In “Death and Deification: Folk Cults in Hinduism,” Stuart Blackburn addresses this concern and notes it is not limited to high-caste and literate Brahmins:

As a source of Indian religious thought, death is probably unsurpassed; no matter which historical period or cultural level one chooses to examine, concepts lead to or from the problems it presents. Beneath their cosmic purposes, Vedic sacrifices were designed to ward off death temporarily and attain a full life span for men….And even the process of samsira, the foundation of Indian thought, was first understood not as a rebirth but as continual “redeath” (punarmrtyu).

In the social world, if purity and impurity have anything to do with the way Hindus perceive and organize it, death is all the more central because it is the single most polluting human experience. And even if the pure/impure dichotomy is not the organizing principle of Hindu life, an opposition between death and life may be; this is the conclusion of several important studies of Sanskrit ritual and literary texts, and one confirmed by my own work with an oral tradition…[T]he popular streams of Hinduism, no less than the high-status ones, are centered on death.

Blackburn is not alone in his assessment. In The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology, renowned Indologist Wendy Doniger comments: “Much — some might even say all — of Indian religion is dedicated to the attempt to achieve immortality in one form or another.”

What is up with all this death obsession? Some, such as Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death, claim that humans are universally obsessed with death and all of life is governed by our attempts to deny or thwart it. Although Becker was a cultural anthropologist, he apparently did not read much ethnography or ethnohistory. Had Becker done so (and not immersed himself in existential psychoanalysis), he would know that death obsessions are not a human universal.

We are fortunate to have a substantial ethnohistoric and ethnographic record of hunter-gatherers. Although large portions of this record remain unpublished and languish in archives, anyone who has spent much time with this record knows that hunter-gatherers do not devote much time, energy, or thought to the fact of death and death’s supernatural concomitants: afterlife and/or rebirth.

There are reasons why late Neolithic and Axial religions are so concerned with death and are sometimes characterized as “world rejecting.” There likewise are reasons why hunter-gatherers are not so concerned and their “religions” (or more aptly, supernaturalism) are characterized as “world affirming.” I have several reasons in mind but am interested in your thoughts. Any ideas?

Reference:

Blackburn, Stuart H. (1985). Death and Deification: Folk Cults in Hinduism History of Religions, 24 (3), 255-274

Brown then asks a series of nonsensical questions which imply that because Neanderthal brains were different from human brains (Neanderthals in fact had bigger brains than humans; the difference is in shape), a cloned Neanderthal would have different supernatural beliefs:

What religion would these creatures have? We know that Neanderthals had rituals, and presumably beliefs, around death. These are lost forever. Should they be replaced? If Neanderthals are enough like us to bury their dead, they will make mythologies with or without our help. What should those be? If two separate countries or cultures cloned two different Neanderthal cultures, would each regard the other as heretics?

While it is true that brains capable of symbolic thinking and language fluency will naturally generate supernatural concepts, the particulars of these ideas are not imprinted on the brain or dependent on it. Brains don’t have ritual or myth modules.

Religions are social constructions. Individuals do not spontaneously create particular kinds of belief. Brains may be naturally wired and primed for religion, but the content of such belief is never predetermined.

The cloned Neanderthal’s cultural environment will determine what s/he believes. If the cloned Neanderthal is raised in Oxford, s/he will probably have Anglican beliefs. If the cloned Neanderthal is raised in the bible belt of America, s/he will probably have Protestant evangelical beliefs. If the cloned Neanderthal is raised in Saudi Arabia, s/he will probably have Muslim beliefs. If the cloned Neanderthal is raised in India, s/he will probably have Hindu beliefs. If the cloned Neanderthal is raised in Thailand, s/he will probably have Buddhist beliefs.

And if Richard Dawkins raises our cloned Neanderthal, s/he will probably think all such beliefs are ridiculous.

As for one cloned Neanderthal regarding another cloned Neanderthal as a heretic, this kind of belief is mostly limited to exclusivist forms of monotheism. So if we had a cloned Neanderthal who was raised Catholic and another raised Sunni, they might regard one another as heretics.

If Neanderthals had anything like religion, it surely would have been similar to the shamanic practices of Upper Paleolithic humans. Because shamanic supernaturalism is pluralist and not exclusivist, the concept of heresy would not have existed.

Despite its new-agey western construction as the font of ahimsa, we are again reminded that Hindu tradition sanctifies caste and the perversion of untouchability. Hitchens astutely observes that these kinds of contradictions are to be expected when all that supposedly exists is cleaved with a Cartesian binary:

[This] was always latent in Gandhism: a highly dubious employment of the mind-body distinction. For him, the material and physical world was gross and polluting and selfish, while all that pertained to the “soul” was axiomatically ideal and altruistic….This false antithesis is the basis for all religious fundamentalism, even as its deliberate indifference permits and even encourages sharp deterioration in the world of “real” conditions.

The separation of mind from matter and body from soul is not merely a Western fallacy or Vedic fantasy. It is a widespread idea, found among most peoples across time and space. Whence cometh the soul?

This is a weighty question and The Simpsons have answers.

Using Homer’s Soul as their humorous foil, psychologists Paul Bloom and David Pizarro examine mind-body dualism and metaphysics:

[S]olving the mind-body problem remains a major preoccupation of both psychologists and philosophers; no science of the mind can be complete without it.

What does The Simpsons have to say about this issue? Most likely, absolutely nothing. The Simpsons is a fine television show, but it’s not where to look for innovative ideas in cognitive neuroscience or the philosophy of mind. We think, however, that it can help give us insight into a related, and extremely important, issue.

We might learn through this show something about common-sense metaphysics, about how people naturally think about consciousness, the brain and the soul.

As it turns out, The Simpsons illuminate these issues in all sorts of revealing ways. Homer’s Soul is the perfect teaching tool for a generation raised on the (dualist) philosophy of D’oh.

Heaven is for Real currently occupies the number one slot on the New York Times bestseller list and is Amazon’s number one seller. As of today, 1.5 million copies are in print but with a heavy promotional tour underway, expect that figure to go much higher. The book retails for $16.99.

Covering the story for the New York Times, Julie Bosman interviewed Colton’s father, who attempted to deflect any suspicions that money was the motive: “People say we just did this to make money, and it’s not the truth,” Mr. Burpo said, referring to anonymous online comments about the book. “We were expecting nothing. We were just hoping the publisher would break even.”

Before you begin thinking this was a homespun effort, with Colton patiently telling his dad all about heaven while the pastor faithfully transcribed, think again. The book’s “co-author” is the high-powered Lynn Vincent, author of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. Vincent does not sign on for just any book and does not work for charity. She is a writer of great skill who knows how to push all the right buttons for a Christian audience. This one appears to be a home run.

What are to make of all this? Besides the obvious (American Christians are a credulous lot), we have to wonder about Colton and his father. They seem like good people and I will give them the benefit of the doubt: they probably believe what they are saying. The question then becomes: How can this be? It would be a mistake to underestimate our evolved powers of self-deception, especially when coupled with a brain-mind that naturally generates beliefs in the supernatural and strong cultural support for such beliefs.

We can find some additional clues by watching this astonishing interview:

“Wow!” That is Gretchen Carlson, a Stanford degree holder who is clearly smitten by Colton’s story. Because Colton’s parents are both pastors, we know that in the seven years since his surgery he has been hearing stories about God, Jesus, John the Baptist, and Heaven. Some of these sound a bit familiar.

What is God like? He’s really big and can “fit the entire world in his hands.” I wonder where Colton got this idea? What about Jesus? Despite his non-European heritage, he has “sea blue eyes.” Hopefully, Razib over at Gene Expression will give us a rundown on this remote possibility. What about people? Everyone is “young again” and can fly — wings are apparently given out on arrival. Angel races anyone?

Here is the rub in all this: Why is it that when Hindus have near death experiences (NDE), they meet Krishna or Vishnu in an ornate temple? Why is it that when Buddhists have an NDE, they meet Buddha under a tree? Why is it that when Muslims have an NDE, they meet Mohammad in the garden of virgins? Why is it that when Crow Indians had one, they visited the happy hunting grounds?

There must be different kinds of afterlives and heavens for different kinds of faiths.

Although Maridjan’s supplications appeared to have been successful in 2006, they seem to have failed this week.  He certainly had courage behind his spiritual convictions, which are described as “Islam Kejawen, traditional undogmatic Javanese Islam suffused with animism.”

The BBC’s story provides some additional detail:

For years Maridjan had led ceremonies at the volcano, dispersing rice or flowers in or around the crater in an effort to appease spirits. If there were to be an eruption, many villagers believed Maridjan would be warned in a vision.

Local beliefs are a mix of Islam, Indonesia’s most predominant religion, and those dating from the island’s Hindu-Buddhist period. One tradition is the annual Labuhan ceremony, an auspicious event where the palace makes offerings to spirits, including the Goddess of the South Sea, Kanjeng Ratu Kidul. It was Maridjan who helped ensure such rituals were upheld.

There is something truly poignant about this story, which I think may have something to do with Maridjan’s non-dogmatic and syncretic spiritualism, which is fairly typical of Southeast Asia.

As I have emphasized again and again in this blog, there is no singular Islam or Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism.  No faith tradition is unified and there is no “correct” or “authentic” version.

One of the falsehoods about “Islam” (which is an empty category) that Boaz attempted to correct was this:  “Misconception 2: Islam calls for the oppression of women.”

While in Boaz’ version of Islam this may be a misconception, it is not so in others.  While I pointed out the problems with Boaz’ argument using words, this picture is a more powerful rebuttal:

This woman’s name is Aisha and she lives in Afghanistan.  She recently appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and this additional photo was taken by a Time photographer.

Her marriage was arranged according to Islamic custom, and after being abused by her husband and in laws, she ran away.  She was, in her words, “treated like a slave.”  Upon being re-captured, she was punished by the Taliban, her husband, and in-laws according to their reading of Islam and sharia law.

This gruesome punishment consisted of having her ears and nose cut-off.  She was left for dead (which would have occurred slowly through loss of blood) but found by US soldiers, treated, and now lives in a safehouse.

Again, this is not the sort of thing I enjoy pointing out because it adds to the mass hysteria and ignorance that most Americans have regarding the imaginary thing they call “Islam.”  But I feel compelled to point this out because the educated and progressive left, in their efforts to minimize the hysteria and ameliorate the ignorance, often go too far: they fail to see that Islam is many different things to many different people.

Like all religious traditions, Islam is hydra headed.   In some versions, the religiously inspired practices are positively heinous and the oppression of women — which may include torture or murder — is perfectly acceptable.  Several versions of Vedic faiths sanction similar treatments of women.

Would Boaz look at this picture, consider Aisha’s story, and conclude that the Taliban’s version of Islam is wrong, false, incorrect, or inauthentic?  If so, I suggest that she read Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory or Stanley Fish’s Is There a Text in This Class?, and then get back to us with a revised essay on the many faces of Islam.

Postscript — I just visited Missives from Marx and one of my favorite bloggers has a different and important take on Aisha’s picture and the accompanying cover story.  I completely agree with his comments, and my blog post in no way addresses Time’s article or the political-power interests that story may serve.  In addition, all this interest in a photograph attests to the power of images.

Nearly 5,500 years ago or about 3,500 BCE, the Sumerians began writing about supernatural matters; in a sense, this marks the origin of what most people today understand as “religion.”  This relatively modern and provincially Western understanding of religion is on full display in Paul Raushenbush’s article introducing HuffPo Religion’s new series on religious texts and scripture commentaries.

It is apparent right from the beginning that Raushenbush privileges texts and that his (Christian) understanding of religion is grounded in the written word:

On Sunday I attended an early-morning ecumenical Christian service on the beach in Cape Cod. The minister introduced the scripture passage by saying that she was reading the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in Luke instead of Matthew because it is thought to be the more original version. She finished the scripture passage by saying the traditional words: “The Word of God.” This anecdote illuminates the central yet complex role of scripture in religious communities. The minister was reminding us simultaneously that sacred texts such as the Christian Gospel are complicated, even while affirming scripture to be essential to our spiritual experience, ethical wisdom and faith in the Divine.

Here we have the classic Western understanding of “religion” that derives almost entirely from two sources: (1) Christianity, which emphasizes texts, scriptures and writing; and (2) a long academic tradition — grounded in the Christian understanding of religion — which assumes that the study of other faiths or traditions is best accomplished by looking to texts, scriptures and writing.

As Jonathan Z. Smith and many other scholars (including Edward Said) have noted, using Christian assumptions and methods to categorize and study other spiritual traditions — most of which do not place primacy on texts, scriptures, and writings — is a dubious enterprise.  It may come as a surprise to many, but the collection, compilation, and study of ancient Vedic and Buddhist texts was largely a Western academic enterprise grounded in the Christian assumption that religions consist of writings.  How did this happen?

With the help of isolated, scholarly monastics in the East who collected and studied texts largely unknown to the practicing masses, Western orientalist and religious scholars constructed a textual Buddhism and Hinduism that could be slotted into an historical and scholarly category called “religion.”  Once fitted into this category, these essentialized and textualized faith traditions could then be scrutinized in the same manner that theologians have been studying Christianity for nearly two millenia.

Although Raushenbush mentions indigenous, non-written spiritual traditions in passing, it is clear that he considers them unimportant in comparison to religions enshrined in writing:

Most religions, either from inception or along the way, produce written texts to which followers turn for worldview, strictures, and wisdom for living life. It is our relationship to these texts that makes them sacred, or scripture. By calling a text or texts “scripture,” we are saying that the text has a special relationship not only to us personally, and to our community, but also to the Divine or Truth.

Scripture differs among religious traditions. Hinduism, for example, has central texts that have been elevated, such as the Bhagavad Gita, but there is no single canon agreed upon by all adherents. Indigenous religions may have written texts, but the power of the sacred story is still in the oral tradition of passing them from one generation to the next. Other traditions, especially the tellingly named “religions of the book” — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — have written texts that have themselves become imbued with divinity; this might especially be said about the Qur’an. Understanding the complex relationship between a religious tradition and its sacred text is foundational to understanding the tradition itself.

That being said, religious scripture has been the world’s most influential cultural guardian and transmitter of aesthetic vision, existential wisdom, ethical instruction, and knowledge of God, what the theologian Tillich described as Ultimate Concerns. Scripture endures because billions of people from different religious traditions have looked to it and found comfort in times of hardship, wisdom in times of confusion, ethics in times of selfishness, beauty among shadows, and faith in times of doubt.

Humans have been engaging with the supernatural for perhaps 100,000 years or longer; we have fairly good evidence of this engagement beginning approximately 40,000 years ago.  This engagement — which was not uniform, not written, and not doctrinal — consisted (and in some places still consists) of a hugely diverse set of beliefs, understandings, and practices loosely grouped under the concept of shamanisms.  These are what the anthropologist and scholar of religion Harvey Whitehouse would call “imagistic” traditions, which he contrasts with “doctrinal” or written traditions.

What Raushenbush suggests in his article is that imagistic and shamanist traditions — which have existed far longer and been practiced more widely than any written traditions — are mere prelude; they serve only as background to religion understood through texts, scriptures and writings.

This is a rather cramped understanding of the supernatural and religious, and it requires one to accept that the transcendent — if it exists and can be understood or experienced, will come through reading and interpreting texts.  There will be many, deeply aware of history and non-written traditions, who will reject this requirement and the parochial assumptions embedded within it.

Most share the same description: accelerated thought processes, peacefulness, joy, and encounters with mystical entities or deceased persons. NDEs have features associated with the phenomenon of dissociation — a psychiatric disorder in which a person’s identity becomes disconnected from bodily sensation. However, most people who report NDEs do not have a pathological mechanism contributing to the psychiatric condition.

It appears that these experiences may be triggered by high carbon dioxide levels in the brain, which in turn has marked effects on conscious functioning:

NDEs were more common in patients with higher levels of carbon dioxide on admission to the hospital. The connection with carbon dioxide suggests that NDEs might be associated with changes in the acid-base equilibrium of the brain. Previous studies have proved that changes in the brain’s equilibrium can trigger visions of bright lights and out-of-body experiences. Inhaled carbon dioxide has been studied as a psychotherapeutic agent and caused NDE-like experiences.

Gibson concludes by suggesting that NDEs may be manifestations of the supernatural:

Many believe that NDEs are proof that humans are more than just a collection of cells and neural processes and that humans have a soul or level of consciousness that is separate from the physical body. But, have the researchers in the current study debunked that theory in explaining NDEs with scientific details?

The studies that Gibson reports may not answer this question, but in a comprehensive survey of NDE studies titled “The Near Death Experience,” Glenn Roberts and John Owen observe that the specifics of NDEs often correspond to a person’s particular religious beliefs:

Schoerer (1985) presented two historical accounts of core NDEs in American Indians where the dominant imagery is of moccasins, snakes, eagles, bows, and arrows.  [Asian] Indians have NDEs in which they are characteristically sent back to live because of a seeming bureaucratic mistake having been made in the after-life, and many encounter Yamraj, the Hindu king of the dead, and the Yamdoots, his messengers.

In one large and systematic cross-cultural study of 442 Americans and 435 Asian Indians who had NDEs, 140 people reported seeing religious figures; “where these [figures] were specifically identified, they were always named according to a person’s religious beliefs; no Hindu reported seeing Jesus, and no Christian reported seeing a Hindu deity.”

A person’s previously held religious beliefs, in other words, pattern the nature of the NDE, a fact which prompted Roberts and Owen to observe:

This supports the view of many authors that, whereas the central features the NDE are universally present [due to pan-human biological and neural systems], the specific imagery and interpretation is determined by the cultural expectations and beliefs of the individual.

Thus, a Muslim who has a near death experience might see Muhammad; a Buddhist may see Siddhartha; a Christian might see Jesus or an angel; a Hindu may see Krishna or Vishnu; a Lakota might see Wakan Tanka, and so on.  This patterning strongly suggests that NDEs are a matter of consciousness and not metaphysics.

In his classic article “Constructions of Hinduism at the Nexus of History and Religion,” Robert Frykenberg (1993) notes that this category is recent and has a specific origin:  “Hinduism as a single religion, which with the coming Swami Narendrath Datta Vivekananda to the First World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, was gradually recognized and then elevated by liberally minded and eclectic Western clerics into the rank of a world religion.”  Frykenberg, along with many other scholars, contends that “Hinduism was constructed, invented, or imagined by British scholars and colonial administrators in the nineteenth century and did not exist, in any meaningful sense, before this date” (Lorenzen 1999:630).

This imperial construction lead to an understanding of Hinduism that remains with us today:

This codification of an “official” or establishment Hinduism as a conceptual framework is one of the most remarkable legacies of the [British imperial administration].  The idea that “Hinduism” was a single and ancient religion gradually spread and solidified, becoming dominant and pervasive.  In so doing, it created and perpetuated two accompanying myths.  Both of these myths were expedient, if not essential, to the continued political integration of India (under the Raj); and both are no less expedient for the same political ends today.

First, and above all else, was the belief that Hinduism is a benign, “inclusivistic,” and singular religion, epitomizing all that is eclectic, syncretistic, and tolerant in human behavior, doctrine, and ritual; second was the belief that Hinduism, as the religion of India, represents (and hence should command allegiance from) the majority of India’s (if not all of South Asia’s) peoples.

The history (and current status) of hinduisms is of course far messier than this story suggests.  This, however, was the starting point for the importation of Hinduism to the West, where it underwent additional transformations — all designed specifically to appeal to Western sensibilities and make Hinduism more palatable for Western consumption.  These sensibilities are evident throughout Golderg’s article, in which he contends that Hinduism is akin to a science of consciousness and is a form of psychology.

What all this ignores — but is evident to any observer of “on the ground hinduisms” as practiced in India today — is that official or Westernized constructions of the many traditions that are flattened together as “Hinduism” captures little of the intensely theistic, ritualistic, and exclusivist aspects of Vedic beliefs.  Whatever Hinduism might be, it involves far more than yoga, meditation, consciousness, and energy — those selected aspects of the faith that can be packaged and sold to Westerners (for a profit, and as science friendly).

None of this is to suggest there is not a Hindu religious tradition that has ancient roots and which revolves around various and diverse texts, rituals, gods, and beliefs.  In “Who Invented Hinduism,” David Lorenzen (1999) makes a persuasive case for such a tradition and details its history.  It is to suggest, however, that what is conceived as “Hinduism” in the West differs significantly from beliefs (and practices) in the East, which have little in common with science.

Aztec archaeologists can almost taste the jack pot. None of the empire’s royal burial sites have ever been found, but researchers participating in the Templo Mayor excavation project in downtown Mexico City think an emperor’s tomb is just around the corner.

In 2006, researchers discovered a 4-meter (13-foot) long carving of Tlaltecuhtli, the Aztec earth goddess. Since then, further digging has revealed bizarre offerings that archaeologists believe indicate the presence of a near by royal burial.

Tlaltecuhtli was one of the most feared deities. She represented life and nurturing, as well as death. Stories recount her insatiable appetite for blood and the large, unearthed carving depicts a stream of blood rushing out of her mouth.

Why does the discovery of artifacts related to the Aztec earth goddess suggest that royalty is nearby?  Because Aztec rulers associated themselves with deities or claimed to be deities.  This reinforced the stratified social order and clearly attests to the long relationship between organized religion and political power.

Few places have a more stratified social order than India, where religion and caste go hand in hand.  Reuters reports that so-called “honor killings” are on the rise:

Three men were arrested by Delhi police this week for “honour killings” days after the Supreme Court asked eight Indian states to stop these so-called “honour” killings, where family members, typically men, kill daughters and their husbands for apparently bringing dishonour to the family by marrying below their caste.

The killings, in a posh neighbourhood in Delhi, brought the tragic and shameful story of honour killings closer home to Delhi residents, who had so far dismissed the rising instances of these killings as a feature of rural India, equating them to a more traditional and conservative India they claim not to inhabit.

In a country where a majority of youngsters still have marriages “arranged” by their parents, caste and religion dominate matrimonial conversations.

Caste — which Indian religion mystifies and justifies as the proper spiritual order — serves the earthly economic and political interests of the higher classes.  Another instance of elites using religion to maintain power.