Hassa Deega Ebowai or the paradox of religiousness in front of adversity
Hasa Diga Ebowai ([“Does it mean “no worries for the rest of our lives?”″ *”Kinda”*](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=AhxChl9bGl0)) is a song from Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “The Book of Mormon”, an affectionate parody of religion in general. A lot of the comedy in that song is drawn from the unexpectedness of the reaction to adversity displayed within. Do listen to it before proceeding.
The stereotype is that, when troubled and in a position of weakness, where they have no power over their fates, humans tend to turn towards the LORD for consolation. Especially if the religion promises a good afterlife to the patient, meek and submissive, and a bad one to the defiant and insolent. Even when it doesn’t (such as in most denominations of Judaism, AFAIK), people are encouraged to not “curse His rotten” name when everything goes wrong for them and they can’t do anything about it (see book of Job).
The other side of the stereotype is that, the more powerful, confident and knowledgeable humans become, the less religious they become. This can also be seen on the time axis of a single individual’s existence when, young, they care little about sin and the afterlife, and, old, they do nothing but pray all day to make up for all the awful stuff they did (and there might be some genuinely awful behavior in there).
So I’ve been trolling Wikipedia for examples of demographics and populations that would have commonly practiced the cursing of the LORD, but I only found reference to vikings doing that, in a “I won’t believe in you, but I will believe in me, and live by my own strength” kind of way, which isn’t exactly what I’m looking for.
Does anyone here know anything about these different ways people react to adversity, and what they mean from a rationalistic standpoint?
This sounds like relatively orthodox sociology of religion, actually. See for instance Stark and Bainbridge’s 1987 A Theory of Religion, and specifically the idea of “compensators”. For an overview, see Bainbridge’s “Sacred Algorithms”; to quote:
That still doesn’t say anything about cursing the name of God versus praising him, when in the face of adversity, which is what I’m interested in.
Blasphemy is ridiculously common in Italy. While the most religious people frown upon that, there are people who call God names or curse saints about every other sentence, and lots of people find it hilarious to listen at them. Some people have even become minor celebrities because of that. (On the other hand, you don’t usually hear that in television—and a couple contestants in reality shows have been banned for that, and it used to be illegal until a couple decades ago.)
Its rather common for individuals to deal with adversity by blaming a higher power, but i dont think most societies would condone such beliefs. It would probably make things difficult for priests, for one thing, and If God existed beyond a reasonable doubt then anyone with a sense of self preservation would be unlikely to challenge Him. Most People would suck up to Him like they think they’ve been doing for centuries, no matter how much of a prick He was. People tend to only tell God to go fuck Himself when they’re in a troubled emotional state and thing the universe is out to get them anyway. A society is not prone to such fits of emotional turmoil, but individuals decidedly are. Noticing just how unfair nature can be while asserting the existence of a higher power tends to lead to serious depression. Just watch Welcome to the NHK.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t how humans work. This post feels like you were aiming for a certain feel, or appearance, or tone, but not pursuing a goal. And so you ended up with a bunch of stuff thrown in not because it was useful or particularly well-supported, but because it fit. That’s bad. To do better I think you have to figure out what you want from this, and pursue that.
This is pretty much exactly how every single male Muslim I knew planned and acted out their lives, at least outwardly. I don’t know if it doesn’t work with devout Christians or Jews, but Muslims seem to condone “drkinging, smoking, whoring (or at least extramarital sex, though in their minds it might be near-equivalent), and evil rutheless business practice while young, and then doing nothing but praying and having God constantly in one’s mouth when Death’s on your doorstep”. That doesn’t mean they’ve become nicer, though: pricks tend to remain pricks, except now they’re terrified pricks wo nevertheless manage to act Holier Than Thou and tell everyone else how they should run their lives, from a position of superiority!
And no, I don’t have statistics for that, who’s going to dare make and publish that sort of inquiry? I simply thought it was common practice everywhere else.
From what I’ve seen, this sort of thing is a bit of a cardinal sin in these places. You’re aware that properly formulating the question mean most of the work is done in finding the answer. I don’t know precisely how to ask the question, that’s why I seek help. If every time I have a doubt, I keep silent until I’ve found out exactly what it is I’m doubting, then asking about it becomes a little superfluous. I’m looking for information, not peer review.
Same for goals, how am I supposed to have a goal, other than information-gathering, when I don’t have the information?
The structure is very clear: 1. This song brought this paradox to my attention. 2. This is the standard behavior I have seen until now. 3. I have been unable to find (proof of the existence of) data on people who behave otherwise. Maybe there is, but I do not know where to begin looking for it. 4. I exhort anyone who know anything about this to share their knowledge here.
I was wrong, sorry. What you wanted (both goal-wise and what information you were asking for) was not clear to me, and I leapt to the wrong conclusion.
I don’t know the histories of that many old people, and most of them are family, but by about six to two I know of more who became less religious in old age. The effect of young adults being less religious is real, but if they “come back,” I think it’s more likely that they come back around the time they have kids, which I’ve seen a lot of.
What is the “paradox?” What needs to be explained, and why does it seem difficult to explain? Could you explain more clearly? Just wanting information about something is an okay goal, but there’s a lot of information out there, and if you just wanted all of it you’d use google. So presumably your goal is a bit more specific.
While I can’t think of any specific examples, it doesn’t sound unusual to me for Catholics to do roughly that.