Mahzarin Banaji has been my favorite speaker so far. I am also very interested in Sociology because humans amaze me each and every day. In no other species do we see such conflict or saying one thing and behaving in a completely different way. Ms. Banaji's remark about, "When you study human beings you see very little of God", struck home for me. In my search for my own faith, it was amazing to me how people would go out into society and behave in very non God Like behaviors, then show up Sunday to church and confession and truly feel like they were forgiven. Sincerity did not seem to play a part in their though process whatsoever. This raises a big question to me about the morality. I think that most scientists have a problem with this because it can not possibly be an exact science for this reason. Our ability as humans to get different interpretations from what we learn and read is mind boggling. Two people read the same text and come up with completely different conclusions. This goes against scientific methods completely.
I think in Loyal Rues lecture he puts his finger right on the cause of this. We all come from different backgrounds, religious beliefs. Our traditions, and stories come from the same source but are expressed in completely different ways. Each religion has a base of a supreme or all seeing and knowing entity. Then from there the rules, expectations, rituals all begin to differ, then they come around again at the end to be good enough to end up in the final place. I also agree with him that it is a lot of work to keep it together, if it wasn't would we all value it so much??
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