Philanthropy

I'd had a note to look up Pakistani charitable giving, and that led to World Giving Report, where the map claims that China is in the top 20%! That seemed less than believable, but apparently there've been some changes made recently. Charities Aid Foundation put them at 95'th out of 142, up from about the bottom. "corporate philanthropy, which makes up the bulk of Chinese charitable giving, in contrast with Europe and North America where individual giving dominates." The WGR report has numbers that don't quite match the CAF numbers, albeit for different years, and since I gather that the statistics are compiled by the government and given largely to government-approved projects, I'm guessing that the China numbers may be inflated and that since even they say 76% of the donations are corporate, that these are often a kind of informal tax.

But it is very interesting that a) the Chinese see benefits in charity which they didn't a few years ago or b) the Chinese government sees benefits in appearing to be charitable. Or perhaps both.

Hmm. I'm not fond of jello numbers. Alliance says 73% of Pakistanis donate money and 16% volunteer while 42% say "they are unable to donate to charitable causes due to financial constraints." Maybe they give to their neighbors (as required by Islam) and don't consider that "charitable cause." The WGR says 51% give directly.

The WGR says 61% of the US population donate and 28% volunteer, and only 28% give directly to people in need. Nigeria has 89% donating, 69% doing so directly, and has 76% volunteering.

The "UK ranked 64th most generous country".

I'm not sure where the data for all this comes from, and what the denominators are (in Nigeria they use "working age people" for the volunteering rate), so I suspect some fuzziness and some apples to pears comparisons. But at some level, in most places, people are helping neighbors and even strangers.

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Why Pakistan? It considers itself the "land of the pure", devoted to Islam; and one of the pillars of Islam is Zakat: alms giving. Apparently they take it fairly seriously: 1.64% of income (.75% directly) vs 0.97% (.26% directly) in the US.

AI and religion

First Things has an article suggesting that AI may increase people's interest in religion, as they find themselves more purposeless.

“If automation hollows out jobs, what will people do all day that feels meaningful?”

Simple, he responded: They will do what humans have done since time immemorial, which is look to faith for answers and a sense of purpose.

I'm not persuaded that AI will be as disruptive as advertised. Much of the potential danger assumes that people will decide to rely on it and put it in control of things. But people have agency, and sometimes they even learn from mistakes.

But for the moment assume that it will be seriously disruptive. It's plausible that people, in turmoil and loss, will look to religion.

But which religion? Last century saw the rise of horrifyingly destructive cults--two of which demanded bloody world war to put down, and a third which demanded human sacrifices on a scale never seen before and is still active.

Is it possible to de-Nazi-fy Gaza?

Nazi Germany worshipped the tribe and state, with Hitler as its prophet. The Japanese worshipped the tribe and the Emperor. Outsiders weren't entirely human.

The way the Nazis treated the Russians seems calculated to make any kind of compromise or forgiveness impossible; likewise the way the Japanese treated prisoners and most everybody else. Oct 7 seems intended the same way, to announce to the world (possibly especially Iran?) that there would never be any reconciliation.

After the war we and the Soviets both tried to de-Nazi-fy Germany. The Soviets were somewhat better at it, but in both cases we ran into a problem. Who is a devout Nazi? On one scale (are they willing to throw stones at Jews?), lots and lots—perhaps a majority of the population. They were raised to it, after all. Were they Party members? Since you pretty much had to be for lots of jobs, that also is quite a fraction. Do you want to dispose of all of them? "Stare into the abyss"--you start to sound like a Nazi too.

Instead, if you had control of the ground and the schools, and control of the religion that inspired them, you could simply make examples of the leaders, put temporary restrictions on the "Inner Party" members, and rely on control of education and the media to grow a new generation without the Nazi religion.

We weren't thorough in Germany, and even less so in Japan. But so long as the direction changed, and the worship of the state either went away or trended benign, we decided that was good enough, under the circumstances. Stalin and Mao were almost as vile, and as dangerous, as Hitler and Hirohito. And since the Nazi Werwolf project was never widely implemented (and I don't recall hearing of anything significant during the occupation of Japan), we could focus on trying to make the institutional changes we wanted.

After all, the German tribe was defeated and their demi-god Hitler was dead, and the Japanese tribe was defeated and their demi-god Hirohito told them to cooperate with the Americans. The locus of their religions was within the occupied states. There were no outside powers that still supported the Axis states.

Gaza differs. They do have something like Werwolf going, the ground is not occupied, the schools are not controlled, and the locus of the Hamas brand of the religion lies elsewhere. And Hamas has plenty of support around the world.

The cost of occupying the ground will be high, and it won't be over quickly. Control of the media is probably nearly impossible, and I suspect that controlling the schools will be undermined in every direction. And as for the religion—Islam doesn't have to be Jew-hating, but it frequently is, especially if the Jews are "uppity."

De-Nazi-fication of Gaza may not be possible at a price Israel is willing to pay.

Monotheism

It's popular to say that Moses learned from Akhenaten (one of his poems resembles a psalm), and I've heard the reverse--that Akhenaten learned from the Jews. Given the difficulty with dating anything, I don't think that line of inquiry is very fruitful.

I like another approach. As I've read elsewhere, and Rodney Start reminded us, a "High God" tradition is pretty universal among "primitive" groups. In The Idea of the Holy Otto describes an "encouter with the numinous" that he, I think properly, regards as the source of religious feeling. Depending on when and where this encounter happened, you might attach the sense of awe with the ocean, or the stars, or the forest, and come to think of that as the god. The default numinous experience would be monotheist.

Polytheism comes in when the original experience fades, or you have to get along with (swear oaths for) neighbors who either had a different experience or inherited the rituals from someone who had a different experience. And henotheism devolves to polytheism (by the next generation, if not sooner) which will dilute devotion.

If this approach applies, then Akhenaten had such an experience, and was in a position to (at least for a while) defy politics and tradition and try to inspire everyone to give up the corrupt rituals of non-worship in favor of a truer devotion.

In other words, the two could have been independent.

Gnostics

You may not thank me for reminding you of the Eurythmics most famous work: "Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something. Some of them want to {use you/get used by you/abuse you/be abused}".

Yes, it's supposed to be a song expressing disillusion. The way it does is gnostic.

Those with the Knowledge know better than the rest of us, and are free from the demands of the world's illusions (like love). Check.

The original Gnostics thought material existence was flawed and even evil. Check.

The original Gnostics taught that there was a chain of creators and Aeons and whatnot. Doesn't quite match. Anyhow.

The song ties in to our strange reductionist belief that the meaning of things is always trivial; that the less beautiful/ thoughtful/ moral/ supernatural explanation is always the true one. There's no such thing as essence, only action, and only the actions that I care to monitor matter. Because I have the Knowledge.

The "operations-only" approach has its uses and strengths, but also unacknowledged limits.

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Early in my UW career I carpooled for a while with a woman from our neighborhood. One week she picked up her daughter too, who was due to be married shortly. Naturally she sat in the front and chose her favorite station, which was playing Sweet Dreams. As she sat back, satisfied with her selection, I hoped it didn't reflect her attitude to the upcoming wedding. Never found out...

Waugh

From Robbery Under Law: "In the sixteenth century human life was disordered and talent stultified by the obsession of theology; today we are plague-sticken by politics."

The parallel is closer than he suggests, for politics is a religion for many of us.

Entertainment or Exercise?

I remember hearing some mild grumbling when "The Passion of the Christ" won no Oscars: "Hollywood hates Christian things." The complaints seemed muted, possibly because tainted awards are hardly things to covet.

I thought at the time that although Hollywood undoubtedly does loathe Christian themes, they were right to give the movie a pass, despite its huge box office. Many of the attendees weren't going to be entertained, but to use it as part of a religious exercise.

Since then, I've wondered a bit about whether I was right. Are there other movies (or books, or songs) to which we go in order to "afflict ourselves" to prepare ourselves for communion with something greater than us?

People sometimes go to movies to "cheer themselves up" being reminded that there are good things despite the disappointments of the day--entertainment with a psychological purpose; utilitarian art.

Others seem to want to go to be reminded of how patriarchal and white and bad they are and how good they are to have noticed this--which seems like a gnostic religious exercise.

It's not as crisp a distinction as I thought.

Non-state tribunals

First Things has an article on the conflict between "Jewish" and "democratic". It says a new proposal expands "the reach of the country's religious tribunals".

The devil is in the details, but from the linked site:

It is proposed to stipulate that rabbinical courts will have arbitration authority in a civil matter on which an agreement can be reached, if the involved parties have expressed their consent to this. As part of exercising its authority, the rabbinical court is entitled to hear [the cases] and rule according to Jewish law

At first glance this seems rather straightforward, but three issues come to mind--a lawyer might think of more.

• Can all parties consent? If a city ordinance says I can't rent or buy without pre-consenting, I haven't really consented; I'm compelled.
• Does this give a blank check to the tribunals: rule as you please and we'll send policemen to enforce it? What exactly will be a "civil matter"?
• Who determines when a tribunal has become corrupt and is perverting their own law?

Will they continue on to the rest of millet system, and provide for Christian and Muslim tribunals as well?

If their jurisdiction is restricted, and there's no compulsion, it seems a relatively harmless approach; little different from submitting to binding arbitration. I gather that is already the case at some level, so--the devil is in the details. It probably needs a lawyer trained in Israeli law to tell.

You can't unsee it

Naomi Wolf says the old gods have returned. It has been accelerating lately, but I've seen signs of this for more than the three years she thinks--Moloch has been feeding since '73, for example. But there is a greater power than the old gods.

Older monks

It hadn't registered with me that before there were Christian monks, there were Jewish contemplatives living in the Egyptian "desert".

Philo wrote about them: it isn't a long work, and there's quite a bit of description of how other people live for contrast. Ascetic, but not flagellant. Not solitary--for safety's sake. Men and women had walls to separate them, but weren't far apart. "And the interval between morning and evening is by them devoted wholly to meditation on and to practice of virtue, for they take up the sacred scriptures and philosophise concerning them, investigating the allegories of their national philosophy, since they look upon their literal expressions as symbols of some secret meaning of nature, intended to be conveyed in those figurative expressions."

But they also composed songs and hymns of praise to God, and their sabbath feasts included these.

And after the feast they celebrate the sacred festival during the whole night; and this nocturnal festival is celebrated in the following manner: they all stand up together, and in the middle of the entertainment two choruses are formed at first, the one of men and the other of women, and for each chorus there is a leader and chief selected, who is the most honourable and most excellent of the band. (84) Then they sing hymns which have been composed in honour of God in many metres and tunes, at one time all singing together, and at another moving their hands and dancing in corresponding harmony, and uttering in an inspired manner songs of thanksgiving, and at another time regular odes, and performing all necessary strophes and antistrophes. (85) Then, when each chorus of the men and each chorus of the women has feasted separately by itself, like persons in the bacchanalian revels, drinking the pure wine of the love of God, they join together, and the two become one chorus, an imitation of that one which, in old time, was established by the Red Sea, ... When the Israelites saw and experienced this great miracle, which was an event beyond all description, beyond all imagination, and beyond all hope, both men and women together, under the influence of divine inspiration, becoming all one chorus, sang hymns of thanksgiving to God the Saviour, Moses the prophet leading the men, and Miriam the prophetess leading the women.

The monks had given up their wealth and families to become poor/unattached, but it seems as though it was a life for the educated.

Philo used allegorical interpretation a lot and may have magnified his report of its use among the "therapeutae" (the idea was to heal the soul). His description of drunken dinner parties seems a little exagerated: some do require an ambulance and the police, but most don't, and I doubt the ancients were that much worse. I could be wrong

"Speak no evil" rabbit chasing

The "See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil" Three Monkeys (or perhaps four: "Do no evil") may distantly relate to the Analects of Confucius: "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety". At any rate a philosophy which used this 3-fold admonition may have come from China to Japan in the 8'th century, and the maxim became part of the folk religion of Koshin. The saying in Japanese is "see not, hear not, speak not", in which the negation part "zaru" is a pun on the word for monkey. Who could resist?

The tie-in of Koshin with the monkeys has to do with the Three Corpses (or Worms), malevolent creatures that live inside humans. Every 57'th day in a 60-day cycle, while the human sleeps, the creatures ascend to heaven and report on their host's deeds, taking special delight in reporting the misdeeds in hopes of punishment for the poor human. (your own personal accusers)

At first it was only the elite (the ones who first adapted the faith) who tried to stay awake all that day and night to keep the 3 from reporting, but apparently the notion of having a regular all-night party became popular. That there is a relationship between the monkeys not seeing or reporting on evil and the hope that the evil spirits will do the same seems clear enough, but the details aren't.

Master of Divinity had a slightly different meaning...

Going out into the day:

O you soul, great majestic, behold, I have come that I may see you; I open the Netherworld that I may see my father Osiris and drive away darkness, for I am beloved of him.

I have come that I may see my father Osiris and that I may cut out the breath of Seth who has harmed my father Osiris. I have opened up every path that is in the sky and on earth, for I am the well-beloved son of my father Osiris. I am noble, I am spirit, I am equipped; O all you gods and all you spirits, prepare a path for me.

Another one:

I have dug up the sky, I have hacked up the horizon, I have traversed the earth to its furthest extent, I have taken possession of the spirits of the great ones, because I am one who equips a myriad with his magic. I eat with my mouth, I defecate with my hinder-parts, for I am a god, lord of the Netherworld, I have given up those things which were established in the past, I have planned appearance in glory.

Going in and out of the west:

To me belong all men, I have given everything to myself. I have gone in as a falcon, I have come out as a phoenix, the god who worships Ra. Prepare a path for me, that I may enter in peace into the beautiful West, for I belong to the Lake of Horus, I leash the hounds of Horus. Prepare a way for me, that I may go in and worship Osiris, the Lord of Life.

..........

These spells don't seem to have just been limited to the use of Pharoahs. Maybe at first, but over time it looks like anybody who could afford a spell papyrus could call himself Ra. (in a different spell) Though a god who has to step aside for a toilet break probably can't send down fire from heaven...

More from "as they were"

The religion of the Dakotas consisted principally, but not wholly, in the worship of visible things of this world, animate and inanimate. Their chief object of worship was Unkteri, the mammoth, though they held many erroneous opinions concerning that extinct species of elephant, and did not know that the race was extint. They had seen bones of the mammonth, pieces of which they had in their possession, and they were too well acquainted with comparative anatomy not to know that it was a quadruped. ... as they were not seen on land and their bones were found in low and wet places, they concluded that their dwelling was in the water.

They also worshipped a thunderbird, and "Taku-Shkan-Shkan", that which moves. "men affirmed that they had seen stones which had moved some distance on level ground, leaving a track or furrow behind them." And sometimes they worshipped ghosts. They learned from Europeans: Wakantanka was the Great Spirit, but was still just the God of the foreigners. Sacred rocks were often painted red.

The hunter or traveler, stopping to smoke would fill his pipe and holding it up would say, "Here, ghosts, take a smoke and give us a good day."

And

I once traveled several days on foot with a chief, and when we encamped at night he made the figure of a turtle in the earth and prayed to it for good weather. ... At our next encampment ... but this time the turtle failed to respond. ... he was in a bad humor, spoke very disrespectfully of turtles, and declared that he would be revenged on the next one he met.

Advice, which has evidently been almost universally followed:

If anyone wishes to construct a consistent system of Indian mythology, such as will be satisfactory to the public, the best way for him to do it is to form a theory of his own, adopt some Indian notions, reject others, invent some himself, and not ask the Indians too many questions.

UPDATE:

The great mass of the people evidently believed in a superintending, overruling Providence, by which the world is governed and men often rewarded according to their deeds. ... They were also accustomed to point out examples where great sins had been followed by severe punishments. These retributions they did not ascribe to any of the gods who they ordinarily worshipped in public. ... The punishment of the wicked was ascribed to Taku-wakan, that is, some supernatural or divine power, though Taku-wakan is not a proper name and had no personal signification.

When the half-breed interpreter was asked by an inquuisitive visitor what the Indians thought about another world (the land of spirit), he did not like to tell how little he knew about the matter; but he chose rather to conceal his ignorance, and to gratify the inquirer at the same time, by giving such an answer as he knew would be more satisfactor than the true one. The writer speaks from experience, having been himself thus imposed on.

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The only one of Pond's reports: he was the brother of the Samuel Pond, whose book I was referencing. Also, Unktehi wasn't universally worshipped.

Pagan ritual

What was it with beans in the ancient world? From Ovid's Fasti:

 This day they call the Feralia because they bear (ferunt)
Offerings to the dead: the last day to propitiate the shades.

See, an old woman sitting amongst the girls performs the rites
Of Tacita, the Silent (though she herself is not silent),
With three fingers, she sets three lumps of incense
Under the sill, where the little mouse makes its secret path:

Then she fastens enchanted threads together with dark lead,
And turns seven black beans over and over in her mouth,
And bakes the head of a sprat in the fire, mouth sewn up
With pitch, pierced right through with a bronze needle.

She drops wine on it too, and she or her friends
Drink the wine that’s left, though she gets most.

On leaving she says: ‘We have sealed up hostile mouths
And unfriendly tongues’: and the old woman exits drunk. 

(I wonder if by Ovid's time anybody remembered the "why" for any part of that ritual.)

Pythagoras had odd beliefs about fava beans. Romans had an odd anti-ghost ritual that involved black beans:

When midnight comes, lending silence to sleep,
And all the dogs and hedgerow birds are quiet,
He who remembers ancient rites, and fears the gods,
Rises (no fetters binding his two feet)
And makes the sign with thumb and closed fingers,
Lest an insubstantial shade meets him in the silence.

After cleansing his hands in spring water,
He turns and first taking some black beans,
Throws them with averted face: saying, while throwing:
‘With these beans I throw I redeem me and mine.’
He says this nine times without looking back: the shade
Is thought to gather the beans, and follow behind, unseen.
Again he touches water, and sounds the Temesan bronze,

And asks the spirit to leave his house.
When nine times he’s cried: ‘Ancestral spirit, depart,’
He looks back, and believes the sacred rite’s fulfilled.
Why the day’s so called, and the origin of the name,
Escapes me: that’s for some god to discover.

Compare and contrast neo-pagan ritual.

I think Wright spotted a couple of contradictions in neopagan thought:

Two major paradoxes loomed in their worship. The first was that real pagans honored and obeyed their fathers, and revered the household gods, and worshipped the gods of the city and the marketplace, and respected their ancestors and founders. The poor neopagans were the children of evangelicals, so the gods of city and agora were Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and the ancestors and founders of THIS nation were monotheists, all stout Christians with an odd Deist, Jew, or Freemason thrown in for flavor.

This places the diligent neopagan in the odd position of being obligated by ritual and tradition to offer due reverence and worship to the altars of his fathers and the temples of his gods, but those altars are Christian, and those temples are cathedrals.

Related to this was the problem of the Asatru — the True Men — who were allegedly worshippers of Odin and Thor, but only one of them volunteered for service in the military, which, alas, he survived intact. Those not falling in battle were doomed to the “straw death” and an afterlife in Folkvangr rather than Valhalla, hence not to stand with the gods at the Last Battle.

The second paradox was that the Old Gods were actually quite strict about sexual morality. A Vestal Virgin caught coupling with a man was buried alive. To the North, the adulterers were sent to Nastrond at death, not Valhalla.

Lewis did a fine takedown of ignorant admirers of the pagan. "You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune)."

Mandaean

I was curious about the Mandaeans. I'd heard they consider John the Baptist to be the Messiah.

That seems not to be an ideal description of them. They regard him as the last and greatest of the prophets, but I don't think John would recognize them.

They're the last of the ancient gnostics. Baptism is an important weekly ritual. They have a curious sacred book--the Ginza Rba, which is divided into two parts: a Right and Left Ginza, printed on alternate pages upside-down wrt each other. The Right's current version seems to date from "early Islamic" era; the Left's is much older. If you want a sample: The Book of John the Baptist is a collection of "proverbs", such as straightforward ones like "The first of your care is: know your account and then speak." and "The unjust is like a pomegranate, showing a resplendent face from the outside, but inside is full of mold." and some that are confusing "The words of the wise man at the gates are like pearls on a pig." I gather that "at the gates" has to do with the gates of ignorance and evil--did I mention that they are gnostics?

Their funeral ceremonies--The Mandaean Ṭabahata Masiqta--are complex, involving raisins in water, a pigeon, and many rituals, some of which seem vaguely Egyptian (they have an opening of the mouth, etc). This is a diagram of part of the ceremony. The new body is in the Light-world, of course.

Apparently a Mandaean who marries outside the faith is deemed to have left it, and nobody is allowed to convert into it, so it's a strictly ethnic religion at this point--and a persecuted one.

If you are curious about what the ancient pagan rituals were like, you could do worse than read that funeral exposition. It seems so wildly different from what you usually think of when you hear "gnostic" that I wonder if it came from merging two different religions--maybe a long forgotten compromise. "We aren't going to choose between the old cult and the new elite gnostics--we'll do both"