Dear Ipso Fatso,

You have made a faulty analogy. Animals of related species may have quite difficult social structures. Eg. Tigers are solitary animals getting together only to mate. Lions are social animals.

Human animals exhibit both tendencies and neither. Some humans are neither leaders nor followers. Muhammed Ali is an example. He stood alone in his opposition to service in the Vietnamese War. Although he was both admired and reviled he did not attract followers.

Some species have designated roles in which individuals neither lead nor follow. The queen in a bee hive is a breeding machine. She neither rules nor follows. She is brought food and produces eggs which are carried away by other bees in their roles as carers for the young. The beeswax is produced by glands in the body of worker bees. The worker fills different roles determined the age of the bee.

I believe that David Hume was correct when he said, “Reason is the slave of the passions.” We are driven to do things by our instincts for warmth, food, sex and other urges. Then, if we are intellectual animals, we find justification for doing what we have done.

We live in a world dominated to a large part by science. Science does not deal in truth. It deals in provisional explanations. Newton’s laws of motion were adequate to describe the movement of bodies in his world. However, Einstein became aware that space and time were not independent entities, and Newton’s laws did not adequately describe motions approaching the speed of light.

Rather than truth science deals with the best explanation for phenomena we have at a particular time. With new information the explanation may be inadequate.

I believe we must discard the myths created by religion if we are to live a rational existence. However, I also believe that of the customs created by religion and other traditions serve us well in giving us guidelines in how to live with our fellows.

Science which gives us the insight to doubt and ask questions gives us the ability to change with changing circumstances

It is inappropriate to respond directly to another contributor?
Entering in to dialogue in that way is not the intention of online opinion?
So I will just say: To Whom It May Concern....

I have to advise you that I see my 'explanation' as being the better. ^_^

Admittedly it has gaps.
That is a practical thing.
I cannot write on forever and ever.
Instead, I try to provide a framework of ideas.
I rely on the reader to join the dots as it were.
Like in a movie, where action betweens scenes needs to be imagined.

It seems to me that people can be both followers and leaders at different times.
Some are almost forced by circumstance to assume leadership.
These are persons who give benefit to those they lead.
Some persons just want to be seen as leader.
The effect they have on those they lead is of no consequence to them.
How they appear to other world leaders is what matters.
We have obvious and clear examples of both types in eastern europe right now.

So the idea of leaders and followers is valid, even if not universal.
The need to follow the leader, combined with fear and superstition, has allowed 'religious' leaders to flourish throughout history.
During this time, stories have been told which are clearly fictional.
There are other stories which are more likely than not to be true.
Better to base our life's principles on the latter?
With suitable healthy reservation of course.
And the people around me continue to surprise me.
Even here on Online Opinion.
And that is the truth.

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Dear diver dan,

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You wrote :

« Well, transpose the term right and wrong with the terns good and evil. Where does conscience fit most comfortably? With the latter I would suggest.

And what better fits with the latter, is personal responsibility; and what better makes personal responsibility fit with the latter, is religious dogma »
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That’s an interesting chain of thought, diver dan, but, as I see it, things are a little more complex than that.

According to an anthropological article published in Nature on 27 Aug 2014 :

« Compared with other primates, including the other great apes, humans show extremely intensive cooperation, which is increasingly recognized as being ultimately responsible for our unusual cognition, morality, and cumulative culture and technology. A variety of mechanisms underlie this unusual level of cooperation. High social tolerance and reactive prosociality, as shown in empathy-based targeted helping where individuals respond to signs and signals of need by others, are clearly important »

Also in his article on Biological Altruism for the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (winter, 2009 edition), Samir Okasha indicates:

"Altruistic behaviour is common throughout the animal kingdom, particularly in species with complex social structures. For example, vampire bats regularly regurgitate blood and donate it to other members of their group who have failed to feed that night, ensuring they do not starve. In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives help in raising its young from other ‘helper’ birds, who protect the nest from predators and help to feed the fledglings. Vervet monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. In social insect colonies (ants, wasps, bees and termites), sterile workers devote their whole lives to caring for the queen, constructing and protecting the nest, foraging for food, and tending the larvae.

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Such behaviour is maximally altruistic: sterile workers obviously do not leave any offspring of their own — so have personal fitness of zero — but their actions greatly assist the reproductive efforts of the queen".

And as for religious dogma regarding morality, the Encyclopedia Britannica informs us that the Golden Rule precept that is the fundamental ethical principle of Christianity figures in the Analects of Confucius (6th and 5th centuries BC), and also appears in one form or another in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Seneca »

All this duly considered, I am inclined to conclude that conscience defined as the mental process that controls and inhibits our actions and feelings towards others is just as much, if not more, innate than acquired. – whether by religion or any other source of outside influence.

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Leadership. Leaders rarely if ever, chose that role, but have it thrust on them. Others become leaders by being consistent and true to their values and the almighty irrefutable truth.

There's a story that goes, a long time ago a little Swiss lad was minding his father's flock, when a gipsy caravan pulled up and asked for directions. Then they invited themselves to the campfire where they plied the boy with many sweetmeats. When the boy awoke, he found himself bound and gagged in the back of a wagon enroute to a Middle east slave market where he was sold.

Years went by and he gained the affection and trust of a benign master. tome went by until one day there was some sort of emergency. The master who could not attend instead entrust the now young man with a bag of gold coins and directed him to where he should deliver same.

With the money in his possession and the fare Switzerland the young man sort his home. He traveled from village to village lured on by a familiar village bell, which when he got closer, turn out to be a false ring. After years a distant familiar peel got his attention and as he crested a final hill, there before him was his home.

Just as the young man recognized his own true bell, there exists in all of us the ring of truth which allows us to recognize irrefutable truth when we hear it.

For me it's goose bumps and a chill up and down my spine. Ignore that small internal voice at your ultimate eternal peril!
Alan B.

BP.

You say conscience and instincts, including social instincts, are common across all species to a greater or lesser degree of genetic input according to any particular species.

And you seem to wonder at mans need for religion when socialising and other survival instincts are innate.

I don’t think many anthropologists would argue at its prevalence though. I form the view that mans need for religion and it’s rituals, is as old as man himself, and he will carry this need to the end of time.
The end of time is actually mans greatest fear, which trumps all other survival needs, since all of mams efforts towards existence aims at avoiding the end moment.

Man is as disparate as the stars in the sky, and his collection of religious attachments are as similar.

The need for a religion to follow, is embedded in the mammalian brain with all other natural instincts. It’s as instinctive as the need for sex and eating.

Dan