I hate religion for all the harm it has caused and all the delay it has caused in advancement of science. However, few questions always linger in my brain.
With all the communication barriers and civilizations separated by such huge distances , is religion the only way we could have survived?
Could it be that democracy would have evolved much faster if there was no religion?
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@RAJASEKHAR ....
Your post seems to resolve itself into 3 actual questions....
1/Was religion vital for human survival ?
Ans. NO...(arguably it may have helped with building societies..)
2/Could it be that democracy would have evolved much faster if there was no religion?
Ans. Possibly.... although I suspect the "type" of religion has more influence over the development of Democracy specifically.
IE: Democracy came early to the Greeks who were polytheists...but their gods had a definite anthropomorphic bent.
Monolithic ,monotheist religions seem to have been less likely to embrace the idea of democracy.
3/Is religion the only way we could have survived?
Ans. NO.... Many groups have survived without religion....some have survived because of religion...some have died because of religion......again I suspect the specific nature of the religion has more influence over this than just "religion" per se.
It's hard to say ...
I think it may have been an unavoidable byproduct of our evolutionary path that we invent religion so as to instill fear in the archaic human populations so it would be easier to control them. Much like we use scary stories today to get kids to behave or to do something that they don't want to do.
It's hard to say ...
I think it may have been an unavoidable byproduct of our evolutionary path that we invent religion so as to instill fear in the archaic human populations so it would be easier to control them. Much like we use scary stories today to get kids to behave or to do something that they don't want to do.
I've said it before: I don't think it is an accident that the wildly successful religions all seem to support the status quo. By that I mean they all promise some intangible reward after death; in exchange for your acceptance of the power structure you currently live in.
True. Incidentally, the fear of after life seems to be the strongest of all. It makes humans do unthinkable deeds just to make sure the after life is secure. That has ended up forming a social structure using which religion has grown exponentially. When man got ready to kill for the faith, that gave the new tool to religion- Conversion by force.
Take into consideration the millions of humans who did not survive because of religion and you will have your answer. Could the Jewish victims of Catholic/ Lutheran Germany have survived without religion? The American Indian victims of Catholic Spain and Protestant England?
Experiment-
Given: Two control groups split off from one original homogenous group, all other things being equal. Religion is introduced into one and the other left alone in the same condition it came to the experiment with.
Question: What would the outcome be over a period of 4 generations?
Answer: Speculative. Strictly addressing religion and democracy, they are bees from different hives. One will take dominance over the other and kill it. In the truest sense of their implementation, religion will accept no common-good limits or restrictions placed upon it by its subordinates. Democracy will not accept the tenets of religion's totalitarianism. There has been an historical compromise of mutual benefit but that is founded only in the imperialism all men seem to have in common. Once imperialism has run its course, the two entities turn in on themselves to quarrel over dominance.
Monstrous belief systems like those of the Catholics and Jehovah's Witlesses are definitely counter-survival. It's a wonder that our species survived the Middle Ages under Catholic dominance.
However, there are elements in earlier religions that may have helped us to survive. As Yuval Noah Harari points out in "Homo Deus," our ability to organize on a large scale depends on our ability to suspend disbelief in shared fictions, such as nations, corporations, money, and political systems. Religions may have primed us for that. The polytheistic religions also taught us that the natural environment is the product of many forces, such as sunshine, wind, rain, tides, and that those forces interact and conflict with each other like the gods of Olympus. The monotheistic idea of one god causing everything is dangerous stupidity, like the idea that this world is just an anteroom for the afterlife.
Primitive religions also helped to protect our environment from over-exploitation. In New Zealand, for example, Maori elders still periodically place religion-based bans on fishing or shellfish gathering to allow resources to recover.
So in answer to your question, I'd say that early religions helped us to survive, while later (modern) religions are still trying to kill us.
So, the real question is whether religion helped some people survive better than others.
@Chimp3
"whether religion helped some people survive better than others."
It's certainly great stuff for encouraging people to fight harder and be more cruel and ruthless, especially religions that claim "love" and "peace" as their guiding principles.
No, not at all necessary for human survival. Unavoidable, but not necessary.
But it is and has been a great tool for those in power to send people willingly to their death. Make people feel that they can die for a higher cause, a just cause, and that they will be rewarded after death, then it will be much easier to send armies off to war.
I will be happy of religion and theist beliefs don't kill us all.