Hope is…
What Is Hope?
Hope is…
Category: Psychology
How Did Big Gods Transform Religion?
Local Gods
Most of the spirits and deities of foraging and hunter-gatherer societies did not have moral concerns. Such gods may have wanted to be appeased with sacrifices and rituals, but they were typically unconcerned with moral transgressions, which preoccupy the Big Gods of major world religions.
Many of the local gods and spirits were not even fully omniscient to be good monitors of moral behavior – they perceived things within village boundaries and not beyond, and they could be manipulated by other rival gods. Religion’s early roots did not have a wide moral scope. Nevertheless, despite their relative infrequency in the supernatural scope of hunter-gatherer societies, powerful, omniscient, interventionist, morally concerned gods – Big Gods – managed to proliferate over time through cultural diffusion, population expansions, and conquest.
Advent of Big Gods
Prosocial religions, together with their Big Gods who watch, intervene, and demand hard-to-fake loyalty displays, facilitated the rise of cooperation in large groups of anonymous strangers. In turn, these expanding groups took their prosocial religious beliefs and practices with them, further enhancing large-scale cooperation in a runaway process of cultural evolution.
Religious intuitions developed (for example: mind and body separation, and the continued existence of mind after the body perishes), which support widely held religious beliefs and related practices, such as gods, spirits, and souls of various types and characteristics. Once that happened, the stage was set for rapid cultural evolution – nongenetic, socially transmitted changes in beliefs and behaviors – that eventually led to large societies with Big Gods.
Eight Principles of Big Gods
- Watched people are nice people.
- Religion is more in the situation that in the person.
- Hell is stronger than heaven.
- Trust people who trust in God.
- Religious actions speak louder than words.
- Unworshipped Gods are impotent Gods.
- Big Gods for Big Groups.
- Religious groups cooperate in order to compete.
How Does Action Shape Thought?
First Comes Movement
A creature didn’t think in order to move; it just moved, and by moving it discovered the world that then formed the content of its thoughts.
…..Larissa MacFarquhar, “The mind-expanding ideas of Andy Clark,” The New Yorker
Action Shapes Thought
How do we think? The natural answer is: with words. Everything from ancient philosophy to the theory of evolution is assembled and transmitted through language. But our ancestors did not speak, and neither do infants – yet they still think. So, if we can think before we have language, then what are our thoughts made of?
In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky makes the case that movement and our interactions in space, not language, are the true foundation of thought.
Spatial Thinking
Spatial thinking enables us to draw meaning from: our bodies and their actions in the world; shape, size, and relation; and transformation, trajectory, and speed. Actions on thought are like actions on objects.
Spatial thinking underlies our ability to create and use maps, assemble furniture, devise football strategies, design buildings, create art, and understand the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas. Spatial thinking even underlies the structure and meaning of language: why we say we push ideas forward or tear them apart, and why we’re feeling up or have grown distant.
Science, art, literature, and the great ideas of the world – these originated not just in our brains, but in our entire bodies.
Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought
How Can Flexible Thinking Bring Us Peace?
Overview
Flexible thinking, also known as psychological flexibility, allows us to turn toward our discomfort and disquiet in a way that is open, curious, and kind.
It’s about looking in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way at the places in ourselves and in our lives where we hurt, because the things that have the power to cause us the most pain are often the things we care about most deeply.
Psychological Flexibility Practices
- Defusion
See our thoughts with enough distance that we can choose what we do next, regardless of our mind’s chatter. - Self
Notice the story we’ve constructed of our self and gain perspective about who we are. - Acceptance
Allow ourselves to feel even when the feelings are painful or create a sense of vulnerability. - Presence
Direct attention in an intentional way rather than by mere habit, noticing what is present here and now, inside us and out. - Values
Choose the qualities of being and doing that we want to evolve toward. - Action
Create habits that support these choices.
How Can We Change Our Habits?
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
…..Socrates
Don’t fight against your old habits by thinking about what you’re missing. When you feel deprived, you’re focusing on the wrong thoughts. You’re making your journey unpleasant and more difficult.
Instead, focus on how the changes will bring you the success you desire – that’s when you’ll build your new life instead of fighting your old one.
