In his new book How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures, Robin Dunbar reviews many details of the history and correlates of religion. He says that religion’s main function is to aid group cohesion, and that religion has been key to allowing humans to sustain larger groups. While I have doubts about how well he explains these details, his book gives me an excuse to return to this important topic.
On the topic of religion, Eric Kaufmann's lecture "Why the Religious will Inherit the Earth" is worth watching. Kaufmann argues that religious fundamentalists will eventually become the majority of the population due to their high fertility rates. The Amish, for example, are projected to have a population of 7 million people by the year 2100.
The rise of the modern state and their offshoots (companies) might be something to do with it. States are much more capable these days than previously, and are providing welfare, health, education, justice and laws and policies for coordinating economies, etc, Prior to the modern era, they were little more than protection rackets. They still have a bit of that function today, but they are co-coordinating far more competently than previously.
With regard to wokeness, online mobs, etc. this appears to be something that largely exists online and in the media. There's a lack of law and regulation there, and anonymity is common, and the mob mentality naturally arises there.
The Baha'i Faith has been talking about this for 170 + years. It is fundamental to it's raisone d'etre that this is the era of a global civilisation requiring global cohesion. Put simply, that religions follow a millenial season - a springtime of renewal of fundamental spiritual laws with new social 'garments', followed by a summer of great advancement and a new civilisation, and a gradual autumnal stagnation and final a winter of decline that ushers in another new religion. In more complex terms we can look at the religious stagnation and decline since the industrial / colonial / darwinian period that ushered in a new world view - that there is a whole world of humanity, that we evolved gradually from chemistry to human over millions of years (a new mind-set of time and who we are), and that we are nowhere near knowing it all. The founder, Baha'u'llah, reckoned that without taking on a global one-humanity world view we will create enormous destructiuon for ourselves. He predicted the 2 world wars but also encourages the development of global institutions, clear and peaceful borders, and eventually a commonwealth of nations. The Baha'i Faith's work, as a religious organisation, is in the education of people to spiritual values (love, justice etc) that culminate in service to community and the planet. The Baha'i Faith believes in 2 spiritual forces: God's greater plan which is delivered through the broader political forces that shape human social and governance systems; and a lesser plan that is the role of the Baha'i Faith in supporting the development of a more specific modelling of community development on a global scale. In this model the devotional, governance and social elements are seen as important as each other and are each supported by teachings and laws that create a powerful learning and creative response to community life and the changing broader social landscape. Eventually Baha'is believe the greater and lesser plans will converge as what we learn from both of these processes over decades and centuries lead to a flourishing 'summer', a new 'golden age', and certainly a global human cohesion.
Seems like an obvious answer is that the traditional power structures of religion relied on massive differences in education and ability between the priestly class and the masses.
I'm not sure the desires that pushed us to punish blasphemy, believe comforting fictions or to worship have really been affected. Rather, the traditional religious model was fundamentally hierarchical in a way that didn't translate well to a rich well-educated society.
'Then starting roughly 4Kya, near the “Axial Age”, we saw the rise of a new kind of religion associated with farming and herding in even larger communities, at the latitudes where such larger communities were possible. Most “traditional” religions of today arose during this ancient era. This type of religion was centered on individual beliefs in moralizing gods described in writings that told of stories and doctrines. Religion became a personal duty, often resulting from a personal choice, and love and forgiveness came to matter more, relative to the sheer power of gods."
"Moralizing gods"? Jehovah, certainly - but what others? There doesn't appear to be much moral content to classical paganism (it would absurd for Zeus to decree prohibition of adultery). Nor in Egyptian or Mesopotamian polytheism, Druidism, or Norse paganism. Yet these religions commanded enormous resources for ritual practice, temple construction, and grave goods.
Religion as a personal relationship to God or gods, as the basis of morality (both in explicit laws and in philosophy that supported moral character) seems to me to date much later.
Your explanation of the difference between the religion appearing 10Kya and that from 4Kya was rather thin. About the former, you say: “In this kind of religion, rituals were a communal duty, to placate the gods, and individual beliefs were unimportant.” But communal sacrifice is based on the beliefs of every member of the community, all of whom must believe that these gods exist and desire certain kinds of sacrifices. With the latter, "Religion became a personal duty, often resulting from a personal choice . . .," which suggests that some people chose to reject the local gods--an unlikely, dangerous choice, I would say--". . . and love and forgiveness came to matter more, relative to the sheer power of gods." This seems to me to suggest that these later gods were less powerful. But, of course, in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition God is omnipotent.
The power of, and need for, religion to establish and maintain group identity and cohesion seems unabated. Us v. them is baked into our monkey genes.Traditional religions, based on fairy tales readily and steadily disproven as science progresses, will not hold. We are in a dangerous transition state - in between old and new organizing principles and lacking an ove-rarching sense of "us" - combined with historically unsurpassed concentrations of power at stake and available as weapons against a "them" who may be more expedient victim than actual threat.
Non-theistic religions aren't new. Perhaps their newfound dominance is? (Although Confucianism was extremely successful in China for a very long time.)
But if so, surely it started with Communist countries' atheistic civil religion and cults of personality, or perhaps even further back with the Enlightenment development of secular civil religion, not recent "wokeness".
Aside from the fact that the Axial Age is more recent than 4kya (2.8-2.3kya), I don't think it is good practice to detect change points happening within the past 10 years ("wokeism"), when the shortest time scale of previous events is 2000 years. It's kind of a bad take on The Current Thing (the term Current Thing is of course a Current Thing itself. Never mind.). Religious attitudes ebb and flow; even in America, and certainly in Europe and Asia. But it seems to me that all of this talk (not really a "theory") about religion as an evolutionary cultural advantage is a bit of just-so story, outside of what we consider rigorous scientific inquiry.
How confident are you that the evolution of religion really follows that development? I think a lot of the world in such distant past is fundamentally unknowable, there's so little evidence. And it's even harder to know if what little evidence there is represents something widespread, or just one group. Afterall, there are significant differences between e.g modern Mormons and modern Catholics, let alone modern Mormons and Confucianism.
On the topic of religion, Eric Kaufmann's lecture "Why the Religious will Inherit the Earth" is worth watching. Kaufmann argues that religious fundamentalists will eventually become the majority of the population due to their high fertility rates. The Amish, for example, are projected to have a population of 7 million people by the year 2100.
The rise of the modern state and their offshoots (companies) might be something to do with it. States are much more capable these days than previously, and are providing welfare, health, education, justice and laws and policies for coordinating economies, etc, Prior to the modern era, they were little more than protection rackets. They still have a bit of that function today, but they are co-coordinating far more competently than previously.
With regard to wokeness, online mobs, etc. this appears to be something that largely exists online and in the media. There's a lack of law and regulation there, and anonymity is common, and the mob mentality naturally arises there.
The Baha'i Faith has been talking about this for 170 + years. It is fundamental to it's raisone d'etre that this is the era of a global civilisation requiring global cohesion. Put simply, that religions follow a millenial season - a springtime of renewal of fundamental spiritual laws with new social 'garments', followed by a summer of great advancement and a new civilisation, and a gradual autumnal stagnation and final a winter of decline that ushers in another new religion. In more complex terms we can look at the religious stagnation and decline since the industrial / colonial / darwinian period that ushered in a new world view - that there is a whole world of humanity, that we evolved gradually from chemistry to human over millions of years (a new mind-set of time and who we are), and that we are nowhere near knowing it all. The founder, Baha'u'llah, reckoned that without taking on a global one-humanity world view we will create enormous destructiuon for ourselves. He predicted the 2 world wars but also encourages the development of global institutions, clear and peaceful borders, and eventually a commonwealth of nations. The Baha'i Faith's work, as a religious organisation, is in the education of people to spiritual values (love, justice etc) that culminate in service to community and the planet. The Baha'i Faith believes in 2 spiritual forces: God's greater plan which is delivered through the broader political forces that shape human social and governance systems; and a lesser plan that is the role of the Baha'i Faith in supporting the development of a more specific modelling of community development on a global scale. In this model the devotional, governance and social elements are seen as important as each other and are each supported by teachings and laws that create a powerful learning and creative response to community life and the changing broader social landscape. Eventually Baha'is believe the greater and lesser plans will converge as what we learn from both of these processes over decades and centuries lead to a flourishing 'summer', a new 'golden age', and certainly a global human cohesion.
Seems like an obvious answer is that the traditional power structures of religion relied on massive differences in education and ability between the priestly class and the masses.
I'm not sure the desires that pushed us to punish blasphemy, believe comforting fictions or to worship have really been affected. Rather, the traditional religious model was fundamentally hierarchical in a way that didn't translate well to a rich well-educated society.
'Then starting roughly 4Kya, near the “Axial Age”, we saw the rise of a new kind of religion associated with farming and herding in even larger communities, at the latitudes where such larger communities were possible. Most “traditional” religions of today arose during this ancient era. This type of religion was centered on individual beliefs in moralizing gods described in writings that told of stories and doctrines. Religion became a personal duty, often resulting from a personal choice, and love and forgiveness came to matter more, relative to the sheer power of gods."
"Moralizing gods"? Jehovah, certainly - but what others? There doesn't appear to be much moral content to classical paganism (it would absurd for Zeus to decree prohibition of adultery). Nor in Egyptian or Mesopotamian polytheism, Druidism, or Norse paganism. Yet these religions commanded enormous resources for ritual practice, temple construction, and grave goods.
Religion as a personal relationship to God or gods, as the basis of morality (both in explicit laws and in philosophy that supported moral character) seems to me to date much later.
“They also found more potent drugs, such as poppy seeds and beer.” What were the earlier, milder drugs? (Milder than *beer*?)
Your explanation of the difference between the religion appearing 10Kya and that from 4Kya was rather thin. About the former, you say: “In this kind of religion, rituals were a communal duty, to placate the gods, and individual beliefs were unimportant.” But communal sacrifice is based on the beliefs of every member of the community, all of whom must believe that these gods exist and desire certain kinds of sacrifices. With the latter, "Religion became a personal duty, often resulting from a personal choice . . .," which suggests that some people chose to reject the local gods--an unlikely, dangerous choice, I would say--". . . and love and forgiveness came to matter more, relative to the sheer power of gods." This seems to me to suggest that these later gods were less powerful. But, of course, in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition God is omnipotent.
The power of, and need for, religion to establish and maintain group identity and cohesion seems unabated. Us v. them is baked into our monkey genes.Traditional religions, based on fairy tales readily and steadily disproven as science progresses, will not hold. We are in a dangerous transition state - in between old and new organizing principles and lacking an ove-rarching sense of "us" - combined with historically unsurpassed concentrations of power at stake and available as weapons against a "them" who may be more expedient victim than actual threat.
Non-theistic religions aren't new. Perhaps their newfound dominance is? (Although Confucianism was extremely successful in China for a very long time.)
But if so, surely it started with Communist countries' atheistic civil religion and cults of personality, or perhaps even further back with the Enlightenment development of secular civil religion, not recent "wokeness".
Aside from the fact that the Axial Age is more recent than 4kya (2.8-2.3kya), I don't think it is good practice to detect change points happening within the past 10 years ("wokeism"), when the shortest time scale of previous events is 2000 years. It's kind of a bad take on The Current Thing (the term Current Thing is of course a Current Thing itself. Never mind.). Religious attitudes ebb and flow; even in America, and certainly in Europe and Asia. But it seems to me that all of this talk (not really a "theory") about religion as an evolutionary cultural advantage is a bit of just-so story, outside of what we consider rigorous scientific inquiry.
How confident are you that the evolution of religion really follows that development? I think a lot of the world in such distant past is fundamentally unknowable, there's so little evidence. And it's even harder to know if what little evidence there is represents something widespread, or just one group. Afterall, there are significant differences between e.g modern Mormons and modern Catholics, let alone modern Mormons and Confucianism.