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So I was talking to a friend of mine who's taking an Anthro class called Religion and Magic. He told me that it is believed that religion was a product of superstitious behavior which sprang from man's attempt to control the uncontrollable. Allow me to elaborate: Psychologists did an experiment with pigeons where they put a plate of food out intermittently (every 15 minutes) and took it away within a minute. After repeatedly doing so, the pigeons began repeating the gestures they were doing promptly before the food was introduced (as if the pigeon’s jerk of his head was responsible for bringing out the food). They saw the same behavior repeated in a number of pigeons. Now, thinking about it, how many times do you see people who wear their lucky underwear to all their basketball games because those were the underwear they were wearing when they won their junior high championships? My dad never goes fishing without his lucky fishing lures – the ones that he used to catch the 300lb Marlin. You get the picture? So eventually all of these unexplainable events and superstitious behaviors were compiled into a religion. This explanation of religion seems to explain why there is no universal religion throughout the world (Religions spread by missionaries does not count). If there really is this God that wants to save all of his people, then why did he only introduce Christianity to Western society? Religion is a human construct of false explanations. That being said, it becomes apparent why Decartes suggested that behavior is controlled by the mind and the soul or a greater force. We behave in ways that we believe may influence the world around us. However, we cannot control natural events in our surroundings. We can only behave in ways that we think may help influence them and that is how this greater force controls our behaviors – by laughing at us while we naturally attempt to seek full control over our actions and lives.

My conclusions thus far: Behavior is a continuous interaction between this marvelous evolutionary creation called the brain and the environment it has created and feeds off of. Our world is what we make of it, and in turn our behavior is what our world makes of us through its interactions with the brain. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Now morals: I like to think of morals as a compilation of learned behaviors that humans have come up with in order to combat the self-abusive effects of the uncontrollable and unpredictable phenomena of the brain called human emotions. Being sad, hungry, heart-broken, or angry sucks. Everyone has emotions from birth – which are undoubtedly favorable products of evolution (hunger drives a search for bodily nutrients, love promotes procreation, etc). However, certain human behaviors can onset unfavorable emotions, such as anger and jealousy, and these instigating events were prevented for the most part in society by deeming the behavior or emotion itself unsacred or immoral. For example gluttony depletes food supplies and leaves parts of the community hungry, lying can onset anger and sadness, and lust and adultery feeds jealousy and heartbreak. Therefore lying, gluttony, lust, and adultery are all considered sins by the greater global population.

Just some ideas that my wandering mind came up with while thinking about this class.