Out of fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods.
Out of the whole pantheon, which god makes societies better?
Hey guys, Julia here for DNews
Recently the idea that belief in one “big god” lead to the rise of complex societies
held sway in research circles.
But that’s being challenged by new research published in the journal Proceedings of the
Royal Society B.[1]
So this is a story of different types of religion, there’s more monotheistic religions with
a “Moralizing High God” or one supreme being that hands out morality and punishment,
and religions that have “Broad Supernatural Punishment”, which can be loosely polytheistic,
meaning many gods and includes things like ancestral spirits and concepts like karma.
Previous research showed that belief in a “Moralizing High God (MHG)” allowed societies
to become more politically sophisticated.
This research seems to refute that.
It showed that religions with multiple deities or spirits or karma type punishments lead
to more complex societies, but religions with one “head honcho” did not.
But how does a belief in any kind of religion build complex societies?
Well thinking you’re gonna be punished if you do something wrong, even if no one is
looking, is a pretty good deterrent or it might make us more likely to cooperate.
One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people become
less hostile in a threatening situation when they’re reminded of their religious beliefs.
This is especially important when life gets tough.
[2]
Another study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found
that those who live in harsh environments tend to believe in “big Gods”.
They think these beliefs drive people to be more pro-social when conditions make it hard
to survive.
Cooperation, even if it’s costly to the individual, could enable a group to thrive
in times of stress.[3]
But it seemed like an age old tale of correlation not causation.
Some studies show it’s the other way around, as societies get more complex they're more
likely to have one central guy in the sky.
One study published in the journal Current Biology found that as a society became more
affluent, it triggered more moralizing types of religions. [4]
Which gets us back to the most recent research.
So, the team of researchers of various Australian institutions looked at 96 Asian Pacific cultures,
because these Austronesian cultures are well documented and less influenced by main single
deity religions like Christianity and Islam.
They found that belief in a head honcho deity did not drive or sustain the evolution of
political complexity, but rather it tends to come along for the ride.
The research also suggests that it’s belief in broad supernatural entities like ancestral
spirits or karma actually smoothed the way for cultures to become complex.
And that makes sense, just look at history, there’s plenty of examples of cultures without
High Moralizing Gods, like the Greeks and Romans and Mayans, who built incredibly sophisticated
societies.
Maybe because of the cooperative motives I mentioned earlier or maybe not so nobly, the
supernatural gives more weight to your claim to authority and power.
If you say you’re in contact with these gods, or that these gods are your ancestors,
people are gonna believe you and maybe follow you.
So this research is still in it’s early stage and clearly needs more study.
And it’s not like you have to be religious to have a complex cooperative society anyway.
Other studies show that "Some of the most cooperative modern societies are also the
most secular".[5]
But how does this new research make you feel about the role of religion in society?
Let us know in the comments below.
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