Lesson for the Week (Esoteric Nonsense to Impress Your Friends With)

Eschatology (es-kuh-tol-uh-jee): Any doctrines or system of belief that deals with final matters such as mortality, second comings, heaven/hell, etc. Nearly every religious system, more so than any other system, deals if  not directly than in some fashion with the most pressing psychological problem that all homo sapiens sapiens experience: their own mortality. In fact, one could plausibly argue that as our brains grew bigger (an evolutionary process that appears to have stopped around 50,000 years ago meaning that our ancestors from that period on had the same cognitive functions as us), we became increasingly aware of our own mortality as well as our significant others' mortality. This is a frightening thought. Dogs and cats, for example, appear to "know" at the very end. They find a quiet place to pass on.


Humans, though, from a young age become cognizant of their impending fate when grandma or great-grandpa die; a younger sibling dies and everyone else reacts intensely; or a family pet dies. From there, the detached intellectual questions emerge: what is death? where do they go? An astute child may pose the eschatological question: what happens when we die and why do we have to die? Bam! Religion emerges because there are no natural answers to this question that satisfy. Cancer, for example, is a reason why we die, but not an explanation of why we have to die. The supranatural or transmundane world, filled with spirits we can exchange earthly goods with for things like immortality and salvation become real dealings. That is, just like you want to get a can of beans, you go to the supermarket and transfer monies for beans, when you want something intangible, or otherwise difficult to procure given the society's current state of technological advance, you must find a much more powerful partner. 


This simple axiom, presents us with a key process of religious change...and, especially, changes in eschatological thought. As humans settle down (12,000 to 10,000 before the present...B.P.) for good, they innovate more and more to deal with concrete problems like resource scarcity compounded by population increase. Hence the steady move towards intensifying agriculture through the plow and the use of animal-power. In the process, the things people sought from the supranatural change as well, and consequentially, so do the doctrines concerning the end. For example, the more science or proto-science does in terms of controlling the environment, the more religion recedes from the mundane problems of subsistence and shifts its focus to things like death, meaning/purpose, and salvation (not simply the Christian version...). Religious intellectual (and that is by no means oxymoronic) efforts are transferred from predicting floods or rain to matters of the soul. It is hard to convince people, as a priest or rabbi, you offer them anything useful if scientists or other non-religious role-players offer you the something with a higher "success" ratio. Thus, we turn to matters of eschatology, the one frontier of the human world and psyche seemingly impenetrable by other institutions.


Will religion disappear? Some who read this page are likely anti-religion, and I profess to not be for or against you. Religion, in itself, is a fascinating subject on many planes to me. What I can same, beyond a doubt, is religion will never disappear because of eschaological and soteriological (suh-teer-ee-ol-uh-jee) doctrines. (Soteriology are doctrines concerning the actual process of salvation. Whether it is escaping the rebirth cycle of karma-samsara in Buddhist, Hindu, or Jainist doctrine, passing on to the Kingdom of Heaven in Christianity, or reuniting with the "One," it all pertains to the release from suffering however a religion defines it.) Thus, I can tell you why your child died in a car accident (drunk), how they died (they fractured their skull and the steering wheel produced internal bleeding), but I cannot tell you why they were taken at a young age, why good people have to suffer while evil people seem to do fine, and what it all means. Religions can. The ultimate questions in life are unapproachable by science, because a true evolutionist must believe that (a) evolution has no direction...it is random; (b) human life is improbable; and (c) there is no telic (ultimate goal) for the human race...we socially construct meaning as we see fit. Not very comforting, huh?