which - ones I’m going to pick out: who was the being which made their covenant - with Abraham? How is that promise being fulfilled? And who the heck was - Jesus of Nazareth? -
- -- If Harari’s characterisation of religion is adequate - and the Abrahamic - faiths come under that banner - then those questions are reduced to - nothing more profound than Doctor Who fans arguing over ‘canon’. The - question of who God is becomes a mere tool for the organisation of - society, rather than a substantial and important question on a matter - of fact. -
- -- This is a shortcoming for its own sake: a materialist account of - religion cannot adequately account for the phenomenon of religion - itself. -
- -- But it is also a shortcoming even by its own lights. Without giving - serious consideration to the substantial matter of what Harari calls - ‘religion’ (which, to his mind, includes the Abrahamic faiths, - Hinduism, paganism, animism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, - capitalism, communism and Nazism), even the material facts are - inexplicable. Why would, as Harari is keen to point out, out, people - fight and die over and over again for a fiction? -
- -- The material facts themselves prove that ‘religion’ as he construes it - is not window dressing to the real story of history. It cannot merely - serve as a mechanism in the churning of material history. It is itself - the centre of the story. -
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