The Textbook of the Universe: The Genetic Ascent to God

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But there were Christians who traveled with the advancing Ottomans to batter themselves against the walls of Christendom. When it came to the Eastern Orthodox, who had long been Ottoman subjects, and had little necessary affinity for Western Christianity, this may seem somewhat unsurprising. But there were Protestants who fought for the Ottomans. But the historical context of this alliance makes it entirely comprehensible why these Protestants had little fellow feeling for their Roman Catholic brethren.

For decades the Austrian Habsburgs had persecuted Protestants and slowly re-Catholicized their domains by means soft and hard on the soft side, inducements so that prominent Protestant families would return to the Roman fold, on the hard side a choice between expulsion or conversion in the towns. A grand Christian front against Islam was all well and good in the abstract, but for Hungarian Protestants their proximate existence as a people was dependent on a Muslim shield against their aspirant overlords, who they knew would have reimposed Catholicism upon them.

The present day religious map of Hungary reflects these historical accidents. In contrast, what was Royal Hungary, became overwhelmingly Catholic thanks to the success of the Hapsburgs and their confederates in grinding down the Protestant majority to triviality. What is important is not to deny systematic biases and long term trends when you average out the seemingly random set of alliances which emerge between peoples and individuals based on immediate contingencies.

They matter insofar as the Reconquesta succeeded despite the infighting between Christian potentates. The rivalries were put aside at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. In the course of a few years it is ridiculous to speak in civilizational terms, but in the course of centuries it is precisely the boundaries of civilizations which wax and wane.

Muslims and Christians were thin on the ground, generally restricted to narrow elites. The vast populace still adhered to their traditional tribal religions. Though it has arguably been part of the Dar-ul-Islam for a thousand years the peoples to the south of the Senegal river were only lightly touched by Islamic civilization. In the 20th century modernization, the rise of mass culture and communication, has produced a much deeper Islamicization in African societies where organized religion had previously been a feature of narrow urban elites. But as Eliza Griswold notes the Muslims were not the only ones at the march in Africa.

Only in enclaves in coastal West African nations does traditional religion manifest in the public sphere, organizing itself as Vodun. Elsewhere the God of Abraham reigns supreme.

Griswold points to this when observing that the religiously split city of Kaduna has Christian neighborhoods with the names Haifa, Jerusalem, and Television, while the Muslim neighborhoods are Baghdad and Afghanistan. What has Kaduna to do with Jerusalem? In concrete terms not much, but symbolically a great deal, and for humans symbolism has concrete consequences.

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The story Griswold tells throughout The Tenth Parallel is the integration of local concerns and tensions with global dynamics. In Nigeria Islam is closely connected to the Hausa and Fulani identities, while many of the southern ethnic groups are staunchly Christian though many of the Yoruba have converted to Islam as well.

With the rise to dominance of Christianity in southern Nigeria there was now an organized rival to Islam as meta-ethnic identity. A meta-ethnic frontier had come into being in central Nigeria. In the Philippines, Malaysia Indonesia and Sudan, Griswold observes repeatedly the intricate dance between ethnicity, history, and religion. In both Indonesia and Malaysia non-Muslim ethnic minorities adhere to Christianity as a way to preserve their distinctive identity and particular history in the face of the assimilative power of the dominant Islamic culture of maritime Southeast Asia. Karens in Burma, Montongards in Vietnam, and Hmong in northern Thailand, view adherence to the Buddhism of the ethnic majority of these nations as a step toward assimilation and loss of ethnic identity.

Though Christianity is just as alien in nature to the shamanic spiritual traditions of these peoples as Buddhism, it serves as a distinctive ethnic marker in regions where affiliation to the two religions tracks ethnicity perfectly. And, it also allies the Christian minorities with a powerful civilizational international.

In eastern Indonesia the Christian Ambonese , converted during the period of Dutch rule before Islam had swept so far east, were often partisans of the colonial regime against the efforts of the predominantly Muslim independenc movement. The case of the Ambonese points to a general resentment of the majority culture in many regions impacted by European colonialism. In the process though they would have lost their identity, the cost of social harmony being conformity and homogenization.

Whether the perpetuation of ethno-cultural distinctiveness through the alignment of particular groups with different meta-ethnic world religious identities is good or bad is strongly conditioned upon your own specific viewpoint. The cleavages shake out in a familiar form, despite the local origins of the conflicts. There is also the conflict within religions. But so is the strife which emerges within and across the sects of Islam. The standard model posits the rise of a Fundamentalist Islam at war with local Sufi traditions. There is a great deal to this story, as far as it goes.

The rise of internationalist Salafi Islams is another case of cultural globalization, and its roots go back centuries. Several hundred years ago many regions of the Islamic world, confronting European powers on the rise, or declining Islamic orders such as that of the Ottomans, entered into a period of reform which gave birth to fundamentalisms of various flavors. The Deobandi movement in India, the Wahhabis of Arabia, and the Fulani jihad may all be considered instantiations of a broader international pattern.

Pushing against this were a diverse array of local Islams, many of which lacked the coherency of the reformists who claimed to be bringing Islam back to its first principles.

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The success of the local Islams varied. The Wahhabi ascendancy has been marked by a physical destruction of monuments to rival Islamic traditions, as well as the despised position of Shia within the kingdom. In South Asia the fundamentalist reformists have not swept all before them, as the numerical preponderance of other traditions attests to, though arguably in in Pakistan they have influence out of proportion to their numbers.

In Indonesia and Malaysia the fundamentalists are a small minority among the Muslim majority, which varies in its adherence to world normative Islam in any case. And yet how much should we make of this division within Islam, or those within Christianity? In both Malaysia and Indonesia the governments encourage conversion to Islam by the remaining groups not aligned with a world religion. Despite her conflicts with fundamentalists in her own religion Eliza Griswold did in the end agree to pray with Franklin Graham. There are wheels within wheels. Focusing on one specific wheel, one layer of the dynamic, does not deny that that wheel and dynamic may be nested within others, and that others may be nested within it.

The frictions and conflicts on the tenth parallel play out on multiple hierarchical levels. Individuals have their own interests, as do ethnic groups, and finally meta-ethnic groups. Modern Westerners tend to have a methodological individualistic bias, and so reduce group actions to an aggregate of the material incentives and preferences of groups of individuals. This is far too pat and simple. But how to define interests and a meta-ethnic group, a religion, can be easily problematized. As I noted above it is highly likely that the Nigerians killing each other over ethno-religious differences share much more in values and outlook with each other than they do with Westerners.

But human conflict often hinges on symbolic markers and issues.

Similarly, as an atheist I do not believe that there is a God in fact, but the fact of the beliefs of others that God is is highly consequential. It is less important what the real Islam or Christianity is , than what Islam or Christianity is for the people at any specific place and time. By and large in a world characterized by economic growth driven by non-zero sum interactions violent physical conflict produces absolute losers on all sides.

But the heuristics and biases research tells us that quite often people care less about the height of the hill than their own peak position atop it. What languages does the New World speak? Uncle Al sees absolute winners here. One does not conquer for losses, one conquers for gains. Osama bin Laden compentently exercises Weltpolitik and Realpolitik.

He destroys and runs, incurring no chronic debt. The Bushes and Obamanation are pathetic. This passage reminded me of this piece.

Steven E. Romer

Rakotonarivo was in the midst of such a meaningful conversation on a recent afternoon. Organised religion is ultimately a tool to systematise and dogmatise what should be a very personal journey; understanding and making sense of your surroundings. It gives these marginal populations rapid advancement and direct access to the West instead of assimilation. What is interesting in your article that I have changed my perception. In an alt-history it would have been fascinating if Islam had penetrated to the tip of Southern Africa and the Philippines. At first I always thought that it was kind of strange that the Philippines was named after King Philip but then come to think of it quite a few places are named after individuals; Africa, Europe, Asia, America, Bharat, Saudi Arabia, Israel and of course the Philippines.

I found it after digging through the net so here it is. A prophet arises, he makes a claim, reveals a book, and is received by those pure ones willing to suffer in the path of God. Religion purports to answer the meaning of our life, which at the end is a personal and individualistic journey.

Religion is a comforting ritual to obscure that search or provide platitudes for it nothing is more comforting that others hew to your line of thinking. I just like dislike group think and want to encourage skeptical minds to emerge; not only of religion but all biases. I like the motto of Iranian.

Perhaps by paganism I should have used supernatural. Good to know on Manila and interesting to note on Kongo and wider Africa. Like the thoughts on Malay Chams want to read up on them. Great article, really enjoyed it. Not all that much common ground there.

I might have to pick up this book. Those ethnic minorities are not really part of some wider civilization, they only act as if they are. People like to talk about indigenous traditions as being Sufi-like with the assumption that everyone is a unitarian deep down. I am happy to report that it is done now and is now available. You can click on the link to the secure ordering page online or you can request a copy by E-mailing me at: Full descriptions and a link to buy the book at a special reduced price is on the book pages while my author supplies last.

This price is for visitors to this website only. The book is also available from www. It is the ultimate science which will transform humanity forever. Some brief thoughts about life. Toward a Science of Consciousness Here are links to the 4 posters I presented at Skovde Sweden on August, I have also posted some pictures from the Skovde conference itself and other interesting pictures from the trip.

I have some pictures of the Sigurd Rune carvings depicting Seigfried slaying the dragon, pictures of the oldest Viking ship ever found, and even some Oslo, Norway wild life.

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