11.11.09
Homo Religiosus
Karen Armstrong begins chapter one of The Case for God with a description of caverns at Lascaux in the south of France. These and similar caves date back to the Paleolithic period, the earliest to 30,000 BCE, and contain frescoes and engravings which historians believe mark them as sanctuaries or sacred spaces. The artwork records a body of socially-constructed rituals.
If historians are correct in their speculations about the sacral function of these labyrinths then religion and art were (and have been) inseparable from the very beginning. Religion and art are means by which men and women, who are meaning-seeking creatures, find the meaning which is an antidote to despair. Religions and art help us find value and meaning in our lives.
Moreover, religion is not an afterthought, “something tacked on to the human condition…The transcendent may be the defining human characteristic.”
Men and women in the premodern period were more predisposed (naturally inclined) to religion and were more prepared to work at it. In our more modern rationalistic age the old myths are seen to be arbitrary, remote and incredible. We are unwilling to make space for the unknowable.
Armstrong devotes the rest of the chapter to an expositive discussion of “core principles” which she believes are indispensable to understanding the nature of the religious quest. I discuss these principles are in a follow-up post.
