This is why the idea that an entire household could be baptized on the decision of the patriarch ruffles Western feathers. To us such things are “obviously” individual decisions, yet it fits with the Old Testament.
Individualism? Nah, it goes back to the Renaissance; roots go back to Augustine.
Myron Tumer called this “pseudochoice” in Word Perfect.
The practices of baptism in the early church varied and the practice you described represented one extreme end/interpretation - it even lead to cases where the faith of the ruler was interpreted as the faith of every citizen in the kingdom. When the ruler became a Christian and was baptized, it was interpreted that all citizens became Christians and were baptized, no matter did they want it or not.
Anyway, what is true is that baptism was a community matter. Baptism was the step where the person became fully a member of the community of believers (the ‘body of Christ’). That shaped the identity in a way that was far from individualism - at least if the person baptized was a believer.
Very old testament indeed. Also very old testament (and new!) was the notion that a community (even a nation!) could be “uncircumcised in heart” even though they (the patriarchs anyway) bore the outward sign of circumcision literally. Our marks of community membership (whether they be baptism now or circumcision then) still remain outward markers only. Apparently it’s what’s going on in the heart that counts - both then and now. The more a leader does something, presuming that all the led are with him, the less he knows about what the actual “buy-in” is of the so-led. And the more problems he is likely to have. Nobody is more ignorant about the heart state of a community than the iron-fisted leader whom everyone will only tells the things they think he wants to hear. The same goes for national level autocrats and kings who remain vastly ignorant of the actual state of their own domain because they don’t welcome any unpleasant truth. The last kind of person you want making important decisions for your nation is someone who fancies himself a king or dictator. Something that certain authoritarianism enthusiasts will continue to be learning the hard way here in the U.S.
This reminded me of a thread someone made on an off topic forum a LONG time ago asking what all our knowledge would do for us if we were transported back in time 10,000 years. Very little of it would help us because we wouldn’t even have any tools or any materials to implement and build stuff. This kind of ties into “it takes a village” and what you mentioned.
Non-Catholic feathers. Household baptisms are classic examples cited justifying infant baptism along with the connections between baptism and circumcision. Baptism and circumcision both seem pretty relevant to the issue of individualism vs collectivism.
Vinnie
A Roman Catholic priest once commented to me on this matter, saying that confession is a compact between priest and parishioner to say things that neither wants to hear.
The history of humanity suggests that humans can only survive if they are part of a network of thousands(?) of humans. If a small group became isolated, it disappeared within a few generations. It is partly a genetic issue (inbreeding) but also that humans need cooperation and trade to get everything needed for long-term survival in harsh conditions.
Analyses of ancient DNA have shown that many groups did not leave any traces into the populations that came after them. The ancient European hunter-gatherers are one example (disappeared, at least mainly), the same might be true for the first humans in North America.
These were humans that had learned to live in the prevailing environment, so not just people who were thrown into primitive conditions.
I sit corrected, trust, but will verify. Links?
5: we’re both right.
’ The Renaissance gave individualism cultural expression, but the Reformation gave it theological and moral urgency. By insisting that each believer stood directly before God, responsible for their own conscience and salvation, the Reformation accelerated the rise of modern individualism.’
’ Fractured community: While empowering individuals, the Reformation also fractured collective religious identity, creating tensions between personal conviction and communal unity’
Stalin. He was a brilliant poet in his youth. He loved Chekhov. Which is why he banned him. He understood full well about the heart state of the community. He dictated it for 30 years.
He may have had that insight at one time … but not after he rose to power. It takes ignorance like his to enable the rise of the Lysenkos of the world who are vastly wrong about such objectively important stuff (like what makes crops thrive). And all that ignorance helps contribute to their own downfall (killing so many others along the way too). And you can be as sure as hell that he wasn’t privy to any of the actual inner lives and thoughts of even his closest “allies” and followers. Hence the constant purges and perpetual fear such a man must necessarily live with. We see echoes of that over here now - and a great many of our evangelicals even worship it in this country.
All true Mervin. He couldn’t care less. But only dying of old age, horribly, stopped him, while his friends partied on, knowing, around him. The masses who suffered the most, grieved for him. We stopped evolving at least 50,000 years ago, probably at least 10 x that. (Although I favour the late evolution of the supralaryngeal vocal tract, that allowed us to sound emotional with vowels.) We can manage living in hunter gatherer groups of no more than 200. We are not fit for civilization. It’s not fit for us. It all went to hell 5,000 years ago, with agriculture. Putin, Trump, Vance, Xi, Modi cannot lose. In our small tribal groups, we’d have participatively democratically curbed or killed them.
Well, then … you have a good day too! 
Give them what plants crave! 
There are a multitude of potential questions yet to be raised in series (or by any ‘hive-mind’ community concept.) Are married folks still married? Intimate? But now everyone is “in on” their intimacy? A bit of mental adjustment there. What about new babies being born. Young children. Are they all immediately fully lingual - and experts in everything? So ‘learning’ would be a thing of the past since everyone already knows or understands everything – or does so as soon as their growing young minds can take on that capacity?
How much of your life changes if your own mind is totally open and transparent? No more reason for “image maintenance” or living into any lie about how much you are or are not contributing towards any needed group or team efforts. That would be good, even if embarrassing at first for any of us during times where we may be slacking more than our fair share. But on the other hand, it’s also universal - as in we would all have first hand experience of how nobody is always free of such guilt. So universal embarrassment substantially helps mitigate horrifying thoughts of being singled out for special humilation. All of this calls to mind what the Christian imagination does with a ‘judgment day’ concept. When all is revealed. We see it as ultimate justice and a good thing (when happening to everyone else - especially those we deem our enemies). But we rarely pursue the concept beyond what we fancy might be quite agreeable to ourselves.
Greetings from Breaking Bad country! I don’t have Apple TV and can’t comment on the show other than what others have said, but the comments about “hive mind” and the name of the show recalling E Pluribus Unum make me think it’s more of a political commentary than anything about heaven or hell. I suspect it’s more about diversity than individualism, especially with DEI being under attack in this country, but I’ll defer to those who have actually watched the show.
I love the questions. Plato tried to envision a perfect human society in the Republic. Lots of groups since Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516 have tried to create ideal human societies that have routinely failed. Extreme capitalism (individualism) has fared no better.
What will the Kingdom of God look like? Excluding the Catholic belief in the “beatific vision,” where we contemplate the beauty of the divine for eternity, I assume we’re talking about Paul’s “spiritual body” resurrected onto Earth. Since we have no physical needs nor fear of death, greed and covetousness will no longer exist. Since the first will be last and the last will be first, everyone will have equal access to the seat of Christ at the right hand of God. No more struggles for power or prestige. People are neither married nor given in marriage. No more reason for jealousy or power struggles in personal relationships or sex. There’s no temptation to chase after other gods, since the true God is clearly seen and known. What other sins are left, even to an individual with free will?
I also like to think that since we have an eternity at our disposal, we have unlimited time to get to know everyone on Earth, whether that’s 144,000 or 20 billion.
Anthropologists recognize a difference between “guilt” cultures and “honor-shame” cultures (also called individualist and collectivist). Guilt cultures emphasize individual guilt and are found in the Protestant countries of Northern Europe, the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The rest of the world, 70% of the population, live in honor-shame cultures. Southern Europe and the Mediterranean are honor-shame cultures, as they were when Judaism, Jesus and Christianity were born. Is that the Christian worldview?
Sapiens stopped physically evolving 50,000 years ago, as far as major physiological changes, but cultural evolution moves much faster than physical evolution, and some would argue cultural evolution has eliminated the need for much of our biological evolution.
Sapiens didn’t exist 500,000 years ago. The first sapiens is identified in Morocco about 300,000 years ago. It had the same small face as us, compared to Neanderthals large face, but it had the same elongated skull as Neanderthal. The final piece of the puzzle in sapiens was the evolution of the globular (round) brain shape, a gradual process that took place from 150,000-50,000 years ago. The first researchers to describe the process dubbed it the “Language-Ready Brain” in 2014.
On vowel-sounds and emotion, animals have emotions. I’m not sure about the connection to vowels.
The hyoid bone (ironically, the Adam’s Apple) is what allows humans to form vowel sounds. Homo erectus about 1 million years ago had a hyoid that was intermediate between primates and Neanderthal/sapiens (which are identical). In other words, erectus could make some, but not all, vowel sounds a million years ago. Neanderthal could make the full range of vowel sounds, but lacked the brain wiring to take full advantage of that capacity. Sapiens were the first to put it all together.
We will need to see more. I’ve seen suggestions that the hive mind is a metaphor for social media “where everyone appears to be happy and connected” and we know how BS that is. Still early. Lots of ways to take it.
Plato’s Republic was flawed from its very foundation.
Thanks Jay. I’m ashamed at my insouciance about human evolution. I was actually paying lip service to those who push back the evolution of behavioural modernity. I went far too far; I like orders of magnitude. As H. heidelbergensis is the immediate ancestor of H. sapiens and neanderthalensis, who could hybridize, I imagine they could with heidelbergensis? A much older species. I blame the parents.
And aye, emotion is zoological, being able to express it with sound is maximized with vowels?
Great link.
I wonder if we don’t often press this beyond it’s intended point in Jesus’ response to the Sadducees. It seems to me that scriptures make the case that not only will there be marriage in Heaven, (not marriage in the limited physical senses how we or the Sadducees then tend to think of it) but the fulfillment of marriage as it is meant to be! The ultimate in relationship unending. The Bride of Christ, no less!
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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