This post is about my view on religion justified as a reason to fight wars, with robots facilitating the process to depersonify killing that is now easier than before with the revolution going on in robotics used in war. It is based on the video below from the 2009 Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference of military analyst P.W. Singer, in his talk about the revolution quietly going on in war of using robots to fight them. By quiet, I don’t mean anything like top secret, but to the degree that’s going on and some of the details you really don’t hear about. The revolution is hugely eye-opening and, more importantly, morally challenging since it really depersonifies war the way guns have depersonified murder and war where it’s become so easy to kill. With robots, we don’t even have to be on the same continent to do the same. It’s all like a video game.
Military Analyst and Wired for War author, P.W. Singer
One point P.W. Singer brings up in his talk is how this is perceived in the Arab world, that Americans are cowards to fight with robots instead of people. Trust me. If they had access to these robots, they would, too. It’d be a lot more efficient, economical and easy than trying to convince potential recruits of the 70 virgins waiting for them in the afterlife if they become terrorist bombers. Besides, how long could 70 virgins occupy one’s interest for eternity, anyway? It’s hypocrisy to take the stance Americans are cowards for not fighting man to man. They should be appreciative there’s some compassion in modern society, despite the lack of compassion that seems to exist in war. In the good old days, if you had the weaponry to wipe out the enemy, you’d put them all down, or at least down to their knees, mercilessly so they would know there were consequences to petty acts of war like terrorist bombings. You know, they’d take on the kill one of us and we’ll kill 10 of you policy. No exceptions.
The scary thing about P.W. Singer’s talk, though, is that all this robotic technology could easily belong to the enemy. Considering all the manufacturing going on outside the US. Think about all the software writing done outside the US. Don’t forget that US science and engineering graduates becoming smaller and smaller compared to other countries. Then there’s the ease of duplication from learning by capturing one of these things. Put it all together and I think you can see how it would not take long before the enemy can play at the same level, or slightly less but in greater numbers. That was the old Soviet Union’s war technology approach with how many of their war machines looking like US ones, only not as good. They didn’t lose the Cold War on that strategy though, but economics. And don’t forget, this time around, there are no humans to die with loss of inferior machines but that bundles of them could outdo the fewer better ones.
P.W. Singer ends his talk with a great question of who is really wired for war, humans or robots? I think the answer to that question is easy, though hard for a lot of humans to admit. However, my additional take on it is if in depersonifying the killing for wars, and having to morally debate how responsible for it all, if we would not fall back on the most convenient excuse for killing we have ever had, which is in the name of religion.
In the past and present, we have used religion to remove responsibility from ourselves for killing in wars, but we still had to do it ourselves.
In the future, we will be able to use religion to justify our killing, and claim our innocence as the robots do the killing.
Both will make it more convenient to kill, which will only lead to more killing.
Daniel J. Levitin wrote an absolutely brilliant book called The World in Six Songs, supported by a great website with the many music samples referenced, among other great related material.
My basic paraphrasing of the concept is this. All the songs in the world could be fit into at least one of six categories providing an evolutionary benefit to humanity, often ultimately tied to our social nature.
The book and website offer far more detailed interpretations, of course, but I will expand on my paraphrasing with each post and the associated topic.
In a series of posts, I will describe each of the six categories in brief, one at a time:
I will describe what the categories are about because they are not as limited in scope as the category names suggest. I will then supply one of my choices and ask all readers to do the same if they so wish. In the seventh post of the series, I will offer the chance to put the song choices all together so readers can read the entire set on one post. I do this because it would be a long post to describe all six categories at once, but to have all the answers in one place might be nice.
.
This post focuses on Songs of Religion
July 30th add-on in italics, from Dan Levitin in a summary article
Religious ceremonies and ritual go hand in hand, with music frequently accompanying a ritual. Music acts as a retrieval mechanism to guide the movements and words of a particular ritual, and ritual can allow people to stop worrying and focus on the task at hand. Music is also tied to religious ceremonies such as weddings and funerals where acts can be performed as a community, providing social bonding.
Songs of religion are not simply songs about religion. In fact, the songs of knowledge post showed how the Oral Torah was really a song of knowledge, not religion, even if its lyrics were all about religion. Songs of religion are really ritual songs intended to give meaning to something greater than just the subject itself. Furthermore, this meaning is attached to a belief system that establishes some sort of “social” order, both, less and more than us. It is this search for meaning, a self-conscious act of awareness on our part, for our place in this order which truly separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, it is what we embrace in this search, in turn, that has benefited us in evolution.
In our search for something greater that is part of our religious beliefs, we embrace sets of rituals that exist in all religions. Religion gives meaning to these rituals that have little meaning on their own otherwise. Just look at rituals in religions foreign to you and see how you feel about them compared to those in your own. However, those not familiar with your religion would have no different overall reactions to rituals in your religion. Pages 194-195 has a great list of 11 rituals universal to all religions, though, which is an absolutely fascinating read!
Now, the rituals of religion come in two flavours: self-rituals and group rituals. Self-rituals tend to be of the type which promotes survival, like not murdering others or coveting their mates which could cause conflict among us that is not good for survival. Rituals also mean the actions get repeated, which helps survival if all the actions were good for survival. As for religion’s role, religion gives self-ritual self-meaning, like what it could mean for someone in their current and/or afterlife. Religion also monitors external and internal states for danger in guiding rituals to be done at various times throughout life.
Like it does for self-rituals, religion gives group rituals group meaning and monitors internal and external states to the group. This is the more important benefit to evolution when compared to the self. This is because group rituals promote group activities, which not only protect us from ourselves but also from other factors of harm to us, and better than individuals could do alone. Group rituals are essential to religion because one cannot find a place within a greater social order if there were no one or nothing else around oneself to create this social order.
Finally, all rituals, with their meanings given by religion, are intended to reduce ambiguity in life by changing the state of the world into something more exacting. It also lets us move on with our lives with the direction given so we don’t subject ourselves to situations not beneficial to our survival.
At this point, I would like to insert a note to say that while the general big picture descriptions of religion described in the World in Six Songs are beneficial to evolution, when it comes to the main organized religions in human history, I’m not sure I would concur. I think modern organized religions have become so warped from the spirit of religion’s concept I would debate whether it has had net benefit on humanity or net hindrance. Ironically, this has been since we supposedly have become “civilized”. So much wrong has been done in the name of organized religion, or hidden by it, that I really do think we could do better without it. I think we’d be better off if we only embraced religion in its intent rather than its meanings that it often has no business giving. Organized religion is just a pretense to guide us as if those leading it knew what were happening when they have no idea.
Songs associated with rituals mean there is a time and a place for songs of religion, with consequences. Thus, funeral and wedding marches count, but not national anthems or Christmas carols. There are places and times for national anthems, football fight songs and Christmas carols when you could break out in one or the other, and there wouldn’t be much problem. Try the same with funeral or wedding marches, especially the former, and there might well be. Children’s songs where participants move parts of their body selectively also count as songs of religion because of their ritualistic nature. This practice to develop motor coordination through repetition when we are young and learning is also of benefit to us evolutionally. Finally, gospel songs are religious songs, and it was mentioned that Dan Dennett had suggested that atheists should have pro science gospel songs as atheism doesn’t have gospel religious songs — a thought I, both, like and found tremendously amusing.
Audio sample of songs from the Religion chapter in The World in Six Songs can be found on the website. No direct link was available, but click on the Songs menu option and appropriate page number range link carrying pages 189 to 228. Please note that not all songs are meant as samples of Religion songs. Some are just referenced material in the book text.
Overall, I found this chapter on songs of religion to be very profound and deep, as it should be considering the subject matter. Despite the long post, I have only touched upon the many things Daniel Levitin touched upon for which there is much to think about each.
.
Author Daniel Levitin chose
.
My choice for Song of Religion is
Lacrymosa, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from his incomplete Requiem (funeral music), K. 626, that is magnificent from beginning to end.
It seems the current opinion is that only the first 8 bars were actually written by Mozart, with the rest under instruction for completion. However, listening to it, sounds like the instructions were pretty complete to me.
I have had the pleasure to sing this piece in choir and, well, let’s just say when you hear this piece with all the parts around you, singing one part, that’s when you really “get” the genius of Mozart.
I have also heard this version sung whereby the choir stopped at where it was thought Mozart stopped composing (I believed that version was about 8 bars into the vocal section), and they just stopped dead and walked off. It was so moving, the reminder that Fate doesn’t care for what we do and stops where it wants, that I cried in realizing the finality of it all.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu from his Requiem is also a favourite of mine. I have also sung this in choir. Sissel Kyrkjebø does a beautiful job here!
.
I don’t know what to say about all the funeral music selections here. I LOVE classical funeral music for some reason. It gives me such peace and lets me focus incredibly well. I especially like writing anything I need to focus and be concise on to it. Obviously, I don’t blog to it.
.
What is your choice for Song of Religion?
Please leave your choice as a comment.
Lyrics and YouTube/audio link would greatly enhance your answer so readers can know more about your choice. They are not necessary, though, and not possible if no lyrics or version exist.
I think it’s safe to say most people are religious and that they believe in some form of an afterlife. The afterlife could be Heaven or Hell in Christianity, equivalents in other religions or some other form of it according to personal beliefs that are variations of one’s religions.
What else it seems to me regarding people’s belief in the afterlife is that it seems to either be of a forgiving or punishing nature. You either get forgiven for your sins or punished for them, but the point is that it is a next phase of life, possibly a second chance, with the one we are currently living not being the end all. It’s like having a tomorrow relative to today, or having no tomorrow if you didn’t believe in the afterlife so the life you have on Earth now would be it.
Now, I think it’d be safe to say that most of us would live a very different life on any given day if we knew it were our last rather than just another day where there is a tomorrow or many tomorrows. Hence, my question, phrased for the majority who believe in an afterlife:
If there were no afterlife, would you lead life differently?
Now, if you didn’t believe in an after life, like I don’t, do you think those who believed in the afterlife would live differently if they thought or found out there were none?
And from either of these questions, do you think believing in an afterlife give people a bailout on leading a life of more value to society, prevent them from leading a more selfish life or have no real impact? Think of it this way, would martyrs die or kill to be in Heaven or get their virgins like some of the terrorists believe? Would people refrain from committing crimes and other sins because they believe Heaven, karma or whatever will get them for it, as well as do good so they can be rewarded for it? Or does their belief really seep into their daily lives at all to make a difference?
If you’re so inclined, please share your answer the poll/s below and leave any comments or thoughts you have as a comment. Poll results, as shallow as they are by the numbers, are always available for you to see if you click on it, though it might be a while before checking on them to get some sort of volume. Thank you.
In a series of posts, I will describe each of the six categories in brief, one at a time:
