Tag Archives: Religion Evolves

Some Baba Brinkman rap videos for Christmas

It’s about time to catch up with Canadian rapper, Baba Brinkman who has made an industry of rapping about science issues (mostly). Here’s a brief rundown of some of his latest ventures.

He was in Paris for the climate talks (also known as World Climate Change Conference 2015 [COP21]) and produced this ‘live’ rap on Dec. 10, 2015 for the press conference on “Moral Obligation – Scientific Imperative” for Climate Matters,

The piece is part of his forthcoming album and show “The Rap Guide to Climate Chaos.”

On Dec. 18, 2015 Baba released a new music video with his take on religion and science (from a Dec. 18, 2015 posting on his blog),

The digital animation is by Steven Fahey, who is a full time animator for the Simpsons, and I’m completely blown away by the results he achieved. The video is about the evolution of religious instincts, and how the secular among us can make sense of beliefs we don’t share.

Here’s the ‘Religion evolves’ video,

A few days after Baba released his video, new research was published contradicting some of what he has in there (i.e., religion as a binding element for societies struggling to survive in ancient times. From a Dec. 21, 2015 University of Central Florida news release on EurekAlert (Note: A link has been removed),

Humans haven’t learned much in more than 2,000 years when it comes to religion and politics.

Religion has led to social tension and conflict, not just in today’s society, but dating back to 700 B.C. according to a new study published today in Current Anthropology .

University of Colorado anthropology Professor Arthur A. Joyce and University of Central Florida Associate Professor Sarah Barber found evidence in several Mexican archeological sites that contradict the long-held belief that religion acted to unite early state societies. It often had the opposite effect, the study says.

“It doesn’t matter if we today don’t share particular religious beliefs, but when people in the past acted on their beliefs, those actions could have real, material consequences,” Barber said about the team’s findings. “It really behooves us to acknowledge religion when considering political processes.”

Sounds like sage advice in today’s world that has multiple examples of politics and religion intersecting and resulting in conflict.

The team published its findings “Ensoulment, Entrapment, and Political Centralization: A Comparative Study of Religion and Politics in Later Formative Oaxaca,” after spending several years conducting field research in the lower Río Verde valley of Oaxaca, Mexico’s Pacific coastal lowlands. They compared their results with data from the highland Valley of Oaxaca.

Their study viewed archaeological evidence from 700 B.C. to A.D. 250, a period identified as a time of the emergence of states in the region. In the lower Verde, religious rituals involving offerings and the burial of people in cemeteries at smaller communities created strong ties to the local community that impeded the creation of state institutions.

And in the Valley of Oaxaca, elites became central to mediating between their communities and the gods, which eventually triggered conflict with traditional community leaders. It culminated in the emergence of a regional state with its capital at the hilltop city of Monte Albán.

“In both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Lower Río Verde Valley, religion was important in the formation and history of early cities and states, but in vastly different ways,” said Joyce, lead author on the study. “Given the role of religion in social life and politics today, that shouldn’t be too surprising.”

The conflict in the lower Río Verde valley is evident in rapid rise and fall of its state institutions. At Río Viejo, the capital of the lower Verde state, people had built massive temples by AD 100. Yet these impressive, labor-intensive buildings, along with many towns throughout the valley, were abandoned a little over a century later.

“An innovative aspect of our research is to view the burials of ancestors and ceremonial offerings in the lower Verde as essential to these ancient communities,” said Joyce, whose research focuses on both political life and ecology in ancient Mesoamerica. “Such a perspective is also more consistent with the worldviews of the Native Americans that lived there.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Ensoulment, Entrapment, and Political Centralization A Comparative Study of Religion and Politics in Later Formative Oaxaca by Arthur A. Joyce and Sarah B. Barber. Current Anthropology Vol. 56, No. 6 (December 2015), pp. 819-847 DOI: 10.1086/683998

This paper is behind a paywall.

Getting back to Baba, having research, which contradicts or appears to contradict your position, suddenly appear is part of the scientific process. Making your work scientifically authentic adds pressure for a performer or artist, on the other hand, it also blesses that performer or artist with credibility. In any event, it’s well worth checking out Baba’s website and, for anyone, who’s wanted to become a patron of the arts (or of a particular rapper), there’s this Dec. 3, 2015 posting on Baba’s blog about Patreon,

Every year or so since 2010 I’ve reached out to my friends and fans asking for help with a Kickstarter or IndieGogo campaign to fund my latest album or video project. Well now I’m hoping to put an end to that regular cycle with the help of Patreon, a site that lets fans become patrons with exclusive access to the artists they support and the work they help create.

Click here to visit Patreon.com/BabaBrinkman

Good luck Baba. (BTW, Currently living in New York with his scientist wife and child, he’s originally from the Canadian province of British Columbia.)

British Columbia Day (in Canada) kickoff with Baba Brinkman’s Kickstarter campaign and a science rap

This year’s BC (British Columbia) Day is today, Aug. 4, 2014*. In celebration I am posting a number of fun items, all to do with science and none with nanotechnology, although one item does feature ‘nano’ in the title.

First off, BC-born, Baba Brinkman reports back from the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he is previewing his new ‘science’ rap,

Greetings from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! Today I performed my second Rap Guide to Religion preview at the Gilded Balloon, and this afternoon I launched my Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of an animated rap album by the same name. I already have eight songs written and recorded, and I want to create another 6-8 for the full album, and then commission animators to produce a series of animated shorts to bring the story to life. The campaign will run for precisely 40 days and 40 nights, and I’m excited to see that we’re over $1K already, just 12 hours in!

The Rap Guide to Religion is my latest “peer reviewed rap” album and show, detailing the story of how religion and human evolution coincide. I’m summarizing work from the field of “evolutionary religious studies” in rap form both because I find it fascinating and also because I think an appreciation of how and why religion evolves can help to rebuild some burnt bridges between religious groups and between believers and nonbelievers.

You can stream three of the first eight songs from my site at music.bababrinkman.com, and all eight comprise a short “album preview” EP I put together for the fringe, which will be exclusively available to Kickstarter backers. The opening track “Religion Evolves” offers a pretty good overview of my personal perspective as well as the questions I want to explore with the record. …

Before moving on to the Kickstarter information, here’s what David Bruggeman had to say about the new work and about supporting Baba’s projects in a July 31, 2014 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog,

… You can also listen to two tracks from the album (if you contribute, you will receive downloads of all eight tracks).  My favorite of the two is “Religion Evolves”.

The usual assortment of rewards (copies of the album, t-shirts, custom raps) is available for whatever you’d be willing to contribute.  My past experience with supporting his projects allows me to say that he will deliver.  If you want proof, look for me at 2:53 in his video for “Artificial Selection”

Baba’s Kickstarter campaign titled: The Rap Guide to Religion (Animated Rap Album) has a goal of $20,000,

An animated rap album about the evolutionary origins of religion. It’s time to eff with the ineffable!

Have you ever helped to crowdfund a rap album? How about a rap album that communicates SCIENCE? Or an ANIMATED rap album about the scientific study of RELIGION? Well, that’s what I’m working on right now, with the help of some friends.

Theologians and philosophers have sought the meaning and purpose of life for thousands of years, often finding it in religion. Then Darwin’s theory of evolution turned the world upside down. The supernatural was discarded as the source of answers to the natural world and replaced by the blind force of evolution. And now, with decades of scientific research on hand, we can finally make sense of religion using the tools of evolutionary thinking.

The field is called “Evolutionary Religious Studies” and I’m using my talent and love of rap and science to share this research with a wide audience by recording a rap album on the subject. I’m also teaming up with an amazing group of animators and illustrators led by Dave Anderson from http://bloodsausage.co.uk to create a series of animated shorts (approximately 20 minutes long in total) based on the album, so we can make the songs maximally entertaining and accessible.

There is a nine second sample of an animated music rap from the Rap Guide to Religion Album on the campaign page. Surprisngly, Baba and his colleague have not made the sample available for embedding elsewhere so you’ll have to go there to see it.

* I failed to properly schedule publication (I forgot to change the date) of this post and so it bears an Aug. 1, 2014 publication date. Today is Aug. 15, 2014.