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Peering at Faces in the Clouds

Sally Morem

[This article was originally published in Secular Nation September/October 1996,


pp. 2-5.]

Review of Stewart Elliott Guthrie: Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory


of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) $30.00.

What is religion and why does it pervade human thought and culture?
Every human culture that we know of--past and present--constructs
intricate systems of natural and moral order, endowing them with
religious significance. In Faces in the Clouds, Stewart Elliott Guthrie,
Professor of Anthropology at Fordham University, considers and
dismisses the traditional philosophical explanations for the tenacity and
durability of religion in the human imagination, and settles on a much more satisfying
one: that the thought processes which lead to religion are the very same ones which
enabled humans to survive and flourish on an often hostile planet.

Guthrie asserts that religion is systematic anthropomorphism, that is, the attribution of
human characteristics to nonhuman things and events, implying the existence of thought
and intentionality in our surroundings, and implying further the existence of a directing
intelligence behind it all. In short, religious impulses grow out of our deepest felt need for
a relationship with an unseen Other.

If we would seek to understand the origins of religion, the first question we must ask is
obvious: What do believers believe in? Something that transcends the limitations and the
rules of physical evidence; something comprehending, intelligent, perhaps even caring;
something that gives order and meaning to the universe and to human life. The believer
believes in unity, infinity, dependence, love, and awe--all aspects woven together into a
Being which reaches down in response to their sincere belief and enfolds all that is.

Clearly, Guthrie finds the theories on religion espoused by nonbelievers to be wanting.


Saying, as atheists do, that "...gods do not exist and that religion is a human creation..."
may be true, but it merely begs the question of why humans bother to believe in the first
place. One would suppose that such fantasies would have seriously handicapped our
ancestors in their struggle to survive in a world inhabited by predators and enemies which
were all too real. And yet these fantasies managed to grow and thrive in the minds of
those very same humans everywhere in the world throughout the ages.

Guthrie asserts that humanistic theories on the existence of religion are in disarray. They
variously maintain that religions alleviate unpleasant emotions, when in fact many
religions introduced and re-enforced unpleasant emotions; they depict religion as mere
scaffolding for a given social order, when religious thought would often pull the rickety
structure of an ancien regime down upon everyone's head; and they view religion as an
attempt to interpret and influence the world. The last point is well taken. Religion does
indeed do that, but on the whole, not consciously or deliberately in the manner indicated
by the theorists.

The two points on emotionalism and social re-enforcement tell us nothing whatsoever
about how religion may have begun. They merely hypothesize on how certain religions
maintain their hold upon the human imagination, presumably thousands of years after
they took root. In fact, many human cultures in history have independently created and
recreated the major existent forms of religion over the ages.

But a truly universal theory of religion must go further than that. It must also delineate
and analyze religious characteristics held in common. "General theories of religion must
say not only how people came to subscribe to a religion but also what it is that all
religions share. Because religious beliefs and practices are diverse, descriptions of what
they have in common must be abstract."

Guthrie wants to know (and so do I) what profound human need drives this apparent
obsession. There is something else going on here besides neat fakery foisted on the
gullible by the self-seeking and by those who have succeeded in gulling themselves. Why
should people be so consistently credulous on such matters? Calling religion "the opiate
of the masses," as Marx did means nothing in of itself, but does lead directly to Guthrie's
next question: why must religion be an opiate?

Before he leads us to the answer to that question, Guthrie analyzes the three different
theories of religion described earlier. We could call these the emotional, the social, and
the practical visions of religion. His first group of theorists generally agree that religion is
an attempt to allay fears. Spinoza, Hume, Marx, and Freud advanced varying versions of
this hypothesis. Religions have devised rituals to ward off sickness, death and natural
cataclysms. Freud's "gods" have a three-fold task. "...they must exorcise the terror of
nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death,
and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations of civilized life."

Religion then enables its adherents to escape the cruelties of the real world and enter
fantasy land. It is wish-fulfillment. There is, however, one small problem with this
explanation. It isn't true for most religions. "If religion's appeal is in its hope, though,
believers must think deities are protective, souls are immortal, injustices will be righted,
or some such comforting thought.... However, there are religions without such beliefs, or
with others that seem less comforting. Many have wrathful and capricious deities and
demons. Some have neither a universal moral order nor an afterlife. Others have only a
gloomy netherworld, or one or more hells." If this is wish-fulfillment, it is a masochistic
one. This theory's Sunday school roster of religious characteristics seems hardly the
comprehensive and detailed listing that a robust universal theory requires.
Guthrie's second group of theorists believe that the key to solving the riddle of religion
lay within the social order. Here, religion is a means to social solidarity. The private
virtues and public morality fostered by religious sentiment preserve and maintain the
public good. Politicians praise religion for keeping citizens on the straight and narrow.
Theocracies are the ultimate end of the institutionalization of this belief. In a theocracy,
religious belief and social order are one. "Holding men in awe of the law and the
magistrates" is the highest of religious duties.

Durkheim described religion as "encoded morality." It preserves social order which


develops through the ages of cultural evolution. It acts as a cultural ratchet, permitting the
development of additional social order while forbidding backsliding. Religion makes
concrete to the people that hugely complex abstraction known as society. "The sum of
social relations is too manifold, abstract, and subtle to grasp directly, and the demands
made of individuals by society too stringent for easy acquiescence. A society therefore
must be represented to its members by some emblem of its scope and authority, such as a
totem. In this emblem...society worships itself."

We see here a striking example of circular thinking. It is highly misleading for any theory
of the origins of religion to stipulate that the existence of some sort of powerful god-like
societal intelligence is required in order for that society's citizens to be able to
contemplate of the possible existence of gods. Arguing A is A because it leads to A gets us
nowhere fast. Besides that, the facts the argument uses are clearly in error.Societies are
neither organisms nor are they thinking beings. Societies are never organized perfectly
for their own needs. Cultural evolution, like the biological version, can only work with
materials at hand. Instead of envisioning the all-powerful leviathan of society as a being
fit to be worshipped, theorists must face the fact that societies grow and change as they
will, self-organizing as they increase in complexity, achieving order not by design but by
opportunity.

We cannot credit the existence of social cohesion to religion. In large, complex societies
such as ours, there are many religions, many allegiances. Loyalties clash. Here, religion
and society differ sharply. Sometimes the strictures of a religion command adherents to
attack their own society as the fount of wickedness. Deliberately fostering such religions
is hardly in any society's best interest.

The third group of theorists holds that religion is an attempt to interpret and influence the
world--a primitive version of science, if you will. "These theorists emphasize the task of
interpretation faced by humans (as by other animals) in perceiving and acting in the
world. They see the world of experience as inchoate and our first necessity as making
sense of it. They make religion a particular interpretation of the world, an interpretation
whose conclusion (but not whose topics or even logic) differ from those of secular
thought and action."

Humans explain new, unknown events by what is known. Why do lightning and thunder
occur? Because powerful humanlike beings are causing the disturbances. What are the
stars? The campfires of the gods.
Sir E.B. Tylor believed that ancient people envisioned the soul or spirit as a "thin
unsubstantiated human image, in its nature a sort of vapor, film or shadow; the cause of
life in the individual it animates." This early form of vitalism led people to attribute
spirits to other people, to animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. These people filled
their world with human thought and insight. Later, the spirits were magnified in power
imaginatively by their people until they became gods.

Hume believed that early peoples devised the concept of God from the apparent design of
the world. Spencer thought early humans derived spirituality from cycles and recurrences
in nature. Weber insisted that the pursuit of meaning is a central human concern. These
and others explained the existence and duration of religion as an ongoing human
endeavor to construct a plausible and rational model of existence, to describe and
understand the universe as a meaningful and coherent place.

These rationalistic arguments give us an image of an unseen order which humans have
sought out and attempted to describe and explain. If believers then harmonize themselves
with such an order in thought and action, they would achieve a sense of wholeness and
holiness. Certainly, this explains what many religious people do. Theologians make their
living building up and adding to such world views. But this concept of the unseen order
seems too dauntingly abstract to drive the actions and to direct the deepest thoughts of
most people. We must look elsewhere to find a universal explanation for religious belief.

In any true religion, we find believers who make a commitment to their god, establishing
a relationship of trust with a being they know exists. Instead of engaging in ruminations
on deep philosophical abstractions, these people achieve faith. Faith is not belief in the
tenets of the religion but is a profound commitment to a personal relationship with one's
god. It is a social act. How did people develop the concept of the possibility of a
relationship between human beings and a god? We are getting close to the real issue.

The object of religious belief (God) and how humans happened to create the concept of
that object and crave a relationship with it (faith) are the phenomena to which a true
theory of religion must attend. To ignore Proudfoot's "intentional object of religious
belief" is to "lose the experience, or to attend to something else altogether....If someone is
afraid of a bear, his fear cannot be accurately described without mentioning the bear. This
remains true regardless of whether or not the bear exists outside his mind. He may
mistakenly perceive a fallen tree trunk on the trail ahead of him as a bear, but his fear is
properly described as fear of a bear."

Religion is not primarily a means by which we assuage fear, nor is it a tool by which we
build and repair societal structures, nor is it a meaning-producing system. None of these
things are excluded from religion, nor are any of these things exclusive to religion. Belief
in the reality of gods or spirits--anthropomorphism--is at the center of religious
experience and belief. This belief must be explained. Why has it been important for
people in so many cultures over the ages to establish relationships with humanlike beings
known as gods?
It is here where science and religion differ most strongly. Science seeks to eliminate
anthropomorphism; religion is built on it. Healthy skepticism, normally a virtue, is
considered a vice in religious matters. If you doubt, if you are skeptical, you are breaking
your relationship with your god--a very dangerous thing to do.

Why do people take this relationship so seriously? Why the demonstrable spontaneity and
tenacity of such beliefs? Guthrie believes that this results from an innate tendency within
the human brain to seek pattern wherever it may be found, and to postulate the highest
level of complexity in that pattern as possible. Humans assume, unless they find evidence
to the contrary, "that the nonhuman world creates and transmits meaning as people do: by
sending and receiving symbolic communications." Religion assumes that the world
embodies intelligence, and so, humans must treat with it as they treat with one another.

Whenever perception is vague, interpretation is rendered difficult. Psychologists have


developed two famous drawings to illustrate this point. One is the head of an animal with
two long objects extending upward from the top. Are these the ears of a rabbit or are they
the parts of a duck's bill? The other drawing at first may appear to be that of an old crone,
but as one studies it, one discovers that the lines which make up the head may be
interpreted in a different way, allowing the viewer to see a young woman.

Such perceptual difficulties occur often in the world. The world arrives at our eyes as, in
James' words, a booming, buzzing confusion. We guess at what we are seeing, our
guesses based on the model of the world our brains have constructed through previous
guesses and outcomes over time--an endless cycle of trial and error. When our brains
abstract and catalogue shapes of objects, we are then able to see and recognize them
under widely varying conditions. "What we see depends on what model we use."

As we scan for patterns, we also scan for importance. Nested hierarchies of scale, of sets
and subsets, of duration, of interior and exterior, and of simplicity and great complexity
capture our interest. We concentrate on finding the scale and complexity of order we most
need--that of other human beings. When we guess at the presence of certain hierarchical
levels of interest, we tend to guess high.

Our brains are engaged in updating thousands of interpretations of perceptions while our
conscious selves perceive a smoothly integrated reality. We ride serenely (most of the
time) above a boiling maelstrom of proffered realities.

Metaphor is a conscious suppression of difference to make an artistic point. Identity is a


psychological activity which enables us to do the same thing unconsciously. We ignore
differences in the movement of the streaming river between yesterday and today, and
claim that it remains the same river. This is identity at work. Identity sometimes gives our
mental constructs more firmness than reality may actually possess. And when we engage
in animistic or anthropomorphic thought, identity moves us up another step in perception.
We see what is not alive as alive, what is not thinking as thinking. We are on our way to
religious thought and belief.
It is extremely important to us not to miss significant information. If we think the shape
ahead on the trail is a tree stump, but it turns out to be a bear, we will pay dearly for our
mistake in interpretation. But, if we err the other way, we merely look skittish and
embarrass ourselves in front of our fellow hikers. Those humans who characteristically
erred on the high side of perceptual hierarchies were selected by evolutionary pressures
over those who erred on the low side. In short, they lived to hike another day.

Since we all inherited this propensity to err on the high side of perception from our
successful ancestors, we all possess some natural propensity toward religious belief.
Guthrie reminds us that "...belief in gods organizes experience as significantly as possible
by positing for nonhuman things and events the highest actual organization we know: that
of human beings and their society. Because humans are highly organized, they are
capable of generating a wide array of phenomena. Thus, much is explicable by appeal to
humans or something modeled on them. As theoretical entities, gods are reducers of
complexity and diversity because the entities on which they are modeled, real humans,
are generators of complexity and diversity. Gods appear as powerful components of
theory because they are modeled on powerful real organisms."

The fact that most of the world's processes and features arise out of vast impersonal
forces of self-organizing power instead of acts of intentionality does not occur to us
naturally. It has taken centuries of careful experimentation and hard theoretical work to
learn the truth. But when we do submit our hypotheses to the stern discipline of modern
natural science, we feel alienated from our normal thought processes. Our impulses
betray us. This is when we discover how fundamental "man, the measure of all things"
really is to our world view and how anthropomorphic that world view really is.

Removing anthropomorphism from human thought is very likely impossible, at least for
the foreseeable future. We wouldn't even want to try. Such a removal may have
undesirable side effects, not the least of which would be the loss of creativity,
imagination, and the ability to spot bears on the trail. Anthropomorphism has proven
itself to be so profoundly linked with our survival as a species that it may in fact be an
ineluctable part of being human. And so, the best we may hope for when we perceive and
create patterns in the clouds is to develop the ability to look behind our perceptions, to
find the face, to acknowledge its beauty, and to concede that it isn't there.

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