Baba Brinkman - Religion Evolves lyrics
[Baba Brinkman - Religion Evolves lyrics]
I spent my whole life
Perplexed by religiousness
Front door step debating
With Jehova’s witnesses
I was a teenaged empirical thinker
A spiritual seeker obsessed with rap
I considered it lyrical research
This was the medium that I
Could think and speak in
Flippin’ ridiculous figures of speech over
Beats like every weekend
My CD collection became my personal gospel
I was an apostle, like Thomas
Wondering was it impossible
To rock shows and still be thoughtful
So paradoxical speakin’ in tongues all over
The drums like Pentecostals
I figured if I could master the craft
I could start a new religion
Devoid of superstition
A descendent of secular humanism
With the ecstatic rituals of
Ancient mystical shamanistical
Visions, except based on
Philosophical naturalism
Which means no counterfactual claims
No supernatural
Nothin’ but reason and evidence
Troops salute the rational
In my religion the truth is sacred
And science adjudicates it
And meditation is cool if you
Wanna find your Buddha nature
But human nature exists too
And it’s not rude to face it
Enlightenment comes when we understand
How evolution shapes it
It’s a demon haunted world
You can take it from Carl
Sagan, whether Christian or pagan
Religion evolves
Whether it benefit's one of us
Or whether it benefit's all
Adaptive problems are gonna get solved
Religion evolves
The bigger the scale of a society
The bigger the gods people get along when
Someone’s watchin’ them, religion evolves
We’ll send a rocket on a
Manned mission to mars
If the holy wars don’t kill us first
Let’s hope religion evolves
I’ll turn my religion upon
It'self like an ouroboros
Religion evolves, it adapts, ask a biologist
A cognitive psychologist, a sociologist
An anthropologist, a behavioural ecologist
Religion is all of this
Two or three new religions get founded a day
They’re just like rap artists
Most of them won’t be around in a decade
They all compete for space and
Followers and human devotion
Religion evolves ‘cause many are called
But few are chosen
Approximately ten thousand religions
Are currently active
So forgive me if I don’t ask
Which exact version you practice
Chances are, flip of a coin
It’s probably Abrahamic
Half the planet is either Christian
Or Jewish or Islamic
We can track the demographics
Study the epidemiology
But human beings have been religious
Since before the holocene
Twelve thousand years ago
Agricultural revolution prior to that
Most of our significant evolution
Small scale societies surviving
In the pleistocene
Had a strong incentive to unite
Like a hive of bees religion is a device for
Binding people tribally
And if you’re in my tribe
Well then I’ll die for you
And you’ll die for me
It’s a demon haunted world
You can take it from Carl
Sagan, whether Christian or pagan
Religion evolves
Whether it benefit's one of us
Or whether it benefit's all
Adaptive problems are gonna get solved
Religion evolves
The bigger the scale of a society
The bigger the gods people get along when
Someone’s watchin’ them, religion evolves
We’ll send a rocket on a
Manned mission to mars
If the holy wars don’t kill us first
Let’s hope religion evolves
Religion is an evolved mental technology
Definitely but did it evolve culturally
Or did it evolve genetically?
Or is it a byproduct of
Several other mental capacities
That evolved independently and
Separately function adaptively
Like agency detection systems
Triggered hyperactively or theory of mind
Which means reading people tactically
Like, I know what you’re thinkin’ –
Who the hell is Baba Brinkman?
Is he some kind of cross between
A prof and juvenile delinquent?
Yeah that’s right, that’s what I am
Now let’s get back to the question at hand
I have a conscious mind and I’ll try to
Predict your thoughts as best I can
And I predict you’ve never considered
What religion is adapted for or if you have
Then I predict you’ve never
Heard it rapped before
So how do I know it’s adaptive?
It could be random drift
It could be a byproduct of
Something else that has adaptiveness
Like your belly button, which amazing
But it’s not really for naval gazing Nah
It’s a side effect of your umbilical chord
So religion might be a
Viral meme that’s parasitic
Or it might be an
Adaptation that maximizes descendants
It might benefit individuals
Or it might benefit whole groups
Or it might be the invention of
Cynical priests trying to control you
Or it might be a belly button byproduct
Or adaptive in the past
And maladaptive in the present
These are good questions to ask
And science can find the answers
And the answers are non-obvious
Except the answer to where religion
Doesn’t come from…divine providence
Perplexed by religiousness
Front door step debating
With Jehova’s witnesses
I was a teenaged empirical thinker
A spiritual seeker obsessed with rap
I considered it lyrical research
This was the medium that I
Could think and speak in
Flippin’ ridiculous figures of speech over
Beats like every weekend
My CD collection became my personal gospel
I was an apostle, like Thomas
Wondering was it impossible
To rock shows and still be thoughtful
So paradoxical speakin’ in tongues all over
The drums like Pentecostals
I figured if I could master the craft
I could start a new religion
Devoid of superstition
A descendent of secular humanism
With the ecstatic rituals of
Ancient mystical shamanistical
Visions, except based on
Philosophical naturalism
Which means no counterfactual claims
No supernatural
Nothin’ but reason and evidence
Troops salute the rational
In my religion the truth is sacred
And science adjudicates it
And meditation is cool if you
Wanna find your Buddha nature
But human nature exists too
And it’s not rude to face it
Enlightenment comes when we understand
How evolution shapes it
It’s a demon haunted world
You can take it from Carl
Sagan, whether Christian or pagan
Religion evolves
Whether it benefit's one of us
Or whether it benefit's all
Adaptive problems are gonna get solved
Religion evolves
The bigger the scale of a society
The bigger the gods people get along when
Someone’s watchin’ them, religion evolves
We’ll send a rocket on a
Manned mission to mars
If the holy wars don’t kill us first
Let’s hope religion evolves
I’ll turn my religion upon
It'self like an ouroboros
Religion evolves, it adapts, ask a biologist
A cognitive psychologist, a sociologist
An anthropologist, a behavioural ecologist
Religion is all of this
Two or three new religions get founded a day
They’re just like rap artists
Most of them won’t be around in a decade
They all compete for space and
Followers and human devotion
Religion evolves ‘cause many are called
But few are chosen
Approximately ten thousand religions
Are currently active
So forgive me if I don’t ask
Which exact version you practice
Chances are, flip of a coin
It’s probably Abrahamic
Half the planet is either Christian
Or Jewish or Islamic
We can track the demographics
Study the epidemiology
But human beings have been religious
Since before the holocene
Twelve thousand years ago
Agricultural revolution prior to that
Most of our significant evolution
Small scale societies surviving
In the pleistocene
Had a strong incentive to unite
Like a hive of bees religion is a device for
Binding people tribally
And if you’re in my tribe
Well then I’ll die for you
And you’ll die for me
It’s a demon haunted world
You can take it from Carl
Sagan, whether Christian or pagan
Religion evolves
Whether it benefit's one of us
Or whether it benefit's all
Adaptive problems are gonna get solved
Religion evolves
The bigger the scale of a society
The bigger the gods people get along when
Someone’s watchin’ them, religion evolves
We’ll send a rocket on a
Manned mission to mars
If the holy wars don’t kill us first
Let’s hope religion evolves
Religion is an evolved mental technology
Definitely but did it evolve culturally
Or did it evolve genetically?
Or is it a byproduct of
Several other mental capacities
That evolved independently and
Separately function adaptively
Like agency detection systems
Triggered hyperactively or theory of mind
Which means reading people tactically
Like, I know what you’re thinkin’ –
Who the hell is Baba Brinkman?
Is he some kind of cross between
A prof and juvenile delinquent?
Yeah that’s right, that’s what I am
Now let’s get back to the question at hand
I have a conscious mind and I’ll try to
Predict your thoughts as best I can
And I predict you’ve never considered
What religion is adapted for or if you have
Then I predict you’ve never
Heard it rapped before
So how do I know it’s adaptive?
It could be random drift
It could be a byproduct of
Something else that has adaptiveness
Like your belly button, which amazing
But it’s not really for naval gazing Nah
It’s a side effect of your umbilical chord
So religion might be a
Viral meme that’s parasitic
Or it might be an
Adaptation that maximizes descendants
It might benefit individuals
Or it might benefit whole groups
Or it might be the invention of
Cynical priests trying to control you
Or it might be a belly button byproduct
Or adaptive in the past
And maladaptive in the present
These are good questions to ask
And science can find the answers
And the answers are non-obvious
Except the answer to where religion
Doesn’t come from…divine providence