Bald Eagles and Religion

Bald Eagles and Religion

Religion is typically composed of beliefs, emotions, and practices. These are logically detachable. In particular, existential beliefs in respect of supernatural entities are not necessary to the existence of religious emotions and practices. In fact, they can undermine such emotions and practices if they are wildly implausible or rebarbative. If people find the beliefs hard to accept, they will tend to discard the other components of the religion in question. Moral: don’t build crazy beliefs into your religious system. Christianity does a lot of this, while not emphasizing emotion and practice. Buddhism does the opposite. Zoolatry asks for nothing but ordinary natural beliefs combined with attitudes, emotions, practices, and moral prescriptions. It is therefore not vulnerable to ontological doubts.

Bald eagles have been in the news lately, an account of a family of them in Colorado. A camera has been installed in their nest giving them fulltime worldwide exposure. They are watched, religiously. Just yesterday a big event occurred: a fledging took flight for the first time and we all saw it happen. There was universal celebration. It was indeed a stirring moment: the hesitation, tentative flapping, and then the launch into space and successful flight. The symbolism was obvious: the tight-knit family, growth and maturation, then bold independence in the form of actual soaring. What struck me was how easy it was for people, especially children, to become riveted and inspired by this real-life story. It would be so easy to build a religion around these experiences. But this religion wouldn’t postulate any supernatural eagles—eagle gods—but stick with the actual specimens we can all see with our own eyes. Nothing else is necessary to generate the required uplift. Don’t make the actual eagles look less than their supernatural counterparts; accept them for what they are in all their glory. And emphasize the ethical aspects of the situation—how wrong it would be to disrupt the proceedings or (heaven forbid!) kill the eagles. By all means take pictures and try to learn more about eagles. Don’t belittle or infantilize the birds. I myself own a large glossy book dedicated to eagles, covering all 68 species of them, with magnificent illustrations (The Empire of the Eagle, by Mike Unwin and David Tipling), which I have read from cover to cover. (I have similar books on whales, lizards, and butterflies.)

I would say that the Abrahamic religions have been, if anything, anti-animal, not merely neglectful of animals (some of this no doubt has to do with sex). Greek religion was too humanistic and the Abrahamic religions have been too theistic. I would describe myself as an anti-humanist and anti-theist. Animals need a place in religion—and it is entirely natural to human beings to find a place for them. The eagle readily evokes religious feelings, as recent events illustrate. I am not the first to surmise that religiously based mistreatment of animals has fed into mistreatment of other humans; and of course, much violence has sprung from religious intolerance. It isn’t the existence of religion that causes these problems, as one might be tempted to suppose; it is choosing the wrong religion. Probably, this stems from an attachment to monarchical political arrangements—politics precedes religion. Democracy has yet to include animals apart from the human animal. It is all very well to dwell on utilitarian arguments in favor of better treatment of animals, but we need a deeper basis in religious sentiment. Hence, zoolatry.[1]

[1] I don’t think it’s a good idea to make religion too formulaic and formalistic; better to keep it flexible and loose. Religion should be plastic not rigid. Too many rules spoil the spirit of it. The hippies were right about this. But I don’t subscribe to the slogan “All you need is love”; I prefer “All you need is respect for life”.