For most
of human history, life has been a struggle – a struggle against predators,
against disease, against natural disasters, and against our fellow human beings
as we find ourselves all thrown together on a single planet, vying for limited
resources. In the words of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, life for the
many has been “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Foremost
among our ongoing challenges, however, and rising above all the others, is the
struggle against our own ignorance. Like newborn infants, naked and
helpless, humans have been thrust into this world without the benefit of any
instruction book to show us the way. It is only through patience and
ingenuity (and a fair amount of dumb luck) that we have managed to rise above
our brute animal nature to occasionally achieve something resembling peace and
civility. Obviously, we still have a long way to go, but if we as a
species hope to continue our stumbling progress towards a happier, healthier
future, we must acknowledge the various pitfalls and dead ends we’ve
encountered along the route, starting with those of the distant past.
To the
ancients, one of the most terrifying and inexplicable forces that they would
encounter on a regular basis came in the form of blinding shafts of energy
hurling down from the sky above, killing and setting fires indiscriminately –
a phenomenon we now call lightning. Having no ready basis upon
which to form a rational explanation for it, they instead let their imaginations
run wild and so attributed its power to a mighty, invisible sky king.
This makes a certain amount of sense; after all, if you’d watched your buddy
get killed by an enemy’s arrow, the cause was clear as day. To get hit by
a flaming arrow shot from a cloud would therefore seem to be the result of
having angered some sort of cosmic archer.
The
near-universality of this sentiment is striking. In addition to having a
“mother earth goddess” representing fertility and abundance (personified as Gaia by the ancient
Greeks, Ishtar
by the Babylonians, Pachamama
by those in the New World, and so on), nearly every ancient society had some
conception of a mighty “lord of the sky.” In the proto-Indo-European
language spoken by the ancestors of nearly everyone now inhabiting Europe, the
Middle East, and northern India, this god was called Dyeus Pitr – literally
“Sky Father.” This etymology is still present in the
names of numerous mythological figures and objects of religious worship,
ranging from the Roman god Jupiter
(a corruption of the Greek Zeus
pater) to the Germanic high god, Tiwaz
(the root of “Tuesday”), and persisting all the way to the present in the
French and Spanish words for “God” (Dieu
and Dios
respectively). It is from Dyeus
that we derive the words “deity” and “divine,” as well as theos, as in “theology” or
“theist.”
Luckily
for posterity, despite its ubiquity across time and cultures, not everyone from
the past was stuck in this simplistic, supernatural mindset. One of the
earliest records of a more scientific understanding of lightning can be found
in the writings of Lucretius, a Roman living in the first century BCE. As
a devout Epicurean and therefore, a philosophical materialist, he was convinced
that lightning was caused solely by the interactions of atoms, and he openly
mocked those who hid behind superstitious explanations. In his own words:
Here then
is a plain and intelligible account of the fiery thunderbolt and how it does
what it does. It is a fruitless task to unroll the Tuscan scrolls,
seeking some revelation of the god’s hidden purpose. That is no way to
study from which quarter the darting fire has come or into which other it has
passed…
Of
course, with the onset of the Dark Ages and Church hostility towards all things
scientific, his knowledge was largely forgotten until the arrival of the
Enlightenment and Benjamin Franklin’s famous (and insanely risky) experiment
with the kite and the key. Ironically, even in Franklin’s time, his bold
feat and its practical result – the widespread installation of lightning rods
on tall buildings around the country – was denounced by leading clerics for
being presumptuously irreverent towards God Almighty and an infringement upon his
divine power.
Today,
we’ve come to realize that lightning is a purely natural phenomenon – a
discharge of static electricity caused by the interaction of ions in the
atmosphere (an explanation remarkably similar to that proposed by Lucretius
over two thousand years ago). That’s not to say that we yet fully
understand all aspects of how lightning is formed, but we at least have a solid
grasp over how it’s not
formed; namely, by angry anthropomorphic deities hiding in storm clouds.
Despite
this modern understanding however, the irrational fear of lightning, called astraphobia (from the Sanskrit word
for “weapon” in reference to the lightning bolts wielded by the Indian sky god,
Indra), is still the third most prevalent phobia in the U.S., exceeded only by
the fear of heights and of course, fear of “Sky Father” himself. As the
Bible repeatedly reminds us; “thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your
God” – a god who reveals himself as “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud
upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud” as he “talked with
you from heaven.” (Leviticus 25:17, Exodus 19:16 and 20:22)
Less
dramatic than celestial fireworks but far more devastating to humanity is
disease. Diseases have plagued life on Earth for almost as long as life
has existed, at least since the first appearance of multicellular
organisms just over two billion years ago. Evidence of our past
brushes with epidemics can still be found in the form of vestigial segments of
virus genetic code embedded within our DNA, and disease remains the number one cause of
death for humans overall.
As was
the case with lightning, the ancients were utterly dumbfounded as to the cause
of disease. Remember, the concept of preventing infection by applying
antiseptic to wounds and before surgery was only developed about a hundred and
fifty years ago; antibiotics weren’t available as medicine until shortly before
the Second World War; and the science of nutrition is still in its infancy, as
evidenced by America’s worsening obesity crisis.
In almost
every culture on the planet, the search for an explanation of the cause of
illness eventually led to the idea that diseases were the result of
interference by evil spirits. This isn’t actually as ridiculous as it may
sound, especially considering that the modern germ theory of disease similarly
relies on the existence of malicious entities invisible to the naked eye.
The basic idea of spirits is rooted in a sort of folk biology. For
ancient people, having noticed that the most obvious difference between a living
creature and an inanimate object is the fact that living things breathe, it was
a short mental leap to equating breath with a mysterious “essence of
life.” You see this in many myths about our origins, where some god
fashions a figure out of wood or clay and then breathes into, thus imbuing it
with the life force or spirit.
Further
clues to the psychology underlying such beliefs can be found by studying the
evolution of language. The word “spirit,” for example, comes from the
Latin word for “breath,” as is still apparent in the word “respiration.”
By extension, it was believed that someone who had been filled with the Holy
Spirit was “inspired,” while to aim for greatness is to “aspire;” and when you
die, you’re said to have “expired.” In this same vein, it’s interesting
to note that in its original Greek and Aramaic, the
Bible never explicitly mentions the words “spirit,” “ghost,” or “soul” in the
way most people are used to seeing them. Instead, it uses various words
for “breath” or “wind” which are then rendered more poetically when translated
into Latin and again into English (a fact which can lead to quite a different
interpretation of scriptural meaning than that taught in Sunday school).
This
concept of airy, immaterial life forces is thus deeply rooted in human
culture. In many ancient societies, it found expression as animism, an
early form of religious belief in which every object in one’s surroundings is thought
to be possessed of its own spirit, thereby lending sacredness to every rock and
stream, every tree and every gust of wind. For adherents of such notions,
it was generally believed that some of these spirits were kind and benevolent
and should be honored with shrines and offerings to obtain their blessing,
while others were cruel and malevolent and had to be placated or held at bay
with chants, charms, potions, and rituals.
Applying
this idea to illness, it was believed by many primitive people that all
disease, whether mental or physical, was the direct result of such evil spirits
inhabiting the body. Among European cultures, this gave rise to the
practice of exorcisms and persecution of “witches.” To this day, when we
say “God bless you” after a
sneeze it’s linked to the widespread medieval belief that sneezing momentarily
exposes your soul to invasion by lurking demons. In other places, such
beliefs provided justification for the practices of tribal shamans which,
contrary to skeptical expectations, can at times actually be highly effective
for treating certain ailments due to the power of the placebo effect as
famously documented by ethnographer Franz Boas in the case of the Kwakiutl
shaman, Quesalid.
As for
most diseases caused by microbes or by the body’s own cells however, except for
plant based treatments (some of which modern medicine is only now beginning to
rediscover) as well as certain Ayurvedic and acupuncture techniques that have
been successfully practiced in the East for millennia, the vast majority of
remedies early people employed were utterly futile and left them helpless
against the onslaught of disease-causing pathogens. Not only were such
methods as prayer and dancing, the wearing of totems, or the reciting of magic
spells completely useless, but often times they could be outright deadly if
used in place of more effective treatments. To this day in parts of
Africa, there are sects who have rejected Western medicine as evil, and so refuse vaccination (greatly
hindering efforts to eradicate diseases like measles and polio) while others
believe the only way to cure AIDS is to rape a young virgin.
Foolishness, it would seem, is the most widespread and stubborn of all human
afflictions. Which brings us back to our own present situation.
As
citizens of technologically advanced societies living in the modern age, we
have many things to be both proud of and thankful for. We’re able to reap
the benefits of countless discoveries and numerous technical innovations which
directly contribute to our comfort and wellbeing. That said, we also have
many serious challenges remaining, some of which put our very survival at
risk. By far the best method we’ve ever devised for solving such
challenges is science. And yet, infuriatingly, the biggest impediment to
its advancement is not the inherent complexity of nature but rather the
vestiges of the same primitive misconceptions that brought us spirits and Sky
Father, still weighing us down in the form of dogmatic, faith-based religion.
The Bible
was written in a time when people believed the Earth was flat and the sun
revolved around it. They believed that natural disasters were signs of
God’s wrath and that diseases were the result of demonic possession. We
see this demonstrated again and again such as when, on Joshua’s command, “the
sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole
day,” (Joshua 10:13) or when the Devil brought Jesus “up into an exceeding high
mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world,” (Matthew 4:8) or when
Jesus was brought “many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the
spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick.” (Matthew 8:16) The
list goes on and on.
Every one
of these beliefs has now been demonstrated to be patently untrue and hopelessly
misguided. Science has led us out of the abyss of ignorance and into the
light. But as long as people keep turning to outdated texts brimming with
absurdities for their guidance on important issues; as long as they continue to
disparage the incredible phenomenon known as consciousness by conflating it
with magical, invisible agents inhabiting their bodies through what they call
“spirituality,” we will remain as powerless against the challenges we face as
the ancients were while offering burnt sacrifices upon the altar.
Every
hypocrite who denies evolution, yet clamors for stronger antibiotics when their
infection won’t heal because the bacteria have evolved to become
resistant; everyone who opposes the teaching of science and critical thinking
skills yet is happy to watch TV, talk on their cell phone, use the
Internet, or fly in an airplane needs to seriously reexamine their
worldview. It’s not fair to discount science and yet gorge on its
fruits. It’s not fair to despise its methodology yet demand it solve all
our problems when irrational methods fail (as they so often do).
Instead
of wallowing in inherited ignorance, let us embrace the power of our incredible
minds and work together to continue moving forward toward the bright horizon of
possibility. Let’s leave fearful superstition where it belongs – a relic
of the distant past that we can read about in history books and be proud to
have moved beyond!
Colby
Hess is a freelance writer and photographer living near Seattle, WA. He
is currently writing a book about science, philosophy, and freethought.
Follow him on Twitter @ColbyTHess
Originally published as:
“Lightning
& Disease: A Primitive Thought System Overturned” on July 17, 2012 by Disinformation > http://www.disinfo.com/2012/07/lightning-disease-a-primitive-thought-system-overturned/
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