Only the biggest God builds a civilization: Author posits religion is essential building block

[rug]

Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict argues it was no mere coincidence that human civilization and the beginnings of organized religion first took root some 12,000 years ago. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Among more militant atheist circles, the argument is often made that religion is a human invention serving only to stand in the way of societal progress. In the new book, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, University of British Columbia psychology professor Ara Norenzayan argues the exact opposite: Religions — at least those equipped with an omniscient, omnipresent “Big God” — are not only important, but the source of almost all known earthly civilization. The Post’s Tristin Hopper reached Mr. Norenzayan in Vancouver.

Tristin Hopper, National Post Staff | 13/08/31 4:44 PM ET

If religion is the “glue” that bonded modern civilization together, as your book asserts, what did human society look like before?

Let’s go back 12,000 years; you have all of humanity living in small bands of hunter-gatherers. Then something happened which, still, we’re trying to understand: In only a few thousands years, which is nothing from an evolutionary perspective, people settle down, populations skyrocket and societies start to build monumental architecture like the pyramids. At exactly the same time you have the growth of religion. My argument is that this is not a coincidence. Maybe what happened was, these human groups stumbled on the idea of a Big God, found they could solve co-operation dilemmas much better, and as a result they expanded. Other things then kicked in: Agriculture, specialization, more efficient armies, etc.

Your book makes a clear distinction between the tribal gods worshipped by most hunter-gatherer societies and “Big Gods”; omniscient all-powerful beings like the Judeo-Christian God. What’s the difference?

I’m arguing that some gods are more effective than other gods in creating civilization. Limited gods [tribal gods] know very little about what people do, they might demand sacrifices, maybe not; these gods are not going to build large-scale societies. The big, omniscient, all-powerful, morally-demanding gods, they’re the ones that are going to do the job. If you just count the number of supernatural beliefs people have in the world, there are thousands of them. Yet, the vast majority of human beings are devoted to Big Gods; probably more than 80%. So, how do you get from tribal gods to the vast majority of human beings worshipping big gods? There has to be an explanation.

http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/08/31/only-the-biggest-god-builds-a-civilization-author-posits-religion-is-essential-building-block-of-society/



http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/

[longship]

1. Weren't even the Jews of the early Hebrew Bible polytheistic?

Isn't that part of the narrative? At least that's the way I have understood it. Seems like many Biblical scholars think so. Or so I've heard.

[rug]

3. I'm no anthropologist but I think that was before Abraham.

[longship]

5. Well, what about evidence in Exodus?

When fleeing pharoah (almost certainly fiction -- no independant historic or physical evidence of any of the narrative exists) the Jews don't seem to know who or what to worship. Moses' conversations with Yahweh seem to indicate that he is a mountain god. And there are other indications of worshipping other gods, Baal comes to mind, among others. Then, there's the golden calf story.

But I understand that this is substantial theory derived from textual criticism. And it fits in with other prevalent religious beliefs of the centuries before the current era, probably all who were apparently also polytheistic.

Again, I am no expert.

[rug]

6. Ugh, I hate Bible arguments . . . . but

I think the whole struggle there was over the establishment of the supremacy of Yahweh over the old tribal gods. Mind you, I'm relying on Charlton Heston throwing the ten commandments at the golden calf and on not much else.

[longship]

9. ROFL! I like your posts, rug.

I agree with your opinion. But I have been getting over my head in the Bible Geek podcast, which I find equally interesting and befuddling.

I just thought this OP was making an interesting argument. And certainly the Big God thing first came into vogue during those times. Much of the Bible narrative came from previous narratives which were substantially polytheistic. The Gilgamesh story comes to mind as a predecessor to Noah.

[rug]

12. What's interesting is his focus on the explosion of civilization 12,000 years ago.

Doubtless, the answers lie in agriculture, alphabets and perhaps, as he suggests here, adoration of almighty, (as opposed to limited and local) god.

I like your posts too, longship. It's nice to think and discuss instead of snark.

[longship]

14. I disagree with him on that.

I think the world was pretty much polytheistic 12K years ago.

[dimbear]

16. It is still contentious, but I believe the emerging consensus is that the Jews were polytheistic

until the return from Babylonian captivity, i.e. very much more recently than was generally assumed. This is strongly suggested from physical archaeology, more or less only the narrative of the Bible stands in the way of general adoption of the idea. In that modern view, monotheism is seen as adopted from the Iranians, most likely from Zoroastrianism. The Bible has to be understood to be created from whole cloth at about the same time.

[immoderate]

2. This is nonsense. It's the anthropic principle.

All religions have gods. Some make it and some don't. I don't think it's religious values that made the difference.

An instance of the sharpshooter fallacy perhaps.

--imm

[rug]

4. You should read the whole article. The "Big" is significant.

He does address distinctions between concepts of god.

The book is from a social psychologist, not a list of fallacies.

He's one of the directors of this center.

http://www.hecc.ubc.ca/

[immoderate]

10. Everybody should make a living. God bless him.

The gods that survive among civilizations are the ones that lend a survival advantage to that civilization. Cooperation is a meme that rates to survive against the competition.

I think the forces that shape the civilization are mostly more basic than religion. Though religion might offer a convenient medium to carry them out.

--imm

[rug]

11. Fortunately, that Center is establishing scholarship that should make glib internet memes extinct.

[immoderate]

13. Oh, I'm totally against that type of meme.

You betcha!

--imm

[MrModerate]

19. Extinguish glib internet memes?

A) That would be cruel, and

B) Are you taking bets on that? (Because I know where I'd put a few simoleons.)

[ret5hd]

7. Maybe (just maybe) it was effective agriculture.

[rug]

8. Engels said it was the thumb.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

[dimbear]

18. And maybe just maybe folk invented legends to explain the changing of the seasons and

the best time to plant and then personified them into gods and.......

wait. Somebody thought of that before.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. This argument is bullshit.

Among more militant atheist circles, the argument is often made that religion is a human invention serving only to stand in the way of societal progress.

Many atheists would agree that religion was an integral part of the development of civilization. Few, if any, even these alleged "militant" types would argue otherwise. Most atheists would however argue that religion now serves little useful purpose and in fact, and quite obviously is standing in the way of social progress.

[rug]

17. Not only is that statement bullshit, but that position long predates "new atheism".

I wouldn't say that religion has promoted the social progress of mankind. I say that it has been a detriment to the progress of civilization, and I would also say this: that the emancipation of the mind from religious superstition is as essential to the progress of civilization as is emancipation from physical slavery. - Culbert Olson (1961)

http://www.argumentsforatheism.com/arguments_atheism_society.html

Religion is the most inflammatory enemy-labelling device in history. - A Time to Stand Up, (2003), Richard Dawkins (2003)

I want to examine that dangerous thing that’s common to Judaism and Christianity as well: the process of non-thinking called "faith". - The Root of All Evil?, (2006), Richard Dawkins

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - The God Delusion, (2006), Richard Dawkins

If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. - Sam Harris, The Temple Of Reason", The Sun, September 2006

“Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell.” ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience. ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization. ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Et cetera.

If, despite the evidence to the contrary, you say that most atheists, new or old, concede the positive impact in the early development of civilization, you concede the conclusion of his study. It is on the religions and the onset of civilization, not religion and present society.

[MrModerate]

20. Interesting notion, but . . .

Even if true, paleolithic solutions to social problems are well past their use-by dates.

[Jim__]

21. "Then something happened ..."

That sounds like a pretty safe bet.

Sounds like it would be an interesting book to read. I'm curious as to how he attacks it from a psychological point of view. Does he claim that human psychology leads inevitably to religion and from there, inevitably, to a Big God? Or that if humans stumble upon the concept of a Big God, this leads inevitably to a large, stable society? I also wonder exactly what the difference is between the study of history from 12,000 years ago and the study of anthropology.

Here's a copy of the first chapter of the book.

[rug]

22. How'd you find that?

The second observation about religious evolution is equally important: religions have always been multiplying, growing, and mutating at a briskpace. In one estimate, new religions sprout at an average rate of two to three per day. “Many are called, but few are chosen,” says the Gospel according to Matthew (22:14). This “Matthew Effect” might as well refer to the iron law of religious evolution, which dictates that while legions of new religious elements are created, most of them die out, save a potent few that endure and flourish.

By one estimate, there are 10,000 religions in the world today. Yet, the vast majority of humanity adheres to a disproportionate few of them: just a handful of religions claim the vast majority of religious minds in the world. This is the third observation that flows from the first two: that most religious people living on the planet today are the cultural descendants of just a few outlier religious movements that won in the cultural marketplace. In the long run, almost all religious movements end in failure. Anthropologist Richard Sosis looked at the group survival rates of a representative set of 200 nineteenth-century utopian communities, both religious and secular. He found a striking but overwhelming pattern. The average life span of the religious communes was a mere 25 years. In 80 years, nine out of ten religious communes had disbanded. Secular communes (mostly socialist) fared even worse: they lasted for an average of 6.4 years, and nine out of ten disappeared in less than 20 years.

This cultural winnowing of religions over time is evident throughout history and is occurring every day. It is easy to miss this dynamic process, because the enduring religious movements are all that we often see in the present. However, this would be an error. It is called survivor bias. When groups, entities, or persons undergo a process of competition and selective retention, we see abundant cases of those that “survived” the competition process; the cases that did not survive and flourish are buried in the dark recesses of the past, and are overlooked. To understand how religions propagate, we of course want to put the successful religions under the microscope; but we do not want to forget the unsuccessful ones that did not make it—the reasons for their failures can be equally instructive.

As a typical case of high expectations but disappointing cultural resilience consider the Perfectionists of Oneida, New York. The Perfectionists believed that Jesus Christ had already returned in the first century CE, which made it possible to enjoy God’s Kingdom here on Earth. They practiced complex marriage, such that every adult man was married to every adult woman. Postmenopausal women introduced young men to the pleasures of sex. However, such hedonism was tempered by the practice of mutual criticism, in which every member of the community was regularly subjected to public criticism by a committee, or sometimes by the entire community. The commune lasted about 33 years, splintering soon after its leader, John Humphrey Noyes, unsuccessfully attempted to pass on the leadership of the commune to his son. The Perfectionists certainly could have done better! They did not last very long, although their exacting standards survive on dinner tables to this day: some of their members established what became the giant silverware company Oneida Limited (their
motto: “Bring Life to the Table”).

I'm looking forward to reading this. He draws on a lot of knowledge and scholarship. It's like watching a chef reach out, select, and combine spices and herbs in the main dish.

How does he get to his conclusion? We'll see, but I'm betting that the more bizarre and local practices (illustrated above) get burnt off quickly but the core notions of an overarching god are more widely adaptable.

[Jim__]

24. I was looking for a book review, and there it was.

Based on that excerpt, it sounds like he looks at it, at least in part, from a natural selection point of view. It does sound like an interesting book.

[cbayer]

23. Fascinating stuff.

In essence, it's just tribalism on steroids.

His take on how more secular countries, like Canada and Scandanavia have evolved is also interesting.

Good interview. Leaves me wanting more.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. It's worth considering if the effect is the other way round

Does a big civilisation with central power encourage people to think of big gods that control a wide area of existence? I doubt if the archaeology can really be good enough to decide what came first in the ancient civilisations.

Part of the problem is that you only get a good idea of how powerful a god is thought to be when it's part of a major civilisation. Some hand-carved sacred objects don't tell you much about what the object of veneration was meant to be capable of; you need some extensive pictures of gods controlling the weather or the sun, creating the world, animals or humans - more likely to be found in stone monuments - or, ideally, a written description.

[Duer 157099]

26. BINGO!

With agriculture came civilization, because some members of society were freed up to do stuff besides gathering food--government, art, music, RELIGION. Tools they found useful for--ahem--"managing" their populations.

[rug]

27. Rome belies that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. In what way?

[rug]

29. It was polytheistic.

While Jupiter had a position of prominence, he was characterized in many ways as petty and the other gods often messed with him. It forms the plotlines of the myths.

In addition, there were many large cults that were far from regional.

If this is correct, it appears to contradict the author's thesis although I suspect his focus is on millennia before Rome.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. I don't think he can be claiming it's about monotheism at all

Not just Rome causes a problem there - so does Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, the Mayans and more. I think he's just talking about religions with powerful gods, that do things like create the world or humanity, as opposed to a god that gives you help in the hunt, or cures a sick person.

[rug]

31. In the interview it sounds like one big god.

Your book makes a clear distinction between the tribal gods worshipped by most hunter-gatherer societies and “Big Gods”; omniscient all-powerful beings like the Judeo-Christian God. What’s the difference?

That would not necessarily exclude demi-gods.

We'll see when it comes out.