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Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

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This is an excellent, scholarly summary of the concept of anthropomorphism in human experience. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human things or events. It turns out that the human brain is designed to project human characteristics on the world around us (Hence, the title "Faces in the Clouds", a reference to the human propensity to see human faces everywhere in the world.)

Guthrie is at his best showing the reader exactly how pervasive our anthropomorphic projections are. He is careful to develop the philosophical underpinnings as well as to demonstrate with numerous examples the way that anthropomorhism pervades our perceptions. In examples drawn from art, literature and advertising, Guthrie shows the universality of the anthropomorphic model.

Guthrie is compelling when he shows that anthropomorphism is actually a "smart" Darwinian strategy as well. Guthrie quite rightly rejects some of the obvious explanations advanced to explain anthropomorphism in favor of an explanation that makes anthropomorphism a valuable diagnostic tool for our environment. Guthrie's contention (and it is probably correct) is that the perception of human activity is the most important of the various interpretions that we can impose on our environment. Because of its central importance, it makes sense to apply that model as broadly as possible. Where other authors have seen anthropomorphism as some sort of embarrassing error pattern, Guthrie makes it central to a successful coping strategy. Further, it is clear that anthropomorphism does not impose a substantial fitness penalty, even when applied inappropriately. Guthrie make a compelling case that anthropomorphism is the single most important cognitive interpretive model.

Strangely, the weakest part of this book is the portion that deals with the subject matter of the subtitle: "A New Theory of Religion." Having built a compelling case that anthropomorphism is THE fundamental cognitive strategy for humankind to understand and interpret its environment, Guthrie devotes a single strategy to the contention that this phenomenon explains religion as well. Guthrie may well be right, but it this is, as he claims, the central thesis of his book, it deserves a more detailed presentation.

Read this book for an eye opening discussion of the importance of anthropomorphism as a cognitive strategy, not for a "new theory of religion."

This is a book length explanation of a very simple idea.

People tend to anthropomorphise things around them because it is a useful strategy with survival value. Assuming that the things you come across are animate and purposeful is a safer mistake to make than the converse. We have evolved to see persons everywhere. With typical sloppiness, our brains use the "dealing with people" faculties to handle interactions with things that are not people at all.

Primitive man sees an animal footprint. Who made it? An elk. Why did it make it? What was it thinking? It was thirsty, and heading toward water. Identifying the personalities behind phenomena allows us to predict what will happen next. Sometimes, we can even to strike a bargain with another person, so controlling what happens next.

Stewart Gutherie's idea is that religion, all religion, at it's core is nothing other than applying this useful and important survival strategy to the world at large. Anthropomorphism is not an error that the religious sometimes fall into. It is the very essence of religious thought and feeling.

The problem, of course, is that it is all a very reasonable and safe mistake. There is no God. There is no conciousness behind nature. But we persist in seeing it anyway, just as we persist in seeing humanlike figures in inkblots. That's why religion is so pervasive. That's why it seems so natural. That's why "so many people" can be so wrong.

You may be interested in following the whole of the book, which is first, an explanation of why a new theory of religion is needed; second, an exposition of how pervasive anthropomorphism is; and finally linking the two.

For me, the theory was so obviously simple, right and powerful, fitting the facts so well, that the first and final chapters alone would have been enough for me. However, it's certainly a worthwhile addition to my growing personal library.

There are among fairly academic books books that should be read widely and never quite get the audience that they deserve. This is among the foremost among those that I know; as far as are the merits of it academically, it is also a very strong book. Setting this aside, because of its thought-provoking nature, this book deserves a cult following....

Gutherie in it argues that people, for processes of biological advantage, have an innate tendancy to see 'people'-- faces in the clouds-- where they don't exist. I first read this book while studying religion at Columbia and was more impressed by it than any other I read for the particular class I read it for (excluding William James-- which is understandable....) It explains a lot. Its author is widely read and a persuasive writer, it has interesting pictures and really forces one to think about a lot of stuff. It really angered many of my more theologically minded classmates-- which for agnostics should be reason enough to read it....

As a book of 'general reading', this is still an interesting book that should be read. It's really smart and a fun read. I'd definately recommend (in either case) to buy this book. It will make you think, or it will change the way you think about religion (and life....)

How people percieve is really an avenue that needs much more exploration as far as it concerned the study or religion....

"Guthrie proposes that religion is basically an outgrowth of the natural human propensity, probably hardwired in by evolution, to interpret vague or random appearances anthropomorphically. That is, we naturally tend to see faces in clouds or the image of Jesus in a spaghetti ad. This makes perfect sense from an evolutionary viewpoint since it would be beneficial to survival to have a perceptual strategy in which vague appearances were interpreted as (possibly hostile) humans. Better to think we see a glaring face and find that we're wrong than to miss seeing an enemy. Clearly, much of the human propensity towards religiosity could be explained in this way. Guthrie argues his case well." -- Keith M. Parson

Guthrie, in this excellent book, offers a persuasive, if incomplete, explanation of why religious explanations are held to be true by so many if indeed they are not. His well-supported thesis is that the human mind's bulk of processing power evolved to process other human beings in our social environment and that this cognitive strategy of the social human animal has bled over into domains of reality that it isn't meant for, i.e. the domain of the natural sciences. A clear example for this would be the persistence of creationism in light of robust naturalistic theories of biological and cosmic evolution. People are predisposed to seek an anthropomorphic answer to things and when a normal human being obviously can't be the 'doer,' then a superhuman being is posited to have been the `creator.' It is easier to process information within a social context, even if that processing leads to a false conclusion.

Guthrie even sees the (admittedly very primitive) rudiments of religion in our closest cousins the chimpanzee. He cites evidence from Jane Goodall where chimps have been observed to become angry with rainstorms. He sees this as evidence for the rudiments of religion because the chimps must be injecting social intentionality into the mindless storm - something we `higher primates' have done with Zeus and `his' Lightening bolts to our contemporary biblicists who say hurricanes are the social intentionality of Yahweh. It is a primitive and false and yet pervasive way for human beings to conceptualize our environment.

Marshalling evidence of anthropomorphization from modern advertising, art, and literature, Guthrie ties it all together in his theory of religion. He sees that at its root, gods and religions are just the anthropomorphic perception lenses that we humans use to try and make sense of the world around us that doesn't share our minds, intentions, and emotions.

One of the most intriguing books I've read on the origin of religion has been Stewart Guthrie's Faces in the Clouds. Guthrie offers the suggestion that our in-born, evolutionarily driven need to see people or faces, even where these are false positives, may have led to the concept of god/s. As a respectable academic, I am obligated never to agree completely with anyone, but Guthrie seems to be onto something here. When I'm jogging in the pre-dawn hours it is amazing how many people are about -- that is, until I get close enough to see that they are a small tree or a tall newspaper stand. We do see what we consider important everywhere.

Ancient religions were quick to put human forms on dangerous, threatening, or awe-inspiring phenomena. Lightning and thunder became the purview of Baal. It is a natural defense mechanism: you can pray to or offer a tasty animal sacrifice to Baal and the terrible storm will stop. Of course, in time nature itself would take care of it too. Today people still look for faces in the clouds to allay their fears. But we also have a rudimentary understanding of the physics of our universe. When people are forced to choose between facts and faces, when fear or extreme desire comes into the equation, the safe odds are always on the faces.

This book is worth the attention of anyone who has ever asked the question of where religion originates. As a sometime professor of religious studies, I found it difficult to set this book down.

There certainly is no lack of books about religion, and ideas about how and why we humans have it. Stewart Guthrie has written, to me at least, a very persuasive account of the origin of religion.

Accounts for why we have religion can generally be divided into two groups- those of believers and skeptics. Believers of particular religions, of course, try to account for their religion in terms of a special revelation, and all others in terms of either ignorance or demonic influence. Unfortunately, these claims are special, not general, and there is no inter-subjective way of verifying them. Some liberal religious believers account for religion by essentially saying that specific practices and beliefs are irrelevant- they are all manifestations of religious experience. The problem is that mystical experiences are unique, autonomous, cannot be corroborated, and don't offer a way of knowing whether one experience is the same as or a different variation of another.

The skeptics' theories of religion are diverse, and make valuable points about perhaps why individuals choose religion and why it persists, but according to Guthrie, they don't explain the origin of religion very well.

* Wishful thinking- Popularized by Freud, the theory holds that people made up religion to satisfy their wishes, desires, and to derive comfort. But many religions have elements that would be hard to say are there for comfort and reassurance, such as malevolent spirits, hell, and jealous gods. Further we don't make up things in other areas purely for comfort- hungry people don't comfort themselves by telling themselves they've just eaten.
* Fear of death- Many have said that religion is primarily to overcome the natural human fear of death. This theory makes valuable points, but it can't account for the origin of religion. In ancient Greek religion and early Judaism, the doctrine of the afterlife was very vague. Further, in some early religions, the souls of the deceased were condemned to wander the earth forever, regardless of what they did or didn't do.
* Social glue- Durkheim and others have said that religion originated as a way to bind people together, just as national symbols do. While religions do do this, they also divide people. Guthrie notes that this theory fails to account for why people would use religion to form group cohesion in the first place.
* Intellectualist- Going back to Spinoza, this theory holds that religion is a result of anthropomorphism- attributing human properties to non-human things. People are in a world of uncertain objects, and so seek to understand the world through the use of a familiar model (ourselves). Another branch of the intellectualist theory is that we invent humanlike agents to reassure ourselves in a turbulent world. Guthrie ultimately thinks anthropomorphism plays the main factor, but neither of the explanations for why we do this are quite sufficient. First, we anthropomorphize familiar things (pets, for instance) as often as they do unfamiliar ones. Moreover, there are things (monsters in the closet) that we do not invent to reassure ourselves.

Guthrie gives a compelling account of religion. It is systemic anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism arises out of animism- attributing animate features to inanimate things (trees, wind, etc.) We do this, Guthrie says, because of our perceptual uncertainty. Our knowledge of the world is not certain but interpretive. For instance, a door closing could be the result of wind, or of a person (perhaps a stranger); a shadow may be that of a tree or of a lurking figure- meanings don't reveal themselves to us, so we must construe them. So in assigning meanings, we use what is most significant to us. Since a potential predator would be more significant to our ancestors than pure nature, it would be a natural, safe bet to mistake a log floating in the river for a bear, rather than the reverse. Since humans are the most significant things to humans, we will naturally assign human-like attributes to objects and events in nature- we see storms as angry, trees as resisting us when we try to cut them down, etc. These are misapprehensions, but the impulse that gives rise to the misapprehensions is no mistake; it is an essential evolved strategy we have for understanding the world.

Finally someone has addressed the subject in depth of how and why there will probably always be religiosity. I could not help thinking that even my cat needs assign life to it's toys to practice hunting for survival. Perhaps this is all necessary for living beings to believe first and formost in another being - to eat, to mate with, to fight or if not,to worship.