Reconnaissance of this new planet has revealed that there is indeed intelligent life. Although they are not as advanced as us, they still have some capacity to communicate with each other, and live in a society as the dominant species, taking advantage of other living things to serve their own purposes. They have concepts of morality, logic, and emotion. However, they also have created common pursuits that either inform or distort those concepts.
The first is a concept they call “sports.” In these activities, the creatures play games against each other, and partake in watching these games. However, these games are often anything but harmless. The creatures can often cause great damage to each other and themselves, due to the overexertion of the body that comes with the games. These damages can even in extreme cases lead to the death of the creatures, especially in a game known as “football.” Even after all of this, they continue to watch and play these games. Often, the creatures partake in a ritual of ingesting a substance known as “alcohol” or “beer” to prepare for the games, which causes them to lose their minds, forgetting many concepts that would seem integral to their species. Many resources are wasted on these games, and no closure is found on conflicts related to these games.
The second pursuit that the creatures follow is that of their own body. They worship all parts of the body in various ways, from the hair on their heads, to their arms, legs, torsos, and even their private areas. They wash their bodies perpetually, they exert their muscles in order to make them stronger, and they make still images of themselves to show to others. Certain creatures seem to be the ideal example that others model themselves off of, though their bodies seem unnatural. These pursuits of the perfect body cause the creatures to war amongst themselves in small groups, and may be relevant in mating rituals as well. There are a few creatures who decry the worship of the body, or at least the concept of the ideal body, but they are a small minority.
Third is music. These creatures use either their voices, or “instruments,” usually made out of wood, string, metal, or even electronic components, to make noise, which is pleasing and fulfilling to them. The most common ritual that they preform in regard to this music is called a “concert” in which the creatures gather to participate in a music ritual, with either one or many leading hundreds and thousands in song. The music is often repetitive and simple, which seems to allow for the creatures who can do nothing but make loud noise without melody an opportunity to participate in the ritual.
The fourth pursuit of the creatures is that of their assembly. The creatures gather together in precise locations, apparently to make decisions about their race and how they should allocate their resources. They choose their leaders, though it seems that in underexplored regions of the planet, their leaders choose themselves, much like ours. Where their race differs from ours is that they appear incapable of governing the entire planet with one leader. Their history seems to reveal conflict over land, resources, and system of government, with many of their race dying in these wars. And they treat their leaders as supreme. Some names appear more well known than others- Donald Trump, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and their current leader, Joe Biden. These leaders lead “parties,” which again serve to simplify the governing process to include the dumber creatures. The creatures will defy logic and empathy to advance their “party”, even harming themselves and others.
The final pursuit that many of the species follow are fantasy beings called “gods.” Many devote their lives to these beings that do not even exist. They ask them for things, they read books about the “gods,” and they create conflict over which “god” is true, even though none of them are. They also claim that their morals come from these “gods,” but then select the morals, arbitrarily, from their books to judge others, again putting logic and reason to the wayside because of these fictional “gods.”
These five pursuits can be exclusive, but are often not. They have specializations throughout the globe, but are not geographically limited. The principles of these pursuits can often contradict each other, and yet the creatures still follow them. By our estimation, they could have reached other planets in their solar system were it not for these pursuits.
Analysis
The aliens depicted in the recon log take a position similar to New Atheists in our current world religions view, especially in the vein of being sure of their position- “But the supposedly open minds of New Atheists are so settled and sure that there is nary an opening in their invective for genuine conversation” (Prothero 321). They take a functionalist, practical approach to human practices, like the book “The Power of Ritual,” except arguing that the human practices are wrong rather than “spiritual” or beneficial. The primary flaw with this approach is because the aliens are not human, they don’t truly understand the practices of humans, especially the psychological value of seemingly useless practices like church, concerts, and sporting events. The aliens are also limited by touching down in America first, having that American perspective and influence to a degree (underexplored areas, the map, etc.) I also thought the thought process of the aliens was interesting with respect to the “good and bad” aspect of religion. The aliens, rather than seeing the category that they choose as a “religion” (“pursuits” in this case) and evaluating it as good or bad, build their concept of “pursuits” around being bad, and then differentiating different aspects of their perceived uselessness. We have seen, not only in Prothero’s writing, but in a New York Times article on Buddhist violence, that we often unfairly judge our religions based on our perceptions of their violence. Seeing a not necessarily unbiased, but outside view of our human practices can at least provide us a new perspective on what we do, even if we don’t accept it as truth. Would we see all religions as bad if we saw ourselves from the outside?
Ben Michael's REL 105 Blog 