A Reflection on Religion and Morality | Part 3
In which the origins and influences shaping religious belief and organizational structures are explored.
This is the third and (probably) final essay in my opening series about religion. In parts 1 and 2, which can be found here and here, I explored the rationality and morality of religion, respectively.
In Part 3, I will delve into the origins and influences that have shaped religious beliefs and organizational structures. This installment aims to address how religion became intricately intertwined with the Human Experience and present my thoughts on how we might disentangle the two.
I want to forewarn you that this essay may touch on sensitive subjects and potentially be perceived as callous or offensive. Please let me know if you have any concerns or if there are any inaccuracies in the text.
1
In Part 1, I embarked on a critique of the Ontological Argument and St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways. I then extended this examination to Indian and East Asian religions. Finally, I confronted Pascal’s wager, the rationalist’s theistic rebuke, with the similarly rational Atheist’s wager, as dreamt up by Michael Martin.
In Part 2, the focus shifted toward exploring the negative impacts that religion has had on the world. I delved into examples of immorality found in religious scriptures as well as in modern society. Additionally, I aimed to extract the general ethical doctrines propagated by religious structures and demonstrate how, without resorting to relativism or revisionism, these doctrines often fall short of being truly ethical.
In this essay, I will delve into the historical aspects of religious belief and its intricate entanglement with various facets of human life. From family dynamics to political discourse, violence to altruism, religion has permeated so much of our existence. I’ll conclude by discussing how we can create a global society that transcends the need for religious belief, and explore why such a transition would be desirable.
To put the significance of these discussions in perspective, it’s worth noting that a conservative estimate for the number of deaths motivated or justified by religion is approximately 195 million.1 While this figure does fall short of the death toll for something like smallpox (around 500 million),2 it’s still very much substantial enough to be worth addressing. Anything that takes a number of human lives within an order of magnitude of smallpox deserves our consideration.3
The goal of this essay is not to persuade you to renounce your religious beliefs and become an ardent humanist or atheist, although I wouldn't object if that were the outcome. Rather, the aim is to shed light on the fact that religion, as we know it, is a product of imperfect and, frankly, underdeveloped thought. That it’s a hindrance to human development, to our journey toward becoming a Type I civilization. Finally, I’ll provide some ideas on how we can navigate away from its influence.
2
So where did all this religion stuff come from? For my sanity’s sake, I’ll be skipping over any creation stories or “people have always been worshipping my God, just in different ways” kind of things and going straight to the historical milestones that contributed to modern religion and its influences on society. This section will discuss early polytheism in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.
I’m gonna skip all the early animism, and go straight to Sumerian polytheism around 3500 BCE. They liked to build big temples, or ziggurats, in each city to worship their respective patron deity. These gods and goddesses were believed to control different aspects of life, and were reflected in the rich mythology and religious rituals of the Sumerian civilization.
In ancient Egypt, starting around 3000 BCE, religion began to hold a truly significant position in society. The worship of gods like Ra, Osiris, and Isis was intertwined with the concepts of death, the afterlife, and, crucially, the pharaoh's divine role.
In each of these two regions, there is a different belief system and forum of worship, yet they share a couple of vital aspects:
Religion and State are tied together. Sumerian temples doubled as administrative complexes, and as centers for commerce and lending, while the Egyptian pharaoh was held to be a deity themself.
Religion meant building big temples. Somehow, one of the first things that came out of these religious beliefs was the construction of massive buildings or complexes to celebrate those beliefs. Importantly, they represented the power and prosperity of a locality, beyond their spiritual meaning.
This is where we take a hard turn into my opinion territory.
These early religions were designed, in large part, for political, not spiritual reasons.4 Marx famously called religion the “opiate of the masses,” and that appears to apply quite directly here. Religion acted as an incentive to obey the people in charge of things, either because the rulers themselves were divine or because there was some divine goal or afterlife worth striving for outside of this life. It provided the justification they needed to innovate and accomplish wildly impressive feats, like building a ziggurat. The people needed something transcendental, something super-human to believe in or they’d stagnate, or worse, rebel.
Consider the historical context: floods, deadly diseases, and destructive wars between neighbors were commonplace. (Hm, maybe this isn’t too hard to picture…) There was little scientific understanding to be had — the origin of life, what makes those bright trails in the sky, why the sun sometimes gets all dark — all were unknown, and the unknown often turns to the feared.
David Hume imagined this ignorance as the source of religious belief, claiming that “in this disordered scene, with eyes still more disordered and astonished, they see the first obscure traces of divinity.” The American philosopher Daniel Dennett argues, in a similar vein, that religious narratives were intended to give some sort of solace, creating a reassuring connection to a greater underlying force.
3
As religious belief systems evolved over the next few thousand years, a significant development was the inclusion of ethical doctrines. These doctrines provided a moral framework for adherents and influenced the governance and social structures which these religions attached themselves to. In this section, we’ll explore two notable examples: Vedic and Hindu society in India, and the Islamic Caliphates in the Middle East and North Africa.
Vedic and Hindu Societies
During the ancient Vedic period in India (starting around 1800-1700 BCE), we saw complex ethical systems and governance structures. The Vedas, an early collection of sacred Sanskrit texts, served as the foundation for religion and society. The ethical doctrines that came out of these texts emphasized the concepts dharma (moral duty), karma (a somewhat nuanced law of cause and effect), and varna (social classes, briefly explored in Part 2). These doctrines prescribed different duties and responsibilities for people based on caste, gender, and age.
The influence of these ethical systems extended beyond interpersonal interaction to the overarching organization of society. The idea of varna pushed Vedic and Hindu society to develop a hierarchical social structure, the caste system, which categorized individuals into distinct social groups based on birth. This system not only assigned social roles, but also established an entire governmental framework, with differing rights and obligations between castes. This interplay between religious beliefs, ethics, and social organization shaped the entire structure and functioning of Hindu society.
The Islamic Caliphates
Islam is one of the newer major religions, getting its start around 600 CE, and its popularity today is in large part thanks to its strict ethical doctrine and historical connection to governance. The Prophet Muhammad, by all accounts, was not only an effective spiritual leader, but a proficient military commander and administrator.
His and his successors’ victories and state-building led to the establishment and expansion of the Islamic Caliphates, which at their peak reached from the Iberian coast to modern-day Pakistan. The Caliphates’ set of ethical and governmental systems, rooted in the Qur’an and Hadith (a collection of the sayings and actions of the Prophet), laid out principles including justice, compassion, and accountability. These ethics, again, guided both individual conduct and governmental structures.
This system of governance and law became known as Shari’a. A legal and ethical framework which sought to implement divinely inherited principles in personal conduct, family law, commerce, and governance. The Caliph, the political and religious leader, played a crucial role in upholding and interpreting the ethical teachings of Islam. The governance structures of the Caliphates were characterized by a complete integration of religious and political authority.
Critique
While these religiously motivated ethical systems and governance models provided some moral compass and a strong organizational structure in their societies, they also face just criticism and scrutiny. The rigidity of caste-based systems in Hindu society perpetuated social inequality and limited social mobility (the effects of this are still felt today), and the application of Shari’a law in Islamic Caliphates restricted (and in some countries continues to restrict) gender equality, human rights, and individual freedoms.
These criticisms highlight the damage that can be done when religious doctrines shape governance structures. They prompt us to critically examine the entanglement of religion and societal organization and explore ways to foster more inclusive and equitable systems.
An understanding of the historical development of ethical systems and governance in these societies gives valuable insight into how religion and social structures became so closely connected. In the next section, we will explore how this connection developed religious beliefs into cultures in their own right, and why we still consider state, religion, and culture to be so closely connected.
4
Tribalism
Let’s talk about groups. Humans are social animals, we like to make groups, tribes if we’re fancy (we are), and a defining factor of any tribe is who’s in and who’s out. The in-group is your buddies, the people you trust not to use you as bait for a saber-tooth tiger or to kill your family and pillage all your belongings. The out-group is the people you don’t trust, the ones who you think might, just might, try to kill everyone and steal all the grain.
For a while, out of convenience, we made tribes with the people who were near us. (They also happened to look like us and talk like us, so we got it in our brains that people who look like us and talk like us are less likely to kill our families — implicit bias!)5 Eventually we got good at traveling further, using newfangled technology like wheels, boats, horses, and running, and started to meet and live with people a little less like us.
That brought up a problem: how do we know all these new, different people won’t kill our families and steal all our grain? We needed something to tie us all together in a larger collective, so we could trust each other enough to make credit arrangements, fight in the same armies, and care for each other. Belief don’t cost a thing, so using religious beliefs, particularly about creation looked like an efficient way of tying people together. Between the need for a uniting identity and the ‘what is life?’ and ‘why’d my kid drown in the Nile?’ type of questions, religion became a pretty popular answer.
Growth
Unfortunately, if your in-group is defined by your religion, the out-group is too. That means that anyone who does something as innocuous as thinking that the world was farted out of a pig instead of a cow is an enemy, that they might try and steal your grain. Better to make everyone think the world was farted out of a cow, then they’ll be a part of your society and then they’ll start living in accordance with all those ethics your wise men are coming up with.
Eventually these bigger collectives we organized in developed into civilizations, even empires, with a whole lot of different people in them. If you’re in charge of one of these things, the people will only be loyal to you if they think they’re a part of your civilization. You’ve got a couple options: military force (ugh, expensive) or pushing everyone into that uniting identity, that uniting religion (easier, just make an example out of one or two non-converts).
Now everyone in your civilization feels like they’re a part of your civilization, they’ve accepted your culture, your general way of life, through your religion. Now religion is tied to the State and the Culture, plus there are some folks who are really getting into your belief system, and developing it more and getting new ideas, and making religiousness and spirituality a big part of themselves.
These effects propagate, through every major and minor civilization for eight to ten thousand years, and suddenly a huge part of the world has tied religion to their State, Culture, and Self. What else, honestly, is there to being human?
Now
You teach your kids your religion, go to cultural festivals with religious overtones, and are governed by your religion, either explicitly (cough cough, Iran, Myanmar, a million other places, cough), or more quietly (cough cough, like everywhere else, cough).6 Every kid in the world sees some organized religion growing up, whether someone’s trying to indoctrinate them or not.
People make money off religion, sometimes a lot of it. People make their lives all about religion. Religion was a helpful tool. Now it holds us back. We have greater scientific understanding, we understand the value of dynamic, free inquiry, and we see the damage that our tribalistic tendencies cause.
The historical tides that have pushed human development and cooperation have also pushed religion so deep into the Human Experience that it’s become incredibly difficult to separate the two. Section 5 will attempt to do just that.
5
Tolerance
Tolerance plays a crucial role in detaching religion from the Human Experience. It's about fostering an environment where diverse beliefs and perspectives are respected, even if we don't personally subscribe to them. Limiting the extent of our out-group, as defined by religion, is the first step.
Pluralism
Tolerance naturally leads to pluralism. Pluralism recognizes the coexistence of multiple belief systems, and encourages dialogue and exchange between them. It creates an environment where people aren’t restricted to the religion they grew up with, and are able to recognize others from diverse backgrounds and with diverse beliefs as a part of our shared society.
In my mind, however, pluralism is still an early stage in a multi-step process. At face level, it appears to give a pass to State Religion, and so to immorality in the name of religion, as long as freedom of choice in religion remains. Acceptance is only the second step toward a more just society based on scientific inquiry and empiricism.
Separation
Under Separation, State Religion is no more. Religious organizations may exist, may practice freely, but may not inflict harm and are not exempted from fair governance. To me, that means tax exemptions oughta go out the window too. If a church wants to file as a 501(c)(3) it should be required to show that it’s educational or charitable like any other organization. Religion as tax exempt implies religion as a social service, which directly undermines the process of separation.
State Atheism: An Oopsie
Forcing people to do things is bad, unless they’re about to do some real harm to someone else and your intervention would actually help things. State Atheism, then, is a noble failing. Religion is immoral, yes, but it’s important to consider the practical effects of such a policy. If X is a popular thing, people will more aggressively rally around X when they feel it is threatened.
If the United Nations came out and called Islam inherently immoral and against human rights (or any religion, for that matter, though Islam is definitely the focus for moronic neoconservative Christian rhetoric to this effect), we’d almost certainly see more human rights abuses in its name, not less. On a national scale, you simply can’t ban something as (however outdatedly) fundamental to modern humanity as religion.
This, not to mention the fact that State Atheism is really a thinly veiled State Religion. Its single improvement is that it doesn’t promote a delusion (in my eyes at least), but it, just like State Religion, uses a single belief system to tie a culture together under that as an identity, drawing a hard line around the in-group, and punishing and excluding those in the out.
State Secularism: Probably Better
A better way to do it is to simply cut the connections between the State and Religion. In the US, that means no more ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance, no more ‘in God we trust’ on the money, no more ‘Nature’s God’ and ‘endowed by their Creator’ in the Declaration of Independence… the list goes on.
The State, the Government, the Law, should be totally separated from religious belief. They should be founded on sound, third-stage thought — that is, scientific reasoning — over abstract metaphysics and fictional theology, ensuring (or at least easing a transition to) a fair and just society. It moves religion out of the way of development without angering the religious (except for the Mormons in the States, and the religious nationalists everywhere).
Rethinking
In Section 4, we determined that religion’s role in society, while important historically, is outdated and even regressive. These days, science is a pretty solid alternative for its explanations for disasters, creation, and disease, but, the social function it serves is still vital.
Why Religion?
A lot of people feel a strong connection with religion. Their justification will often include some poetic defense of cultural connection or the inherent beauty to religious beliefs (often their belief in particular). I don’t mean to attack the legitimacy of that line of reasoning, scripture is often well-written (take the Qur’an) or entertaining (look at the Talmud or Bible, lots of [occasionally] fun little stories and parables) and undoubtedly has formed ties between family and community members.
Here’s my go-to response: there’s a lot of things that are beautiful out there — science, for one — and any cultural connection is, as discussed in Section 4, constructed by society, so, logically, could be destructed by society, and replaced with a less harmful mechanism.
Reforming Our Connections
I’m a fan of chess. This isn’t an allegory for “we’re all pawns under religion’”or anything, I just like to play the game, and have connected with other people who like to play it. The point being, there are a lot of things that connect people. Things which, for the most part, involve a lot less legwork, mentally and physically. Things people enjoy doing instead of something they feel pressured to do by family, by the far-from-secular society most live in, or by their ignorance or fear, easily remedied by a decent education.
So, let’s connect with our brains and our hobbies and our empathy, instead of our shared irrationality and hatred toward the out-group heretics.
Thanks for reading.
Pbbbbtt, it’s a blog so I’m citing Reddit: How Many People Have Been Killed in the Name of Religion? – r/atheism.
Look, the estimate seems reasonable enough, and doesn’t even factor in all the disease and war as a part of Christianity-inspired colonialism, nor the non-lethal suffering religion has caused. Maybe someday I’ll try and do a full calculation for how many Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) we’ve lost as a result of religious belief, but for now this oughta do.
One more little note. Religion justifying a death and smallpox causing one aren’t really the same thing, this is only meant to illustrate that when something is really widespread and hurtful, humans have the ability to step in and stop it.
Ok, they’re not totally for political control. Religion fulfilled a broader range of psychological, social, and cultural needs for the people of that time, it was a mechanism of comfort that could be (and was) easily paired with political control.
I want to pause here and note that all of this stuff is totally my opinion, shaped by conversation with friends and family who are very science-y, evolution-y oriented people. I just don’t feel like doing legit research. Prove me wrong, I guess.
A totally unrelated tangent. I distinctly remember a speech given by Senator Ted Cruz during the Republican primaries of the 2016 US Presidential Election which he concluded with the classic “God Bless America,” and then added, “God Bless Me.” I have found exactly zero traces of this on the internet, but it’s absolutely burned into my brain that I watched Ted Cruz claim that God had blessed him on CNN. My mother can absolutely corroborate this story, and I haven’t met anyone else who can. Anyway, religion is all over American politics and Ted Cruz is a weirdo — moving on…