Faces in the Clouds

Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now in Faces in the Clouds anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion but few think it is central. To Guthrie however it is fundamental. Religion he writes consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods spirits abominable snowmen HAL the computer Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes weather and traffic accidents. We say a fire rages a storm wreaks vengeance and waters lie still. Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive (if mostly unconscious) uncertainty about what we see we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder for example it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken we lose little and if we are right we gain much. So Guthrie writes in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things and especially human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology cognitive science philosophy theology advertising literature art and animal behavior Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life.