Faces in the Clouds "Couldn't be a man. Must be a god!" Drawing by Ross; © 1989 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc. FACES in the CLOUDS A New Theory of Religion STEWART ELLIOTT GUTHRIE New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS To my extended family and especially to Alan, whose young life contained much and continues to inspire Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1993 by Stewart Elliott Guthrie First published in 1993 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016-4314 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1995 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-inPublication Data Guthrie, Stewart Elliott, 1941- Faces in the clouds : a new theory of religion / Stewart Elliott Guthrie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-506901-3 ISBN 0-19-509891-9 (Pbk.) 1. Anthropomorphism. 2. Religion—Controversial literature. I. Title. BL215.G88 1993 211—dc20 92-9498 468109753 Printed in the United States of America on add-free paper Preface to the Paperback Edition Earlier writers who have seen anthropomorphism as basic to religion have disagreed about its nature and causes. Most have slighted its secular forms. My own claim is simple. I hold that religion is best understood as anthropomorphism and that anthropomorphism results from a strategy of perception. The strategy is to interpret the world's ambiguities first as those pos- sibilities that matter most. Such possibilities usually include living things and especially humans. Although the strategy leads to mistakes, it also leads to vital discoveries that outweigh them. We see shadows in alleys as persons and hear sounds as signals because if these interpretations are right they are invaluable, and if not, they are relatively harmless. The strategy is involuntary, mostly unconscious, and shared by other animals. Understanding it and the anthropomorphism to which it gives rise illuminates secular as well as religious experience. New York City November, 1994 S.E.G. This page intentionally left blank Preface I am pleased and excited but also a little apprehensive to be offering a new theory of religion. To offer a new theory of anything invites scrutiny, but a theory of something as important as religion may invite skepticism or outright dismissal. I fear, too, that some believers, including some of my own kin, may be dismayed. At the same time, I feel exhilaration and a culmination. Writing about a modern Japanese religious movement some years ago, I found that the movement resembled other religions primarily in its anthropomorphism—in viewing the world as humanlike. In a later article I developed the underlying idea that all religion is a kind of anthropo- morphism. Readers of various persuasions found this theory of religion provocative and wanted more evidence. In pursuing the idea, I came to see anthropomorphism as pervading human thought and action. It ranged from spontaneous perception in daily life, to art, to science; from voices in the wind, to Mickey Mouse, to the Earth as Gaia. It also seemed central to religious belief, so much so that explaining it would explain religion. Because the study of religion clearly needs a new theory, the enterprise has been even more exciting. Although theories abound, none is powerful and none prevails. Religious studies remains a welter of ideas and approaches. In this confused arena, I admittedly am an outsider—not a scholar of religion but an anthropologist—emboldened, perhaps by his innocence. viii Preface I sometimes feel as though I had chanced, like a folk-tale rustic, on a pot of gold hidden unaccountably under a stone. The idea uncovered appears potent yet mostly is overlooked or dismissed. Although I claim to explain religion, much of the book is about secular experience. This is because I want to show that religion is an aspect of something more general—anthropomorphism. And, since anthropomor- phism occurs everywhere, it requires a broad canvas. Because anthropomorphism is involuntary, knowing about it does not prevent it. The evening my publisher accepted this manuscript, a friend and I went out to celebrate despite a downpour. We held umbrellas but, as we rounded a corner, a horizontal shower struck us on the legs. I was surprised and indignant. This was unfair! Then we saw that the shower on our legs was not rain but came from a powerful lawn sprinkler. Fair- ness, of course, has no place in meteorology, and to expect it from the weather is to anthropomorphize. Inevitably and automatically, we all anthropomorphize. We see pun- ishment in accidents, faces in clouds, and purpose everywhere. Such il- lusory perceptions tell us more about ourselves than about the world. Most arrestingly, they tell us about the kind of thought and action, and the kind of experience, we call religion. Boulder, Colorado July 1992 S.E.G. Acknowledgments The idea for this book grew out of an earlier effort to describe and in- terpret a particular Japanese religious movement. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and Yale University. The first published sketch of the present argument, "A Cog- nitive Theory of Religion" (1980), was funded by a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. The writing of the present and more substantial version was made possible by a Fordham University Fac- ulty Fellowship and by a generous additional year's leave of absence. Various members of my family also aided me. My sister, Anne Guthrie, commented on early drafts and provided highly agreeable accommoda- tions in Boulder. My nephew, Alan Guthrie Maecher, kept my mood elevated with long runs and rappeling off cliffs. My brother, Walter Guth- rie, brought an invaluable philosophical eye to the editing. My friend and fiancee Phyllis Kaplan went through the manuscript again and again, crit- ically and creatively, almost from the beginning, and gave vital compan- ionship and moral support. All these, together with my sisters Janet and Margaret and my parents, set standards of enthusiasm, love, and courage. Other readers who have improved the manuscript include my Oxford editors Cynthia Read, Susan Hannan, and Peter Ohlin; anthropologist James W. Fernandez; art historian Elizabeth Parker; philosophers Donald A. Crosby, Bernard B. Gilligan, Leonard Kalal, and Wayne Proudfoot; photographer Martha Cooper; psychologists Mark Mattson and Fred Wertz; scholars of religion Bob Orsi and Hans Penner; and my longtime x Acknowledgments friend, John Henry. Support and encouragement have come as well from other scholars and friends, especially from Keith Brown, H. Byron Ear- hart, Edward and Janice Goldfrank, Paul Kahn, Anne Mannion, David Miretsky, Nina Swidler, and Edward Yonan, and from the respondents to my original article. I am grateful for all the help. Contents Introduction, 3 1. The Need for a Theory, 8 2. Animism, Perception, and the Effort After Meaning, 39 3. The Origin of Anthropomorphism, 62 4. Anthropomorphism as Perception, 91 5. Anthropomorphism in the Arts, 122 6. Anthropomorphism in Philosophy and Science, 152 7. Religion as Anthropomorphism, 177 Notes, 205 References, 249 Figure Credits, 273 Index, 275 This page intentionally left blank Faces in the Clouds This page intentionally left blank Introduction This book holds that religion may best be understood as systematic an- thropomorphism: the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things or events. Anthropomorphism is familiar, pervasive, and powerful in human thought and action. It often is noted in religion. Nonetheless, it has remained unexplained and hence inadequate as an account of re- ligion. My book provides the missing explanation. I claim we anthropomorphize because guessing that the world is hu- manlike is a good bet. It is a bet because the world is uncertain, ambig- uous, and in need of interpretation. It is a good bet because the most valuable interpretations usually are those that disclose the presence of whatever is most important to us. That usually is other humans. Scanning the world for humans and humanlike things and events, we find apparent instances everywhere. We later judge many of these interpretations mistaken, but those that are correct more than justify the strategy. Because betting on the most significant interpretations is deeply rooted, anthropomorphism is spontaneous, plausible, and even compelling. Many writers, beginning at least with the early Greeks, have said religion anthropomorphizes. A recurrent quip inverts Genesis: man makes God in his own image. Yet most people see anthropomorphism as a su- perficial aspect of religion, not central to it. Gods, they think, have ex- istences and reasons of their own, untouched by anthropomorphism. Religious anthropomorphism, in their view, consists of attributing hu- 3 4 Faces in the Clouds inanity to gods. My view is roughly the opposite: that gods consist of attributing humanity to the world. Modern humanists and theologians alike tend to see religion not as beliefs or practices but as a kind of experience. Many think this experience is direct and unmediated. Some think it wholly subjective. But if the religious experience is direct and unmediated, it cannot be questioned. If it is subjective, the question of whether gods exist is meaningless. For other scholars, the question of whether gods exist has meaning but is beyond the purview of science. Few such writers now ask about the origin or characteristic content of religious thought and action.