El Gato Malo on DEI and the evolution of religion

Quick post here - I thought I would share with you the linked post here from El Gato a couple of days ago. For one, it makes (in elaborated form) the same point I made in our last post, that DEI is filling a religious need people have (it fills that “slot in their heads”, he would say), and that it is only working on them because the influence of traditional religion on the minds of these same folks is now gone.

it's quite literally a derangement of false prophets and grifters preying upon those with insufficient moral and spiritual foundation to defend themselves, a state unfortunately encouraged by much of what is currently passing for “public education.” the empty slots left (or pried) open in their heads by the recession of religious faith are further exacerbated by the demolition and excoriation of society, family, and institutions. the very beliefs that made for a standing society are pulled down and called amoral that other ideas may be placed upon their pedestals. the genetic code of the marxist virus has spread to other vectors and it too wants no allegiance to anything but itself, a jealous “deity” that brooks no straying to other faiths.

But I also appreciated, *to an extent*, his evolutionary perspective on religion. He basically believes that the religions we have now are the result of a trial and error process of humans figuring out what worked. Now obviously Christians cannot follow such reasoning all the way, original Judaism and now Christianity were not, we believe, the result of a trial and error process.

But I do think there is still *something* there. Islam and Hinduism have endured, and we could add some modern heresies like Mormonism that have shown some staying power too. Many other cults (and we seem to prefer that word when they don’t last very long), whose names you would mostly not know, have not endured. Why not? Well I tend to think that, in order to endure, your religion must have a sufficiently sophisticated way of dealing with the complexities of human life. (And it must meet some other practical requirements as well - a religion that tells adherents to have lots of babies is going to do better than a religion that thinks matter is evil and tells you to have none.) Despite their multitude of faults and errors, Islam and Hinduism also offer that sophistication and so have endured, whereas forgotten cult X has not. (And incidentally he does also mention that, the fact that “evolutionary selectors” would seem to select for your religion doesn’t negate the possibility that it might also be objectively true. We should expect the truth to also work, after all.)

that led to a new kind of stories as such settling down required organization and organization requires a unification of belief structure around a set of tenets conducive to (internally) peaceful and productive cohabitation. lots of tribes tried it. some found beliefs that worked well and suited this purpose and those tribes thrived and their ideas spread and their prosperity and power stood seeming testament to the might of their gods and attracted new adherents seeking a bit more “civilization and plenty” as opposed to additional servings of “nasty, brutish, and short.” and when you find a system that works, you stick with it.

but you need to hold it together.

(And now we are losing that hold, he would say.)

And generally, I think Christians have to approach most good, non-Christian thinking in this way. Usually, we cannot follow the atheist/agnostic/whatever all the way, they are after all missing some of the most important facts known to man. But if it is good thinking, we can follow them some of the way, and gain some insights that perhaps our own team has missed or is scared to articulate.

One more link to his piece, here you go.