Religion - A Phenomenal Conditioning ... 2019

As we lead our lives, we are exposed to the surroundings, and we get subjected to stimuli that leave impressions to different extents. 

For example, a stray dog that barked at you at the street corner, or a car that cut in front of you unexpectedly. Their impacts may last no more than a few minutes to hours. Family or neighborhood traditions, and school experiences may leave longer lasting impressions. Some of these may influence your thinking and behaviors, but it is possible to change/evolve them as one may relocate to other places or come across new practices through marriage or change of school/work settings.

Looking outside-in, a conditioning phenomenon that I find fascinatingly "sticky" is religion. In some cases there may be involuntary induction rituals that may be conducted early in life. For the most part, the stickiness comes from a strong undercurrent of family/neighborhood influences. The family subscribes to an ideology that permeates the air - sometimes in the form of symbolisms of the ideology in the house, almost always in frequent references to the ideology in casual conversations, topical discussions of superiority or suppression/persecution. The ideology propagates a "clan," and the clan does what it can to preserve and grow its membership. The stickiness gets more sticky. Counter-ideologies are shunned upon and considered blasphemous, and counter-thinkers may be "outcast." 

The stickiness is exclusive, dogmatic, and may propagate the behaviors of “we versus they."

I can see how religion may offer psychological strength to a suffering individual - emotional relief achieved through delegation of the solving of life’s difficult problems to “god.” I can see  how religious institutions can offer a strong sense of belonging. Scriptures, through their generalities, can claim to have all answers and willing subscribers become unflinching followers of the letter rather than the intent of the letter that was written hundreds or thousands of years ago.

The need of the hour is for contemporary societies to offer to its members the sense of belonging, collective assumption of responsibility to uplift someone who is falling off, shoulders to lean on for those who need a temporary crutch.

There is so much to learn from the anthropological evolution of the religion phenomenon, and go above and beyond.