The popes and crucifixions that recur so frequently in Bacon’s imagery don’t speak of redemption or eternity but of futility, mortality and horror. We’re still the same human race that has sought the spiritualĪnd a Maundy Thursday encounter with Francis Bacon’s paintings at the Royal Academy was a sharp reminder to me that humans are fleshly creatures with animalistic impulses. Five millennia don’t take you as far as you’d think. The big one, perhaps, is the impossibility of belief in some unseen being with human interests at heart when the world can be so cruel and unjust. I’ve also, of course, watched plenty of friends lose their faith, always for the same reasons I could imagine one day losing mine, be it the suffering of others or the disappointments of life or the irrationality of religion. My own faith has waxed, waned and wobbled over the years, but I have known the times when it brings joy and confidence and meaning to life and something in me vibrated with a sympathetic delight. I recognised not just the response but the ease and enthusiasm with which she spoke. Everything, she said: it determined how she saw her place in the world, the values she held and the choices she made, the way she conducted her relationships. One woman at dinner was asked what her faith meant to her. It was, too, the first time I’d experienced such resonance with Islam’s daily rhythm of prayer in the church’s Holy Week offerings of morning prayer, lunchtime Eucharist, evensong and compline. As a Christian whose approach to the supposed self-denial of Lent has been pretty lackadaisical down the years, it was a challenge as well as an inspiration to witness how the people surrounding me engaged with their own fasting season. Last week, I was invited to an iftar meal at which a number of the guests spoke of their practices during Ramadan and the inspiration behind them. Such a convergence only occurs three times a century and results in a rare opportunity for believers to observe the similarities of their rituals and beliefs, as opposed to their differences. That’s certainly worth pondering at the end of a week that has seen the unusual confluence of three of the world’s major religious holidays: Ramadan, Passover and Easter. The very thing that creates such positive bonds between humans with shared beliefs is also responsible for the division and conflict they cause.Īnd yet, says Dunbar, “it is difficult to see any convincing evidence for anything that will replace in human affairs”. The desire to reach out and feel part of something transcendent, beyond human cognition, can be observed in every culture known to history and Dunbar notes the evolutionary and societal advantages of our religious impulse, while capturing its flipside too. It’s this anomaly that the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar tackles in his newly published book How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures.
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