Maurice Bloch’s Leap Of Faith

Maurice Bloch, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics takes a leap of faith in his challenge to the anthropologic community’s assertion that religion is a result of a sort of viral social phenomenon fueled by a need for community or “social bonding.” Bloch believes, contrary to this commonly held anthropological view, that religion, along with most other distinctly human behaviors, are a result of the human condition as it relates to imagination. Bloch claims that no other creature has an ability for imagination in the way that humans do. He wrote:

Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society.

Of course this makes sense, and Bloch is absolutely correct in my estimation. Imagination is ultimately the basis for nearly all behaviors, which are isolated to human beings. Money, law, faith… these are all ultimately a result of the human capacity for nonprimitive thought. While this may be a mundane claim in the realm of the “average Joe,” this is rattling the cages of anthropologists everywhere. Bloch is defying the accepted doctrine, saying that the development of religion, toolmaking, art, language, and essentially all of the behaviors which separate “man” from “animal” are all tied to this transition of the human mind from reactionary and semian to imaginative and transcendental thought (i.e. the development of imagination).

While this might be an interesting topic in institutions of higher learning and anthropological societies, this is likely to have little impact on people simply going about their lives outside of these circles. For most people, this is a simple understanding needing no explanation in regard to what separates man from beast. However, leave it to ABC News (and their article’s author Andy Coghlan) to put a spin on this “news” which aims to degrade, degenerate, and demoralize persons of faith. All it takes is a look at the headline: Religion a Figment of the Imagination.

By: TimG

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