Religious harbors and anchors

Imagine that people are sailboats and that religions are harbors. In the image to the right we see person A safely and firmly within a harbor. Person B is thinking about exploring that harbor, that religion. Person C is just leaving their former religion. Person D is not interested in any religion and just sailing off to enjoy other islands and the open sea where staying anchored is not required.

The next picture below shows a sailboat in a harbor, or in this analogy, a person after they’ve first entered a religion. To stay put in that religion, the person has to put down an anchor — something to help from being carried back out to sea by wind or tides (the influences of others or circumstances). A few examples of initial anchors could be:

1. Loved Ones: a loved one is already in the religion and you will form a tighter bond with them by also joining.
2. Belonging: an accepting, caring group for a person who does not find that in their own present group, or society.
3. Values: a group with values that match the person’s personal needs, ambitions, ideals or desires.
4. Status: acceptance in broader society by belonging to the religion, or status within the religion because of the opportunity for leadership or uniqueness that is difficult to achieve outside of that harbor.
5. Purpose & Meaning: Some find increased meaning and purpose in life by feeling like they now have the most correct and holiest ideas to present to the world. Some find purpose by serving others (the poor, nonbelievers, or the new community). 
6. Magic: superstitious hope for protected health, disease curing, mystical experiences or good luck in your life.
7. Spackle Comfort: Answers to help you fill your doubts and gaps of knowledge about the afterlife, the meaning of life, creation and such.
8. Personal Identity: Early in personal development, a sense of identity offers personal security.

This last picture to the right shows how after being in a religion for months and years, believers throw down more anchors to keep themselves even more secure within their religion. The group themselves encourages the believer to make as many of these anchors as they can so that they stay in their group. These other members do this because they want to be surrounded by other believers.

When these anchors listed above lose their grip it allows us to leave our religions. It is often a slow and sometimes painful process. Here are examples of how the same anchors above may no longer hold us among the faithful:

1. Loved ones: Loved ones leave the group or betray you.
2. Belonging: For some reason the group is less accepting — for instance, if they discover your son is gay, or you changed political affiliations, or your marriage has ended etc.
3. Values: Your values in life change.
4. Status: You lose status because others judge you as having a short-coming in your life or some skill of yours is no longer needed.
5. Purpose & Meaning: You’ve found other purpose or meaning in your life.
6. Magic: You become disillusioned as religious magic fails: a loved one dies of a horrible disease, you get sick, your family does not prosper.
7. Spackle Comfort: You learn more about genetics, neurology, sociology, psychology, anthropology and you realize your spackle god is not as powerful as you imagined.
8. Identity: Due to association with outside groups, growth of self-confidence, new skills or new relationships your need for identity with the group weakens.

These harbors can be any ideology. Religion is just one ideology but a very powerful one since it usually taps into the taboo part of the mind and into the superstitious side of mind, all the while discouraging doubt. Other forms of ideology include political parties, philosophical ideology and rigid lifestyles.

I acknowledge that like all analogies, this analogy is also far from perfect, but I thought it may be a helpful tool to understand religiosity. We tend to oversimplify why we or other people are religious or why they leave their religion, or we leave our own. Hopefully this analogy encourages more nuanced thinking.

Question for readers: Is this a helpful analogy to understand why you joined, remain in or left a religion or an ideology?

Deer

This post is written after a Polish friend and I tried to explore the various words for “deer” in English. What caused us to stumble was not only language, but that there are many kinds of deer and European and American deer evolved separately. The challenge in translating American English word for “deer” is that different parts of the world have differ subfamilies of deer that evolved differently with their own unique traits. I’d also like to honor my brother who has 60 acres of land which he cultivates for wildlife, including deer which he hunts and eats.

In British English “deer” usually refer to red deer. In American English “deer” usually refers to whitetail live, mule deer or blacktail deer depending where you live. In Poland, common deer are roe deer and European Elk. These are a bit different from both British and American deer.

Here are some American English deer words:

1. a buck = a male deer
2. a stag = a mature male deer
3. a doe = a female deer
4. a hind = a mature female deer
5. a fawn = a young deer

The English word “deer” comes from the Old English (500-1100 AD) word “deor” which meant “wild animal, beast, any wild quadruped. “deor” is the origin of the German word “tier” which means “animal”.

“Deer” belong to the taxonomy family called “Cervidae” which contains 47 species. In the USA, 3 of those species are:

1. deer (120 -330 pounds)
2. elk (710-730 pounds)
3. moose (840-1500 pounds)

For a good article on Scientific classification in general and specifically of deer, see this British site.

Scientific Classification

• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Chordata
• Class: Mammalia
• Clade: Ungulates: large mammals with hoofs
• Order: Artiodactyla: Ungulates who bear weight on and even number of their 5 toes: pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses, antelopes, deer, giraffes, camels, llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats and cattle.
• Family: Cervidae (The deer family)
• 2 Subfamilies:
  (1) Cervinae (Old World deer): European
  muntjacs, red deer, fallow deer. European Elk
  (palmate antlers)
  (2) Capreolinae (New World deer): American
  reindeer, white-tailed deer, mule deer, American Elk
  (branching antlers)

Belief: An Index

Below are the posts I’ve written about “belief”:

• Web of Beliefs (8/2/2009)
• Changing your beliefs (9/07/2009)
• Beliefs: What are they? (9/27/2009)
• Beliefs as Circuit Components (10/9/2009)
• Theological Primping & Beliefism (11/18/2009)
• Spectrum of Belief (8/20/2010)
• Bursting Beliefs (10/6/2011)
• Christians and Smiling Dogs: Belief vs. Religion (5/16/2013)
• Religion: It ain’t just Belief (7/27/2013)
• Beliefism & Beliefianty (8/6/2013)
• Beliefs: Counter-Intuitive View (8/7/2013)
• Beliefs: truth vs function (8/9/2013)
• Navigating the Sea of Belief (9/21/2013)
• Shifting Belief Vessels (9/24/2013)
• Layering Imperfect Metaphors: On Belief (9/25/2013)
• Conspicuously Odd Beliefs (01/21/2014)
• Two Belief Models (5/22/2014)
• Belief-isms vs Do-isms (12/18/2018)

Truth: The lies we tell ourselves

The primary benefit of religion lies in the sense of security it can provide through belongingness, identity, and superstitious beliefs promising protection from misfortune. When a person no longer feels the benefit to present belongingness or to their identity, it becomes easier for them to leave their religions. Likewise if someone is disillusioned with the false promises of protection from misfortune their religion offers, they may find it easier to leave. Religions, recognizing the risk losing adherents, and thus the power of their group and thus all religions erect barriers to hinder such departures. Consequently, for the floundering believer, the decision to leave becomes an unconscious cost-benefit analysis.

The exiting believer may assert to themselves and others that their apostasy comes after thoughtful rejection of their previously held beliefs. However, in reality, the underlying reason is often that these “truths” no longer align with their needs. Indeed, their minds spin new “truths” for them that better serve their interests, whether those “new truths” represent being religion-free (the common case) or adherence to a different religion (offering a new defined community with a different package of benefits).

We often convince ourselves that we carefully deliberate before making changes. However, in most instance, our social needs evolve, and our minds form new “truths” to justify and support our shifts. We can often then harbor a a sense of righteous pride in our pursuit of “truth”, remaining blind to our mind’s inner workings. Remaining blind to our self deception, helps our sincerity as we try to convince other others of our the truth-stories in which we wrapped our conversions — so lie to ourselves. Or perhaps better understood: Our selves lie to us.

Also see my Indexes on:
1) Truth
2) Many Selves

TRUTH: an index post

“By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.”
–George Carlin (American comedian, 1937 – 2008)

Below are chronologically listed posts I have done on “TRUTH”:

• Levels of Truth (4/26/2009)
• We are not Truth Machines (6/3/2009)
• Truth & Beauty: Deceptive Abstractions (6/3/2009)
• Trust vs. Truth (7/3/2009)
• Metaphorical vs. Literal Truth (1/27/2010)
• Owning Truth: 7 Views (2/22/2011)
• Types of Truth (2/24/2011)
• Truth vs. truthS (2/28/2011)
• Beliefs: truth vs function (8/9/20213)
• “Truth” – a Christian Trojan Horse (1/11/2023)
• Truth: the lies we tell ourselves (11/26/2023)
  

Other related posts:

• Seashells: How we fool ourselves (5/13/2018)
• Self-Deceit: Wine & Break-ups (8/26/2015)

Other related indexes (lists of posts):

• Many Selves
• Belief (coming)
• Abstractions

Car Sticker: Klingon or Ukranian?

Americans often put stickers on their cars to show their excitement about their pets, their family, their religion, their football team or their hobbies. So it is always fun to guess the demographics of a car’s driver by looking at their stickers.

The other day the car in front of me had this sticker to the right. I wondered if it was a religious symbol or some calligraphy.

But soon, being a Star Trek fan my whole childhood, I realized that this must be the stylization of a Klingon Warship (seen to the left).

But yesterday my wife and I went to an Eastern European festival in town and on walking up to a booth selling Ukrainian crafts, I saw the symbol again. Thinking it odd that they were selling Star Trek stuff, I boldly asked, “What does that symbol mean?”. I later found out that the symbol is the Ukrainian coat of arms (see this wiki link), but the explanation I got at the craft booth is her below:

Brochures & Pouches

It can take a while to discover your spouse’s odd traits. Indeed, it took a whole year before I realized that my wife hoarded travel brochures from freeway Rest Stops. Mind you, occasionally, just occasionally, when we are about to make a trip, she will go into her two boxes of travel brochures and finds a wonderful sight for us to see.

I like to think I have no odd traits, well, at least I now have one less since recently I gave up using “pouches”. “Pouches”, for you unschooled, uneducated and unfortunate souls, are little packets of flavored nicotine to throw in your cheek instead of actual tobacco but that give you the same thrill as real tobacco without the disgusting mouth floaters that make your spouse refuse sweet kisses.

I have quit, but like any bad habit, there are nagging triggers that can make every day of nicotine sobriety tough — for the sake of decorum I won’t elaborate. But I am proud of myself for every day I resist. And due to that, I can muster sympathy and pride in my wife for her strength. For when we recently were returning from a trip to Connecticut, we stopped at a rest stop and walked though the doors where a brochure rack tempted her, but with only a furtive glance she bravely walked by them with picking up even one. Mind you, I don’t know what she did when I went to the restroom. For indeed, she may surprise me int the future with a great tourist sight suggestion on our next visit to Connecticut, and I may be excitedly interested because I just slipped a “maybe-just-one-today” pouch in my cheek.

Don’t be fooled by “death”: Part 1

Sorry, this title is click bait. I’m not going to talk about psychology or the meaning of life but about linguistics.

In my study of various languages, early on it became obvious that we must be very careful not to be tricked by a language’s writing system — their “orthography“. This will be the first of a few posts on what I call “Fooled by Orthography” — one of the many ways our minds can trick us.

Hidden Vowels

The other day I was at a party where another guest claimed that the Czech language (a Slavic language, which she had dabbled in) is very difficult and that some Czech words don’t even have any vowels. She was right on both counts. However, my inner nerd jumped out and I added to her statement that “large clusters of consonants in Slavic languages have hidden vowels or they’d be too hard to pronounce. That is, it is not the case that there are no vowels sounds in those words, but that the vowels sounds are not written.” The group sighed, “here he goes”.

For example, the Czech word for “death” is written “smrt” — no vowels — Yes, Czeck uses the Roman alphabet, not the Cyrillic alphabet like Russian. Sure, “smrt” has no vowels, but in Czeck the schwa vowel sound (the sound of the “u” in the English word “but”) is often not written. The linguist symbol for the schwa sound is [ə]. So if I wrote the Czeck word were written with the hidden schwa it would be smərt.

So don’t be fooled by Slavic orthography, though the written Slavic words may not contain a vowel symbol, — it is just that sometimes they are just hidden. Other examples include: Strč (put), Prst (finger), Skrz (through), and Krk (neck). In fact, they words are use in a Czech tongue twister: “Strč prst skrz krk” (Stick your finger through your neck). It is a tongue twister because of not only the similar consonants, but because even the hidden schwa vowel is soft and short.

Many languages have these hidden vowels. In English, the only non-vowel word I know of is “cwm” which means “valley” and comes from Welsh. The “w” in cwm is the vowel and pronounce like its old use “a double u”. Note, “y” is also considered a vowel in English.

Hindi also has hidden vowels in their orthography. The English word “karma” comes from the same Sanskrit and Hindi word which is written कर्म. In their orthography, there are only three consonants, “krm”, but in their orthography rules, the pronunciation contains 2 hidden schwas: “kərmə”. But in English we transliterate this as “karma” and Americans mistakenly pronounce the “a” as in “father” not as the “u” in “but” (like a schwa is pronounced). Similarly, in Yoga circles (and this drives me crazy), the Hindi/Sanskrit word चक्र, which is “chkr” is transliterated as chakra with the same issue. I’ll let you figure out the true pronunciation of chakra.

Stay tuned for the next Orthographic Deception post on “one sound or two”.

Languages’ Number Units

As most math geeks know, each culture’s base system is arbitrary. Mayans used base 20, Babylonians used base 60, African Aka people use base 4 and Brazilian Pirahā people use base 8, while in English we honor our number of fingers by using base 10.

I have learned both Hindi and Japanese and knew of their number units but never thought much about their arbitrary nature until about a month back as I was watching the Indian landing of its moon vehicle and heard them counting in their large units — this reminded me of these arbitrary customs. I then thought about Japanese counting units. On inspecting these counting methods side by side, I saw that it was the jump between larger and larger units that was arbitrary.

I hope my fellow number, language and culture geeks enjoyed this sharing.

Desperate Logic

This morning, sitting on our porch at an Appalachian AirBNB I saw distant lights on a mountain flickering in the distant. Yet, on another mountain base, another set of lights were not flickering. As the morning ravens cawed, I thought, “Why do some flicker and others don’t”. Earlier, at 4 a.m. my wife and I woke to look at the stars. Close to the twinkling stars of Orion, Jupiter gave a steady glow. I once learned why stars twinkled.

Stars, due to distance, appear as a single point of light, so unlike the relatively close planets, their light is easily disturbed by our atmosphere. “Is it the morning smog only at the top of the mountain that makes those lights twinkle and the others steady”? I could feel my mind falling into satisfaction with its desperate logic, not slowing down on seeing the yellow light of skepticism.

To any readers, here are some related posts — before you too jump to answer:

1. Fart logic (2009)
2. Traffic Light Epistemology (2010)
3. Seashells: How we fool ourselves (2018)

As you can see, our unscrupulous minds has always bothered me.