[ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)

[John Grigg]

 I hope Keith Henson weighs in on this discussion.  My responses are
below...


Kelly Anderson wrote:

> 1) Heretics, Muslims and Jews were occasionally slaughtered, though
> probably not in great enough numbers to have a huge genetic effect.
>


I think that the ban on Christians charging interest for loans, may have
caused change in the Jewish gene pool, in terms of the selection for
the type of intelligence that excels at finance.  But then the Jews had a
strong merchant class dating back to the Babylonians and the Romans.  I
think if any people have been molded for success by powerful selective
pressures from within and without, it is the Jews.  I find it painfully
ironic that Hitler and the Nazi's considered themselves a "master race,"
and persecuted the Jews, when the Jews are a prime example
of several millennia of intense cultural eugenics at work, with the end
result being a people who have achieved so much for humanity.


When it came to heretics, most people just did not have the moral courage
to open their mouth when they knew death would be the end result.  But the
wars of the reformation (for both religious and economic reasons) helped
heretics fight back and yet have a chance of surviving and thriving.




> 2) Religious orders (monks, priests and nuns) tended to attract those
> who were interested in an intellectual life. Obviously, their
> reproduction was sharply curtailed being in these religious orders.
> Would that imply that Catholicism decreased intellectualism in those
> areas where it was practiced for many centuries?
>


This is a fascinating question!  Yep, the Catholics should have been more
like Mormons or Jews, and had their smarter folks have lots of kids! lol
I've read that Spain was Catholic down to the core of their being, and
their modern lack of great scientific productivity might be influenced from
this matter.  But then again, the Irish have excelled in areas such as
literature and the I.T. field.



> 3) Catholic beliefs about food (fish Friday, wine, dirty water) might
> have had some impact, as did their support of kings and the political
> orders under kings.
>


Dirty water?  Wine was known as a safe option for drinking (as compared to
water) many centuries before Jesus was even born.


4) Catholicism and feudalism meant very limited travel for most
people. This could have led to prejudice, insofar as that is genetic,
but probably more importantly, it created islands where specific genes
that would otherwise have been bred out of a larger population became
more prevalent. This may be more especially the case for recessives.

Times have sure changed...  But poverty stricken rural areas in the third
world may still be somewhat like your description...



> 5) Might there have been a breeding advantage to those who truly
> believed leading to more true believers? Might there have been other
> breeding advantages related to Catholic beliefs?



They did not use birth control and so they had many more offspring, who
then also had offspring! lol  And modern psychology has recognized the
bulwark against stress and adversity that religious faith can create in a
person's life.



> 6) Did feudal beliefs about bathing increase the capacity of the
> overall immune system of those who survived? Same with the black
> death...
>

Did medieval beliefs about cats being evil and needing to be exterminated,
increase the odds of the Black Death killing lots of people? lol



> 7) Could there have been effects on rates of promiscuity in the gene
> pool from Catholic punishments of adultery and fornication, as well as
> the negative effects of being a bastard?
>

I believe people tended to be pretty human and have socially unapproved sex
back then at fairly high levels, but they simply had alot more guilt and
anxiety attached to it, and the risks were far greater.  The person who had
to deal with the negative effects of being a bastard more than anyone else,
was the poor person who actually bore that label!  Well, the mother would
often bear a great deal of social disapproval for having an illegitimate
child.  But I think among the peasants the stigma was not so gigantic,
while the higher you went up the social ladder, the more scandalous it
would be for you.  Landowning males wanted to be certain of the paternity
of their children.



> 8) Insofar as ethics are genetic, there may be other impacts of our
> brush with the papacy.
>
>
The papacy is a real mixed bag when it comes to ethics.  There were some
good popes and then some really not so good ones...


Anyway, I hope you get an insightful collection of replies.


John
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