On the Origin of Religion, Mythology, and Cultural Misconceptions About Other Cultures

Warning: This article is written purely from an external scientific perspective with no intention to offend individuals or mock their religion but only to discover the essence and origin of beliefs, especially those which fit into a particular culture-religion pair.

It took me some time to realise what the origin of human belief systems is. However, after I had read the Wikipedia page on Inuit religion, one day I suddenly had the idea that the origin of religion and religious story-telling might simply largely be rooted in the sentiment of fear. Religions tend to emphasise, in one or another way, fear of a single deity or many deities, and very often fear of other strange creatures as well, such as demons or ghosts. The sentiment of fear solved a large part of the puzzle for me as to where beliefs, or superstitions if you will, come from. This is, of course, not to ignore the cultural function that these beliefs may have, as religions are not isolated from cultures but religions and cultures traditionally come in pairs. However, the overlap between belief/superstition and fear is an important finding that might help to explore the origin and essence of religion.

F. Hadland Davis expresses a similar understanding coupled with a strong intellectual desire to explore the origin and essence of religion just over a hundred years ago when he wrote in his book about the sacred narratives of Japanese folk religion better known as Shinto:

The subject of Japanese superstition is of special importance, because it serves to indicate the channel by which many myths and legends, but more particularly folk-lore, have evolved. Superstition [i.e. fear] is, as it were, the raw material out of which innumerable strange beliefs are gradually fashioned into stories, and an inquiry into the subject will show us the peasant mind striving to counteract certain supernatural forces, or to turn them to advantage in every-day life. [...] It is scarcely necessary to point out that these superstitions, selected from a vast store of quaint beliefs, are necessarily of a primitive kind and must be regarded, excluding, perhaps, those associated with the classic art of divination, as peculiar to the more ignorant classes in Japan. 

[Japanese superstitions, p. 302 of Myths and Legends of Japan by F. Hadland Davis, freely available at Gutenberg Project] 

Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the last sentence of the quote above, the important point to note is that Japanese superstition is probably largely rooted in fear. What the author regards as "primitive" is perhaps the close association with human emotion, particularly that of fear. If the world's religions are rooted in human emotion, particularly that of fear, then it is no wonder that all human indigenous religions would routinely be labelled as "primitive" from a traditional Western perspective, altough Western religion is by no means free from this emotional experience that gave rise to not only religion and mythology but also art, philosophy, and culture. Humans are a unity of the emotional and intellectual, the mind and the heart, the irrational and rational. Some religions emphasise one more than the other, and some religions verbalise beliefs more than other religions. To take Japanese indigenous religion as an example, this religion tends to emphasise experience and feeling more than expression of belief, which makes it appear more primitive in the eyes of the traditional Western observer who is more used to the verbosity of Western religion.

Being totally open to the experience of emotion is somewhat strange to Westerners, because they are particularly prone to hide, deny, and suppress their emotions. Control of emotions, which involves the frontal part of the brain, is what is encouraged in Western culture, and emotionality is generally looked down upon.  The Western spirit is essentially at war with the emotional part of itself, while it seeks to entirely replace it with its rational part. The emotional or irrational, as the opposite of the intellectual or rational, then inevitably has a bad connotation to traditional Western minds. The struggle with the emotional self that is characteristic of the West stems from the Western "either-or" mind-set which seeks to contrast things and deny one thing in favour of another thing.

However, the prevailing mind-set in the East, and to a lesser extent pretty much the rest of the world, is a "both-and" mind-set which seeks to embrace opposites simultaneously if that is deemed to serve practical or cultural purposes, such as ensuring group survival or maintaining harmony within a group. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Eastern religion - while the numerous indigenous religions around the world invariably tend to follow this example in one or another way - experiences and makes use of emotion much more freely than Western religion, although the latter by no means lacks emotion but simply only seeks to hide, deny, or suppress it by means of a highly developed verbosity. In this light, the verbosity of Western relgion may be seen as a shield or facade.

Pre-Christian indigenous European religions, such as the surviving pagan religion of the Mari, nevertheless, tend to be more tuned in to emotions while placing less emphasis on verbosity. As in Japanese folk religion, ritual and practice tend to be more the centre-point of religious life/focus in these pre-Christian religions. This is, perhaps, also why Japanese as well as other ethno-religious groups around the world may feel uncomfortable with the term "religion" which makes them think of Western religion, and feel a preference for alternative terms, such as "way" or "spirituality." What these people may well seek to express through this distinction is the emotion-embracing quality of their indigenous religions as opposed to the emotion-denying quality of Western religion.

The non-Western emotion-embracing indigenous religions may seem primitive to Western observers for the very simple reason that they do not hide, deny, or suppress emotionality as Westerners are accustomed to in their own culture and religion. Strictly speaking, Christianity is not a Western religion in that it originates in the Middle East, but for the sake of simplicity, I speak of Christianity as a Western religion because even though belief in Christianity has been steadily declining in the West over the past decades after the end of WWII, it is currently still the prime example of Western religiosity. The ultimate expression of the inclination towards verbosity in Western religion is the sermon, and it is interesting to note that as there is the sermon in the Church, there is the speech or nowadays presentation in the Western business world. The typical emphasis on the verbal expression of ideas is, of course, also present in the Western business world, and thus the speech or presentation serves a similar practical purpose as the sermon in the Church.

For this reason, anthropologists have also suggested that Western culture is a low-context culture, i.e. a culture where everything has to be explicitly expressed, whereas Eastern culture, and pretty much all other cultures of the world, are high-context cultures, i.e. cultures where things are usually implicit. It has to be kept in mind, though, that we are talking about a relative rather than an absolute distinction when it comes to low-context and high-context cultures, because cultures which are defined as low-context cultures may, quite obviously, occasionally show characteristics of high-context cultures and vice versa. There is clearly some overlap.

Nevertheless, a good example of this implicit expression of ideas is when you are at a Chinese friend's home and you tell them that you are hungry. They will immediately assume that they should cook you dinner, and thus telling them that you are hungry is enough for them to understand that they should cook dinner for you. However, in Western culture one usually has to ask a guest explicitly: Would you like to eat dinner with us?

As non-Westerners are simply unlike Westerners in their manner of expression and hence of thinking, the perhaps unique inclination of the West towards explicit expression may also have contributed to the idea that non-Western peoples are somehow "primitive" by default, which, in that context, may have to be interpreted as an expression of the Western sentiment that other peoples lacked and/or are strange to Western values, norms, and habits. This sentiment may, of course, have translated to a sense of Western cultural pride, and even cultural supremacy, although this "native vs. alien" world-perception is by no means strange among human populations. Tribes can identify themselves and the Other, and this, in a cultural and practical context, may aid them in their survival. Doubtless, this sentiment of "self vs. Other" may have historically aided the West, and may be seen in a neutral context despite modern negative historical connotations, because it can be traced to the same tribal awareness that we see in other peoples around the world today.

This awareness of self and Other can, no doubt, potentially be abused or exploited for bad ends, but its cultural function is not to be ignored. As fascinating as the human awareness of the self and the Other may be, I believe that it is still the duty of the scientist to remove such biases, perhaps by means of using some relativistic perspective such as is common practice in the social sciences. This does, however, not mean that a worldwide crusade against indigenous "ethnocentrism" (to use that somewhat negatively judgmental term) is necessary. I am simply saying that I believe that within the context of science, it may be desirable to be free from such biases, because it may hinder understanding of other cultures. Nevertheless, I also believe that peoples are free to believe what they want to believe, and if any people like most other peoples believes that it is somehow unique or better, then it does not necessarily ring alarm bells in my mind because this is quite normal around the world, and has historically also been quite normal, and may even have helped cultures to survive.

The vital point to be grasped here is that, on the one hand, Japanese folk religion (Shinto) and other indigenous religions may not be primitive by default while, on the other hand, (primarily republican) ideological paranoia about Western cultural misconceptions vis-a-vis foreign cultures as well as the cultural misconceptions of other cultures about foreign cultures may be quite unnecessary. Moreover, neither misplaced paranoia about cultural pride nor ill-based claims of primitivity are an aid to science. When we replace one popular bias (e.g. "others are primitive") with another bias (e.g. "those who think or say others are primitive have murderous intentions"), we are still not doing our scientific duty which is to study the world around us while liberating ourselves from biases.

We Do Not Necessarily Need to Persuade Every Single Individual On the Planet

It is yet still the case that the majority of people will either be entirely indifferent or extremely hostile to the cause of monarchy worldwide. We need to keep two objectives in mind for the sake of the advocacy of monarchy: a minimal and maximal objective. The minimal objective is to persuade at least the right people so as to be able to bring about political, cultural and spiritual change in monarchy's favour. Nevertheless, the maximal objective is to make the majority of people actively supportive or sincerely sympathetic to the cause of monarchy worldwide. The minimal objective is a worst-case-scenario objective of sorts, while the maximal objective may rightly be regarded as a best-case-scenario objective. The existence of 2 objectives, in my eyes, practically means to the advocate of monarchy that he should at least make frequent tactical attempts at persuading any random individual in daily life in order to try to accomplish the maximal objective, and even if this fails, there is always a back-up plan which is to make a special effort to try to succeed at least at persuading the right people rather than every random individual whom one happens to meet or know in one's daily life and try one's luck on with frequent tactical attempts at "conversion" to the monarchial cause.

A couple of practical questions can be raised here. Can a clear, practical distinction even be made between the two objectives in the endeavour of monarchial advocacy? Is such a distinction even necessary from a practical point of view? How and when do you know that you should abandon the maximal objective in favour of the minimal objective? Yes, I do believe that such a distinction can be made and that it is meaningful to make a distinction between a maximal and minimal objective, even if it were only to give a sense of hope to the advocates of monarchy. I do not really think that we ever really need to entirely abandon one objective in favour of the other. We may decide to put the maximal objective on hold if it appears that circumstances are so bad that we may only be able to accomplish the minimal objective for the time being. However, this does not mean that we will never pursue it again. Nay! We should constantly try to find ways to pursue the maximal objective. Entirely giving up on the maximal objective is a death sentence to our cause, because ultimately we have to "expand or die" lest we should give too much room to republican revolutionaries to expand in our stead. No establishment can ever be retained if it does not evolve or grow, because if the basic requirement of evolution or growth is not met, then the establishment will gradually decay and be overthrown by a newer, more vigorous force that is more capable of evolving or growing.

It is vital to understand that established political systems are crowded out by other systems if they fail to maintain evolution or growth, not necessarily in an economic but sociopolitical sense. Established political systems have to maintain dominance or superiority over other systems by any political, cultural and spiritual means possible. Superiority in numbers is one very important factor that comes to mind. The number of adherents, sympathisers and advocates does certainly count. It should, moreover, come as no surprise that advocates of monarchy are to be primarily concerned with at least increasing numbers in order to accomplish the minimal objective and working hard to eventually gain a superiority in numbers so as to accomplish the maximal objective. By no means should an advocate give up on the majority of people and adopt a philosophy according to which only a select few can be converted. Nay! Absolutely not! Again, this would be a death sentence to the monarchial cause. It may be true that some are more receptive to the monarchial cause than others, but preemptively closing the doors to all sorts of potential converts is a huge political mistake. We need to positively assume that everyone is born a potential monarchist, and that we as advocates of monarchy only need to cultivate that pure potential in people. No one is absolutely a lost cause, we must remember. It may sometimes be effective and practical to shift focus to those who are easier to persuade as they are naturally more receptive, but it is extremely sinful to assume that there is absolutely no hope for others. The most radical of republicans can potentially be converted as long as we believe in this principle. Even if republicans believe otherwise, they are not absolutely immune to monarchist conversion. Nobody is.

I know that there are some folks out there who would say, "Do not waste your time on people who are not willing to listen and only focus on those who are willing to listen." There is some merit to this idea in that it is important to be effective. However, the fact that someone may not appear to be willing to listen at one moment does not necessarily mean that the person is not actually listening. Planting seeds of monarchism in people's minds that might grow into full trees is the whole point of talking to people who may not seem willing to listen at first. We should keep an open mind to people's undeniable potential for conversion and act on this potential inherent in all human beings. Even if we put the maximal objective on hold for the time being and merely try to focus on converting the "right" people, we should still hold on to the very idea of converting any random individual and so we should still try to convert any random individual whenever a good opportunity presents itself. Thus, being primarily focused on converting the "right" people, e.g. converting those people who may exercise more political, cultural or spiritual influence than ordinary people, does not necessarily mean that the maximal objective should be entirely abandoned. It just means that there are probably far fewer opportunities for converting just anyone, although there may be some. Persons who are more prone to think for themselves are likely much more open to the idea of monarchy, whereas persons who tend to be more strict in their thinking patterns may be far less likely to be open to this "alternative" political system. So, what I am getting at is that the minimal and maximal objectives can perfectly coexist while one or the other may gain dominance over the other for purely practical reasons.

Another important aspect of the distinction between the minimal and maximal objective is that the minimal objective is the door to accomplishing the maximal objective. In a sense, the maximal objective can only be achieved if we are willing to accomplish the minimal objective. Given current political realities, it is unlikely that we can ever take a short-cut and immediately achieve the maximal objective without any intermediate stages. The maximal objective is a huge goal, and usually huge goals should be divided into separate smaller steps. The minimal objective represents, in a way, the smaller steps that should be taken in order to accomplish the maximal objective. Thus, from the perspective that the minimal objective is perhaps the only realistic objective at the moment, it may be helpful to view the minimal objective as a prerequisite for accomplishing the maximal objective. However, we should always bear in mind that the primary focus does not necessarily need to be on the minimal objective, even though I and some others may believe that this may at the moment be the most realistic. I do, moreover, absolutely not want to hinder whoever believes that the maximal objective should be the primary focus. I may be somewhat inclined towards pessimism myself, and I would not want that to influence the zealous optimism of others, no matter what my mind thinks. I think that it is even good when there are some who will prefer to focus on converting all or nearly all, while there are others who prefer to focus on converting a select few in anticipation of some sort of doom scenario, although there may be some overlap between the two groups, because especially the latter group should never miss out on a good opportunity whenever it presents itself to convert just a random person. Missing that opportunity would, in fact, not be in good anticipation of the doom scenario that those who prefer converting a select few assume to be the case. If you believe in a worst case scenario, then you should not be one who just lets opportunities pass by.

For those who put their primary focus on the minimal objective and their secondary focus on the maximal objective, the point of advocacy is to persuade enough people to ensure that significant changes are brought about in favour of the monarchial cause and that ways to reverse damaging republican ideological influence around the world and its consequences are developed within a considerable amount of time, if not the near foreseeable future. This does not necessarily have to be a quite large fraction of the entire population, but at least it should be a tiny minority of men and women who can exercise the political, cultural and spiritual influence necessary to bring about the significant changes that are necessary for the achievement and implementation of monarchy in any of the world's nations that used to be entirely or primarily republican, or if the nation was already monarchial, the singificant changes that are necessary for the survival and continuity of monarchy. It should be obvious that not only the restoration of monarchy is important from the perspective of the worldwide cause of monarchy, but also progress within the monarchial system, for without progress, the fundamental requirement of growth or evolution is not met. Most republican countries spend a huge amount of money on "progress" or at least maintaining an image of "progress," because they know that without making progress or upholding an impression of making pogress, they have no right of existence. For instance, the Communist Party of China would likely not last long if the growth of China's economy, the current raison d'être of the Party, were to significantly slow down. The same is also true for Western countries which have opted for the democratic flavour of the republican ideology that is unfortanately inherently opposed to monarchy; these countries cannot exist without "progress" or pretense of "progress." As long as the people believe that these countries are still achieving what is thought of as progress, the people will not yet start considering political alternatives en masse. Republican propaganda, and this is an important point, makes use of this fact by making constant appeals to progress, even when no such progress is ever achieved.

Putting primary focus, moreover, on the maximal objective and secondary focus on the minimal objective is a legitimate approach as well, if it works for the individual advocate of monarchy. I am myself inclined towards putting primary focus on the minimal objective due to the fact that I get the impression due to current political realities that the minimal objective might be the only realistic goal that we can wish for to achieve at this time, even though we may benefit here and there from adopting the mind-set of pursuing the maximal objective whenever possible. Nevertheless, despite my own personal inclination, I do recognise that another approach is legitimate and I do absolutely not want to hinder anyone who may immediately want to go for the ultimate prize. I know that if we allow for coexistence of these 2 objectives in our thinking, it is entirely legitimate to favour one objective over the other while not abandoning either of them; I accept that humans are prone to bias, and that it is entirely okay to develop a "biased" preference for pursuing either of the 2 objectives, as long as one can maintain some sort of open-mindedness to the objective that is ranked as of secondardy importance to one's mind, for it is utterly important that the 2 objectives somehow coexist within one's mind rather than that one opts for the extreme of the either-or approach. It may seem like a half-measure, but this is not the case. It is merely practical to recognise that 2 objectives can be pursued at the same time, even if one objective may be favoured most of the time and the other objective may be pursued only on some occasions where the advocate deems it appropriate to do so. This is the kind of open-mindedness that may be utterly necessary for the advocacy of monarchy. It should be understood that a both-and approach may save us from lack of progress and adaptability, whereas the extreme of an either-or approach may ruin us entirely. If this understanding is right and we put it to good use, then the only thing that we need to do as advocates is to keep on exposing people to the ideas of monarchy until the significant changes that need to be brought about can be brought about with the help of newfound allies who have come to see the light as they were exposed to the ideas of monarchy. Ideas are always spread in a certain way, and it is the duty of advocates of monarchy to figure out how to spread the ideas of monarchy so as to be able to change the world.

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