Moses, perhaps our analyses are inordinately materialist. Hints of religion, spirituality, psychology, emotions and deeply subjective actions of the mind/body /brain as they affect reality are often minimized, sneered at or ignored in fields other than religious studies and anthropology. New theories that consider these issues more seriously are considered fringe.
Even if one equates religion with delusion, a pathological condition which it would imply that most of humankind throughout all the ages of recorded history continue to suffer from, yet it is clear that these "delusions" are determining, affecting, influencing and inciting critical actions and inactions (some actions that other frame of reference might term criminal, insane, foolish, risky, kindly, helpful, selfless or selfish etc) with clear ramifications throughout all spheres of life. There is no logical reason why any analytical framework would accept that agency or consequences relating to human action can be associated with human want, desire for power, or for sex, and would exclude religion as an equally tangible and very potent sphere of human existence. It is certainly illogical to me to assume that a deluded person would act outside of his or her delusion. Yet this is what analyses do that exclude the religious/spiritual sphere from the human experience of religion. However, I will not dismiss any of the previous, even, staple explanations, if doing that amounts to looking for solely 'religious' explanations. That can be legitimately criticized as reductionist.
But I enjoyed an article by Margaret Poloma that applied insights from sociobiology and sociopsychology, sociology of emotions and the studies of the structure and function of the human brain, to some ritual practices and occurrences within a particular stream of ecstatic Pentecostalism. I feel the insight might be useful in dealing with the question you raised here regarding the wildly varying nature of the relationship of religions to their ritual objects, ritual practices and the divine or whatever represents it. This might give you the "fresh" you feel is lacking, but it takes me outside of my conventional history field, so, you must excuse my simplification of expert analyses from other fields that I am merely dabbling into.
The said essay acknowledges controversies among sociologists and psychologists regarding the relationship between the biological and the social but lays out a basic argument that some research has identified what is called the instinctive, the affective and the cognition brains within the human brain. Each sphere is responsible for functions relating to that which respectively is instinctive or reflexive, emotional, and that which involves rational processing and cognition. Particular functions like talking, thinking, sex, appetite, processing of mysteries or the mysterious, and bodily actions are associated with the firing of particular areas of these brains. When for instance people are deadly scared, it is a particular part of their brain that fires and causes an instinctive response of fleeing or defending oneself or acting recklessly brave or something of the sort. Similarly the mention of a divine name, some word associations with particular religious connotations, the sights of particular ritual objects in particular contexts, particular chants or manner of chanting or praying and processions very naturally excite the relevant part of the brain of the devotee to fire and generate particular emotions or bodily actions.
Very interesting is the discussion around what happens with the emotional brain when it is fired in the context of heightened religious consciousness - of practice or of ritual. Now, particular part of the brain is said to be responsible for affective behaviour and ecstatic emotions, including rage, anger and deep resentment. However, the firing of these emotions are directly related to information or experiences pre-stored in that part of the brain- either through reading, listening e.g. to scripture or to preaching or to indoctrination, etc
Just like relationship within families, between people and their villages or their nations and governments are set within some ritual practices, most of which are almost subliminal in their non-intrusiveness and normalcy, relationship with the divine is also guided by rituals- perhaps more strongly. In most instances, these rituals reaffirm belongingness with the religious community. Where the local or national and religious communities overlap or rather correlate, ritual practices serve as a very powerful mediator and confirmation to self of the authenticity of one's organic , i.e., total, identity as a devotee of the religion. These rituals, in their public or even private performance of them, also reward/punish the part of the brain where specific emotions associated with those rituals and their performance are maintained or fired. These brain food or reinforcement that the rituals produce include joy, happiness, peace, satisfaction, serenity, fulfilment, but also anger, fear, sense of impending doom or the sense of being one with the divine, etc. Particular words, songs, acts, movement of body parts in particular contexts trigger some or a combination of some of the said emotions and reflexively get the body into action – into ecstatic dance, contorted postures, shouting, "speaking in tongues", trance, animal movements, self-immolation. I see both non/ and religiously driven lynching fit in here.
Now interesting though I find all this, I am aware that it does not solve the problem. If everybody has this emotional, or for that matter instinctive brain and they all feel emotions – why some people are prone to follow their emotions down the way of murder or what the law will call crime and extreme inhumanity of human to human automatically requires that we look at the nature of the information that codes that brain; and the institutions, teaching methods, teachers; associated with coding the information into the brain. And here, Moses, is where I think your "violent verses" or "giving to Ceaser what belongs to Ceasar and giving to God what belongs to God" must come in, even if they are old explanations. Also, relevant will be the level or nature of other information (perhaps non-religious info & travels, interactions with different peoples etc formal instructions in humanities and the social sciences – education-) that contextualizes these emotive 'religious' codes. The social or cultural or socialization thus also comes in here..
But then, what if we argue that the emotive brain reacts according to its nature – with emotion – and that theoretically it is not easily subdued by rationality or education in all humans, since most acts of lynching and killing whether or not in the name of religion are not necessarily carried out by people without education. Once fired, the emotional brain takes over and would seem to override the cognitive brain temporarily, but long enough for a lot of damage to be done. Yet, some people seem clearly able to manage to get theirs controlled such that they do not resort to lynching people of different colors/race/ religion/ethnicity or killing those that might actually have blasphemed the name of their God. To account for this, I am tempted to bring in politics or relevant political culture. I believe that governments and their effectiveness and their conceptual separateness from religion will condition whether or not its citizens allow their emotive brains full rein in such circumstances. Another related conditioning factor, I think, will be the extent to which the people have been socialized to accepting that certain laws and governments, separate from and approved by a higher moral principle (e.g. of religion) forbid that excited emotion be allowed to express itself as an action outside of secular law of that government and that such secular law or government rather than be seen as contrary to the divine, actually affirm the divine or the general principle mandated by the divine.
At particular moments in a persons life and in the history of societies, however brief such moments might be, religion might actually be the most important dynamic factor, in the mix of all the other vital factors that make for very drastic changes. To ignore it or diminish its significance will clearly misdiagnose the problem.
NB. The article is on what is called the "Toronto Blessing".------------------------
F. J. Kolapo,
(Associate Professor of African History)
History Department * University of Guelph * Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G 2W1
Phone:519/824.4120 ex.53212 Fax: 519.766.9516
From: "Moses Ebe Ochonu" <meochonu@gmail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, 23 November, 2012 2:34:31 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ISLAMIC INSPIRED RIOT IN NORTHERN NIGERIA -FATALITIES
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Elombah <elombahperspective@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 1:26 PM
Subject: [Raayiriga] Fellow enlightened Dan Arewa's, you have a lot of work to do!
To: yanarewa <yanarewa@yahoogroups.com>
4 Igbos killed, Church Burnt In Kano Riots – ResidentsA mispronunciation taken to be blasphemous in Nigeria's north sparked a riot by Muslim youths Thursday, leaving four people dead as well as a church and shops burnt, police and residents said. "What happened in (the town of) Bichi was misinformation," Kano state police chief Ibrahim Idris told reporters. "Rumours went round that someone blasphemed the Prophet and there was a breakdown of law and order." Residents reported four people dead along with the church and Christian-owned shops burnt.The riot came on the same day that former British prime minister Tony Blair and the incoming spiritual head of the world's Anglicans Justin Welby launched an initiative in the Nigerian capital Abuja aimed at Muslim-Christian reconciliation.According to Idris, a Christian tailor mispronounced the name of a dress while chatting with his Muslim neighbour in Hausa, the major language spoken in the north, changing the meaning to 'the Prophet has come to the market'. Bichi is located some 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north."Four Igbos were killed in the attacks. One of them was thrown into a ditch near my house," one resident said, referring to a mainly Christian ethnic group."Scores of shops owned by Christians and a church were burnt by a large mob of Muslim youth who set bonfires on the road and disrupted traffic."Another resident said he saw four dead bodies "hacked with machetes by the rioters". Religious and ethnic tensions in the country regularly lead to outbreaks of violence.--Daniel ElombahPhone: +44-7435469430Every Nigerian that has something important to say, says it on www.elombah.comAny account of history is only one interpretation.
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