Religious Evolution and the Axial Age: From Shamans to Priests to Prophets 9781350047426, 9781350047457, 9781350047433

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Figures and Tables
Prologue
1. What Religion Is
Defining religion
Spirits and gods
Religious rituals
Religious specialists
2. The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life
Types of religion
The way of the shaman
Communal rites and practices
Pagan religions of the ancient world
Conclusions
3. The Religions of the Axial Age
The great transformation
Zoroastrianism
Judaism
Christianity
Confucianism and Daoism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Between East and West
Excursus: monotheism among the Greeks?
What was new in the Axial Age?
Conclusion
4. Explaining Religion
Religion as the worship of society
Religion as the opium of the people
Religion as a source of scarce or nonexistent rewards
Religion as a source of ontological security
Religion as how the brain works
5. Religion as an Evolutionary Adaptation
Evolutionary adaptationists
Deconstructing adaptationism
Evidence of adaptation: religion in the ancestral environment
Evidence of adaptation: religion and health
Evidence of adaptation: religion and reproductive success
Evidence of adaptation: children’s natural theism
Evidence of adaptation: biological roots of religious ritual
Evidence of adaptation: religion’s widespread importance
Conclusions
6. The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 1: The Overall Pattern
Darwinian cultural evolution and its problems
Historical theories of sociocultural evolution
Necessary causes of religious evolution
Conclusions
7. The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 2: The Axial Age
Earlier theories
Recent theories
A new interpretation: urbanization, war, and disrupted attachments
Toward an empirical test
Theoretical reprise
8. Religion Past, Present, and Future
Do religions progress?
Why atheism?
The future of religion
Coda: is God a delusion?
Appendix A: Codes for Stage of Religious Evolution in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample
Appendix B: Ancient Cities and Estimated City Sizes
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation Series editors: Donald Wiebe, Luther H. Martin and William W. McCorkle Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation publishes cutting-edge research in the new and growing field of scientific studies in religion. Its aim is to publish empirical, experimental, historical, and ethnographic research on religious thought, behavior, and institutional structures. The series works with a broad notion of “scientific” that will include innovative work on understanding religion(s), both past and present. With an emphasis on the cognitive science of religion, the series includes complementary approaches to the study of religion, such as psychology and computer modeling of religious data. Titles seek to provide explanatory accounts for the religious behaviors under review, both past and present. The Attraction of Religion, edited by D. Jason Slone and James A. Van Slyke Contemporary Evolutionary Theories of Culture and the Study of Religion, Radek Kundt Death Anxiety and Religious Belief, Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt New Patterns for Comparative Religion, William E. Paden Religion Explained?, edited by Luther H. Martin and Donald Wiebe Religion in Science Fiction, Steven Hrotic The Roman Mithras Cult, Olympia Panagiotidou with Roger Beck The Mind of Mithraists, Luther H. Martin

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age From Shamans to Priests to Prophets Stephen K. Sanderson

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 Paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Stephen K. Sanderson, 2018 Stephen K. Sanderson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image © Shutterstock All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sanderson, Stephen K., author. Title: Religious evolution and the axial age: from shamans to priests to prophets / Stephen K. Sanderson. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. | Series: Scientific studies of religion: inquiry and explanation | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017036763 | ISBN 9781350047426 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350047433 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Religion–History. | Religion–Philosophy. | Evolution–Religious aspects. Classification: LCC BL430 .S26 2018 | DDC 200.9–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036763 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4742-6 PB: 978-1-3501-2307-6 ePDF: 978-1-3500-4743-3 eBook: 978-1-3500-4744-0 Series: Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

For my grandchildren, Olivia, Noah, and the newly arrived Amelia, for all the pleasure they have brought into my life in my golden years

Contents Preface and Acknowledgments List of Figures and Tables

Prologue

1

What Religion Is Defining religion Spirits and gods Religious rituals Religious specialists

2

The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life Types of religion The way of the shaman Communal rites and practices Pagan religions of the ancient world Conclusions

3

The Religions of the Axial Age The great transformation Zoroastrianism Judaism Christianity Confucianism and Daoism Hinduism Buddhism Between East and West Excursus: monotheism among the Greeks? What was new in the Axial Age? Conclusion

x xiii

1 7 7 12 18 22 25 25 28 34 36 48 51 51 56 61 70 82 86 91 96 98 100 109

viii

4

5

Contents

Explaining Religion

111

Religion as the worship of society Religion as the opium of the people Religion as a source of scarce or nonexistent rewards Religion as a source of ontological security Religion as how the brain works

111 115 118 121 126

Religion as an Evolutionary Adaptation

141 141 146 149 152 153 155 156 160 161

Evolutionary adaptationists Deconstructing adaptationism Evidence of adaptation: religion in the ancestral environment Evidence of adaptation: religion and health Evidence of adaptation: religion and reproductive success Evidence of adaptation: children’s natural theism Evidence of adaptation: biological roots of religious ritual Evidence of adaptation: religion’s widespread importance Conclusions

6

The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 1: The Overall Pattern Darwinian cultural evolution and its problems Historical theories of sociocultural evolution Necessary causes of religious evolution Conclusions

7

The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 2: The Axial Age Earlier theories Recent theories A new interpretation: urbanization, war, and disrupted attachments Toward an empirical test Theoretical reprise

8

Religion Past, Present, and Future Do religions progress? Why atheism? The future of religion Coda: is God a delusion?

163 164 169 177 190 191 192 201 206 215 218 221 221 226 230 232

Contents

ix

Appendix A: Codes for Stage of Religious Evolution in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample

237

Appendix B: Ancient Cities and Estimated City Sizes

243

Notes Bibliography Index

249 266 289

Preface and Acknowledgments This is not a book of advocacy, but a work of science. I seek to understand religion from an objective point of view rather than to promote or criticize it. My overriding goal is to find answers to two fundamental questions: Why are people religious wherever we find them (with a few recent exceptions in advanced industrial societies), and how and why has religion changed over long-term historical time? I write the book for scholars and scholars-to-be in comparative religion, the history of religions, the anthropology and sociology of religion, and the new cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion. The book might also be of interest to a general audience, although such readers will have to work around the technical statistical analyses in a few chapters. (The analyses are not really that complicated as statistical analyses go, and there are not that many of them.) I wrote both my MA thesis and PhD dissertation on religious topics in the early 1970s, but since that time I have engaged in scholarly work on religion only in the past dozen years. In the intervening time I wrote extensively on long-term social evolution and then turned my attention to Darwinian topics associated with evolutionary psychology and related approaches. Until twelve years ago my only scholarly knowledge of religion was by way of the sociology and anthropology of religion. I had never paid any attention at all to work in religious studies, and I still regard myself as an interloper in that field. But I wanted to write this book in order to bring together my knowledge of social evolution and of Darwinian approaches to social behavior. I decided it was time to write about the religious dimension of long-term social evolution to accompany my earlier writings on social evolution’s technological, economic, and political dimensions. To write this book I had to start almost from scratch to gain even a descriptive knowledge of religion. So I dug into the literature, and I have found the process extremely rewarding. Not only have I learned many very interesting things, especially about the world religions, but I can honestly say that I have probably learned more in preparing this book than in preparing any previous book of mine.

Preface and Acknowledgments

xi

I acknowledge my former graduate student Wesley Roberts for his collaboration in writing the section of Chapter 6 devoted to identifying some of the necessary causes of religious evolution. This work began as his MA thesis in sociology. I am grateful to Candace Alcorta for reading the entire manuscript in first draft and offering a number of useful suggestions for revision. I am also grateful to Radek Kundt for his suggestion to include a more detailed discussion of theories of sociocultural evolution, which I believe has improved the book immeasurably. However, I am not sure that the expanded discussion will be exactly what he expected. In order to gain a fuller understanding of pagan religions, Benson Saler recommended that I consult Yehezkel Kaufmann’s book The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, and this proved to be a very useful recommendation indeed. I was very pleased when Richard Sosis showed enthusiasm for some of the ideas in this book when I first presented them at a conference on religious evolution in Hawaii in 2007. When I had a hundred pages written my epistolary colleague Randall Collins read them and offered an insightful critique. When I gave a talk on by-product and adaptationist theories of religion at the University of California at Riverside in 2006, my colleague Jonathan Turner hated it and thought that I had gone off the deep end. However, when he read the same hundred pages that Collins read, he softened somewhat and conceded that some of the ideas were interesting. But mostly this book won’t convince him of much; he also has his own new book on the same subject which is written along almost entirely different lines. My former graduate student Kristopher Proctor suggested that I summarize my theoretical argument for the Axial Age transition as a flow diagram and gave me a preliminary version of it. Colin Adreon finalized that diagram and the two others. I am very pleased that Luther Martin and Donald Wiebe wanted this book for their series on scientific explanations of religion, which looks like a very good series to be in. I know it will help me reach a large part of my intended audience. Some of the ideas contained in this book were presented as talks at the University of California at Riverside (2006, 2007); the University of California at Santa Barbara (2011); the University of Helsinki (2007); the conference The Evolution of Religion (Makaha, Hawaii, 2007); and annual meetings of the American Sociological Association (Philadelphia 2005, Boston 2008), the European Sociological Association (Glasgow, Scotland 2007), the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (Williamsburg, VA 2007, Kyoto, Japan 2008), and the International Society for Human Ethology (Bologna, Italy 2008). Portions

xii

Preface and Acknowledgments

of Chapter 6 are based on Stephen K. Sanderson and Wesley W. Roberts, “The evolutionary forms of the religious life: A cross-cultural, quantitative study.” American Anthropologist, 110, 454–66, 2008. Portions of Chapter 5 draw on material in Stephen K. Sanderson, “Adaptation, evolution, and religion.” Religion, 38, 141–56, 2008.

List of Figures and Tables Figure 1.1 Characteristics of spirits and gods Figure 7.1 The causal chain in the evolution of the world religions Figure 8.1 Four evolutionary stages of religious abstractification

13 214 223

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 5.1

29 41 47 105

Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table B1 Table B2 Table B3 Table B4 Table B5 Table B6

Bellah’s typology of religious evolution Predominant features of pagan religions Principal gods and goddesses in ancient Rome Predominant features of the world salvation religions Similarities between religious rituals and obsessivecompulsive disorder Correlations among the independent and dependent variables Ordered logistic regression of stage of religious evolution on seven independent variables Stage of religious evolution and subsistence economy Stage of religious evolution and writing and records Stage of religious evolution and societal size Empires and pagan versus world transcendent religions Correlations between the number of world transcendent religions per century and empire and city size per century Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, Near East Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, China Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, World Twenty largest world cities, 650 BCE Fifty-one largest world cities, 430 BCE Fifty-five largest world cities, 200 BCE Seventy-five largest world cities, 100 CE Total size of world cities 100,000 or larger, 700 BCE–100 CE Chandler’s and Modelski’s city size totals, 650 BCE–100 CE

157 181 181 183 184 185 196 216 217 217 218 243 244 245 246 247 247

Prologue

The past two decades have witnessed an explosion of work on religion from a cognitive psychological and evolutionary perspective. The leading scholars have come from a variety of disciplines, mostly comparative religion, anthropology, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology. Some have worked in at least two of these fields at the same time, and clearly the work is highly interdisciplinary. International conferences have been organized in which leading scholars have met to discuss their work. Hundreds of papers have been published, dozens of scholarly books1 and popular books have also appeared,2 and new journals have been founded.3 Work is ongoing and vigorous, and there has been a great deal of productive debate. Most of this work is about religion in general—about why humans everywhere have it. Much less attention has been devoted to the questions of why there are so many different types of religion and how and why religion has evolved over historical time. In the present book I apply some of the new theoretical ideas to suggest answers to these questions. My focus is on long-term religious evolution, with a special emphasis on the great religious transformation known as the Axial Age, the period between about 600 BCE and 1 CE when the major world religions were beginning to emerge. These religions had several new features of considerable importance, but two were especially critical: transcendence and salvation. A new kind of god was born, one that was outside the universe and who brought it into existence—a transcendent god. Transcendent gods were not all the same. In the Near East there was just one of these gods—One True God—who was considered omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. This was the case in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity. In Hinduism things were somewhat more complicated. People claimed to worship different gods, but most often they thought these gods were more or less the same god with different names. India also gave birth to Buddhism, which was officially godless, but everyday Buddhists nonetheless began to worship the Buddha as a kind of god. In China, Daoism was officially based on a kind of “divine essence,” as was true as well of elite Hinduism and Buddhism, but ordinary Daoists constructed

2

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

a personal god. Confucianism was not exactly a religion, but people eventually started praying to Confucius just as Buddhists started worshiping the Buddha. What did the new gods do that was so special? The answer is, they were salvation gods. People worshiped them and appealed to them for salvation from the misery and suffering that had arisen on earth as a result of a series of dramatic social, economic, and political changes. Before these religions were born, ancient states and civilizations had religions that have been called archaic, pagan, or state religions. There were usually pantheons of highly anthropomorphic gods who oversaw specialized spheres of nature and human life, such as agriculture, war, love, or fertility. Large temples and statues were built to worship the gods, primarily by political and economic elites. These kinds of religions emerged at least 5,000 years ago, although there were earlier versions in some places. Prior to this time, in small-scale societies whose members made a living by hunting and gathering or some sort of simple agriculture, people sometimes imagined certain kinds of gods, but these were not on the same scale as the pagan gods. Some acted in the world, but most did not. After creating the world they often withdrew and took no interest in human affairs, in which case people didn’t bother to worship them. More important in these kinds of societies were various types of lesser spirits, such as the spirits of people’s dead ancestors. Ancestral spirits were mostly conceived in positive terms, but one had to pay them proper respect so they would not be offended. Offended ancestral spirits could do harm. There were also purely evil spirits, such as ghosts, demons, or witches, which people had to be particularly careful about. The religions of pagan antiquity and the Axial Age had formal practitioners—priests—who usually monopolized religious doctrines and interpreted them for lay audiences. But the earliest religions were focused on religious specialists known as shamans, who performed rituals in which they sought to heal people who suffered from various illnesses (often thought to be the result of the actions of evil spirits or of giving offense to spirits that were normally relatively benign). Shamans also played an important role in finding game animals and making sure they were plentiful. This type of religion was once found throughout most of the world and may have existed as long as 30,000 years ago. And so over the past ten or eleven millennia we observe a kind of overall evolutionary sequence running from the spirit- and shaman-dominated religions of small-scale societies to the archaic or pagan religions of the ancient

Prologue

3

civilizations and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. In order to understand this sequence, especially the last phase of it, I draw on ideas from the new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, in combination with a theory of long-term sociocultural evolution. The reigning theory in the cognitive psychological realm is that the brain is primed for religion, but only as a side effect or by-product of other cognitive features of the brain. One of these features is agency detection: people are hard-wired to see agents—other people, animals—acting everywhere. But some events have no obvious agency in that there is no directly observable intentional agent. A person becomes sick, for example, but it is not clear why. Or a village is suddenly flooded and devastated, but why? In these cases people project their intuitions about human agency onto supernatural agents—invisible beings or forces whose actions must be inferred from their effects. The brain is religious—religion is natural—but only in an indirect way. But not everyone agrees that religion is just a by-product of other brain activity. The alternative to the by-product theory is the view that religious beliefs and rituals evolved because they promoted Darwinian fitness: survival and reproductive success. The brain has something like a “religion module” that is more than simply a module for detecting agency. In this view, which is the one adopted in this book, religion is an evolutionary adaptation. Those who hold this adaptationist perspective may agree that religious cognitions originated as by-products of cognitions for agency detection, but they contend that at some point in the brain’s evolution religious cognitions became detached from cognitions for agency detection to have significance in their own right—to stand on their own. And yet religion is not simply a product of how the brain evolved, otherwise all religions would look essentially the same, and obviously they don’t. Here is where we must see religion as a product of sociocultural as well as biological evolution. As the socioecological context of human life has changed, new human needs, including new religious needs, have arisen. New types of religious belief and ritual evolved as a means of meeting these new needs. Religion is therefore most properly called a biosocial phenomenon, or one in which human religious predispositions interact with a wide range of socioecological conditions to generate the many diverse features of religion that we observe throughout the world and in the long span of human history. The first three chapters of the book are largely descriptive. Chapter 1 is a breezy overview of the nature of religion and seeks to avoid the endless and

4

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

often arcane debates over how to define religion or whether it can be defined at all. Numerous illustrations of a variety of beliefs, ritual practices, and religious specialists are given. Chapter 2 begins the discussion of religious evolution by examining two well-known conceptual typologies, those formulated by the anthropologist Anthony Wallace and the sociologist Robert Bellah. After discussing the religions of small-scale band and tribal societies, the chapter concludes with an analysis of the pagan religions of the ancient world, focusing in particular on the religions of the Aztecs of ancient Mesoamerica and those of ancient Hawaii, Mesopotamia, and Rome. Chapter 3 continues the descriptive analysis of religious evolution by way of a lengthy and detailed discussion of the Axial Age religions of the ancient Near East, South Asia, and East Asia. Chapters 4 through 7 constitute the theoretical part of the book. Chapters 4 and 5 ask the questions: Why is there religion? Why, wherever we look in human societies and throughout history, do we find people expressing religious beliefs that they enact in religious rituals? In Chapter 4 I take up and critique several of the most important theories of religion that the social sciences have produced. I start with the classical theories of Durkheim and Marx. Rejecting these theories, I then turn to the rational choice or exchange approach to religion developed by Rodney Stark and his colleagues and students. This is one of the most influential and important theoretical approaches in the contemporary sociology of religion. For the rational choice theorists, religion is primarily about obtaining rewards, especially otherworldly rewards, that are difficult or impossible to obtain by ordinary means. People engage in exchange relations with supernatural agents in order to obtain these rewards. Next I discuss the ontological security argument presented by such thinkers as Malinowski, Norris and Inglehart, Kirkpatrick, and Giddens. They contend that religion’s main importance is as a means of coping with existential anxiety—a source of comfort and security in an insecure and uncertain world. I round out the chapter by beginning the discussion of the new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories. One of these, as noted previously, conceptualizes religion as a by-product of other features of the brain, in particular cognitive modules for agency detection. Chapter 5 then turns to the main alternative to the by-product approach, the evolutionary adaptationist theories of, inter alia, Richard Sosis and Candace Alcorta, Joseph Bulbulia, Michael Winkelman, and James McClenon. This type of theory, which converges in some important ways with the ontological security and rational choice theories, is the one favored in this book and several lines of evidence are offered in support of it.

Prologue

5

Chapter 6 begins the theoretical discussion of the sociocultural side of religious evolution by critically analyzing two different types of theories of sociocultural evolution. It then demonstrates, in a preliminary way, the usefulness of one of these theories by way of reporting the results of an empirical analysis of a wide range of nonindustrial societies devoted to identifying some of the sociohistorical conditions that have been prerequisites or necessary causes of religious evolution over the long term. Chapter 7 then connects the ontological security and evolutionary adaptationist lines of thinking discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 with the theory of sociocultural evolution used in Chapter 6 to explain the greatest of all religious transformations, the emergence of the religions of the Axial Age. The basic argument is that the Axial Age was a time of dramatic economic and political changes that disturbed people’s lives in such a way as to lead to the disruption of social attachments and thus high levels of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. The new Axial Age religions, with their transcendent gods and doctrines of salvation and release from misery and suffering, arose to restore people’s sense of security. As such, they were biosocial adaptations to people’s radically changed circumstances. Chapter 8 concludes the book by asking three central questions: If religions evolve, do they also progress? If religion is an evolutionary adaptation, why are there atheists? What is the future of religion? The chapter also provides a forceful critique of the so-called New Atheists, who see religion as an irrational and evil institution that society would be much better without and should attempt to eradicate.

1

What Religion Is

Defining religion All societies have religion, but what is it? Most social scientists have taken religion to be something associated with the realm of the supernatural. Lyle Steadman and Craig Palmer (2008: 5–6) summarize nearly a dozen definitions, the core elements of which refer to “the relationship between humans and the supernatural world”; “belief in spiritual beings”; “entities inaccessible to normal observation”; “unobservable beings”; “beings and forces beyond the material world”; “communication with powers that cannot be seen”; “supernatural agents”; “causal powers of nonobservable entities and agencies”; “a realm of the ineffable and unknowable separate from ordinary perceptual experience”; “a superempirical, transcendent reality”; “belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces”; and “a unique experience of confrontation with power not of this world.” But some social scientists think that definitions emphasizing the supernatural are too narrow, if not downright wrong. The early French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1965) thought that belief in supernatural beings could not be the defining criterion of religion because it was not universal. He accepted the standard view that Buddhism was atheistic and thus could not be considered a religion on supernaturalistic grounds. He also thought that some small-scale societies lacked supernaturalistic concepts. This led him to the conclusion that the essence of religion was its concern with a realm defined as sacred, that is, the object of special reverence, respect, and even awe. This realm stood in sharp contrast to the realm of the profane, or the world of ordinary, everyday existence. Durkheim’s formal definition of religion declared it to be “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church all those who adhere to them” (1965: 62; emphasis in original). Candace

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Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

Alcorta and Richard Sosis follow Durkheim, saying, “At the heart of all religions is the separation of the sacred from the profane. . . . In contrast to the profane, or ordinary, the sacred is both mystical and extraordinary. Sacred places, objects, symbols, and beliefs comprise the core of religion; it is the sacred that instills faith and inspires the devotion of the faithful” (2013: 573). But this seems mistaken, and for two reasons. First, contrary to Durkheim, the idea of supernatural beings is indeed universal. “Atheistic” Buddhism is in fact limited to elite Buddhism; the vast majority of Buddhists worship the Buddha and Buddhas-in-the-making, the so-called bodhisattvas. And the primitive tribes that Durkheim thought lack notions of the supernatural turn out on closer inspection to have them after all. Second, it is the concept of the sacred that turns out not to be universal. Religion is frequently associated with a realm humans regard as having sacred significance, but not all societies with beliefs and practices devoted to supernatural beings mark out a sacred realm (Southwold, 1978). Alcorta and Sosis (2013) insist that the distinction between the sacred and the profane really is universal, but to make this claim they rely on an expanded notion of what is sacred to include things like purity, danger, and even national flags. But these things are not unique to religion, existing in nonreligious realms (or at least realms that few would regard as religious). Strong patriots regard their nation’s flag as sacred and regard burning it or stomping on it as an act of defilement. Yet it is highly doubtful that they would see the flag in the same way that they view their beliefs in supernatural beings and the worship of them. Others have objected to the focus on supernaturalism in a somewhat different way. They do not think it wrong to see the supernatural as a key element of religion, only too restrictive. They want to expand the definition of religion so that it includes all systems of belief and practice oriented to “ultimate human concerns.” Thus religion can be considered a “set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence” (Bellah, 1964: 359), or “a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with these ultimate problems of human life” (Yinger, 1970: 7). These so-called ultimate concerns have mainly to do with the fact of death; the need to cope with frustration, suffering, and tragedy; the need to bring hostility and egocentrism under control; and the need to “deal with the forces that press in upon us, endangering our livelihood, our health, and the survival and smooth operation of the groups in which we live—forces that our empirical knowledge cannot handle adequately” (Yinger, 1970: 6). Many who favor this kind of expansive definition go so far as to regard as religions not only theistic systems organized around the

What Religion Is

9

concept of a supernatural power or powers, but also various nontheistic belief systems such as communism, nationalism, or humanism. Robert Bellah even refers to something he calls “American civil religion,” by which he means a set of beliefs, rituals, and symbols celebrating the distinctiveness of the United States as a nation (Bellah, 1967). The problem with this more expansive conceptualization of religion is, well, it is just too expansive (Steadman and Palmer, 2008). Even though some nontheistic systems share important elements in common with theistic ones, it is an intellectual distortion to lump theistic and nontheistic systems together as if they were essentially the same kind of thing. It is of crucial significance whether or not a belief system postulates the existence of a supernatural realm. Surely a secular humanist or a communist has an orientation to the world fundamentally different from that of a Christian Fundamentalist, an Orthodox Jew, or a pious Sikh. I therefore propose to define religion simply as beliefs and practices devoted to supernatural agents. An agent is “a being that seems to have some kind of internal source of energy or force that explains its self-propelledness, that acts teleologically in pursuit of goals, and that has cognitive properties; that is, it can perceive, think, know, and remember” (Pyysiäinen, 2004: 188). The key feature of specifically supernatural agents is that they are counterintuitive, that is, they violate natural human intuitions about the world. These agents are usually invisible and their existence is merely postulated or assumed. They may be gods, or some types of spirits. Some of these spirits and gods do good things, whereas others are malevolent and need to be propitiated to prevent them from doing harm. Supernatural agents might also be witches, who are actual persons rather than spirits, and so they might be called visible supernatural agents. However, since their witchcraft is assumed rather than observed, witchcraft itself belongs to an invisible and nonempirical realm. Witches are persons who are visible, but their “witchiness” is not visible. Another type of supernatural agent is ghosts, beliefs in which are widespread in human societies (Boyer, 2001; Atran, 2002; Pyysiäinen, 2004). There is disagreement concerning whether beliefs or ritual practices are the more important feature of religion. Anthropologists and sociologists influenced by Durkheim generally come down on the side of ritual. Durkheim thought that in performing religious rituals people were not actually worshiping gods, but indirectly society itself, especially its power over them. This view converges with Durkheim’s contention that religion is about the sacred rather than the supernatural, since in their rituals society is the most important thing that people

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Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

are making sacred. Alcorta and Sosis take a similar view and, like Durkheim, link ritual with the sacred: “The means for creating sacred things is communal ritual. It is through such ritual that people, places, objects, and beliefs are imbued with sacred meaning, rendering them powerful, awesome, and dangerous” (2013: 574; cf. Rappaport, 1999). Rodney Stark (2001b, 2007) takes the side of beliefs. He is highly critical of the Durkheimian emphasis on ritual, pointing out that when people pray or worship, there must be an object of their prayer or worship. As he puts it, “People pray to something! To something above and beyond the material world. To something to hear prayers and having supernatural powers needed to influence nature and events. Real or not, such ‘somethings’ are Gods. Variations in how God or the Gods are conceived is the crucial difference among faiths and cultures” (Stark, 2007: 15). There is no doubt that ritual is a crucial feature of religions everywhere, but I find Stark’s emphasis on belief more compelling, and thus much more attention is given to it in this book. We can summarize this conceptual discussion by identifying religion’s universal and variable features:

Universal Features ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Supernatural agents (most frequently spirits and gods) Good and evil supernatural agents Belief in souls Rituals Sacrifice Cosmogonies, cosmologies “Overworlds” (e.g., Heaven) and “underworlds” (e.g., Hell) Religious specialists Polluting substances Taboos

Variable Features ● ● ● ● ●

Shamans Priests Prophets Messiahs Disciples

What Religion Is ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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Missionaries Evangelists Witches, sorcerers, soothsayers, mediums, diviners High gods, active gods, inactive gods, moralizing gods Trances Concept of afterlife Polytheism Monotheism Anthropomorphic gods Transcendent gods Virgin births World-destroying floods Abstract otherworldly essences Written doctrines Emotionally arousing rituals Animal sacrifice, human sacrifice Physical representation of deities (e.g., idols, graven images) Prayer Quest for the meaning of existence Ethical concepts Reincarnation Ascetic practices (e.g., fasting, renunciation of the material world) Monastic orders Ancestor worship

Technically, a trait can count as a universal only if it occurs in every society without exception. However, this is perhaps too restrictive. Many traits occur in all societies, but some occur only in the vast majority. These traits can be called near-universals, and to count as a near-universal a trait should be found in, say, at least 95 percent of societies. For example, the incest taboo is considered a universal even though it is technically a near-universal. All societies look askance on incest, but a few have allowed brother-sister marriage. Yet nearly all anthropologists call it a universal. We can see from these lists not only that religion has a core set of elements but also that there are numerous ways in which these core elements are constructed in the world’s societies. In the chapters ahead we shall explore these core elements and many of their variations. But first it may be helpful to have an overall sense of things if only to get our bearings.

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Spirits and gods Since most supernatural agents are spirits and gods, it is useful to consider how they are different. Ilkka Pyysiäinen (2009) says that it is difficult to know exactly what puts a supernatural entity into the category of a god. However, it seems largely to be that gods are superior to spirits in the sense that they do more or at least can do more. Gods, for example, can be implored to provide assistance in love and war, to show mercy, or to save one’s soul. But spirits don’t do these things. Good spirits can do beneficial things, but only on a small scale, such as a guardian angel providing protection. And evil spirits can cause illness and other misfortune, but they do not consign anyone to hell and eternal damnation. Yet it is not always possible to distinguish between spirits and gods; sometimes they blur together. For example, in the religion of the Yoruba tribe in Africa the so-called orishas are considered ancestral spirits, but also divinities just below the high god Olorun. In Japanese Shintoism both spirits and gods are represented by the word kami. Pyysiäinen suggests that the similarities and differences between supernatural agents can be mapped as a system of Cartesian coordinates in which the degree of mental activity is placed on the X axis and the degree of embodiment on the Y axis. Since Pyysiäinen constructed no graph, I have done so myself, which is represented by Figure 1.1. Humans are at the origin point in the extreme lower left corner since they have ordinary bodies and ordinary consciousness. The God of the Near Eastern world religions is in the extreme upper right corner since He has no body and is fully omniscient. As we move from left to right we see that the mental powers of supernatural agents gradually increase, and as we move from bottom to top supernatural agents become increasingly disembodied. The supernatural agents with the least mental power and that are the most embodied are the various types of lesser spirits. Continuing up and right, we find the so-called high gods of primitive societies (see below). Further up and to the right we can place the pagan gods of antiquity, such as Zeus among the Greeks and Jupiter among the Romans. They were anthropomorphic (human-like) gods with somewhat more mental power. Then, just before reaching the God of the Near Eastern religions, we find the gods of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism. They are not fully omniscient and cannot be said to be completely without bodies since the Buddha and Laozi were humans who later became deified. The Buddha had a body, but certainly not an ordinary one; it did not pass through infancy or old age nor did it have any of the kinds of limitations characteristic of ordinary bodies (Pyysiäinen, 2009).

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Figure 1.1 Characteristics of spirits and gods

It is important to stress that the placement of supernatural agents along these axes, with the exception of the Near Eastern world religions, and to some extent the East and South Asian religions, cannot be precise. This is so for several reasons. The pagan gods varied considerably among themselves in their powers, as do primitive high gods. There are several types of spirits; witches, for example, have human bodies, but ghosts do not. Moreover, the embodiment of any particular spirit varies over time, passing back and forth between different degrees of embodiment (Pyysiäinen, 2009). Therefore Figure 1.1 can only represent a rough guide, but it should be useful nonetheless. Many years ago the sociologist Guy Swanson (1960) surveyed the types of gods found in primitive societies. He came up with a category that he called “high gods.” A high god is a deity who is “the ultimate source of events in nature and supernature” (Swanson, 1960: 56). If a society has a high god, this god must

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be the only god, although there can still be other supernatural entities. High gods are often thought to have created the universe. They may or may not be worshiped, and may or may not be interested in human affairs. Some high gods simply withdraw after the act of creation. Still others may take an interest in some human affairs but not others. And high gods interested in human affairs may or may not take an interest in human morality. Thus we have four categories into which the religion of any society can be placed: no high god, an inactive high god, an active high god not concerned with human morality, and an active high god who does take an interest in human morality. Swanson was careful to point out that the high gods of the vast majority of primitive societies, especially small-scale societies, are very different from the gods of the great world religions, such as Judaism and Christianity. Unfortunately, he created confusion by calling the religions of primitive societies possessing high gods “monotheistic.” Because the high gods of the major world religions are so different from primitive high gods, the term monotheism should be reserved for the former. The anthropologist George Peter Murdock has assembled a very large data bank of 1,267 preindustrial societies known as the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock, 1967).1 The Atlas contains information on high gods for 748 of these societies. Of these, 37 percent have no high god, 33 percent have only an inactive high god, 6 percent have an active high god not concerned with human morality, and 24 percent have an active high god concerned with morality. It is instructive to see how high gods are distributed across the various evolutionary stages of human society. The major stages prior to the development of modern industrial societies, based on their mode of subsistence technology, are hunter-gatherer, horticultural, pastoral, and intensive agricultural (sometimes called agrarian) societies. Hunter-gatherers live in small bands and forage for game and plant matter; they practice no plant cultivation. Horticulturalists are farmers who cultivate the land by using hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes. Their plots under cultivation usually take the form of small gardens rather than large fields, and crops tend to be various types of root crops, such as yams. Intensive agriculturalists are field tillers, often cultivating with the aid of plows and draft animals, and concentrating on cereals such as wheat, barley, or rice. Pastoralists live by animal herding with very little, if any, attention to cultivation. Nearly two-thirds of hunter-gatherers have no high god, and only 10 percent have an active high god. In the case of horticulturalists, a third have no high god, another half only an inactive high god, and only some 20

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percent an active high god. Active high gods are more common in intensive agricultural societies, but they are as much the exception as the rule. A quarter of these societies have no high god, and another quarter only an inactive high god. It is pastoral societies that are most likely to have an active high god. Nearly three-quarters have an active high god, and almost all of these gods are concerned with human morality. However, the figures for pastoral societies are somewhat misleading because many of these societies are in the Middle East and have been subject to the spread of Islam by conquest over many hundreds of years. Let’s look at the religious beliefs and practices of some representative societies. I concentrate here (and in the next section on ritual) mostly on religions in small-scale societies because the religions of large-scale societies are discussed in Chapter 2.2 Among the Mbundu of Africa the focal point of religion is ancestral deities, who are worshiped by both commoners and elites. There is belief in a supreme being known as Suku, who is thought to have created the sky, rivers, mountains, and humans. He is, however, only vaguely conceived and has little interest in human affairs. Suku’s role is secondary to the worship of ancestors. There are no animistic notions of spirits in trees, rivers, animals, and the like, and there is no conception of sin. The spirits of the king’s ancestors, known as Ahamba, are the principal kingdom deities (Human Relations Area Files, FP13). The African Thonga have a creator god, Leza, who was inactive in traditional Thonga society but is now identified with the Christian God. There are a variety of spirits that are concerned with human life. Basangu take an interest in the affairs of entire communities or even regional groups of communities. Mizimo are the spirits of dead ancestors who show an interest in their own kin. These spirits receive regular offerings. Basangu and mizimo do favorable things, but if offended can do unpleasant things. Another kind of spirit, masabe, does harm. Masabe, along with ghosts (zelo), attack individuals and rain misfortune down upon their heads. It is naturally important to discover the will of these spirits, and this is done by spirit mediums and diviners (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9). The Shilluk, an African society living in the southern part of Sudan, have a creator god that they call Juok, who is manifest in all places at all times. He is an active god who is addressed through the sacrifice of sheep, goats, and cattle. The Shilluk also associate Juok with a river spirit that is thought to have given birth to Nyikang, another deity (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9).

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The Semang, hunter-gatherers who live on the Malay Peninsula, conceive of the earth as a disk of land resting on a huge snake or turtle floating in a subterranean sea. The sky is a cool, sandy place containing fruits and flowers. The earth and the sky are connected by stone pillars. The sky, underworld, and pillars are inhabited by beings who are considered both superhuman and immortal. They created the rain forest in which the Semang live in order to supply their earthly needs. Some superhumans once lived on earth as ordinary humans, and they occasionally return to earth to visit or listen to Semang singing. Most superhumans are anonymous and are frequently associated with such natural phenomena as fruit and wind. Some are considered deities and thus are given individual names. The most prominent of these deities is the thunder god (Karey or Gobar). He sends thunderstorms to punish Semang who violate prohibitions, such as mixing incompatible foods or mocking particular animals. The thunder god may kill Semang by causing trees to topple on them, or by causing a tiger attack or a disease. The thunder god sometimes collaborates with a female deity of the underworld called Ya’, or “Grandmother.” She can act by producing a flood beneath the offender. It is possible to avoid the wrath of these deities by scraping some blood from the shin, mixing it with water, and presenting it as an offering to the thunder god and Grandmother. After death Semang believe that they become immortal superhumans themselves (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 5). The religion of the Aranda of central Australia is centered around myths of totemic ancestors who are thought to have created the universe. Some myths are secret and known only to particular groups. These ancestors have spiritual essences that are pervasive in their influence. Whereas these ancestors are basically good, Aranda culture contains spirits and ghosts who do bad things (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 2). The Hidatsa of North America believe in a supernatural force, existing in all animate and inanimate objects, that can be accessed by such means as fasting and vision experiences. It can be used by individuals to gain success in hunting, war exploits, and healing, and for a variety of other aims, both good and evil. The supernatural world contains a vast array of inanimate forces, human personifications, and spirits. The Hidatsa recognize three important culture heroes, Charred Body (founder of the Awatixa Hidatsa), First Creator, and Only Man. The Awatixa are thought to have descended from the sky, led by Charred Body. It is thought that the related Awaxawi Hidatsa emerged from the underground after the creation of the earth (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 1).

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Popular Vietnamese religion is a complex mixture of beliefs drawn from animism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. Veneration of ancestors is a very important part of traditional folk beliefs, and beliefs in the intervention of spirits, astrology, and geomancy are all widespread. Villages have cults devoted to a village guardian spirit, which were traditionally very important cult figures. Spirits are thought to provide assistance if properly respected and propitiated, but cause misfortune and illness if ignored. People who succumb to violent deaths are thought to turn into angry spirits; if not propitiated they can bring misfortune. There are many types of evil or potentially evil spirits, such as ghosts and demons. Many minor deities may intervene in human life for either good or malevolent purposes (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 5). Although Theravada Buddhism is the principal religion of Cambodia, Khmer religion adds elements of animistic beliefs and practices, as well as features of Hinduism and Chinese culture into a unique blend. There are numerous supernatural beings: guardian spirits of houses and animals, spirits in the natural environment or certain localities, ancestral spirits, ghosts, demons, and many others. Some spirits are generally benign and can provide for human needs as long as they are propitiated. Others can cause illness if the behavior toward them is improper or disrespectful (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 5). The Micmac inhabited parts of the Canadian Atlantic provinces. There are two major deities, a creator known as Khimintu or Manitou, who is an object of worship, and, alongside him, Glooscap, a legendary hero who has supernatural power. Glooscap is a teacher and protector and appears to the Micmac when they are most in need. When Catholic missionaries converted the Micmac to Christianity, (Kji)Mintu became the term for the Christian devil. Micmac religion is highly syncretic, with traditional supernatural beings mixed together with Christian beliefs. These traditional beings include Kukwes (a giant cannibal), Wiklatmuj (little forest people), and Jenu (northern ice giants) (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 1). In traditional Pawnee religion, all life is considered to flow from the uniting of male and female forces in the sky. There is a supernatural power at the apex of the sky where the male and female forces met. Known as Tirawa, he brought the world into being by means of a series of violent storms. He also created star gods, and they in turn created humans. The two principal star gods are the Evening Star, a fertility god who lives in the western sky, and Morning Star, a god of fire and light who inhabits the eastern sky (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 1).

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Religious rituals Religion consists of rituals in addition to beliefs. The anthropologist Roy Rappaport defines ritual as “the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers” (1999: 24; emphasis in original). Note that this definition does not refer specifically to religious rituals. Indeed, Rappaport intends it to apply to all forms of human ritual. Rituals of many types occur in all societies, and humans are easily characterized as “ritual animals” (Collins, 2004). Rappaport lists five levels of ritual of increasing formality and decreasing spontaneity: 1. stylized words and gestures occurring in ordinary conversation, such as the type of ritual made famous by the sociologist Erving Goffman 2. stylized greeting behavior and expressions of deference and demeanor (also central to the work of Goffman and developed more recently by Randall Collins, 2004) 3. patterned formal interactions, such as those that occur in courtrooms 4. inaugurations, coronations, marriages, baptisms, anointing, and suchlike 5. the most formal of all rituals in which nearly all aspects of performances consist of invariant sequences of stylized and highly stereotypical words. Rappaport suggests that religious rituals fit into this last category. Religious rituals are usually carried out in specified contexts and are governed by time as established by calendars, clocks, and biological rhythms. Most often they occur in specifically designated places. There is much repetition and attention to detail. Two main types of religious ritual can be distinguished on the basis of the degree of emotional intensity of ritual leaders and participants. Harvey Whitehouse has identified two “modes of religiosity,” each of which is associated with a particular type of ritual (Whitehouse, 2004; Atkinson and Whitehouse, 2011). In the imagistic mode, rituals involve great emotional intensity and are highly arousing. Included here are “traumatic and violent initiation rituals, ecstatic practices of various cults, experiences of collective possession and altered states of consciousness, and extreme rituals involving homicide or cannibalism” (Whitehouse, 2004: 70). These are the oldest types of rituals and are most often found in nonliterate societies. The doctrinal mode is associated with rituals that are highly routinized and normally low in the level of emotional intensity of leaders and participants. The saying of mass in the Roman Catholic Church is a classic example. Doctrinal rituals can be highly mechanical, dull, and lead

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to high levels of tedium. They are commonly found in more socially complex societies with literacy, and, as the name suggests, with written doctrines. Among the Thonga, spirit guardians make offerings to the ancestral spirits. Shrine custodians carry out first-fruit rituals in their homes as well as rituals at neighborhood shrines. Diviners have the task of probing into the intentions of spirits. In earlier times appeals for rain and community protection were held at local shrines. Neighborhood delegations seek out mediums to learn why communal spirits are angry and how to appease them. The spirits may request the sacrifice of a chicken, goat, or cow, or perhaps an offering of beer. People pour an offering of beer at a special spirit shrine or at the doorway of a dwelling. Particular dances and dramas are held in order to counteract possession by invading spirits (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 4). The Indian Punjab as of the 1980s was about 60 percent Sikh and slightly more than one-third Hindu. There were also very small numbers of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Jains, as well as various other groups. Rural Punjabis of whatever religion share many customary ceremonies associated with the round of the seasons, village life, and the individual life cycle. There are specific ceremonies associated with marriages, birth, naming, and death. On the night known as Diwali in the Fall, the buildings of a village are outlined in oil lamps, and people ask God for prosperity. In midwinter there is a ceremony called “Tails,” during which men build a fire of dung (a traditional cooking fuel) at the village gate and pray to God for the health of boys and the birth of more boys in the future. Farmers offer first fruits at village shrines (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 3). In Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi provinces in China the traditional Yi religion mixed in older beliefs with elements of Buddhism and Daoism. In the Liangshan region, the Chinese religion had less affect on Yi religion. Here Yi religion includes belief in a variety of spirits that are associated with plants and animals, as well as the sun, moon, stars, and other natural phenomena. The worship of gods and ghosts and sacrifices to the ancestors are a major part of ritual. Practitioners known as bimo and suyi preside at religious ceremonies in which they serve as intermediaries between the supernatural and the human world. The bimo is responsible for carrying out sacrifices and the suyi control ghosts through magic; in some instances these roles overlap. Ceremonies are held for the reconciliation of feuds, for marriage, and for initiations. There are common ceremonies held on calendrically fixed occasions (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 6).

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Among the Bororo of Brazil, religion is a mixture of traditional animistic and Christian beliefs. Among some Bororo the Christian God is merged with the sun culture hero. A corn festival takes place at the beginning of the January corn harvest. There is an anteater dance that is also performed at that time. In a ritual involving mask dancing, men wear huge painted masks while they chant and dance around the village. Every four or five years initiation rites are held for boys between the ages of fourteen and nineteen; this is a male ritual from which girls and women are barred. Five Brazilian holy days are celebrated, those of Saint Sebastiao, Saint Benedito, Saint Antonio, Saint Pedro, and Saint Joao, and are marked by music, dancing, and feasting (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 7). Among the Fon of West Africa ceremonies are elaborate performances. Worshipers dance to drum music and may go into a trance. Spirits may heal the sick and take part in judging cases of conflict. There are aesthetic conventions for rituals that have long traditions behind them. Ceremonies are often dazzling because of the perfection of their collective execution. Lines of dancers dressed in ceremonial attire move across a ritual area as if a single individual, performing specific movements, and drums always provide a context for movement. Ceremonies are events during which symbolic associations are reinforced and particular aspects of identity are recalled. Above all, exhilaration, ecstasy, and awe are produced. Ceremonies are considered gifts to the gods (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9). The religion of most Amhara, an Ethiopian ethnic group, is Monophysite Christianity, and the term “Amhara” is used synonymously with “Abyssinian Christian” (Abyssinia being the older name for Ethiopia). The Amhara follow the Julian calendar, but the year begins on September 11, following ancient Egyptian usage, and is called amete mehrat, or “year of grace.” The first month of the new year is Meskerem, which is named after the first religious holy day of the year, Mesqel-abeba. On the seventeenth day of the month, poles are stacked up for an evening bonfire, and there is much public feasting, dancing, and parading. Christmas (Ledet) actually has little significance, except for a game played by young men. Of much greater importance is Epiphany (Temqet), which occurs on the eleventh day of the month of Ter. There are ceremonial parades in which priests carry the tabot, symbolic of the holy ark, on their heads. There are services lasting through the night, prayers for plentiful rains, and public feasting (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9). Islam spread among the Kurds in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. Kurdish pre-Islamic cults associated with ancestors, lakes, stones, graves, trees,

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and fire continue to flourish, however, alongside many Muslim beliefs and rites. Reverence toward pirs (holy places), of which there are three types, is widespread. The first consists of stone mounds created by casting stones at places regarded as sacred. Part of a mound is often covered by pieces of fabric hung on small trees or bushes by women. These mounds, which are revered primarily by the nomadic Kurds, are thought to save them from misfortune. The second type of pir is built by sedentary Kurds and is associated with the graves of saints and the cult of the ancestors. On various days the villagers bring offerings to these graves. The third type of pir, which has devotees among both the sedentary and nomadic populations, reflects the cults of trees, stones, and water (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 6). Among the Khmer there are numerous annual Buddhist ceremonies, the most important of which are the New Year celebration held in April, the Pchum ceremony held in September to honor the dead, and Katun festivals in which Khmer contribute money and goods to temples and their resident monks. Also conducted are life-cycle rituals that mark births, marriages, and deaths; these are performed at home. Weddings are especially festive occasions. Rituals associated with the propitiation of supernatural spirits, agriculture, and healing are common (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 5). The Inca of ancient Peru worshiped a variety of supernatural beings, but primarily the creator god Viracocha, who was said to have created all other supernatural beings. The Incas also worshiped gods of thunder, the weather, the stars, the moon, the earth, and the sea. There was a specialized class of priests which was organized into a hierarchy that corresponded to the hierarchy of government officials. The priests engaged in divination, the interpretation of oracles, and confession. War ceremonies were conducted both to divine the outcomes of war campaigns and to weaken enemies. Sacrifice was part of every rite, and included both animals and humans. Shrines and great temples were built to house priests, attendants, and cult objects. Ceremonies took place outside temples, which were well decorated and used solely for religious purposes. The holiest of all the temples was the “Temple of the Sun,” which housed caretakers, diviners, and sacrificers (Human Relations Area Files, SE13; D’Altroy, 2002; Parrinder, 1983). Among the Karaja of Brazil (formerly known as the Shavante), nature spirits are personified in rituals in which pairs of male dancers carry masks representing each of the spirits. These rituals are called Aruana, which is the name of a fish found in the Araguaia River. Other ceremonies attempt to pacify the souls of

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enemies killed by the Karaja a long time ago, such as the Tapirape. There are elaborate rites of passage, the most important being that of Hetochoka, which involves communicating religious knowledge to the younger male generation and stages of their initiation to adult life. There are also seasonal feasts, such as the honey feast held in August (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 7).

Religious specialists There are three major types of religious specialists in the world’s societies: shamans, priests, and prophets. There are also a few minor types, such as diviners, magicians, mediums, disciples, evangelists, and missionaries (Whitehouse, 2004), but here I limit myself to the major types. I give only a very brief sketch, fleshing out the discussion in later chapters. Shamans are the earliest and oldest type of religious specialist, found mostly in huntergatherer societies but also in horticultural societies as well as societies at more advanced stages of social evolution. Shamans specialize in healing, finding lost souls, and protecting game animals. They are part-time specialists who take on “clients.” Among the Inuit (Eskimos) of the far north, the shaman, known as an angakok, is a person considered to have superior spiritual experience. An angakok makes an annual trip to the bottom of the sea to persuade the sea goddess, Sedna, to release her game so that the Inuit can live for another year. The angakok is also called upon to diagnose illness and to use his special powers to treat it (Wallace, 1966). In more advanced religions we find priests. Priests perform rituals for laypersons, who are largely an audience. Even when laypersons may take an active role, the priests are the organizers and directors of the rituals. Priests differ considerably from one society to another. In some cases they operate part-time, have limited authority, and possess limited religious knowledge. In other cases they operate full-time, have great authority, and hold a monopoly over an extensive amount of religious knowledge. The Maori of New Zealand had priests who received specialized training. They had considerable knowledge of genealogies and tribal history, were thought to be able to control the weather, and carried out esoteric rituals. Their focus was on the major deities. Shamans were also present, but they served local family deities, whom they communicated with by means of spirit possession and sorcery (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 2). The polytheistic and monotheistic religions of the

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ancient world all had priests as their leading specialists, although, as among the Maori, shamans were often found as well. In some cases priests might do double duty as shamans, at least among some of the earlier polytheistic religions. The third major type of religious practitioner is the prophet. Prophets differ from priests in that they proclaim new religious ideas and messages and seek a following for them. In essence, they found new religions and help them spread. There have probably been thousands of prophets in human history, but most of these have passed into obscurity because their ideas did not resonate with large numbers of people, either important elites or, more to the point, the masses. Prophets seldom become priests, although their role in codifying and spreading the faith is often very substantial. After the death of Jesus, for example, the apostle Paul preached as a prophet and became a central figure, if not the central figure, in the establishment of early Christianity. But after prophets die and the new religion becomes established, the way is paved for priests to enter the picture. The best-known prophets, of course, have been the Jewish prophets, Zoroaster of ancient Iran, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, and, in very recent times, Joseph Smith of the Mormons. These prophets, some of whose activities will be discussed in later chapters, arose in large-scale societies, but prophets have also been widely found in small-scale societies. In many small-scale societies there have arisen religious movements known as revitalization movements, which are devoted both to restoring the previous state of society and to ushering in a new age of peace and prosperity (Wallace, 1966). In Melanesia toward the end of the nineteenth century these movements took the form of what have been called cargo cults (Worsley, 1968). The dominant element in these cults was the belief that large shipments of Western industrial goods would soon be arriving for the use and enjoyment of the natives. The goods were thought to be sent by the natives’ ancestors, who had risen from the dead. One cargo cult was led by a prophet in New Guinea by the name of Evara, who claimed to have had divine revelations. He prophesied that a steamer would be bringing cargo accompanied by the spirits of the dead ancestors. The cargo, which consisted of such items as flour, rice, tobacco, and rifles, could only be obtained if white colonists were driven out (Worsley, 1968). On the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides a prophet named John Frum organized a cult around himself. Frum prophesied that there would be a cataclysm in which “the volcanic mountains would fall and fill the river beds to form fertile plains, and Tanna would be joined to the neighboring islands of

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Eromanga and Aneityum to form a new island” (Worsley, 1968: 154). At this point Frum would bring in a reign of bliss in which the natives would become young again, sickness would disappear, and the white colonists would go home. Frum envisioned a future in which the natives would acquire all of the material possessions and riches of the whites. In North America in the nineteenth century a famous revitalization movement known as the ghost dance arose (Lanternari, 1963; Thornton, 1981). There were two waves. In 1870 a prophet named Wodziwob founded a movement among the Paviotsos after receiving a vision. He foresaw a cataclysm that would shake the entire world and eliminate the whites from Indian land. The earth would open up and swallow the whites, but their buildings, tools, and other goods would be left to the Indians for their own use. In the second wave in 1890, a Paiute Indian by the name of Wovoka prophesied that strong winds would blow all of the whites away while leaving their possessions intact.

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The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life

In an article provocatively entitled “Are there any religions?” Joseph Bulbulia (2005) stresses that religions are far more similar than different. He makes an analogy with language. Language, he says, exhibits limited variation, and the variation is mostly in language’s more superficial aspects. Presumably he is referring to such linguistic features as whether adjectives precede or follow nouns, whether verbs follow nouns or are placed at the end of sentences, how tenses are constructed, and so on. And so it goes for religion. For Bulbulia “it appears that there is only one human religion with minor but strategically important variation in its conventional expressions” (2005: 72). Pascal Boyer takes a different tack, giving more weight to differences. He points out that most religions are not about creation, seldom about God, and only in a few instances about salvation of a soul; that most religions do not have doctrines to which individuals are expected to adhere; and that most religions are not highly coherent integrated wholes, but rather are piecemeal (Boyer, 2004; as discussed in Saler, 2004). In this chapter and the next I try to show that it is Boyer who has the more persuasive argument. I begin by looking at two well-known efforts to classify religions and situate them in a long-term historical perspective.

Types of religion Just as societies’ modes of technology and their economic and political institutions have evolved over time, so have their religions. There have been some remarkably similar evolutionary transformations of religion throughout human history, and these have been captured in typologies developed by the anthropologist Anthony Wallace (1966) and the sociologist Robert Bellah (1964).

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Wallace considers the religion of any society to be a conglomeration of what he calls cult institutions. A cult institution is “a set of rituals all having the same general goal, all explicitly rationalized by a set of similar or related beliefs, and all supported by the same social group” (1966: 75). Wallace identifies four main types of cult institutions. Individualistic cult institutions exist when there are no shamans, priests, or other religious specialists available to perform rituals; rather, each person acts as his or her own specialist, performing specific rituals as the need arises. In shamanic cult institutions there exists a part-time religious specialist, a shaman, deemed to have special religious qualifications and powers. Shamans intervene with the supernatural powers on behalf of their clients. In contrast to individualistic cult institutions, shamanic cult institutions maintain a religious division of labor in which there is a distinction between religious specialists possessing special skills and powers and laymen who lack such special attributes. A third level of cult institution is the communal. Communal cult institutions are characterized by groups of laymen who “are responsible for calendrical or occasional performance of rituals of importance to various social groups ranging in scope from the members of special categories—such as age grades, the sexes, members of secret societies, particular kinship groups, and sufferers from particular diseases—to the whole community” (1966: 86–87). Whereas communal cult institutions are characterized by a specific type of religious specialization, there is no full-time priesthood or extensive religious hierarchy. The latter are found, however, among ecclesiastical cult institutions. These cult institutions are based on the existence of professional priesthoods organized bureaucratically. Members of the priesthood are full-time religious specialists elected or appointed to permanent religious offices. A sharp demarcation exists between priests and religious laymen; the former monopolize religious knowledge and the direction of religious rituals, while the latter are essentially passive recipients of knowledge and ritual. Wallace identifies four evolutionary types of religion based on combinations of cult institutions: 1. Shamanic religions, which contain only individualistic and shamanic cult institutions. Religious practice beyond the level of the individual focuses solely on the conduct of a shaman and there are no calendrical rites. 2. Communal religions, which contain individualistic, shamanic, and communal cult institutions. Religious practice focuses primarily on the

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conduct of laypersons engaged in collective calendrical rites, although shamanic rituals still exist and remain important. 3. Olympian religions, which contain all four cult institutions, especially specialized priesthoods. Numerous gods, frequently organized in a hierarchical pantheon, are worshiped and worship is led by full-time priests. 4. Monotheistic religions, which contain individualistic, shamanic, and communal cult institutions, along with ecclesiastical cult institutions organized around the concept of a single high god. Note that at each “higher” stage of religious evolution, features of the previous stage do not disappear, at least not completely. Shamans, for example, are found in all four stages even though they are most prominent in the first stage. Most Olympian societies have shamans. Shaman-like practitioners are even found at the highest stage in the form of so-called faith healers. But of course faith healers at this stage are a minor part of religious activity. This is a useful scheme, but with two problems. The term Olympian is problematic because it is too narrow in referring to ancient Greek religion with its Mount Olympus. What Wallace means is clearly polytheistic religions, so that term is preferable. However, even this term is not ideal, because such religions have other important features. Therefore, I propose to use the oldfashioned term pagan to identify these religions. Unfortunately, this term has often been used pejoratively, especially in Christianity, to refer to those who adhere to traditional non-Christian or pre-Christian religions. Etymologically, pagan derives from the Latin paganus, meaning “rustic” or “country dweller.” Yet the term continues to be used in a non-pejorative way by numerous students of religion, including highly respected historians (e.g., Stark [1996, 2006, 2011]; MacMullen [1981, 1984]; and Athanassiadi and Frede [1999]; see Clark [2004] for further clarification). Shorn of any pejorative implication it is actually quite a good term. The other problem with Wallace’s terminology is the term monotheistic. Since the world religions of South and East Asia are not strictly monotheistic, another term is needed. As Chapter 3 will suggest, the kind of religion that Wallace has in mind is characterized by a kind of world transcendence regardless of the number of gods. Therefore, the term world transcendent (or world salvation) religions seems more accurate, as will be explained in Chapter 3. In Bellah’s scheme there are five stages of religious evolution: primitive, archaic, historic, early modern, and modern. The last two are not relevant to this

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book because they are beyond its historical time span, so I shall ignore them. Table 2.1 outlines the features of the first three stages. It is clear that Wallace’s and Bellah’s typologies overlap and in some important respects complement each other. Bellah’s primitive type encompasses Wallace’s shamanic and communal, the archaic type consists mostly of Wallace’s Olympian/polytheistic/ pagan type, and the historic type corresponds to Wallace’s monotheistic/world transcendent type. Bellah’s scheme captures many key features of these three types of religion, but there are several difficulties. First, the idea that primitive religions have no gods that are worshiped is simply wrong. The emphasis is on spirits but, as we saw in the previous chapter, there are numerous huntergatherer and horticultural societies that have gods, even high gods, and in quite a few instances these gods are worshiped. Second, and more seriously, Bellah does not mention shamans at all, but as we shall see below, they are crucial religious specialists in most primitive religions. Third, it is not exactly true that primitive religions have no spectators. They hardly have the kinds of spectators found in modern religions, but in shamanic rituals the entire band, clan, or village may constitute spectators. Fourth, Bellah overemphasizes the importance of animal sacrifice in primitive societies. And finally, sin was not invented in the historic religions, but existed in some archaic (pagan) religions (although it is true that it became much more important in the historic religions). Nonetheless, shorn of these difficulties Bellah’s scheme is extremely useful and can be used in conjunction with Wallace’s.

The way of the shaman The earliest and oldest religious specialists are shamans (Eliade, 1964; Winkelman, 1990, 2000; McClenon, 2002; Hayden, 2003). Shamans are “religious functionaries who draw on the powers in the natural world, including the powers of animals, and who mediate, usually in an altered state of consciousness, between the world of the living and that of the spirits—including the spirits of the dead” (Jolly, 2005). In the religions of the hunter-gatherer ancestral environment in which all humans once lived prior to about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago, the shaman was usually the only religious specialist, which is why Wallace has called these religions shamanic religions. The principal shamanic ritual was the curing ceremony, an event that Michael Winkelman describes as of “unparalleled importance in hunter-gatherer societies” (2000: 61). In this ceremony the shaman

Table 2.1 Bellah’s typology of religious evolution Characteristics

Primitive

Symbol System: Myths are dream-like, occurring “out of time.” Mythical characters are human and Ojibwa, !Kung, Mapuche, Pawnee, animal ancestral figures. They are heroic beings, but not gods. They do not control the world Aranda, Bororo, and are not worshiped. They were the progenitors of human beings. There is no deep gulf Karaja between ideals and reality. There is only “one world.” Action: Community members act out myths, identifying themselves with the mythical beings they pretend to become, often believing they are literally transformed. Most important rituals are rites of transition, such as “puberty rites,” and rites of sacrifice—a communal slaughtering and consumption of the sacred totemic species of the clan. Organization: Religion is an attribute of the kinship system. No separate organizations of specialists exist. Church and society are one. Age is an important criterion of leadership. Symbol System: Mythical beings are considered gods. They actively, willfully control the world, and Yoruba, ancient must be worshiped in a prescribed manner. A hierarchy among the various gods is established. Hawaiians, The afterlife becomes an important religious concern. There is still, basically, “one world,” but Aztecs, Incas, a hierarchy between “this world” and the “other world” is established, with the “other world” Meosopotamians, being more powerful. Individuals and society are seen as merged into one divine cosmos. Egyptians, Action: Humans are subjects, and gods are objects to be worshiped. Sacrifice is the principal means Aryans, Greeks, of communicating with the gods. Specialists (priests) emerge to mediate between subjects and Romans the gods, presiding over sacrifices. Organization: Each god is the focus of a cult, with its own specific rituals. Priests are in charge of each cult, but there is no congregation. Different social groups focus on different cults. Religious organization is still merged with social structure, but only at the top. A certain degree of conflict involving power struggles is set in motion between religious and military authorities, but not enough separation for religion to be clearly differentiated and independent of political authority. At the top, in the person of the king, religious and military-political leadership are combined.

Archaic

Examples

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Type of religion

(Cont.) 29

Type of religion Historic

Sources: Bellah (1964). Updated and expanded version online at http://www.faculty.smcm.edu/ccraney/restricted/PDF/Religious_Evolution.pdf.

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

Characteristics Examples Symbol System: Literacy develops, and with it, sacred writings. Monotheism emerges. The realm Zoroastrianism, of the sacred, the “other world,” is portrayed as more remote, more judging of action in Judaism, “this world.” Both “this world” and the “other world” are hierarchically organized. Monistic Christianity, cosmology is replaced by dualism. Reality is clearly dualistic, with the afterlife either heaven or Confucianism, hell. Hinduism, Salvation becomes the primary focus of religious concern, though it is conceptualized somewhat Buddhism, differently in each major religion. Salvation is achieved by bringing people into harmony with Daoism God. Magic is de-emphasized. Historic religion says mankind has a deep-seated flaw that is responsible for human unhappiness. Religious truth is said to be divinely inspired, based on revelation from God. The idea of a special, inner self, capable of moral choice is developed—a responsible, knowing self. The theme of world rejection is entirely new, being absent from primitive and archaic religions. The concept of sin is created. Action: Religious action is action that is necessary for salvation. Community values are sacralized within this overarching concern, as salvation requires, among other things, living in harmony with other people. Because of the severe dualism, religious action also often requires ascetic withdrawal from as much of “this world” as possible, including vows of poverty, and other forms of self-denial for those who are especially worried about salvation. Mankind is doomed without the benefits of religion. Organization: The profound dualism of historic symbolism is expressed in social structure by the development of separate religious and political institutions. The distinction between religious adherent and political subject is developed. The priesthood has a special relationship with God. Religious membership begins to develop, as membership in one’s cultural group and in the religion are essentially the same. Various orders develop in which individuals can withdraw from most contact with the daily life of society in order to focus on salvation.

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Table 2.1 (Continued)

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brought the local community into interaction with the spirit world in a ritual charged with fear, awe, and other powerful emotional experiences. . . . The shaman enacted struggles and battles of animals and spirits, summoning spirit allies while beating drums, singing, chanting, and dancing violently and excitedly. Finally the shaman collapsed exhausted and, through magical flight, entered into the spirit world, ascending to the upper world and descending to the lower one to communicate with the spirits and to obtain their cooperation. (2000: 61–62)

Shamanic practices assume the existence of a world populated by a wide variety of spirits that affect all aspects of human life. The shaman is able to control these spirits, which are in fact the vehicle through which he is able to accomplish his goals. Shamanic curing assumes that illness is the result of people having lost their souls or of being under the influence of ghosts, spirits, witches, or malevolent acts performed by other shamans. Shamans appear to undergo altered states of consciousness that are trance induced. Trances can be induced by hunger, thirst, loss of sleep, or other forms of sensory deprivation; by extreme forms of sensory stimulation; or by various psychophysiological sensitivities that may result from nervous system imbalances (Winkelman and Baker, 2010). Perhaps the most frequent means of inducing trances is the use of hallucinogens or opiates. Such hallucinatory drugs as ephedra and ayahuasca can create experiences that are often understood as contact with another reality. Drugs made from the plant family Solanaceae can create the feeling that one has been transformed into an animal, as well as sensations of flying (Pearson, 2002; as discussed in Pyysiäinen, 2009).1 In addition to healing and curing, shamans engage in divination, protect and find game animals, communicate with the dead, recover lost souls, and protect people from evil spirits and the practitioners of malevolent magic. Shamans also go on “soul flights” and “vision quests.” The striking similarities in shamanic activities all over the world suggest that they are not the result of cultural diffusion, but rather of continual rediscovery and reinvention (Winkelman, 2000). The Sakha (also known as the Yakut) are a people of northeast Siberia, the region of the world where shamans were first discovered in the nineteenth century. The Sakha, who live through hunting, fishing, and raising horses, cattle, and reindeer, exhibit the classical form of shamanism described above. Individuals considered to have special abilities are thought to be able to mediate between the spirit world and the community by communicating requests to supernatural forces. Shamans fell into trances that were accompanied by drumbeating, singing, dancing, and reciting on the part of the community. During his trance,

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a shaman would experience hallucinations, dreams, and visions induced by such hallucinogenic substances as toadstools, blueberries, or a special tea, as well as by playing musical instruments and the monotonous repetition of prayers. In a state of ecstasy, the shaman travels to other worlds to retrieve souls that evil spirits may have abducted, to pacify angry spirits, and to approach good spirits with requests made by some members of the community (Kósko, 2004). Shamans among the !Kung of southern Africa display many similar characteristics. Shamans attempt to cure illness and protect people from malevolent spirits responsible for misfortune. They are thought to have a supernatural power that allows them, among other things, to see into the future, control the weather, and ensure good hunting. !Kung shamans enter trance states, which are thought to occur when they please a spirit and are thereby temporarily absorbed into the spirit. This absorption allows the shaman to locate the source of a person’s illness, and then to heal him by using such ritual devices as tortoise-shell rattles, herb bundles, charms, and beads. Then the shaman lays his hands on the patient and tries to pull his illness out of his body. In doing so, the shaman absorbs the illness into his own body and then expels it. A major reason for a person’s illness is thought to be angering the ancestors by killing more than his share of game and distributing it in a wasteful or greedy manner. When a shaman cures such a transgressor, he tells other members of the community the reason for the illness, and warns them against such transgressions (Butler and Salamone, 2004). !Kung shamans also play an important role in attempting to prevent food shortages, and the induction of trances is involved here too. In a trance a shaman summons animal spirits and attempts to mediate between them and the animals: Acting here as spirit mediums, healers beseech the animal spirits to make the actual animals come closer to the camp. While entranced, the healer undergoes a personal transformation in which he forges spiritual bonds of understanding between himself as hunter qua healer and the types of game that sustain the community. Thus, in addition to the latent function of ensuring food stuffs, there are more manifest reasons for holding a trance dance: namely, curing people, rainmaking, controlling and finding animals for the hunt—all of which contribute to !Kung subsistence. (Butler and Salamone, 2004: 894)

The Ojibwa of North America, who make their living by hunting, gathering, and fishing, have several types of shamans. The first type performs a healing ritual based on the use of tubes to suck out a patient’s illness. The ritual begins when a bowl of water is placed next to the patient. The shaman sings and shakes

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a rattle, all the while tapping on the patient’s body to try to locate the part of it that contains the illness. Once he locates it, he uses his tubes to suck the illness out and then blows the “foreign substance” into the bowl of water. A second type of shaman builds a circular lodge that ritual participants enter and, once inside, petition certain spirits. The shaman may then use his bare hands to scoop meat from a boiling pot and give it to the person with the illness. The ill person is told to eat the meat, which is thought to have curative powers. Yet another type of shaman attempts to conjure spirits from whom valuable knowledge can be obtained. He enters a lodge to which rattles have been attached and begins to sing and pray. At some point the lodge will shake violently, and strange voices will be heard and strange lights seen. Later the shaman will leave the lodge and tell others what he learned from the spirits (Ferris, 2004). The Mapuche are a horticultural tribe living in Chile. Mapuche shamans, which are known as machi and are most often women, consume hallucinogenic seeds to enter into altered states of consciousness. This allows them to treat pain and various illnesses, exorcise evil spirits, and divine the future. They also use dreams and drumming. Machi try to diagnose illness by looking through their patients’ clothes, looking into their eyes, or examining urine samples. The most elaborate ritual is the Datun, designed to treat people whose illnesses are considered of spiritual rather than natural origin. The machi spends all night at a patient’s house in order to expel evil spirits from both his body and his house. The patient lies on the floor face up and the machi places two crossed knives on the patient’s chest or under his head. The machi drums and calls out the names of deities and spirits. She beats faster and faster and goes in and out of altered states of consciousness. While in an altered state, the machi communicates with various spirits in order to divine the patient’s illness, after which she sucks on the body to get rid of the illness, rubs the patient with herbal remedies, and provides him with herbal drinks (Bacigalupo, 2004). As noted above, shamans are found in more advanced societies even though the role they play there is significantly reduced. And shaman-like behavior has been observed in religious specialists who were not themselves shamans. The great sociologist of religion Max Weber pointed to what can only be described as astonishingly shaman-like behavior among some of the early Hebrew prophets. As he notes, “They described visual and auditory hallucinations and abnormal sensations of taste and feeling of diverse sorts. . . . They felt as if they were floating . . . or borne through the air, they experienced clairvoyant visions of spatially distant events like, allegedly, Ezekiel in Babylon at the hour of Jerusalem’s fall”

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(1952: 287). Moreover, “They saw hallucinatory blinding flashes of light and in it the figures of superhuman beings” (1952: 287).

Communal rites and practices In some hunter-gatherer and many horticultural societies a variety of collective rites are added to shamanic rituals, creating communal religions. Many communal rites center around agricultural practices. Cultivation of crops is frequently filled with anxiety over the adequacy of the harvests and potential crop failures, and many agricultural rituals focus on relieving this anxiety. Practitioners of these rituals often perceive that a “force” is present in the harvests, and agricultural rites are often intended to maintain favorable relations between people and this force (Eliade, 1964). The other main type of collective performance is devoted to rites of passages—puberty rituals and the like. A type of communal ritual that is very widespread is ancestor worship.2 Where ancestor worship is practiced, the spirits of the dead ancestors are often the key supernatural entities. Ancestor worship is likely to become of increased importance in horticultural societies because these societies are usually organized into elaborate descent groups—lineages and clans—identified with a putative founding ancestor. Such groups require respect for ancestors, both living and dead. As authority figures, living ancestors are the sources of both rewards and punishments. It is very bad form to offend them either when they are living or when they pass into the realm of the dead. Among the Mbuti of the Ituri rain forest of Africa, the most important collective rites are associated with hunting, honey collection, and death. The frequency and intensity of hunting rituals relate to the uncertainty, danger, and difficulty of the hunt. The gathering of the first honey of the season leads to collective rituals involving music and dancing. Rituals performed after someone has died involve the participation of the forest spirit (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9). Among the Bamiléké of Africa (also known as the Massa or Bana), several groups are important in religious practice. Among them are lineage heads who act as custodians of ancestral skulls, and diviners and spirit mediums who determine the need for ceremonies and healing. Life-cycle ceremonies include burying at birth a mother’s umbilical cord and placenta by her kitchen, circumcision for boys, and prepuberty seclusion for girls. Other life-cycle

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ceremonies are burial and death rituals performed approximately a year after death. Death celebrations mark the end of a period of mourning, during which the deceased is said to have completed the transition to ancestorhood (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 9). Among the Lakher or Mara of northeastern India the major rituals are Pazusata, a feast marking the end of the year, and Pakhupila, a so-called knee dance occasioned by an excellent crop. The Siaha royal clan carries out numerous additional rites of a sacrificial nature that are associated with the subsistence cycle, domestic affairs, and ancestor worship. During one of these, the Khazangpina sacrifice, the sacrificer asks for blessings on himself and his family concerning wealth, health, an abundance of children, good crops, and fertile domestic animals. This ritual is unsurpassed in importance. Rituals also play an important role in the major life-cycle events (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 3). The Tiwi of Australia perform an annual yam ceremony near the end of the wet season (November to March). This ritual lasts three days and involves digging, preparing, cooking, and eating a type of wild yam. The yam symbolizes reproduction and the maintenance of both human and nonhuman life. In addition to carrying out the preparation and cooking of the yams, ritual participants must compose and sing at least a dozen new songs throughout the three days (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 2). The ceremonial cycle of the Ingalik of Alaska consists of seven major observances, most of which are concerned with ensuring a plentiful food supply. Each fall a shaman conducts a ritual in which he uses dolls to predict the game supply. During the winter a so-called bladder ceremony is performed to increase the supply of game. At the peak of the ceremonial calendar (midwinter) a ceremony known as the Potlatch for the Dead is conducted and is followed (or sometimes preceded) by the Animal’s Ceremony. These ceremonies, which consist of symbolic and imitative dances and singing, are also intended to enhance the game supply. A number of more minor rituals are given to please important spirits, and there are a variety of ceremonies that involve the presentation of food or gifts to mark life-cycle passages (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 1). Religious specialists among the Pawnee of North America consist of a group of wise men whose authority comes from a star. They are said to stand between ordinary people and the creator god Tirawa and supervise an annual round of rituals performed in order to bring success in farming, hunting, and warfare. The annual ritual cycle begins with the first sound of thunder in the spring and ends with the maize harvest in the autumn. Another important ritual involves preparations

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for the buffalo hunt, which begins with fasting, prayer, and sacrifice by the priests and concludes with the priests appealing to Tirawa for aid. Afterwards there are three days of uninterrupted dancing (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 1).

Pagan religions of the ancient world Overview The majority of polytheistic, or what I prefer to call pagan religions, are found in societies that practice some sort of intensive agriculture or pastoralism and that are most commonly organized into chiefdoms or states. In these religions the deities of earlier religions are elevated to a much higher status and there is a dramatic increase in the obeisance given to them and the amount of ritual devoted to worshiping them. Some authors, such as Yehezkel Kaufmann (1960), use the word pagan to refer to all religions prior to the development of the Axial Age religions. However, I use it here in a more restrictive sense to refer essentially to what Bellah calls archaic religions. The term has long had a pejorative meaning, but as explained earlier that meaning is not intrinsic to it, and I use it here in an entirely non-pejorative way. Pagan religions have polytheistic pantheons of highly specialized and powerful gods, each of whom is responsible for a specific sphere of life, such as love, war, the weather, or agriculture. Some of the gods take an interest in human affairs, but many are much more concerned with themselves. In some societies with pagan religions, a city or city-state had its own god to whom it paid respect. Pagan religions frequently come into contact and borrow gods from each other; the pantheons may grow very large and confused, in Weber’s (1978) words an “unordered miscellany.” Often different societies may worship more or less the same gods, but under different names. One of the most striking features of pagan gods is their anthropomorphic nature. They are in most cases much like humans, although some represent elements of nature, such as the sun, moon, or sky. Some are considered good, others evil; some are highly competent at what they do, whereas others are regarded as incompetent fools; they usually eat and drink and often have great banquets; many of them like sex and have frequent orgies; they mate both with other gods and with humans; they also fight and go to war. They get sick and require care and healing; they may grow old and die (Kaufmann, 1960).

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Many pagan gods have a serious dark side. They stir up trouble, put obstacles in the paths of humans, act like brats, and rule people through chance and fate. They are often pernicious and amoral beings who pursue their own interests, which are frequently at odds with the agendas of humans (Wilson, 2008). They commit adultery, incest, and murder, and fornicate, cheat, and lie. They are often fickle and put much energy into tricking, robbing, and seducing humans (Wilson, 2008). They can be notoriously undependable and unreliable and, all in all, set very bad examples for human behavior. In some cases they are none of these things, but simply take no real interest in human affairs (Stark, 2011). On the other hand, many pagan gods do beneficent things. They are regularly called on for victory in war, good harvests, success in love, protection from harm, and so on. In ancient Hawaii the god Kane watched over irrigation agriculture, the god Lono over rainfall agriculture. In ancient Mesopotamia the gods were distant and generally feared, but they could be beneficent and people could call on them for help and favors. Among the Romans, the goddess Diana promoted fertility and successful childbirth, Aesculapius could be called upon for healing, and Venus (Aphrodite in Greece) could be appealed to for sex and love. The Romans regularly called upon the gods for success in a very wide range of undertakings. Yehezkel Kaufmann contends that the most important feature of pagan religions is not their anthropomorphic gods, but the fact that these gods are derived from a preexisting order. They do not exist outside the universe, and thus are not the source of everything that exists. They are the product of what exists, or at least what existed before they came into being. They are rooted in a primordial realm and “are bound by its nature [and] subservient to its laws” (Kaufmann, 1960: 22). In being subservient to a primordial realm, they themselves call on “metadivine forces” in order to overcome their own limitations (Kaufmann, 1960). The primordial realm from which the gods derive is conceived in different ways in different pagan religions, but there are some common themes. Chaos is one, water is another. In the beginning there is chaos, out of which order flows. In Babylonia the primordial realm was waters of chaos. In the creation myths of the Canaanites, there was a primeval chaos and spirit that preceded everything. In Sumer it was the primeval sea that was the source of everything, and in Egypt it was primeval waters. The primordial realm can also be conceived as earth, sky, darkness, or a void (Kaufmann, 1960). Monotheism is usually presented as a triumph over pagan polytheism, but this can only be judged in terms of the historical circumstances in which

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monotheistic religions emerged. In pagan societies, both elites and commoners liked having numerous gods, and often found the idea of a single god as the sole object of religious devotion puzzling, if not highly objectionable. This is why the first attempt to impose a single god failed miserably (Kirsch, 2004). This attempt was made in the fourteenth-century BCE by the pharaoh Amenhotep IV of Egypt. Amenhotep elevated the sun god Aton to the status of a single god and banned the worship of all the other gods and goddesses. He also ordered all the existing temples destroyed, the rituals banned, and the names of the gods chiseled off monuments. Then he changed his name to Akhenaton. Akhenaton said that Aton was a jealous god who could not be depicted in any way that humans would regard as familiar. Because his form could not be imagined, Akhenaton rejected icons and idolatry (Kirsch, 2004). But the whole thing was a complete failure, as people did not take to monotheism at all. Akhenaton was despised and, once he died, the old religion was re-established; his temples were destroyed and the old temples were rebuilt. And among the early Israelites, Moses found it very difficult to impose Yahweh as the one true god. The Israelites easily drifted back to their many gods and old familiar ways of worship, and it took many centuries for monotheism to prevail (Kirsch, 2004). In perhaps the very first monotheism, Zoroastrianism in Iran, there was a tendency toward regression to the old polytheism. Ancient pagan religions differed in a major way from their predecessors in having professional priesthoods who monopolized religious knowledge and who led elaborate rituals for a lay audience. Priests acted as important mediators between people and their gods, and they became the most important religious practitioners. However, these priests in many cases were quite different from the later priests of the world transcendent religions. Often they were akin to soothsayers, healers, and sorcerers, and in this respect they retained many of the characteristics of shamans who had been elevated to a higher status (Woolley, 1965). Another prominent feature of pagan religions is their ritualistic use of animal sacrifice, which is extremely widespread if not universal (Armstrong, 2006). The animals sacrificed are almost always highly valued domesticated animals, wild animals rarely, if ever, being objects of sacrifice (Atran, 2002). In Arabia and much of North Africa, for example, camels were commonly sacrificed, bulls were important objects of sacrifice throughout the Mediterranean world, and pastoralists in Central Asia were noted for sacrificing horses (Harris, 1977). Human blood has also been widely used in sacrifices and, indeed, sometimes the animal being sacrificed is the human animal (Atran, 2002).

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Because societies with pagan religions are usually highly stratified by status and wealth, there were important differences between the religious practices of elites and those of the rest of society. This is a distinction between official and popular religion (Sharot, 2001; Johnston, 2004). Nonelites often worshiped many of the same gods as elites, but their religious practices were separate and focused on additional deities and spirits of their own. Families generally had their own shrines that were the focal point of ritual. How do pagan religions form? Herbert Spencer (1898) explored this matter long ago in a discussion that is still relevant today. Spencer argued that societies have followed both endogenous and exogenous paths to polytheism. An endogenous path involves elevating gods and spirits of communal religions to higher status, along with elevating simple practitioners to the level of priests. This happened mostly in conjunction with the evolution of more differentiated and stratified societies organized into states, and it would have happened in all of the world regions where early states formed, beginning around 5,000 years ago (e.g., Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India in the Old World, and among the Aztecs and Inca in the New World). For example, Thorkild Jacobsen (1976) has pointed out that the predecessors of the early Mesopotamians worshiped mostly gods and spirits of nature, especially those concerned with fertility and harvests, who were essential to human survival. But as they reached statehood the gods changed dramatically. As Jacobsen puts it: The whole view of existence appears to have changed. The earlier world in which things happened more or less by themselves and the gods were “intransitive” powers has yielded to a planned, purposeful universe actively administered and ruled by gods who have broadened their concerns far beyond what we call nature: to society as upholders of the legal and moral order, and to politics, deciding about victory and defeat. They have come to control and shape history. (Jacobsen, 1976: 90)

Moreover, the gods became more awe-inspiring. “With the development of social differentiation and the attitudes of growing respect and awe before the ruler, a new sensitivity to the potential in the vast sky for inducing feelings of numinous awe seems to have come into being” (Jacobsen, 1976: 96). In many ways gods are projections of the society of which they are a part. Simple smallscale societies mostly have simple gods, having little need for anything else. But in highly complex societies that have powerful state rulers, who themselves are objects of awe, powerful gods who are objects of awe follow as a natural consequence.

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One exogenous path to polytheism was warfare and external conquest. A conquering society might leave an existing deity of the conquered society in place and simply add its own to the mix. With further conquests, more gods could be added such that entire pantheons of gods would be formed. Spencer put it this way: A genesis of polytheism, and of polytheistic priesthoods, equally important with, or perhaps more important than, [endogenous genesis] accompanies conquest. The over-runnings of tribe by tribe and nation by nation, which have been everywhere and always going on, have necessarily tended to impose one cult upon another. . . . Not destroying the worships of the conquered, the conquerors bring in their own worships—either carrying them on among themselves only, or making the conquered join in them. (1898: 70–71; emphasis added)

Max Weber (1978) made essentially the same point, observing that when political communities expanded through conquest, the usual outcome was the creation of an amalgam of highly specialized gods. And one political community’s incorporation of other communities could make it work better if it also incorporated their gods: “Once a political association came under the tutelage of a particular deity, its protection appeared inadequate until the gods of the individual members were also incorporated, ‘associated,’ and adopted locally” (Weber, 1978: 416). Spencer also mentioned diffusion as an additional exogenous cause of polytheism. Here he referred to the “spreading reputations of local deities, and the consequent establishment of temples to them in places to which they do not belong” (1898: 71). A classic example is the importation of the cults of Cybele and Isis into Rome. Cybele came from Anatolia, Isis from Egypt (Stark, 2006). And the Romans imported many of the Greek gods and worshiped them under new names. In Rome polytheism already existed, but the importation of these gods made Roman religion even more polytheistic than it already was. The principal characteristics of pagan religions are summarized in Table 2.2. Some of the best-known polytheistic religions were those of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas of the New World, Hawaii and other Polynesian societies, the ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians, and the ancient Greeks and Romans. Here are four examples.

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Table 2.2 Predominant features of pagan religions Cosmogonies Conception of the supernatural

Means of origin

Principal functions Principal rituals Worshipers

Depictions of gods Religious specialists Toleration of other religions

Gods emerge from a primordial chaos, darkness, a void, mingling of waters, etc. Many gods with highly specialized functions, often organized in a hierarchy; gods are usually anthropomorphic with a wide range of human characteristics, both good and bad; gods are often undependable Gradual elevation of multiple deities of shamanic and communal religions to higher status; diversification and elaboration due to conquest, migration, diffusion, borrowing, etc. Assisting rulers and other humans in achieving specific goals; legitimation of state rule; goals and aims are largely worldly rather than otherworldly Regular care of the gods, mostly through animal (sometimes human) sacrifice Elites worship principal gods in temples, public squares, etc.; common people worship some of the same gods but also other deities in local or family shrines Idolatry and other physical imagery are highly developed and usually designed to inspire awe High priests, priest-shamans, priest-soothsayers, etc. Highly tolerant; many gods of different societies are the same gods known by different names

The Aztecs The religion of the Aztecs, a state-level society of ancient Mesoamerica, was unusual in that their gods were not conceived in anthropomorphic terms. There were perhaps as many as two hundred gods, of which some two dozen were most important.3 Of these, five had special significance (van Tuerenhout, 2005; Parrinder, 1983): ● ●

● ●

Ometeotl, the creator god and parents of the other gods Tezcatlipoca, an omniscient and omnipotent god who is frequently malevolent. Appearing in many forms and under many names, he “struck fear and trepidation into the hearts of the Aztecs,” pitted people against each other, mocked men, and brought dust and dung to life Tlaloc, the god of rain Xochipilli, the god of solar warmth, feasting, and pleasure

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Quetzalcoatl (“feathered serpent”), the best-known Aztec god. He was a god of learning, knowledge, and creativity, as well as fertility

The Aztecs thought the world had gone through five incarnations, or “suns,” each of which was presided over by a different god. During the first sun the world was created and was presided over by Tezcatlipoca. Giants inhabited the world at this time. Jaguars eventually devoured these giants, and this brought the first sun to an end. Quetzalcoatl was the god who ruled during the second sun. Here we find acorn-eating humans. This sun was destroyed by hurricanes; the waters rose and the people who survived turned into monkeys. The third sun was overseen by Tlaloc. This stage was dominated by water and inhabited by people who ate aquatic seeds. This sun ended as a result of fiery rain and people turned into butterflies, turkeys, and dogs. The fourth sun was presided over by the god Chalchiuthtlicue. It was brought to an end by a flood, at which time people became fish. The fifth sun is the stage in which the Aztecs currently lived. The ruling god was Tonatiuh, the sun god. People were maize eaters. It was predicted that this sun would eventually end, probably by earthquakes (van Tuerenhout, 2005). The Aztecs believed there were thirteen heavens, separated by a series of stacked floors. The first eleven heavens corresponded, respectively, to moon and clouds, stars, sun, Venus, comets, the color green, the color blue, storms, the color white, the color yellow, and the color red. The gods resided in these last three levels (nine through eleven). “Levels twelve and thirteen were the most important. They constituted Omeyocan, the place of duality and the primordial dwelling place of Ometeotl” (van Tuerenhout, 2005: 185). Animal and human sacrifice were a central part of Aztec ritual. Human sacrifice was far more prominent, and was carried out on a scale greater than that of any known civilization. Sacrifice of prisoners of war was the most common form, although sometimes women and children were chosen as victims. Prisoners of war would be held in small houses and fed. At the time of the sacrifice they would be marched up the steps of a temple, laid on a flat stone, and have their still beating heart cut out by a priest. Then the body would be rolled down the steps of the temple, usually the back steps. Another priest would cut off the head and usually the body would be butchered and the flesh later consumed. Skulls were placed on large racks, some of which contained thousands or tens of thousands of skulls, and these were prominently displayed (Parrinder, 1983; Harris, 1977; van Tuerenhout, 2005). Sacrifices would be accompanied by ceremonies involving music and dancing.

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The priesthood was large and was an especially elaborate Aztec institution. Every temple had its own priestly order, with priests performing ceremonies and educating youth in religious matters. There were two high priests of the gods Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli. They were associated with the great temple Tenochtitlán and headed the entire priestly order. Priests were required to be celibate and had to live an ascetic existence. In addition to supervising sacrifices, they engaged in some self-sacrifice, piercing a part of the body and making an offering of blood (Parrinder, 1983; Jocks, 1999; van Tuerenhout, 2005).

Ancient Hawaii The ancient Polynesians thought that in the beginning there was a dark, primal void that contained a Supreme Being who created the world and all of the other gods. Polynesian deities, known as atua, were thought to exist above, below, and beyond the world, although most resided above (in heaven). Most of the gods were anthropomorphic. Originally in Polynesia there was a fairly clear-cut pantheon and the gods had functions and attributes that were sharply defined. But as Polynesian peoples migrated to other islands, over time things became more confused and even contradictory (Handy, 1927). Polynesian economic and political development reached its apex in Hawaii, and this was true of religion as well. In Hawaii there were four major gods. Ku, the patron deity of the highest ranking chiefs and kings, was a god of war, but also of fishing, canoe building, and sorcery. In all likelihood he originated in some of the earliest societies in eastern Polynesia, where he was known as Tu. Kane, known as Tane in other parts of Polynesia, was a god of irrigation agriculture and of fishponds. His sacred crop was taro. The god Kanaloa originated elsewhere as Tangaloa. The patron deity of the sea bottom and the subterranean world, he was one of the most important gods in earlier Polynesian societies, being found in all of the main island groups, and in western and central Polynesia he was regarded as a Supreme Being and Creator. However, his importance in Hawaii declined over time. Lono was a god of rain and nonirrigated agriculture, as well as of fertility, birth, and medicine. Throughout Polynesia carved figures and statues were created to represent the gods (Handy, 1927; Valeri, 1985; Kirch, 2012). Priests, known as kahuna, played a major role in Hawaiian religion, being regarded as repositories of knowledge and as teachers. As Edward Handy has commented, “They were savants who, bound by the strictest rules, guarded the esoteric secrets of their cult and passed them on by oral instruction to the

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initiated priests and chiefs of each succeeding generation” (1927: 149). They presented offerings and sacrifices to the gods, but also supplicated the gods to attain various ends, such as a bountiful crop or success in war. There were two major priestly orders, the priests of Ku, the Kanalu, and the priests of Lono, the Paliku. Since Ku outranked Lono, the Kanalu outranked the Paliku (Handy, 1927; Kirch, 2012). Places of worship in Polynesia ranged from simple shrines to large stone temples. It was especially in Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Hawaii that genuine temples existed, and those in Hawaii were the most elaborate. The temples were places where priests officiated and sacrifices and offerings were made. Many kinds of plants and animals, and even manufactured goods, were offered, and human sacrifice was common. Some humans were burned alive, others buried alive. Victims’ eyeballs were eaten by chiefs or priests. Other Polynesian groups, such as the Maori and the Marquesans, also practiced human sacrifice and consumed the eyeballs of those sacrificed (Handy, 1927; O’Leary and Levinson, 1990, vol. 2).

Ancient Mesopotamia Ancient Mesopotamia was organized around city-states, the most important of which were Sumer, Akkadia, and Babylon. In all of these states it was difficult to differentiate religious institutions from political institutions. Indeed, the citystates were theocratic, headed by kings who were usually priests that represented or were the embodiment of a particular god (Woolley, 1965). The origins and structure of Mesopotamian religion were largely Sumerian, Sumer being the earliest city-state (Johnston, 2004). In Mesopotamian cosmogony, the world issued forth from a watery chaos in which the powers of the salt waters of the sea and the fresh waters existing underground mingled (Beaulieu, 2004). Two gods, Lahmu and Lahamu, came into existence and then created the horizon and the circular rims of heaven and earth, as well as the gods Anshar and Kishar. These gods then gave birth to An, the greatest of the gods (Jacobsen, 1976). The major gods were (Bottero, 2001; Johnston, 2004; Jacobsen, 1976): ●

●

An: Father and founder of the dynasty. He presided over the divine assembly. Enki: “Lord of the Earth.” His mother was Namma, the representative of the primeval waters out of which everything came. He could purify polluting evil.

The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life ●

●

●

● ● ●

45

Enlil: Ruler of gods and men and one of the most unpredictable of the gods. He allowed the goddess of birth to kill newborn babies, caused ewes and cows to miscarry, and created annihilating storms. He could have moods of destructiveness in which he resisted all appeals. Marduk: The city god of Babylon after it rose to power, he was a creator god and cosmic ruler. At the end of the second millennium BCE he became head of the universe, taking the place of Enlil in the Mesopotamian pantheon. Inanna: Venus, the morning and evening star. She was responsible for love and war. Ishkur: The storm god. Nanna: Moon god and son of Enlil. Utu: Sun god and son of Nanna.

Like pagan gods elsewhere, the Mesopotamian gods were largely anthropomorphic; people thought they had real bodies (even though they never saw them). C. Leonard Woolley says that “the gods were but men writ large” (1965: 120). Yet in some cases they were represented by an animal or sometimes an abstract form (Beaulieu, 2004; Bottero, 2001). The gods resided in various places: in Heaven, on Earth, in the underworld, and in their statues or temples (Bottero, 2001). The gods were masters and rulers and were thought to be grandiose and inaccessible. Because they required submission and generated fear and trembling, they were certainly not beings that one could “love” or “like.” According to Jean Bottero, “Their powers, like their nature, were much too far beyond the human grasp, much too crushing and formidable to unleash in human hearts anything other than a fearful reverence, an admiring respect, a humble adoration” (2001: 38). However, the gods could also be indulgent, and people could expect help and favors from them (Bottero, 2001; Jacobsen, 1976). As in all pagan religions, there was a formal priesthood. Sumerian priests were nothing like the priests found later in the world transcendent religions. They were not much distinguished from ordinary people, although in some cases they might have a distinctive hairstyle, headdress, or a particular robe (Beaulieu, 2004). They officiated at temples and supervised offerings and sacrifices, but they were also healers, soothsayers, and sorcerers. Woolley points out that “prominent in the priesthood . . . were the magicians whose duty it was to conjure away evil when it came; and next to them came the soothsayers who gave warning of its approach and told how it might be avoided” (1965: 127). Sumerian priests also used charms for healing.

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Each temple had its cult, which was devoted to serving the god of that temple. The major temples were those for An and Inanna at Uruk, Enlil at Nippur, Enki at Eridu, and Marduk at Babylon. In each temple there was the statue of its god, and in some cases statues of its family. Priests uttered incantations to the gods to bring them to life, and made offerings and sacrifices, which could consist of a roasted animal, a beverage, or even a precious object that the god was thought to need or want. Sacrifice was serious business, and the “feeding of the gods” was a daily occurrence (Beaulieu, 2004; Jacobsen, 1976). Interestingly, the temples had a system of “religious prostitution,” a practice whereby groups of women would live in the temples as brides and concubines of the gods and serve as prostitutes. This was a dignified position, and very often women from the noble classes would be temple prostitutes, although they would usually be among the higher caste of the temple. Woolley explains that the temple prostitutes would give up their virginity to serve the temple, adding that “the underlying idea must have been that of real devotion, of sacrifice” (1965: 108). The common people participated to some extent in temple worship, but they had their own separate beliefs and practices that were simpler and less majestic. Woolley says that “family religion combined ancestor worship with veneration of a family deity. The chapels in the private houses and the little clay figurines . . . which we find in the ruins of the houses and in the graves may mean simply more magic brought into the home, but equally they may bear witness to a faith more intimate, more simple and more genuine than that contained in the elaborate sacrifices and set liturgies of the church” (1965: 129).

The Romans Roman religion was different from other pagan religions in several ways. In the first instance it was unusually pluralistic, with many gods, perhaps several thousand. In the cities there were usually temples for at least a dozen gods. Stark says that “Greco-Roman paganism may have proliferated to the point that it was nearly overwhelming in its variety” (2006: 32), so much so that it was often difficult for people to know what to choose. Table 2.3 lists the most important gods and goddesses in the Roman pantheon. The first seven already existed at the time the Roman Republic was founded in 510 BCE. Most Roman gods were either borrowed from Greece or associated with a particular Greek god. To a large extent the Romans worshiped Greek gods under other names, a common practice in societies with pagan religions.

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Table 2.3 Principal gods and goddesses in ancient Rome Roman god Jupiter Mars Janus

Greek equivalent Zeus Ares

Quirinus Diana

Artemis

Fortuna Vesta Juno Minerva Neptune Vulcan Apollo Liber Mercury Venus Aesculapius Ceres Cybele Isis

Tyche Hestia Hera Athena Poseidon Hephaistos Apollo Dionysos Hermes Aphrodite Asklepios Demeter None None

Spheres of action Father of the gods War Beginnings, passages, gates, doorways Originally a god of war Goddess of fertility and childbirth Luck Goddess of the hearth Goddess of women Goddess of crafts and skills Springs, deep green waters, sea Fire Prophecy, music, healing Viticulture and wine Messenger god Beauty, erotic seduction, love Healing Goddess of plebeians

Number of temples 4 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 2 1 4 1 1 6 11

Sources: Stark (2011); Johnston (2004).

Second, the Romans were much more religious than people in other pagan societies. According to Craige Champion, Religious concerns at Rome were all-pervasive, saturating nearly every aspect of public life, in both the civilian and military spheres. Romans believed that their major priesthoods and rituals were coeval with, or in some cases even prior to, the founding of their city. Valerius Maximus stated that in the Roman state all else was secondary to religion, and Aulus Gellius . . . tells us that every meeting of the Senate addressed divine matters before turning to human affairs. Cicero proclaimed that the Romans excelled all other peoples in piety and devotion to the gods. Already in the mid-second century [BCE] the Greek historian Polybius remarked with some astonishment on the extraordinary attention the Romans gave to religion. (2017: xv)

Third, in most pagan societies temple worship was limited to elites and temples were closed to ordinary people, but in Rome ordinary people could worship at a temple, and idols were there for them to view. Fourth, religion was not subsidized

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by the state and religious leaders had to find their own means of support. Finally, nearly all priests were part-time rather than full-time functionaries. Priests would organize festivals and supervise sacrifices, or at least the major ones, but temples were mostly served by caretakers who performed no religious rites and had no religious authority (Stark, 2011). The majority of priests were men holding prominent positions in public or political life. Even though most priests were part-time, the position of priest was a prestigious one and thus competition to belong to a priesthood was brisk. There were four colleges of priests, the pontifices, augures, quindecimviti sacris faciundis, and epulones. By the third-century BCE the pontifices had become the heads of Roman religion. The highest priest, the pontifex maximus, was elected to his position. The role of the augures was to find out whether or not a particular action had the gods’ approval, which they did through divination, mainly by looking for divine signs in the flight of birds. The quindecimviti sacris faciundis were concerned with foreign rituals, and the role of the epulones was supervising religious feasts (Warmind, 1999). Like other pagans, the Romans sacrificed to their gods. Animals were the most important sacrificial objects, pigs being the most important, although oxen and sheep were sacrificed as well. It is not completely clear whether the Romans ever engaged in human sacrifice, although their immediate predecessors, the Etruscans, probably did. If the Romans sacrificed humans, it was likely only during major crises (Warmind, 1999). Sometime in the third-century BCE Rome imported two goddesses from the East. One was Cybele, a goddess from Anatolia. Her cult was officially adopted in 218 BCE and temples were erected, ultimately six in all. She became an extremely popular deity and was worshiped for several hundred years. The other goddess was Isis, a supreme deity brought in from Egypt. Like Cybele, she was extremely popular, in fact even more popular. As can be seen from Table 2.3, eleven temples were erected for the purpose of worshiping her (Stark, 2006).

Conclusions Wallace’s final stage of religious evolution, the monotheistic, and which I have suggested is more accurately called the stage of the world transcendent or world salvation religions, requires a far more extensive discussion. Pyysiäinen (2009) contends that the idea of “world religions” or “great religions” is an illusion.

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Scholars have had difficulty deciding exactly which ones should be counted and why they should be considered greater than other religions. But this is a questionable assertion. There is substantial agreement on which ones should be included: Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism are in no doubt. I include Zoroastrianism because it was monotheistic and emphasized a savior, and also because it exerted an influence on both Judaism and Christianity. Islam belongs as well, but it is not discussed in this book because it emerged several centuries after the Axial Age. These religions can be considered “world” and “great” because they have spread throughout the world, because most of the world’s people are today adherents of one of them, and because they have the most elaborate doctrines. No one considers the Cybele or Isis cults in ancient Rome great religions. It makes no sense to regard oracles and witchcraft among the African Azande as part of a great religion, or shamanism among the Siberian Sakha. These are minor religions of extremely restricted scope and influence. Stephen Prothero (2010) tries to make a case for the Yoruba of Nigeria and other parts of West Africa, which is more realistic than the Azande or the Sakha. Many Yorubans were brought as slaves into the New World, and so the religion has spread well beyond Africa. Versions of Yoruba religion can be found in such places as Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. There could be as many as a hundred million practitioners worldwide. But Yoruba religion is still a pagan religion that contains numerous highly anthropomorphic gods (orishas). Many Pentecostals and other evangelicals regard it as a form of witchcraft, sorcery, and demon worship, and it also contains spirit possession cults. African Christians and Muslims have denounced it for centuries as a form of superstition, and they far outnumber adherents of traditional Yoruba religion even in their Nigerian homeland (Prothero, 2010). Prothero even goes so far as to claim Yoruba religion as one of eight religions that “run the world.” This contention is not even remotely defensible. In any event, the great world religions identified above are the subject of their own chapter, the next.

3

The Religions of the Axial Age

The great transformation The Axial Age is the name given by the philosopher Karl Jaspers (1953, 1962) to the period between about 800 and 200 BCE when there were remarkable parallel transformations in philosophy and religion throughout much of the Old World. Jaspers called this period the Axial Age because for him it represented an “axis” of world history, or a time in which fundamentally new ways of thinking about the world emerged. Jaspers mentioned as the key figures in the Axial Age Confucius and Laozi in China, the Upanishads and the Buddha in India, Zarathustra in Iran, the Hebrew prophets Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah, and the Greek philosophers. Jesus and Christianity were seen as a “late product” of this age.1 For Jaspers, the Axial Age was in essence a revolution in consciousness in which “consciousness became conscious of itself,” and in which humans began “thinking about thinking.” Pre-Axial cultures were bogged down in mythical thinking, and were “unawakened.” This basic idea has been extended by later scholars, especially S. N. Eisenstadt (1986a–d). For Eisenstadt, the Axial Age amounted to a great “breakthrough” involving the creation of a transcendental, supramundane, and higher metaphysical and moral order, and this new order was a product of the thinking of small intellectual elites. In the pre-Axial civilizations the religious world was structured in a way very similar to the mundane, everyday world. Eric Weil (1975) echoes this idea, suggesting that the pre-Axial civilizations were not on the way to anything new, and were, in that sense, antihistorical. The Babylonians, for example, were caught up in a blind sense of fatality. The Egyptians were more optimistic, but they too failed to produce anything new. In a similar vein, other recent theorists of the Axial Age use the terminology of “second-order thinking” and “reflexivity,” which of course is essentially the

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“thinking about thinking” referred to above (Eisenstadt, 1986a; Bellah, 2011). In his recent massive book on the Axial Age, Robert Bellah says that reflexivity and second-order thinking involve thinking “about cosmology, which for societies just emerging from the archaic age meant thinking about the religio-political premises of society itself. It is second-order thinking in this central area of culture, previously filled by myth, that gave rise to the idea of transcendence, so often associated with the axial age” (Bellah, 2011: 275-76). Bjorn Wittrock (2005), however, is skeptical of giving too much emphasis to the notion of reflexivity. He points out that in the new religions of the Axial Age there were later developments involving standardization and routinization that actually stifled reflexivity. Wittrock suggests that the defining characteristic of the Axial Age is not a separation between transcendental and mundane realms, but rather people’s “ability to overcome the bounds of a perceived inevitability of given conditions in temporal and social orderings” (2005: 112). And this took different forms in different places. Wittrock suggests five different paths toward axiality: 1. In the Near East there emerged a distinction between true and false religion (Judaism, Christianity). This is the transcendental-interpretive path. 2. In Greece there was intellectual movement toward contestation and rational deliberation not involving a transcendental-mundane distinction. This is the philosophical-political path. 3. In China there was also no real concern for the creation of a transcendental realm. Confucius and other Chinese philosophers were primarily concerned with the loss of social cohesion and political reforms needed to re-establish it, a “renewed articulation” of the old political structure. What developed was mostly moral philosophy. 4. In India there occurred the Buddhist challenge to Vedic religion. This is the pluralistic-semantic path. 5. In the Iranian lands the main development was a dualism in which a sharp separation between good and evil was drawn. The Achaemenid Empire of the Persians was the first to be based on an axial cosmology, but it was one in which there was a reciprocal relationship between the political and religious orders. For Wittrock, the crucial feature of the Axial Age developments was the beginning of a possibility of challenging the legitimacy of existing political systems. This implies no distinction between transcendental and mundane realms, for in four

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of the five Axial paths no such distinction was to be found. It was only found in the first path, he says. Wittrock’s emphasis on challenges to existing political systems is a crucial insight, but he goes too far in rejecting the idea of transcendence as a new phenomenon. If we take the idea of transcendence to mean the conceptualization of a new transcendent God, or a transcendent impersonal essence, transcendence was there in three of the five cases. In the Near East, Judaism and Christianity embraced a new One True God who was transcendent, and in Iran Zarathustra conceived of such a being in the form of Ahura Mazda. In India Hinduism had a transcendent God (Vishnu-Shiva), and Buddhism a transcendent abstract essence. Only in China and Greece was the Axial Age not fundamentally a matter of transcendence, although even in Greece many philosophers rejected the old anthropomorphic gods of the Greek pantheon and began to posit a single all-powerful God (Elkana, 1986; Athanassiadi; Frede, 1999; West, 1999; Frede, 1999). In the remainder of this chapter the importance of a new transcendental realm will be explored in detail. There have been numerous attempts to explain the Axial Age. In his original formulation, Jaspers referred to constant conflict and the misery caused by wars and revolutions, but the idea is never developed and in the end he concedes that he really has no explanation. Indeed, he wonders if one is even possible. Others have been less pessimistic. Certain preconditions have been suggested, such as advancements in agricultural, transport, and military technology; the development of literacy; the invention of money; growing contact among diverse ethnic populations; international political volatility; and processes of immigration and conquest (Eisenstadt, 1986a; Bellah, 2011; cf. Schwartz, 1975).2 Eric Weil (1975) suggests that multinational empires have provided a fertile ground for intellectual breakthroughs, contending, for example, that the campaigns of Alexander the Great led to a cultural revolution; that Second Temple Judaism was made possible by the very liberal religious policy of the Achaemenids; and that Chinese thought developed into a national literature because of political unification at the end of the Warring States Period. Weil adds that breakthroughs seem to have occurred only in multinational situations, where political systems hold sway over different cultures. Empires, he says, were the only conceivable condition for the birth of new messages. In his book on the Axial Age, Robert Bellah (2011) develops an argument based on the assumption that Axial Age developments were intellectually self-

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directed, borrowing from Merlin Donald’s (1991) scheme of long-term cognitive evolution. Donald formulates four stages of culture based on a distinctive type of human cognition. Episodic culture is rooted in concrete and unreflective thinking in which life is lived mostly in the present; life is a series of concrete episodes. Mimetic culture developed sometime between 1.8 million years ago and the emergence of modern humans about 150,000 years ago. It is more abstract than episodic culture and involves increasingly conscious control over human action. Mimetic culture contains four abilities: (1) mime, or acting out events in the manner of children’s play; (2) imitation, which usually requires teaching and pedagogy; (3) skill, which requires rehearsal and linking mimetic acts into hierarchies (such as learning to play tennis); and (4) gesture, which involves using the three previous abilities to communicate with others. Following upon mimetic culture is mythic culture, which may have emerged at the point of the transition to the Upper Paleolithic some 35,000 years ago. Here the mind is now capable of metaphor and narrative, and is able to produce a comprehensive model of the universe. Finally, there is theoretic culture. Theoretic thinking involves the ability to go beyond mere narrative and to think analytically and critically, that is, to develop theories that can be evaluated on logical and empirical grounds. Theoretic thinking is the new form of thinking that emerges in the Axial Age. Bellah says that “in our quest to understand what makes the axial age axial, we will need to look, surely, at the emergence of theory wherever it arises” (2011: 323). This is all very interesting, but Bellah is too much the sociologist to leave matters there. If the Axial Age intellectuals were using theory to analyze and criticize, what is it that they were analyzing and criticizing? There was widespread unease about social and political conditions, and consequently much criticism of them. The Jewish prophets criticized and were hostile to foreign states like Assyria and Babylonia, and also objected to conditions within Israel and Judah; many Confucians and then later Mencius criticized corruption and the oppression of the peasantry and wanted to return to an earlier form of rule based on moral principles. Plato was critical of political conditions in which “the strong could inflict harm on the weak with impunity” (Bellah, 2011: 576). And Hinduism and Buddhism offered a radical critique of existing society. Bellah points out that it was during the Axial Age that challenges to the dominant culture and to ruling strata first became apparent. There are important things to be learned from the various modern students of the Axial Age, but one thing is troubling: the overwhelming emphasis on the

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role of elites. The work of the Axial Age scholars seems to be mostly a matter of intellectuals thinking that what is most important is what other intellectuals, not people in general, were thinking. It is of course true that the leading ideas of the Axial Age were produced largely by very small elites, but what is most important and most interesting, I think, is the fate of these ideas. The Greek philosophers were of no interest to more than a handful of other Greeks; the Greek masses, and even the majority of the citizens, would not likely have had much use for their ideas. These ideas had little impact on most of Greek society of the day. Of course, they were preserved and came to be considered of great importance to other philosophers and other learned people, but even today are of interest to only a tiny few. But with the great religious innovations, things were very different. Christianity became a mass movement whose adherents constituted half of the Roman Empire by the mid-fourth century (Stark, 1996, 2006). Zarathustra’s ideas also caught on and Zoroastrianism was, at least for a few centuries, a major Near Eastern religion. Judaism remained small in numbers, but there were still several million Jews. And eventually there were to be hundreds of millions of Hindus and Buddhists in the world. The situation is summed up well by Eric Weil, who suggests that ideas do not become effective only by acting on the people at the helm. On the contrary, it is incontestable that there have been long periods of intellectual, religious, and moral desolation and hunger not so much for the elite as for the common man. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand the success of Christianity, or of any other “new” religion or value system that established itself against traditions strongly defended by the upper strata. (1975: 31)

And Irving Zeitlin (1984) adds that the covenant established by the God of the Jews was not just with elites, and the new Jewish faith was not a set of mysteries suitable only for religious literati and virtuosi. Indeed, it was an agreement made with the entire Jewish people. The Axial Age was a two-part process: ideas were proposed by prophets or sages, and some of them caught on and spread. Outside of Greek philosophy, which is a very special case, these ideas were all religious in nature. To understand what was really happening in the Axial Age, we need to understand not only the new ideas of the new religions, but why they came to have such enormous appeal to very large numbers of people.

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Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is today only a minor religion, but it was the first of the major monotheistic Near Eastern religions. Its founder was an Iranian prophet named Zarathustra, more commonly known in the West today by his Greek name Zoroaster. When did Zoroaster live? This question has been the subject of great controversy and there is still no widely agreed-upon answer. The date originally proposed, by the leading Zoroastrian scholar Walter Henning in the 1940s, is the sixth-century BCE. Zoroastrians themselves say that he lived 258 years before Alexander the Great’s conquest in 330 BCE, which would place him at 588 BCE (this is the date of his emergence as a prophet). More recent scholars, however, have argued that Zoroaster lived much earlier, perhaps around 1200 BCE or even several centuries before then (Shabazi, 1977; Kingsley, 1990; Boyce, 2001). A. Shapur Shabazi suggests that the Zoroastrians had no chronological dating of their own and thus had to rely on the Babylonians (or perhaps the Greeks) for dating the prophet (Shabazi, 1977). Shabazi says that Xanthos of Lydia, who lived at the time of Artaxerxes I, put Zoroaster at 600 years before Xerxes’s invasion of Greece, which was in 480 BCE. This yields a date of 1080 BCE, and Shabazi thinks this date reliable. Peter Kingsley (1990) is another of the revisionists. He contends that the sixth-century date is based on Greek rather than Babylonian sources, and that these sources are unreliable. The Greek dating, he says, is “built on sand” and therefore worthless. He adds that “the Greeks were masters in the art of methodically and deliberately extracting what they considered to be historical fact from blatant works of fiction” (1990: 264). Gherardo Gnoli (2000) at first made his own case for the revisionist position but later recanted. The revisionists reveal an anti-Iranian prejudice, he contends, when they argue that the Iranians had no good sense of history and thus no trustworthy ability to set dates. Gnoli believes that Zoroaster’s disciples were quite capable of calculating lapses of time, and, indeed, that the adherents of such an important religion would hardly have been unconcerned with being able to determine the time of its founder. Gnoli points out that it was not only the Greeks who gave the sixth-century date. Jews during the Hellenistic period also gave this date, as did the Manicheans, who were likely influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, a tradition separate from that of the Greeks. Gnoli also notes that there is good evidence that Zoroaster was a contemporary of the sixth-century Greek philosopher Pythagoras, and that the two probably met.

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Gnoli concludes that the date originally proposed by Henning, that Zoroaster lived between 618 and 541 BCE, should now be accepted. Shaul Shaked (2005) finds Gnoli’s argument eloquent, but concludes nonetheless that there is no truly compelling evidence to settle the matter. But I side, on logical grounds and however tentatively, with Gnoli. One must wonder: if Zoroaster lived and taught in 1200 BCE or earlier, what was happening within Zoroastrianism in all of the centuries before the Achaemenid Empire officially adopted it in the sixth century? The literature is strangely silent on these centuries, which suggests to me that there was nothing on which to report. Before Zoroaster Iran had a fairly typical pagan religion, and Zoroaster was probably one of its priests. But around the age of thirty he had a vision of a great God, whom he called Ahura Mazda (later to be called Ohrmazd). Ahura already existed as one of the pagan gods, but Zoroaster elevated him to the status of the Only God. He added the name Mazda, meaning wise, and thus Ahura Mazda was “Wise Lord.” Ahura Mazda is the creator of all things, and he creates ex nihilo. R. C. Zaehner tells us that Zoroaster immensely raised the stature of Ahura Mazdah, seeing him not merely the “greatest and best of the gods” but the sole creator and preserver of the universe, omnipotent and omniscient Lord. . . . He is called the “father” of the Holy Spirit and the Good Mind, of Truth and Right-mindedness, but these entities are not brought into being by any crassly physical act of generation, they are thought into existence as eternal attributes of God himself. (1961: 53)

Ahura Mazda does not take human form, but is seen as pure light. He was a transcendent God. Zoroaster saw the world in highly dualistic terms; there is a radical distinction between Good and Evil, Truth and Lie, Bounteous Spirit and Destructive Spirit, Order and Disorder, Righteousness and Wickedness. Ahura Mazda embodies the first of each of these distinctions, but he has a fierce enemy, Angra Mainyu (later called Ahriman), who embodies the second. Life is a constant struggle between Good and Evil (Zaehner, 1961). Zoroaster preached to the masses and called them to the worship of Ahura Mazda. It was through Him that they could gain immortality and life in an everlasting paradise. At the end each person comes face to face with God, who judges each. There is a Heaven and a Hell, and those who follow Good and the Truth ascend to Heaven whereas those who follow Evil and the Lie are condemned to Hell, with its many torments. Mary Boyce says that

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Religious Evolution and the Axial Age Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have the fullest logical coherence. (Boyce, 2001: 29)

Zoroastrianism is thus eschatological (Cohn, 1993). Zoroaster had three sons, Oshetar, Oshetarmah, and Saoshyans, and Saoshyans is seen as a savior (Zaehner, 1961). It is through him that Angra Mainyu is at last destroyed, the dead are resurrected, and there is a renewal of all creation: This is the end. Evil, which had coexisted with Good for all eternity, and which the Good God had finally brought out into the open, now stands at bay, defeated by its own incoherence, discord, envy, and greed, forced to appeal to God to save it from death at the hands of its own most powerful ally; but Ohrmazd, the Good God, whose nature is always to show mercy, knows that here there can be no mercy, for his enemy is utterly and irretrievably depraved, evil in essence and beyond all redemption; therefore he must be once and for all destroyed. (Zaehner, 1961: 314–15)

The basic doctrines of Zoroastrianism were set forth in the Avesta. The earliest part of the Avesta consists of the Gathas, which are hymns or songs thought to have been directly composed by Zoroaster himself. Although Zoroaster was disinclined toward ritual, and in fact was highly critical of such pagan practices as blood sacrifice and ritualized drunkenness (McNeill, 1963), Zoroastrianism in time adopted some of them. A key ritual was the sacrifice of the drink haoma in front of a fire. Haoma was intoxicating and was thought to grant its users temporary immortality. Zoroastrianism also made extensive use of prayer, such as the Ahuna Yairya, which venerated the supremacy of Ahura Mazda. There were also incantations or mantras directed to Ahura Mazda that were thought to give those who recited them magical powers (www.newworldencyclopedia.org/ entry/Zoroastrianism). Zoroaster thought that God had entrusted him with a message for all mankind. But there was much resistance to his teachings. Since he extended his ideas to everyone, there was considerable resistance by the wealthy because they could be subject to Hell for unjust actions. There was also a feeling that Zoroaster’s rejection of the pagan gods, especially the daevas (demons), would incur their wrath. In addition, his concepts of a single creator and of a great

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cosmic struggle were difficult to grasp for many ordinary polytheists, and his demands for moral rightness asked for too much sacrifice (Boyce, 2001). Nevertheless, Zoroastrianism gained a foothold during the period of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which began in 549 BCE. Cyrus the Great’s son Darius became a Zoroastrian and regarded his kingship as due to Ahura Mazda: Ahura Mazda bestowed his kingdom on him, and he ruled on earth as His representative. Darius built elaborate temples, and these temples had many priests. But Darius was not a strict monotheist. He continued to believe in many of the pagan deities, although he regarded them as divinities of much lesser stature. He allowed both Iranians and non-Iranians to continue the worship of their own gods. By the time the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by Alexander in 330 BCE, the religion had regressed toward paganism, although Ahura Mazda continued to be worshiped by many as the most important god. Zaehner distinguishes three phases in the history of Zoroastrianism. The first phase, which he calls primitive Zoroastrianism, was based, with some concessions to paganism, on Zoroaster’s original ideas. The second, or catholic, phase was marked by “re-paganization” and lasted several centuries. During the third phase, or reformed Zoroastrianism, the Sassanian Empire (224–651 CE) reasserted Ahura Mazda’s supremacy. During this period Zoroastrianism began to encounter serious competitors, mainly Buddhism in the Indo-Iranian borderlands and Christianity in the West (Boyce, 2001). With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Zoroastrianism underwent massive decline; it simply could not compete with Islam’s worldconquest aims. Zoroastrianism contained numerous features that were strikingly similar to both Judaism and Christianity. These included the concept of a transcendent, creator God; a sharp distinction between good and evil; individual salvation by a savior (Saoshyans); a day of judgment; and immortality for the righteous and punishment for everyone else. There is even an Adam and Eve parallel in the form of Mashye and Mashyane, original parents who fell victim to sin. What is more, Saoshyans, the savior, is born of a virgin who is impregnated by Zoroaster (Zaehner, 1961; Boyce, 2001). Norman Cohn (1993) points out that there were numerous opportunities for Zoroastrianism to influence Judaism and Christianity. For two centuries Judah was part of the Achaemenid Empire, and Jews of the diaspora were also living within the empire. Jews were often employed by wealthy Zoroastrians in such roles as household servants, business agents, and scribes. This would

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have made it relatively easy, Cohn says, for these Jews to have learned of and imbibed Zoroastrian doctrines. Zoroastrian eschatological doctrines would have resonated well with Jews. Zaehner is not convinced that Zoroastrian eschatological thinking had a direct influence on Judaic eschatological ideas, but he does see an influence more generally: The case of rewards and punishments, heaven and hell, however, is very different; for the theory of a direct Zoroastrian influence on post-exilic Judaism does explain the sudden abandonment on the part of the Jews of the old idea of Sheol, a shadowy and depersonalized existence which is the lot of all men irrespective of what they had done on earth, and the sudden adoption, at precisely the time when the exiled Jews made contact with the Medes and Persians, of the Iranian Prophet’s teaching concerning the afterlife. Thus it is Daniel, allegedly the minister of “Darius the Mede,” who first speaks clearly of everlasting life and eternal punishment. . . . Thus from the moment that the Jews first made contact with the Iranians they took over the typical Zoroastrian doctrine of an individual afterlife in which rewards are to be enjoyed and punishments endured. This Zoroastrian hope gained ever surer ground during the inter-testamentary period, and by the time of Christ it was upheld by the Pharisees, whose very name some scholars have interpreted as meaning “Persian,” that is, the sect most open to Persian influence. So, too, the idea of a bodily resurrection at the end of time was probably original to Zoroastrianism, however it arose among the Jews, for the seeds of the later eschatology are already present in the Gathas. (1961: 58)

Cohn contends that the Jesus sect in particular seems to have been strongly exposed to Zoroastrian influence. He points out that Iranian culture was well established in areas in which the very early Christians lived, especially Anatolia. Today Zoroastrianism is a minor religion. There are only a few thousand Zoroastrians left in Iran, and most now live in the state of Gujarat in western India, where they may number as many as two million (although much smaller figures are often given). Zoroastrianism can hardly compare in size and significance with the other world religions. Its importance is primarily what it bequeathed to other religions. As Zaehner has said, “One is tempted to say that all that was vital in Zoroaster’s message passed into Christianity through the Jewish exiles, whereas all that was less than essential was codified and pigeon-holed by the Sassanian theologians so that it died of sheer inanition” (1961: 171).

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Judaism Judaism was the first truly great and extremely influential monotheism, exceeding Zoroastrianism in importance by a large margin. But when did it become monotheistic? Who were the Hebrews or Israelites who created it, and where did they live? The standard biblical view is that monotheism emerged in the time of Moses, around 1200 BCE, and that he was in fact the author of monotheism. Before that the Israelites worshiped a god known as Yahweh, but he was not the only god, although seemingly the most important. Other gods existed and were worshiped. Moses is an Egyptian name (the Hebrew name is Moshe), and at this time the Hebrews lived in Egypt, where they were slaves. Moses led them out of Egypt to the land of Canaan, and they settled there after military conquest of the Canaanites. This was the Exodus as told in the book of that name, the second book of the Hebrew Bible. Those who hold this standard biblical view include the prominent Judaic scholar Yehezhel Kaufmann (1960) and the sociologist Irving Zeitlin (1984). Kaufmann says, “Since the basic idea of Israelite religion has, as we have seen, no roots in paganism, Moses must have been the first to conceive it” (1960: 225). Zeitlin contends that the Israelites’ belief in one god was present “from the outset, and not the result of a long, gradual process that crystallized into monotheism only after the [Babylonian] exile” (1984: 96). He adds that the prophetic movement that emerged in the eighth century BC did not discover a new religion. They never saw themselves as the founders of a new conception of God. They rather based themselves squarely on the ancient tradition according to which the religion of Israel was new in the time of Moses, and revealed in connection with the exodus. It was Moses who first taught the people that Yahweh and Yahweh alone was God. (1984: 213–14)

Zeitlin is actually reacting to one of the early schools of biblical criticism that was seeking to overturn the traditional view, referring in particular to the views of Eduard Meyer and Julius Wellhausen in the late nineteenth century. They contended that the Book of Joshua is a fiction made up by late deuteronomic writers for theological reasons; that the Israelite tribes entered Canaan one at a time and most often settled peacefully; that any wars were not wars of conquest but rather minor skirmishes; and that the tribes entered Canaan gradually, intermarried with Canaanites, and adopted much of their culture, especially the

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Canaanite gods, myths, and laws. What resulted was a kind of synthetic faith combining the Phoenician god Baal with Yahweh. Zeitlin contends that these revisionists were wrong. There were violent catastrophes in thirteenth-century Palestine that destroyed some Canaanite cities, and the period of the Judges—the twelfth and thirteenth centuries— shows violent conflict. And the conflict, he says, was mostly local, that is, confined to the land of Canaan. He believes this shows that the biblical view is correct. But Zeitlin’s argument is difficult to sustain. It is true that during the period under consideration there was a great deal of war and conquest, with entire cities being leveled and abandoned, but this was hardly a local phenomenon. Indeed, it occurred throughout most of the eastern Mediterranean world, including Greece, Anatolia, Crete, Cyprus, Syria, and the southern Levant (and of course Palestine) (Drews, 1993). And Martin Noth, another revisionist, indicates that there is no compelling evidence that the thirteenth-century destructions were caused by the Israelites, a view seconded by Manfred Weippert (both as cited in Zeitlin, 1984). It is true that many Canaanite ports were burned to the ground and that many inland cities fell into ruins and were abandoned, but these events were more likely the result of invasions by the so-called Sea Peoples coming from both land and sea (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001). More recent revisionists go further. Using new archaeological evidence, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman (2001) attempt to show that this evidence strongly contradicts the biblical stories. They contend that the events described in Exodus probably never happened. The Egyptians tightly controlled their borders, they say, and the archaeological evidence provides no record of Israelites passing through any fortifications. In fact, there is no clue that any Israelites ever lived in Egypt. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine an exodus: “One can hardly accept the idea of a flight of a large group of slaves from Egypt through the heavily guarded border fortifications into the desert and then into Canaan in the time of such a formidable Egyptian presence” (2001: 61). As for a conquest, the authors say that here the “problems are even greater. How could an army in rags, traveling with women, children, and the aged, emerging after decades from the desert, possibly mount an effective invasion? How could such a disorganized rabble overcome the great fortresses of Canaan, with the professional armies and well-trained corps of chariots?” (2001: 72). The Israelites were in Canaan at the time of the alleged conquest (1230–1220 BCE), but because Canaanite cities were unfortified there were “no walls that

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could have tumbled down.” In the case of Jericho, there is no indication of a destruction or even any sign of a settlement. Finkelstein and Silberman conclude that early Israel was not the cause of the collapse of Canaan, but rather the result, and that the Israelites came from within Canaanite society, not from outside it. It appears, then, that the “early Israelites were—irony of ironies—themselves originally Canaanites”! (2001: 118).3 Why then does Exodus tell the story that it does? Finkelstein and Silberman argue that the Exodus narrative reached its final form around 650–550 BCE. Between 640 and 630 BCE the Assyrians withdrew from Canaan and were replaced by the Egyptians. It was Egyptian domination that was the basis for Exodus, which was really a story about the growing conflict between the Israelites and the Egyptians during the seventh century. Somehow those who wrote it projected the events back several centuries in time. As we shall see in detail below, it is accepted by most biblical scholars today that the Israelites had a rather typical pagan religion for many centuries and did not become monotheists until the sixth-century BCE. (For a good survey of the literature, see Gnuse, 1999.) In 1929 a number of tablets were discovered in the city of Ugarit in northern Canaan that provide information on the deities of the Canaanites and by implication the Israelites. The most important Canaanite deities were El, an old and kindly patriarch; Asherah, El’s consort, who was also the queen mother of the divine family; Baal, a Phoenician storm god and divine warrior; Anat, a sister of Baal; and a solar deity (Smith, 2002). The Israelites worshiped these deities, but also their own deity, Yahweh. At an early point El and Yahweh seemed to be fused as a single god, and the Bible rarely distinguishes between the two. Actually, El means “god,” and Baal was also used as a generic term for god (Smith, 2002). Mark Smith summarizes: Israelite religion in its earliest form did not contrast markedly with the religions of its Levantine neighbors in either number or configuration of deities. Rather, the number of deities in Israel was relatively typical for the region. Furthermore, as they did in the religions of surrounding states, some old Canaanite deities continued within an Israelite pantheon dominated by a national god. Like some of the Phoenician city-states and perhaps Edom, earliest Israel knew El, Baal, a new dynastic or national god, the divine council, a partial divinization of deceased ancestors (Rephaim), and perhaps the cult of a goddess. Similarly, during the period of the Judges, Yahweh held hegemony over a complex religion that preserved some old Canaanite components through an identification with El, a continuation of the concepts of the divine council and partially divinized

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In addition to multiple gods, Canaanite-Israelite religion exhibited other typical features of paganism. All of the gods were anthropomorphic gods; Baal was depicted as riding in a winged war chariot, Yahweh as riding a storm chariot pulled by horses. Yahweh also has divine armies riding horse-drawn chariots. Baal was thought to be a voracious sexual partner of animals, and possibly having sex with his sister Anat. He was conceived as superhuman in size, with a superhuman-sized penis. El is seen as a drunken carouser and sexual partner of goddesses. Anat eats the flesh of her military victims (Smith, 2002). Mark Smith tells us that in general, the deities engage in human activities that presuppose human form; these include ritualized behaviors (lamentation, music, intercession), social activity (feasts, hunting, duties of the faithful son, sex), and other human experience (dreams). As in the ancient Middle East, deities in Ugaritic sources typically are marked for sex or gender. Ugaritic iconography is central here, presenting deities mainly in human form. Most textual presentations of deities assume a human form; deities walk, talk, eat, drink, sit on thrones in manners that presuppose human form. (2001: 86)

There was also sacrifice. Jer. 19: 5 and 32: 35 make reference to child sacrifice, probably intended for Baal. In the seventh-century BCE the Judeans practiced child sacrifice to Yahweh. Israelite royalty interacted with dead ancestors, and there was also necromancy and praying to the dead (Smith, 2002). Yahweh was a god of frightful wrath, appearing in conjunction with earthquakes, desert winds, subterranean fire, thunderstorms, and flashes of lightning (Weber, 1952). He thirsts for the blood of his enemies and those who are disobedient. He devours enemies or tosses them into the sea (Weber, 1952). Rodney Stark says that the God who spoke to Moses in the form of a burning bush was not regarded as a good god, or at least it is unclear whether he was. Mostly, Stark says, he “is depicted as fierce, frightening, and extremely dangerous” (2001a: 27). Stark notes that in Gen. 6: 6-7 Yahweh expresses his disgust at his creation of humans and their wickedness and says he will destroy them. Gen. 6: 6 says, “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” Gen. 6: 7 says, “And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

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Exodus says that Yahweh’s face could not be seen, and anyone who saw it would be struck dead. Even Moses was permitted to see him only from the back (Weber, 1952). He is also moody, touchy, and unpredictable, and can strike people dead for what seem like arbitrary or minor reasons. In many ways he was a “Holy Terror” (Stark, 2001a). But, although Yahweh never lost his frightful nature, his image softened over time (Weber, 1952). Second Isaiah indicates that Yahweh’s stern and jealous nature was tempered with a conception of a kinder, more loving, more understanding, and more forgiving god (McNeill, 1963; Stark, 2001a). Judaism did not yet exist in the period we are discussing. How then, and when, did it emerge, and under what conditions? What turned the pagan religion of the Israelites into a monotheistic religion? To answer these questions, we need to consider the social and political structure of Israelite society in the first half of the first millennium BCE. In the period between 1200 and 1000 BCE the Israelites were mainly a confederation of tribes, but eventually two kingdoms formed: Israel in the north and Judah in the south (both of these considered together are Israel as it is usually thought of, or what might be termed greater Israel). The northern kingdom was larger, more urban, richer in resources, and had a more productive population (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001). Both kingdoms were surrounded by powerful empires, in particular the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians. By 745 BCE Assyria had grown into a brutal and predatory state and in 721 overran the northern kingdom, partially destroying it and incorporating it into its empire. The southern kingdom, Judah, was left alone, probably because it had fewer resources of interest to the Assyrians. But with Israel severely weakened, Judah grew larger and more powerful, and the Judeans thought that they should rule over all Israel. From this time forward Judah and its capital city of Jerusalem became the central focus of Jewish religious life (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001). But eventually Judah too was to fall. In 586 BCE it was invaded by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem (and much else) and carried off part of the population into exile in Babylon. Several decades later, in 539, Persia conquered Babylon and allowed the Judeans to return to Judah, even helping them rebuild the Temple (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001). It was at this time that we see the shift to a true monotheism and the real beginnings of the religion that we know today as Judaism. But it did not occur all at once. Monotheisms cannot simply drop down from the sky on marionette strings. They require time for the gradual development and refinement of ideas

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(Stark, 2001a),4 as well as time for pagans to adjust themselves to new religious thinking. In the Israelite transition to monotheism their religion passed through a stage known as monolatry or henotheism: there is one major god, but other gods also exist and are objects of worship. Yahweh was originally one god among several, but in time was elevated to the position of the supreme god but not the only one. Then, in the seventh century or perhaps as late as the Babylonian exile, he was reconceptualized as the only God. The Judean king Hezekiah, who reigned in the late eighth and early seventh centuries and witnessed the destruction of the northern kingdom, thought that this kingdom had been destroyed because of the sinfulness of its people, especially the worship of pagan cults. He therefore sought the abolition of these cults and the worship of Yahweh as the sole god. A next step was made when Josiah became king in 639. Josiah was praised as the most righteous king in Judean history and was seen as a messiah, or deliverer. His role as a messiah arose from a new religious movement, the so-called Yahweh-alone movement (which actually began about a century earlier). Josiah attacked the idolatrous rites, got rid of the shrines of foreign cults, declared that the Temple in Jerusalem was the only legitimate place of worship, and ended the old sacrificial rituals. The core of the Bible, especially the Book of Deuteronomy, was produced by this movement and Jewish monotheism was born. Or at least so it is claimed by Finkelstein and Silberman: Josiah’s messianic role arose from the theology of a new religious movement that dramatically changed what it meant to be an Israelite and laid the foundations for future Judaism and for Christianity. That movement ultimately produced the core documents of the Bible—chief among them, a book of the Law, discovered during renovations to the Jerusalem Temple in 622 BCE, the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. That book, identified by most scholars as an original form of the book of Deuteronomy, sparked a revolution in ritual and a complete reformulation of Israelite identity. It contained the central features of Biblical monotheism: the exclusive worship of one God in one place; centralized, national observance of the main festivals of the Jewish Year (Passover, Tabernacles); and a range of legislation dealing with social welfare, justice, and personal morality. (2001: 276)

Deuteronomy strongly condemns the worship of other gods and replaces the anthropomorphic conception of Yahweh with one in which God is transcendent, that is, of a form that is incapable of physical representation and who stands outside the world and has created it ex nihilo.

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However, it is very difficult to pin down the precise date of the beginning of true Jewish monotheism. It may have been a bit later than Finkelstein and Silberman indicate. Max Weber (1952) thought that monotheism was accepted by the people only during the exile. Mark Smith (2002) agrees, saying that it is at this time that we find the first really unambiguous indications of monotheism— that Yahweh is the only deity. Smith refers in particular to Second Isaiah. Isa. 45: 5 says, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” And Isa. 45:6 declares, “That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.” Another critical feature of Judaism sensu stricto was God’s covenant with the Israelites. He made this of his own free will, choosing the Israelites and no other peoples (Weber, 1952). The covenant was a set of moral or ethical principles as expressed in the Ten Commandments (said to have been given to Moses on Mt. Sinai) and the Law, embodying such things as keeping kosher dietary practices and practicing circumcision. Failure to live up to the covenant was thought to be the main reason behind the many calamities befalling the Israelites—Yahweh’s punishment for their transgressions (Cohn, 1993; MacCulloch, 2009). Judaism also formed within itself a set of principles for the organization of society. Finkelstein and Silberman say that “the book of Deuteronomy contains ethical laws and provisions for social welfare that have no parallel anywhere else in the Bible. Deuteronomy calls for the protection of the individual, for the defense of what we would call today human rights and human dignity. Its laws offer an unprecedented concern for the weak and helpless” (2001: 285). Moreover, “The laws of Deuteronomy stand as a new code of individual rights and obligations for the people of Israel. They also served as the foundation for a universal social code and system of community values that endure—even today” (2001: 287). Norman Cohn (1993) stresses that, like Zoroastrianism, the new Judaism was apocalyptic and eschatological. During the exile the Israelites were in great distress, and this caused them to conceive of a new order of things, a “glorious order” or “age of bliss” that was soon to come. The world will be radically transformed such that its imperfections will be replaced by a “perfect and indestructible order.” God will come down to earth from Heaven. There will be a great convulsion in which the righteous will be safe and the unrighteous punished. There will be a Last Judgment in which the people of hostile and heathen nations will “be thrown into the fiery abyss, along with all the peoples who have ever oppressed Israel” (Cohn, 1993: 186). Weinfeld (1986) also

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discusses the eschatological character of early Judaism, and Max Weber (1952) pointed to the idea of a savior. Weber says that Amos knew of no savior, but the other prophets did. For them, “the expectations of good fortune were saturated with images of saviors in the form known to the tradition of the ancient heroes of the confederacy, the shofetim, the ‘redeemers.’ These images were linked with the eschatological representations offered by the environment” (1952: 329). Many scholars see the eschatological character of Judaism as rooted in imperialism and political oppression. Weinfeld (1986) contends that Israel was the first nation in world history to speak out against imperialism. Isaiah contains a strong protest against imperialism, accusing Assyria of annihilating nations, destroying cities and devastating lands, removing national boundaries, degrading national leaders, and exiling populations. Finkelstein and Silberman say that “a central authority was needed to unite the population. And once again they did it by brilliantly reshaping the historical core of the Bible in such a way that it was able to serve as the main source of identity and spiritual anchor for the people of Israel as they faced the many disasters, religious challenges, and political twists of fate that lay ahead” (2001: 313). Unfortunately for the Israelites, Yahweh did not save them from their many troubles. They were able to return to Judah after the exile and rebuild the Temple, and thus they overthrew the yoke of the Assyrians and Babylonians—but imperialism was still all around them. The Assyrians and Babylonians were replaced by the Egyptians, who regained their control over Canaan. When Egyptian rule ended, the Seleucids of Syria took over (MacCulloch, 2009). The Israelites were and remained a marginal people (a pariah people in the words of Weber). Sometime after the exile and the return to Judah, the Jews became a diaspora people, migrating into other lands beyond their homeland. They became incorporated into Greek society and were expected to adopt Greek culture and language; most Jews living in Greece actually spoke Greek rather than Hebrew. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (where it was known as the Septuagint) because the Hellenized Jews could no longer read Hebrew. And, of course, the Romans followed on the heels of the Greeks, and the Israelites then became subject to Roman domination. In the first-century BCE Herod was made the client king of Judah, and the stage was then set for the emergence of Christianity. The doctrines of Judaism are set down in its holy books, the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible and known today by Christians as the Old Testament. Its first five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy— are known as the Torah (or Pentateuch), and are particularly important. In the first-century CE the Jewish teachers (rabbis) began to write a series

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of commentaries on these works, and these are collectively known as the Talmud. It was originally thought that the Torah was written by Moses, but in the seventeenth century some biblical scholars began to think that these five books had been heavily edited, expanded, and embellished by later unknown writers, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many biblical critics suspected that Moses played no role at all in the writing (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001). Be that as it may, all of this literature is very complex and deep, and arguably the richest literature to be found in any of the world religions (Weber, 1952). Since, as Weber famously argued, the world religions were salvation religions, what were the salvation doctrines of Judaism? Central to the Jewish concept of salvation was the collective salvation of the whole Israelite nation by means of the destruction of Israel’s oppressors and the restoration of Israel’s proper place in the world. But was there any conception of a continuing individual existence in an afterlife? It has commonly been thought that Judaism had no concern with an afterlife, but this view has increasingly been shown to be wrong. Simcha Paull Rafael (2009) argues that the idea of the survival of the soul after death has been a part of Judaism throughout its history; Jews have always believed in an afterlife. After Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Job there emerged the idea of a resurrection. After death everyone went to Sheol, the abode of the dead, and the righteous would later be resurrected; they will live again and be reunited with their bodies and participate in a new messianic kingdom. And thus, Rafael claims, the idea of individual redemption was added to the earlier idea of collective redemption for the Israelite nation. Sheol is not exactly Hell, but something like it. For the righteous it is a sort of way station for the soul, but for the wicked it is a place of permanent residence. In Rafael’s words, for the wicked it was a place of punishment, affliction, and torment . . . ; it is usually rather dreadful. In the texts of the Apocrypha, we find a proliferation of depictions of torture, punishment, darkness, fire, burning, and so on. The Book of Enoch, interestingly enough, is a precursor to an entire genre of literature—referred to as “Tours of Hell”—that describes with vivid detail the torments and punishments of the underworlds. In the “tour of hell” given to our antediluvian hero of I Enoch, Sheol is unequivocally a realm of postmortem punishment. (2009: 89)

Over time there emerged a conception of the afterlife as Heaven or Paradise for the Righteous. This is their final resting place. And the distinction between Heaven and Hell became even more sharply drawn during the rabbinic period that began in the first-century CE (Rafael, 2009). As shown in an earlier discussion, these ideas very likely reflected Zoroastrian influence.

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Most Jews today—or at least Western Jews—no longer believe in an afterlife. A Gallup poll taken in 1965 showed that only 17 percent of Jews believed in an afterlife compared to 83 percent of Catholics and 78 percent of Protestants (Rafael, 2009). And it is highly probable that many Jews in the formative period of Judaism did not subscribe to an afterlife. However, many did, and in any event the concept of an individual afterlife was an important feature of Judaism.

Christianity Origins The idea of a messiah or deliverer was a persistent theme in Judaism for several centuries, but the messianic expectation of salvation—restoration of Israel to its proper place and resurrection of the dead—was never realized. This opened the door for Christianity (Lenowitz, 1998; Stark, 2006, 2011). If Jewish expectations had been realized, would Christianity have developed anyway? Probably, because Jews were not large in number and there were still tens of millions of people in need of comfort and salvation (as will be explained in Chapter 7). But it would not have been the same Christianity. In the first-century CE there were four major groups within Judaism (although most Jews did not belong to any of them). The Sadducees were the high priests who ran the Temple. They were the group most open to Hellenism because they needed to get along with the Greeks. They were not interested in the idea of an afterlife, thinking it sufficient for Jews to keep the Law. As a dominant group, they took a dim view of individuals or groups whom they considered troublemakers. The Pharisees were the teachers and scholars. They believed in an oral law given by God to Moses that was above and beyond the written Law, and they also believed in an afterlife. They came into severe conflict with the Sadducees. Jesus and Paul were closer to the Pharisees than to other groups. The Essenes, also known as the Dead Sea Sect, were unknown until 1947 when their writings (the Dead Sea Scrolls) were accidentally discovered in jars in a cave in Qumran. The Essenes believed in the destruction of evil rulers and the resurrection of the righteous dead. Israel would become the most powerful nation and a messiah would install a new king in Jerusalem. They established their own communities separate from other groups, whom they strongly disdained. The Zealots were similar to the Essenes, but more radical. They favored violent resistance to Roman rule and thus the restoration of Israel.

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Simon and some other disciples of Jesus were probably Zealots (Wilson, 2008; MacCulloch, 2009). Jesus himself was an urban Jew who was one of many Jewish messiahs who considered themselves deliverers from Roman oppression. According to traditional Christian doctrine, Jesus, a simple carpenter,5 was the Son of God who had been divinely conceived by a virgin, who gave birth to him around 4 BCE. A thorn in the side of the Sadducees for stirring up religious and political discontent, they had him arrested and turned him over to the Roman authorities for punishment. Under pressure from the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council, Pontius Pilate then sentenced him to crucifixion, although reluctantly. His body was placed in a tomb, and then three days later he was resurrected by God and ascended into Heaven (Johnson, 1976). Jesus was then deemed the Son of God who had been sent by Him to save mankind from sin and give them eternal life in a heavenly paradise (Hopkins, 1999; Ehrman, 2014). But some of this traditional understanding has been strongly challenged in recent years by a number of scholars. Bart Ehrman contends that neither Jesus nor his earliest followers saw him as the divine Son of God. Rather, he was a Jewish apocalypticist who preached the coming of a new millennium (Ehrman, 1999).6 His message was that God was ready to intervene in the world and, in a cosmic act of judgment, overthrow the forces of evil and destroy the existing order. A new social and political order—a Kingdom of God—would be established. In this Kingdom there would be no more war, disease, catastrophe, despair, or hatred, and Israel would be restored to its rightful place among nations. For Ehrman, Jesus was merely the latest of a long line of Jewish apocalyptic prophets, although, of course, he would turn out to be a very special one. How did Jesus conceive of the coming Kingdom of God? Ehrman suggests that almost all scholars today would agree that when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he is not referring to “heaven” as the place where God is enthroned—in the sense of the place that your soul goes, God willing, when you die. To be sure, the Kingdom of God has some relationship to “heaven” as the place where God is enthroned; but when Jesus talks about the Kingdom, he appears to refer principally to something here on earth—where God will at some point begin to rule as he already does rule up above. (1999: 142)

Diarmaid MacCulloch (2009) and Barrie Wilson (2008) have also strongly criticized the traditional view. Wilson claims that the actual Jesus was misrepresented from the very beginning. Jesus was a Jew through and through and a devoted practitioner of Judaism his entire life. His earliest followers were

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all Jews and when Jesus was crucified his cross was inscribed with the phrase “King of the Jews.” Jesus did not found a new religion, but simply worked within existing Judaism. As Keith Hopkins pithily puts it, “Jesus, the historical man, can have had no inkling that he would become the cornerstone of a new religion” (Hopkins, 1999: 298).7 Things then changed, and dramatically. It hinged primarily on Paul. Born Saul of Tarsus, Paul was a Jew who at first despised Jesus and worked against him. But later, on the proverbial road to Damascus, Paul had a revelation in which a voice spoke to him saying “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (MacCulloch, 2009). Paul believed it was Jesus who was speaking to him. At this point he considered himself the main spokesman for Jesus’s thinking, even though he had never met him and did not show any interest in his actual teachings (MacCulloch, 2009). But Paul twisted Jesus’s actual ideas into a new form, the form that became the basis for Christianity as we know it. For Paul what was important about Jesus was not what he actually said or did, but the fact that he was crucified and then resurrected (Wilson, 2008; MacCulloch, 2009). Paul was not interested in Jesus the man, the historical Jesus, but only in Jesus as the risen Christ (Hopkins, 1999). Two separate movements based on Jesus developed, identified by Wilson as the “Jesus movement” and the “Christ movement.” The Jesus movement, whose members are frequently referred to as the Jewish Christians, was led by James, Jesus’s brother. This movement was based in Jerusalem and remained Jewish throughout its existence. Its members did not consider Jesus a divinity, but only a man, and they saw his mission as not only religious but also political—to overthrow Roman rule and restore Israel. For the Jewish Christians, Jesus was a purely human figure who was mortal. They did not see themselves as creators of a new religion, but rather as Jews, and they continued to obey the Jewish Law (Cohn, 1993). Wilson says, Picture the early followers of Jesus, not in our terms as Christians today, but as Orthodox Jews carrying out their Jewish beliefs and practices under the inspiration of the rabbi, Jesus. We need to visualize them as having long hair and wearing the prayer shawl—the tallit—as they prayed. They stopped working at sundown on Friday evening. They welcomed and observed the Sabbath, sharing its festive meal, likely all together, singing, rejoicing, and resting from labor. (2008: 97)

Wilson adds that “James, in fact, was a Nazirite or ‘super Jew,’” like his cousin John the Baptist. . . . A Nazirite was a Torah-observant Jew who had taken a special vow of dedication to God. Their rabbi was Jesus” (2008: 97).

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The Christ movement was led by Paul. He reconceptualized Jesus as both a man and a divine being whose message was religious and nonpolitical. He was sent by God to establish a new kingdom, but this was not a kingdom of the earth. It was a kingdom of Heaven in which those who believed in him would have everlasting life. For Paul, Jesus was “Christos,” that is, Lord. Paul had no interest in establishing a separate Jewish state. His focus was exclusively on a “dying-rising-savior-God-human” (Wilson, 2008). This is the Jesus that Christians know today. But since this was not the historical Jesus, Wilson deems the term Christianity to be a misnomer. The more accurate term would be “Paulinity.” “What we have in Christianity is Paulinity. . . . It is a Hellenized religion about a Gentile Christ, a cosmic redeemer, and it is through that perspective that the later gospels are read. It is not the religion of the Jewish Jesus, the Messiah claimant and proclaimer of a Kingdom of God. That religion . . . eventually died out” (2008: 149).8 Paul Johnson describes Pauline Christianity thus: Paul’s gospel, as it evolved, could be seen to be alien to traditional Jewish thinking of any tendency, even though it contained Jewish elements. It can be summarized as follows. Jesus of Nazareth came from the line of David. He was born of a woman, but was established as Son of God, with full power, through his resurrection from the dead. He lived a short life in Palestine, embracing earthly poverty, and for our sins humbled himself in his death on the cross. God raised the crucified and buried one and exalted him to the highest throne on his right hand. . . . The atoning death of Jesus the Messiah, sacrificed for our sins, served as our expiation and ransomed humanity. His dying affects the redemption of the cosmos and humanity as a whole, for in his death the world has been crucified and has begun to pass away; Christ will shortly come again from heaven as the Son of Man. Here we have, in all essentials, the central doctrines of Christianity: the view of history, the salvation mechanism, the role and status of Christ Jesus. (1976: 37)

Jesus’s actual ideas and behavior as understood by Ehrman, Wilson, and MacCulloch encountered severe resistance, both from the Roman authorities and the Jewish Sadducees. For the Sadducees, Jesus represented a challenge to their dominant position. Stark remarks that “it seems clear that Jewish authorities in Jerusalem quickly labeled Christians as heretics beyond the boundaries of the community in the same way that Moonies are today excluded from Christian associations” (Stark, 1996: 44–45). For the Romans, he was a dangerous rebel who was a potential political threat to the empire. Once again Johnson gets to the heart of the matter:

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Religious Evolution and the Axial Age A great many people found Jesus impossible to accept or follow. He was repudiated by his family, at least for a time. His native district did not accept him. There were certain towns where his teaching made no impact. In some places he could not work miracles. In others they caused little stir or were soon forgotten. He made many enemies and at all times there were a large number of people who ridiculed his claims and simply brushed aside his religious ideas. He could assemble a crowd of supporters, but it was always just as easy to collect a mob against him. Once he began to operate openly in the Temple area he became a marked man for both Roman and Jewish authorities, and an object of suspicion. His refusal to make his claims explicit and unambiguous was resented, and not only by his enemies. His followers were never wholly in his confidence and some of them had mixed feelings from time to time about the whole enterprise. What had they involved themselves in? There is a hint that Judas’s betrayal may have been motivated less by greed—an easy and unconvincing apostolic smear—than by shock at the sudden fear he might be serving an enemy of religion. By the time of his trial and passion Jesus had succeeded in uniting an improbable, indeed unprecedented, coalition against him: the Roman authorities, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, even Herod Antipas. And in destroying him, this unnatural combination appears to have acted with a great measure of popular approval. (1976: 29)

But, as Keith Hopkins stresses, the important Jesus is not the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus is important only for historians of Christianity and other curious people who are interested in the likely “facts” of the nature of Jesus. The truly important Jesus—in fact the only “real” Jesus in terms of the development of the new Christian religion and the perspective of the past 2,000 years of world history—“is the Jesus in believers’ minds” (1999: 320); which is to say Paul, the authors of the four major Gospels, and all of those hundreds of millions of Christians who came after.9

How Jesus became God Within slightly more than a century Christianity had separated itself from Judaism, and Jesus’s Jewish heritage, including his political subversiveness, was played down or denied altogether.10 Jesus was now not only a divine being, but gradually became linked to God and to the Holy Spirit to form the classical Christian doctrine of the Trinity. How then did Jesus become more than merely divine, but God Himself? This crucial question has been posed by Bart Ehrman (2014).

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Ehrman points out that in the ancient world the idea that a human could also be divine was widespread. A person could be divine in one of two ways, either by exaltation—a human being made divine by an act of God or a god—or by incarnation—a divine being made human. As already seen, Jesus did not think of himself as divine, and certainly not as God. What made Jesus so special and separated him from the many other messiahs was the belief in the resurrection by some of his followers. Otherwise, Ehrman says, “Jesus would have been a mere footnote in the annals of Jewish history” (2014: 132). (Ehrman suggests that belief in the resurrection was likely the result of the visionary experiences of three or four people, probably Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. They quickly told others about their visions and the idea of the resurrection took hold.) So Jesus had risen from the dead, and yet he was not living among his followers. Where was he then? It came to be believed that with the resurrection he had been exalted to Heaven by God as a divine being, after which he came down from Heaven. But he was not yet “God.” The first Christian writings after Jesus’s death were those of Paul, who was writing in the mid-first century, about twenty years after Jesus had died. Paul’s view of Jesus’s divinity was different. He thought that Jesus was the divine Son of God before the resurrection, but at the resurrection he was exalted to an even higher state (Ehrman, 2014). (Most other believers at the time, however, continued to think that Jesus was exalted only at the resurrection.) In the Gospels there is a clear trend toward increasing divinity and the conceptualization of Jesus as God. In Mark, Jesus becomes divine at the point of his baptism by John the Baptist. In Luke, he became divine at the very moment of his conception. In John Jesus was divine right at the very beginning; he was a preexistent being who held equal status with God. Ehrman contends that John marks a shift from an exaltation view of divinity to an incarnation view. Jesus, originally divine, was made human and lived on earth for a short time, and then returned to his original place in Heaven. Ehrman argues as well that Paul’s view of Christ’s divinity, mentioned above, was in fact perhaps the earliest incarnation view. For Paul, Christ “is God’s manifestation on earth in human flesh.” After John things became considerably more complicated. If Jesus was God, and God was God, there would appear to be two Gods and thus a regression to a type of polytheism. How could this be? More than two centuries of debate ensued; there were many nuanced interpretations and many accusations of heresy (see Ehrman, 2014: 283–352). To make a long story short, the view that

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won out was the doctrine of the Trinity that was formulated as the Nicene Creed in the early fourth century: We believe in one God, the Father, almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, who because of us humans and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming human, suffered and rose on the third day, ascended to the heavens, will come to judge the living and the dead; And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, “There was when he was not” and “Before being born he was not” and that “He came into existence out of nothing” or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance or is subject to alteration and change—these the Catholic and Apostolic church anathematizes. (As reproduced in Ehrman, 2014: 350)

If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is! It is not really logical as we ordinarily understand that term. Ehrman remarks that not only does it remain a mystery, “it is supposed to remain a mystery. That’s part of the power of the affirmation of those who make it” (1999: 242). Moreover, it is very unlikely that most early Christians could have understood or appreciated the Trinity. Indeed, even most modern-day Christians cannot really understand or appreciate it if they even ponder it at all. The Trinity is a sort of theological nicety that is a part of elite Christianity. It has far less relevance for the Christianity of the masses.

Development and spread The new religion grew and expanded, although slowly at first. Stark (2006) estimates that there may have been approximately 1,000 adherents in 40 CE, and still only about 40,000 in 150 CE. While that is a sizable increase, at this latter time Christians would have constituted less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Roman population. Even an increase to about 1.1 million by 250 CE made Christians only 1.9 percent of the population. But from that point on, growth was rapid and massive, reaching 6.0 million Christians by 300 CE (9.9 percent of the population), 8.9 million (14.8 percent) by 312 CE, and a huge 31.7 million

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by 350 CE (a striking 52.9 percent of the population) (Stark, 1996, 2006, 2011). Christianity spread even more prominently within the city of Rome itself. In 100 CE there were an estimated 700 Christians living in Rome (0.15 percent of the population), in 200 CE 19,000 (4.2 percent), but by 300 CE 298,000 (66.2 percent) (Stark, 2011). The growth of Christianity can also be seen in the changing representations of inscriptions on gravestones. In Carthage, North Africa, and Spain in the period between 250 and 300, 98 percent of inscriptions were pagan and only 2 percent Christian. This pattern had been substantially reversed by 300– 350, with 29 percent of inscriptions pagan and 71 percent Christian. After 350, pagan inscriptions disappeared entirely; all inscriptions were Christian (Stark, 2006). It is traditionally understood that Paul carried his mission to the Gentiles, but Stark and others insist that he originally concentrated on Jews, especially the Hellenized Jews of the diaspora, the majority of whom lived in cities. The new Christian missionaries, including Paul, had connections of a family and friendship nature with Hellenized Jews, and in fact many of the missionaries were Hellenized Jews themselves (Stark, 2006). And yet by the early fourth century there were no longer enough Jews to serve as converts. So by this time the emphasis had to be placed on converting Gentiles (Stark, 2006).11 As for the social locations of the early converts, Stark insists that the middle and upper classes were over-recruited and over-represented. However, the majority of converts could not have come from privileged backgrounds for the simple reason that the privileged made up only a small part of society. Therefore, many converts had to come from among the less privileged, and Stark admits as much. It seems fair to say that the new converts cut across the spectrum of the class structure (Stark, 2011; Runciman, 2004). Stark (1996) stresses that religious conversion is based primarily on social networks: people convert because their family members and friends convert. Doctrinal appeal is not the real reason, but comes after people have already made their conversion. Stark bases his argument on studies of contemporary sects and cults showing the importance of social networks. There is no reason to deny the importance of networks, but this certainly cannot be the whole story. People have many friends and acquaintances who don’t follow them and join. And Stark himself concedes that “even your best friends will not convert if they already are highly committed to another faith” (2006: 13). Actually, Stark’s rejection of doctrinal appeal seems to contradict his whole attitude toward Christianity and he makes numerous comments suggesting that

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doctrines are indeed very important. The following passage is astonishingly clear in its emphasis on doctrines: It has been evident that doctrines were often of immense importance. Surely doctrine was central to [the Christian emphasis on] nursing the sick during times of plague, to the rejection of abortion and infanticide, to fertility, and to organizational vigor. Therefore, as I conclude this study, I find it necessary to confront what appears to me to be the ultimate factor in the rise of Christianity. Let me state my thesis: Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations. I believe that it was the religion’s particular doctrines that permitted Christianity to be among the most sweeping and successful revitalization movements in history. (1996: 209–11; emphasis in original)

What are we to think? At any rate, a major event in the spread of Christianity occurred in 312 CE when the emperor Constantine converted. It is often said that Constantine made Christianity the “official” religion of the Roman Empire, but this only occurred in the late fourth century long after Constantine had died. He embraced Christianity, and saw to the construction of magnificent buildings on its behalf, but he did nothing to eliminate paganism and gave it equal standing with Christianity. In fact, he continued to worship some pagan gods in addition to the Christian God, and he appointed both pagans and Christians to important positions in the empire. As late as the middle of the fifth century much of the population of the Roman Empire was still pagan, and so paganism did not suddenly vanish (Brown, 1998; Stark, 2006). And because Christianity shared some pagan ideas and practices, it could incorporate them, and, indeed, did so. Some traditional pagan rituals for celebrating holidays were absorbed into Christianity, including candle lighting, bell ringing, festive dancing, and singing. However, these practices were not taken over unaltered, but were Christianized. The celebration of Easter also had deep roots in the mystery religions. Something like Easter had been widely practiced by pagans. The name itself may have been based on the Saxon goddess Eostre, but there were other goddesses with similar names. Pagan Easter was celebrated in the spring; indeed, the Old English word for spring was eastre (Stark, 2011; Walker, 2009; www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm). Of course, eventually “the pagan temples did close and Christianity became, for many centuries, the only licit faith” (Stark, 2006: 199).

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Triumph Christianity has turned out to be the most successful religion of all time. Today it numbers about 2.2 million members throughout the world. Although it originated in the Near East, due to the rise of Islam in the seventh century and the Muslim conquest of most of the Near Eastern lands, Christianity became largely confined to Europe for many centuries. But in recent decades this has changed dramatically. Being colonized by Spain and Portugal, Latin America was officially Catholic for nearly 500 years. However, the Catholic Church became complacent and its rituals appealed to fewer and fewer people. Church attendance declined precipitously. This opened up a religious “market” for missionaries to enter and seek converts. It was US Christians who entered the market, but mostly Protestants (especially Pentecostal Protestants) rather than US Catholics. From the 1960s, a period of extraordinary Protestant growth ensued, and some Latin American countries are today more than onethird Protestant. Faced with new religious competition, the Catholic Church realized it had to change its lazy, ossified ways. New movements sprang up within Catholicism, one of the most prominent being the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, a movement similar to Pentecostalism. Catholicism has revived, and Catholic churches are filled with parishioners once again. Like the Pentecostalists, they even fill soccer stadiums with their revivals (Stoll, 1990; Martin, 1990; Stark, 2011). And sub-Saharan Africa has also witnessed an enormous infusion of Christianity, again beginning with missionary activity. Today there are many sub-Saharan African countries where Christians number half or more of the population, and some in which nearly 80 percent of the population is Christian. Two specific religions, Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have made extremely large inroads in Africa (Stark, 2011). Christianity has also penetrated into some parts of East and Southeast Asia. China now has at least seventy million Christians, and there is a very large Christian community in South Korea (Stark, 2011). The two key questions are obviously why did Christianity grow so rapidly during its early centuries, and why has it become the world’s most successful religion today? Runciman (2012) and Clark (2004) contend that Christianity had a selective advantage over its competitors; it provided them with a “better offer.” The major aspects of this better offer can be summarized approximately as follows (Stark, 1996, 2006, 2011; Wilson, 2008; Clark, 2004; Mann, 1986):

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1. Its message was simple and easily grasped. It was an inviting religion that was easy to follow. 2. The simplest and most appealing idea was its focus on a personal savior, a figure already familiar in the Mediterranean world. 3. Christianity’s God was like the God of Judaism, but it had Jesus, the Son of God, who was personal and very approachable. Christ died for our sins, and acceptance of Christ provides everlasting life. 4. Judaism was a very demanding religion, but Paul said that it was no longer necessary to observe the strict requirements of the Jewish Law (e.g., circumcision, kosher dietary practices, reading and comprehending the Torah). Christianity was demanding, but not as demanding as the religion from which it arose. 5. Its scriptures (the Bible) consisted of narratives about people and events that were clearly expressed. 6. It welcomed converts on a very egalitarian basis; anyone could become a Christian and enter the Kingdom of God. 7. A Christian church functioned much like a family in offering personal support. Other religions at the time did not create the kinds of networks providing support for their members. 8. Christianity not only offered a compensatory afterlife, but also rewards in this world. It made a miserable life less miserable. 9. Christianity emphasized “unreciprocated altruism” and “unconditional benevolence” toward outsiders to a degree not found in any other religion. It stressed nursing the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. It set up orphanages, hospitals, almshouses, and so on, on a greater scale than any other religion. 10. Because Christians nursed the sick, especially during major epidemics, the sick were more likely to survive than non-Christians, and so their relative numbers within the population grew regardless of new converts. Pagans would have noticed that Christians were more likely to survive, and this would have motivated a significant number to convert. Most of these same characteristics are still fundamental to Christianity and thus have the same appeal to people today.12 The fact that Christianity is a highly proselytizing religion that has directly sought converts has also played an important role. Hinduism and Buddhism are not proselytizing religions sensu stricto, and Confucianism is barely a religion at all. And none of these emphasize a personal savior of the kind offered by Christianity. Judaism is

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also not a proselytizing religion. There are only about twelve million Jews in the entire world today, and Judaism is not a universalistic religion but one closely associated with a particular ethnicity. As for Islam, it has a proselytizing element, but it tends to seek converts by coercive means. It is also a religion that is much more demanding than Christianity. One must not only believe in Allah, but adhere to the five basic pillars of Islam, including prayer five times a day. Christianity still has a “better offer.” But there is something more. Christ was the most “shaman-like” of all the prophets, and this had great appeal to the “primordial” religious brain that evolved in the human ancestral environment. As we have seen, in this environment of small-scale bands and tribes, the “way of the shaman” was the central element of religious life. Christianity reproduced many elements of the shamanic tradition, and this gave it great appeal. In terms of the similarities between Christ and shamans, consider the following (Smith, 1978; Wilhelmi, 2004; see also Giesler, 2004): ●

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● ●

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Shamans often spend periods of time in seclusion undergoing intense ordeals, during which they hone their skills; Jesus spent forty days alone in the wilderness as part of his development. Shamans have special contact with the world of spirits; Jesus was in direct contact with God the Father. Shamans above all heal and cure; Jesus healed the sick and the lame. Shamans enter the world of spirits and often ascend to the sky; Jesus upon resurrection ascended to the sky. Potential shamans often undergo an initiatory ritual death from which they are resurrected; Jesus, of course, was resurrected. Shamans in some regions, such as Australia, undergo initiation in caves; Jesus’s body was put in a tomb and he was resurrected in this tomb. Shamans always have spirit helpers; Jesus had helpers in the form of disciples, Christ helpers in the form of angels, etc. In their curing rituals shamans often look for the sick person’s lost soul in order to restore it to the person; Christ saves your soul from eternal damnation.

If religion is an evolutionary phenomenon, to understand the appeal of one or another religion one needs to consider religion’s deep evolutionary roots, and shamanism, as we have seen, seems to have very deep evolutionary roots indeed.

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Confucianism and Daoism Confucianism The religions of East and South Asia differ in several crucial respects from those of the Near East. At the time of its Axial Age, the Chinese masses worshiped various deities at specific shrines or temples. Towns and districts each had a patron deity or “city god.” The deity would preside in a temple, but a temple usually had more than one deity, a primary and several secondary ones. Popular or folk religion was widespread throughout the population and not limited to any particular group or class, such as peasants or the urban poor (Cohen, 1987). Lee Dian Rainey says that the Chinese “lived in a world saturated with the supernatural,” and that “supernatural powers were credited with causing everything from droughts to illness” (2010: 58). Among the most important supernatural powers were the spirits of the dead, and thus ancestor worship was a major part of Chinese religion. The ancestors had to be properly cared for— their graves maintained, regular offerings made to them, and so on—or they would be displeased and troubles could arise, such as family disputes, business or crop failures, or illness (Cohen, 1987). Religious beliefs and practices were primarily oriented to worldly rewards, such as preventing or curing illness, preserving family harmony and the family lineage, and gaining favor from deities who controlled rain, agriculture, fertility, and wealth. But there was also a concern with otherworldly rewards, such as a favorable rebirth (e.g., reincarnation into a rich family), forgiveness of sins, and release from suffering (Cohen, 1987). Confucianism and Daoism were the transcendent religions that arose in China during its Axial Age. Confucianism is traditionally considered a philosophy rather than a religion because most scholars contend that it lacks a supernatural dimension. Max Weber wrote that “Confucianism was indifferent to religion. Hence, any religious idea differentiating a ‘state of grace’ was absent. The very concept had to remain unknown to Confucianism” (1951: 146). He added that Confucianism displayed no tension between nature and deity, no awareness of sin and a desire for salvation, and no distinction between everyday conduct and some sort of compensation in another life. Daniel Overmyer (1987) avers that Confucius was only concerned with humans, not with deities. Rainey (2010) says that Confucius proposed no creator god, did not refer to an afterlife, and showed no interest in how the universe came into existence. Nor did he conceive of hells or a devil.

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Confucius is the Romanized name given to Kung-fu-tzu, who lived from 551 to 479 BCE. He is thought to have been principally concerned with two main areas of secular life, morally right and proper interpersonal relationships and good government. In his famous Analects, he set forth principles intended to govern five human relationships: father-son, elder brother-younger brother, husband-wife, elder man-younger man, and ruler-subject. The son should show filial piety, the younger brother respect to an elder brother, the wife obedience to her husband, the younger man deference to an elder man, and the subject loyalty to the ruler (Smart, 1996). To conduct oneself properly in these relationships a man must attain knowledge. He thereby becomes a gentleman who is cultivated in the arts, in rituals, and in the standards of right and wrong (Rainey, 2010). Confucius lived in the period of the Warring States (481–221 BCE), a time of great disorder and human suffering. He thought that the changes during his lifetime signified the deterioration of the state and the loss of civilization and wanted to restore the state to its earlier, more dignified, form. For him the ideal government is one that rules by moral example rather than through coercion; he was especially concerned that governments be orderly and stable (Rainey, 2010). As a result, his ideas came to be adopted by Chinese states, and Confucians became state officials as, indeed, did Confucius himself (Hamilton, 1998; Yao, 2000). In time an elaborate educational system was established to train members of the Chinese gentry to become state officials (Collins, 2000). Xinzhong Yao (2000) contends that Confucianism contains a strong spiritual outlook. The source of this outlook is Heaven, but there is little consensus regarding just what Heaven is. Three views seem to be most common: Heaven is the universe or cosmos, it is a Supreme Being who governs the spiritual and material worlds, or it is the source of ethical principles. Of course, these need not be mutually exclusive, but the second, which would make Confucianism a religion as well as a philosophy, is the least emphasized according to Yao. And yet it does have its advocates. Ninian Smart (1996) concedes that Confucius did not espouse any sort of divine determinism in which Heaven rewards those who are virtuous and punishes those who are evil. Nor did he advocate doctrines of immortality, salvation, or withdrawal from the world. And yet he was not a secular humanist, Smart contends, for “there is little doubt that he endorsed belief in a supreme providential being” (1996: 125). Stark (2007) also sees an important religious dimension in Confucianism. Although it lacked many of the usual features of the world religions—it had no priesthood and took a negative view of monasticism and asceticism—Stark contends that it did emphasize human dependence on a supreme power, as

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well as a close relationship between the spiritual and human worlds. Confucius himself came to be deified. Many temples throughout China have Confucian sections, and people pray to him and ask for his assistance in their daily affairs.

Daoism After the death of Confucius, a much more radical transcendentalism emerged with Daoism (Schwartz, 1975). Even if we agree that Confucius believed in a supreme being, Confucianism had little to hold the interest of the large mass of the population. It offered little hope for release from misery and suffering in an afterlife. As a result, from the Han period (206 BCE-220 CE) on Daoism replaced Confucianism as the main popular faith alongside Chinese folk religion because it resonated much more with the religious needs of the people (Schwartz, 1975). The founder of Daoism was Laozi, who is thought to have lived in the sixthcentury BCE.13 Daoism is based on the concept of the Dao, which is usually translated as “way” or “path.” This way or path is a slippery abstraction, but seems to refer to the basic nature or essence of the universe. Daoism is best known in its elite form, that is, as it was practiced by the religious literati. Elite Daoists used a technique of entering trances and attaining ecstasy. In this way they could “become one with the Dao.” But this highly intellectualized and mystical Daoism was of little interest to the masses. Ordinary Daoist believers were mainly concerned with the avoidance of death and the eternity of the body. They did not enter trances, but used such things as special diets, magical formulas, respiratory procedures, and alchemy in order to gain immortality (Maspero, 1981). Over time Daoism evolved into a salvation religion with a literate priesthood, a pantheon of deities, sophisticated rituals, and a set of scriptures (Overmyer, 1987). Daoism contained two degrees of religious life, one associated with the so-called Daoist People and the other with the Daoist Adepts. The Daoist People limited themselves to participation in collective rituals that would wash away their sins and prepare them for a happy destiny. The Adepts, however, went further by adding strict observances of personal religion as well as certain physiological techniques, practices that were undertaken so the Adepts could attain a high position in the hierarchy of immortals (Maspero, 1981). Henri Maspero, one of Daoism’s greatest scholars, describes the road to salvation for both the People and the Adepts: Those who lead a pure life, free of sin, those who repent sincerely of those sins they have committed and who zealously follow the offices of penitence, will

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be saved; that is to say, they will escape the Dark Prisons. They do, however, descend to the realm of the Earth Agent, but they serve there as officials and employees, above the throng of unbelievers who wallow in the shadows. They can, however, leave that realm only after being ransomed by their descendants; they then ascend to Heaven, where they occupy inferior positions in the celestial hierarchy. (Maspero, 1981: 35–36)

However, this is the outcome for those who have died. In order to go straight to paradise, practitioners must have learned how to evade death, and this was what the Daoist Adepts aspired to. And in order to evade death, they “strove to bring themselves through a series of exercises and practices designed to ‘nourish the Vital Principle’ and render the body immortal” (Maspero, 1981: 36). Maspero contends that Daoism was an attempt to create a personal religion, and he draws a parallel between it and the Near Eastern religions: The long efforts of personal religious sentiment to find an expression for itself in China around the time of Christ were often similar to those in the West at about the same time. The problems which were posed two thousand years ago in the Mediterranean world arose in almost the same way and at almost the same time on the banks of the Yellow River; and, if the solutions which were given for them were not the same, they had at least many points of similarity, and their development often followed parallel lines. (1981: 265–66)

And Daoism exhibited ethical principles similar to those of the Near Eastern religions, Christianity in particular. These included the “practice of virtue and the avoidance of sin, the confession and repenting of one’s faults, the doing of good works, the feeding of the hungry and clothing of the naked, the succor of the sick, [and] the distribution of one’s fortune to the poor so as to do good secretly without boasting of it” (Maspero, 1981: 324). Starting out as an impersonal force, the Dao eventually became personalized in the form of Laozi, who came to be known, in the Six Dynasties Period (222– 589 CE), as the Very High Lord of the Dao (Maspero, 1981). He assumed an incarnate form and descended to the earth as a savior, moving easily between the celestial and mundane realms (Boltz, 1987). But Daoism was not a monotheistic religion; there was an entire pantheon of gods, complex and often confusing. Moreover, these gods do not interfere in the world; their role is to instruct people in the things they need to do in order to achieve salvation (Boltz, 1987). By the latter part of the Han period Daoism had spread widely among the masses, and it reached its peak during the Six Dynasties Period. But in the seventh century it had to confront a revived Confucianism and a rapidly

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spreading Buddhism. From that point on it gradually declined as a mass religion (Maspero, 1981).

Hinduism It is traditionally understood that the earliest known religion in India was brought there by Indo-European peoples migrating from such regions as Iran and Afghanistan around 1500 BCE. These peoples, known as the Aryans, had a fairly typical pagan religion based on a set of sacred scriptures (actually hymns) known as the Vedas. The most important of the Vedas was the Rig Veda, probably composed around 1200 BCE. The Vedic religion, also known as Brahmanism, included the worship of many gods, but four in particular: Indra, the god of war and the weather; Varuna, the maintainer of morality and social order; Agni, the god of fire who had a close association with the priests who performed rituals using fire; and Soma, a plant god associated with a drink made from the soma plant. Vedic religion was inextricably intertwined with the Indian caste system that began to form after the Aryan invasions, and the Vedic priests, the Brahmans, were the highest caste (Arney, 1999; Basham, 1989; Parrinder, 1983).14 Like so many other pagan religions, Vedic religion was primarily oriented to worldly rather than otherworldly needs. A. L. Basham comments that “ordinary Aryans, as well as revering the great gods, had many lesser gods of a functional type who were helpful to them in their daily lives and who were worshipped in simple rituals and offerings” (1989: 18). He adds that “the seers prayed to the gods that they might live for a hundred years, that they and their patrons might be rich and own thousands of cattle” (1989: 18). The Brahman caste started out as a loose network of intellectuals that gradually achieved a superior position such that by the sixth-century BCE they had come to possess ultimate religious authority (Sharot, 2001). And thus did Hinduism come into the world. By this time interest in the Vedic gods had diminished and new conceptions of the supernatural and humans’ relationship to it emerged. The first writings that can be legitimately called Hindu were the Upanishads, which were composed between approximately 700 and 300 BCE (Parrinder, 1983; Arney, 1999). The Upanishads introduced an entirely new element, the transmigration of souls. According to this doctrine, there is an eternal cycle in which each individual’s soul upon death is reincarnated, either in a favorable

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or unfavorable way. Whether a reincarnation or rebirth (samsara) is favorable or unfavorable is determined by a person’s karma, or action in his previous life. With good karma one can be reborn into, say, a higher caste, but with bad karma one’s caste position may drop. Often the rebirth can be far worse. Gluttons may be reborn as pigs, men of violence as tigers. Those who have been terrible sinners may descend into horrible purgatories beneath the earth where they suffer for thousands of years, and only after they rid themselves of their sins can they return to earth in another form. In perhaps the worst possible rebirth, one can become a parasitic worm in the intestine of a pig (Basham, 1989). This “endless wheel” of death and rebirth perpetuates human suffering. The actual source of suffering is worldly desires. These desires are ultimately unrealizable because, even if satisfied, the satisfaction is ephemeral. One then wants more of the same satisfaction, or other satisfactions. The solution to the problem of suffering is to reject desire, for it is only in this way that humans can break through the endless cycle of rebirths. This can be accomplished mainly through meditation and ascetic practices, which allow one to be freed from “the world of the senses, from anxieties, passions, drives, and strivings” (Weber, 1958: 166). The classic technique promoted by Hindu literati was yoga, which “places central emphasis upon controlled breathing and related means of inducing apathetic ecstasy. In this connection it concentrates the conscious psychic and mental functions upon the partly meaningful, partly meaningless flow of inner experiences” (Weber, 1958: 164). Renunciation of the material world is therefore the key to the Hindu conception of salvation (moksha). Unlike the Near Eastern religions, in Hinduism there is no Heaven or paradise that one enters after death (Weber, 1958). Instead, one attains nirvana. The idea of nirvana is difficult to grasp, especially from the point of view of Western philosophical and religious thought. It might be considered a kind of supreme peace in a “deathless realm” (Smart, 1996) or a cessation of consciousness, the absence of all states (Kinnard, 2006). When later the Buddha (who also saw salvation or liberation as the attainment of nirvana) was asked whether nirvana was a state of existence or nonexistence, he replied that the question was unanswerable (Kinnard, 2006). Stark comments that this highly intellectualized original version of Hinduism appears “godless” (Stark, 2001a). The supreme spiritual force was more of an abstract essence than a personal god. But, as we have seen a number of times previously, there is always an important distinction to be drawn between elite and mass religiosity. Stark and Weber both stress that the masses find the impersonal

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abstractions concocted by intellectuals unappealing and unsatisfying, and thus tend to seek a conscious and personal God who cares about them and their problems. The Upanishads were followed by what are regarded as the most important of Hindu texts, the Bhagavad-gita. It is with this set of texts, called by A. L. Basham (1989) the Hindu counterpart to Christianity’s New Testament, that the ideas of the Upanishads come to full fruition. The Bhagavad-gita continues the emphasis on meditation as a means of gaining salvation, but adds two other paths (Arney, 1999). One is the performance of ritual and social obligations, the other love for and devotion to a personal God (bhakti). This God is a supreme God, and takes the form of Vishnu. Vishnu is not the only god, but all other gods are dimensions of him rather than separate gods. The most important of these “other” gods is Shiva. (I put “other” in quotation marks because Shiva is not exactly another god.) Hindus divide into those who directly worship Vishnu and those who directly worship Shiva. The situation is not entirely clear, but it appears that Vishnu and Shiva are not two different gods, but simply alternative versions of the same God. For Vishnu worshipers (Vaisnavas) Shiva is considered a dimension of Vishnu, whereas for Shiva worshipers (Saivas) Vishnu is a dimension of Shiva. Actually, there is a third god, Brahma, who is sometimes considered part of a trinity, along with Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma is considered the creator of the universe, and some Hindus worship him alone, but mostly he remains in the background. Or, if worshiped, he can be worshiped in the form of Vishnu or Shiva (Stark, 2001a; Flood, 1996; Arney, 1999; Smart, 1996). All of this may sound quite confusing—because it is! But there are further complexities. There are many lesser gods, and in some villages dozens or even hundreds may be acknowledged and often worshiped (Sharot, 2001). Yet these too are considered local manifestations of Vishnu or Shiva, or their relatives, consorts, or offspring. The high forms of Vishnu or Shiva are concerned with creation, destruction, and moral order, whereas their consort goddesses are involved in the day-to-day problems of ordinary people. For example, Vishnu’s consort Lakshmi is concerned with worldly pleasures and is a goddess of good luck. Shiva’s consort, Parvati, is associated with fertility, but takes different forms in different villages. There are also other supernatural beings at lower levels in the Hindu hierarchy, including ghosts, spirits, imps, and serpents (Sharot, 2001). What is the nature of Vishnu and Shiva? Vishnu is seen as the preservative aspect of reality, as the universe’s pillar, and is associated with sacrifice, to which he contributes his all-pervading power. He has many incarnations and

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is often worshiped in his incarnations as Rama or Krishna. Shiva is different. He has opposite but complementary dimensions: mild and terrible, creation and reabsorption, ceaseless activity and eternal rest. He sometimes takes the side of demons. Shiva is the Hindu version of the Vedic god Rudra, who was considered ferocious and destructive. Thus Shiva is sometimes described as a god of destruction. These qualities make him a paradoxical God. Unlike Vishnu, who is seen as basically good and benevolent, Shiva can be terrifying. He is often considered mysterious, obviously for good reason (Arney, 1999; Flood, 1996). Are Vishnu and Shiva transcendent gods? Some would say no because in several respects they resemble the Vedic anthropomorphic gods, such as having consorts and offspring. Yet many students of Hinduism say that they are transcendent. Sharot says they are supreme gods that are regarded as unknowable and without form (Sharot, 2001). Gavin Flood tells us that Vishnu has “total world-transcendence”: Many Hindus believe in a transcendent God, beyond the universe, who is yet within all living beings and who can be approached in a variety of ways. Such a Hindu might say that this supreme being can be worshipped in innumerable forms; as a handsome young man, as a majestic King, as a beautiful young girl, as an old woman, or even as a featureless stone. The transcendent is mediated through icons in temples, through natural phenomena, or through living teachers and saints. (1996: 10)

Hindus also believe in an uncreated transcendent principle that is the only reality and the cause and foundation of all existence. This is often called Brahman (not to be confused with the god Brahma) (Arney, 1999). Brahman is the absolute world spirit, “the word applied to the ultimate impersonal being that underlay the whole universe” (Basham, 1989: 29). As for Hindu ritual—which is sometimes claimed to be more important than belief—there is of course meditation. But this is not the focus of most Hindus. Most ritual is worship that takes place in temples, and this worship runs from ceremonies characterized by fully orchestrated congregational participation to rituals focused almost entirely on the priests who act as the deities’ ritual servants to episodic acts of prayer and offering initiated by families or individual worshipers. Sometimes worshipers assemble to meditate, to take part in singing and chanting, or to listen to an exposition of doctrine. (Arney, 1999: 454)

There is also image worship, in both home and temple. Domestic rituals consist of such things as food offerings to the gods, a drink of water and sesame,

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offerings to the spirits of the dead, and recitation of the Veda (Arney, 1999). Blood sacrifice is practiced, although it is condemned by the representatives of elite Hinduism (Sharot, 2001). Hindu rituals differ in very important ways from the older Vedic rituals. Vedic religion had no icons, but Hindus worship an icon who represents the deity they have chosen. Vedic religion was organized around a sacred fire, but Hindus worship mostly in a temple. And the Vedics made offerings as a way to compel the gods to grant their wishes, whereas Hindu offerings are given in a spirit of loving devotion with the hope that God will grant them grace (Parrinder, 1983). In light of the discussion of Vishnu and Shiva (and of other more minor gods), the question whether Hinduism should be called monotheistic naturally arises. Ninian Smart (1996) suggests that there was a strain in the Upanishads toward belief in a single being. The old Vedic gods were fading away and there was a notion that the gods represent a single divine reality. He also contends that in the Bhagavad-gita the belief in a single supreme God grew even stronger. Concerning the so-called Vaisnavism, the major segment of Hinduism devoted to the worship of Vishnu, Paul Arney (1999) argues that it is reasonable to call it monotheistic. This is true even if Vishnu is worshiped as Rama or Krishna, his most prominent incarnations. Flood (1996) maintains that in the Vaisnava tradition Vishnu is Lord and a “Supreme Person.” Stark gives this an interesting twist in his claim that Hinduism is not strictly monotheistic, but is not polytheistic either. He refers to it as a “polytheistic monotheism” (2001a). Although an oxymoron, it is not an altogether indefensible one. Unlike the other world religions, Hinduism has no known individual founder, or at least one who can be named. It also has no defining creed, group of exclusive adherents, or centralized hierarchy (Parrinder, 1983; Flood, 1996). It is an extremely tolerant religion, perhaps the most tolerant of any of the world religions (Weber, 1958). In these ways it differs not only from the other Asian religions, but especially from the Near Eastern religions. And yet Arney finds an interesting parallel with Christianity. He contends that “the Supreme Person, Visnu, decided to project himself into the yet unborn son of Vasudeva and came into being as Krsna. . . . Thus he was not a wholly supernatural being but, as in Christian theology, was both man and god simultaneously” (1999: 93; emphasis added).

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Buddhism The academic study of Buddhism, like the study of Hinduism and Daoism, has historically been dominated by an emphasis on its elite doctrines. Fortunately, in recent decades there has been much more attention given to the beliefs and practices of ordinary Buddhists (Pyysiäinen, 2009). Here we shall look at both elite and popular Buddhism seriatim. Buddhism arose at almost exactly the same time as Hinduism and within the same socioecological context (Lyons and Peters, 1985; Lopez, 2001). It was founded, of course, by the Buddha, whose actual name was Siddhartha Gautama. There is some disagreement on when he lived. The traditional dates are 563– 483 BCE, but more recently the dates 445–365 BCE have been proposed. At any rate, we know that he lived during the early to mid-Axial Age. Siddhartha Gautama was likely born a Hindu, or at the very least was born into the tradition of renunciation represented by Hinduism. He was born into a princely family, but at an early age rejected the material world for a life of wandering asceticism. At the age of thirty-five he became the Buddha (Reat, 1994). As in the case of Hinduism, the Buddha accepted the idea that there is an endless cycle of reincarnations or rebirths. However, his idea of reincarnation differed in an important way from Hinduism. In Hinduism, there was a soul and it was this soul that was constantly being reborn. But the Buddha rejected the idea of a soul and therefore did not believe in the Hindu doctrine of the transmigration of souls (Smart, 1996). According to Smart the Buddha held that there is nothing that carries over from one life to another in this way [transmigration]. Just as one’s mental and physical states at eight o’clock in the morning give rise to one’s physical and mental states at nine o’clock, so the craving implicit in a person’s last state on death is the cause of a new sequence of states arising elsewhere as his next life. For this reason, it is preferable to use the word “rebirth” in describing the Buddha’s doctrine, rather than “reincarnation” or “transmigration.” (1996: 69)

There is no eternal soul, only a self (although the self, like all things, is impermanent). The self ’s karma determines the quality of each rebirth. Individuals have good or bad rebirths based on the karma they have accumulated throughout their lives. However, it is not just the act that determines the nature of the rebirth; the motive behind it is also important. Good acts done for bad motives lead to bad rebirths (Kinnard, 2006).15

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The Buddha laid down four Noble Truths: there is always suffering, this suffering is caused by the selfish desire for things of the material world, it is possible to be liberated from suffering, and the means of liberation is following a Noble Eightfold Path. The eight paths are right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right living, right endeavor, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Through following these paths, one can gain wisdom, which is insight into the way things really are in the world. This knowledge or insight is “enlightenment” or “awakening,” which leads to the state of nirvana, much as in Hinduism (Buddha means “Enlightened One” or “Awakened One.”) The Buddha posited no God or gods. He was unable to believe in a god that was good because of the existence of human suffering (Smart, 1996). This has led many religious scholars to claim that Buddhism is an “atheistic religion.” However, as we will see below, although this may be true for the Buddha and his elite followers, it is an inaccurate characterization of Buddhism as a whole. Buddhism emerged in an environment in which there were many ascetic movements that were in competition, and only Hinduism and Buddhism (and to some extent Jainism) were able to attract large numbers of followers and eventually become world religions (Kinnard, 2006). It is sometimes held that Buddhism derived from Hinduism, a kind of heterodox sect as it were, but it is much more likely that they were parallel developments. As Noble Ross Reat has said, the notion that Buddhism was derived from Hinduism is without foundation: The essential scriptural and doctrinal basis of Hinduism was not completed until the composition of the Bhagavad Gita, which probably occurred between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Clearly, it is misleading to speak of Hinduism as such before its scriptural and doctrinal basis was in place. Just as the Bhagavad Gita established bhakti—loving devotion to a supernatural savior figure—as a fundamental element of Hinduism, so did the earliest Mahayana scriptures— composed during this same historical period—establish bhakti within Buddhism. There is no evidence to suggest that Buddhism absorbed bhakti from Hinduism. During most of the period between 250 BCE and 250 CE—when fundamental scriptures of both Hinduism and Buddhism were being composed—India was a Buddhist country in that its most influential rulers espoused Buddhism as their state religion. . . . After this formative period, over the next thousand years, Buddhism and Hinduism developed side by side in India into roughly the religions we know today. Each influenced the other and neither can be said to derive from the other. (Reat, 1994: 61)

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Buddhism had become a substantial presence in Northern India by the thirdcentury BCE. It was helped along by King Ashoka (ruled 270–232 BCE), who became a Buddhist and made Buddhism the state religion (Bentley, 1993; Reat, 1994). Ashoka made major contributions to Buddhism by, inter alia, building Buddhist monasteries (Reat, 1994). As Weber stressed, the East and South Asian religions were created by religious intellectuals, but as he also emphasized elite religious ideas hold little appeal for the masses. Indian masses did not take to the highly intellectualized ideas of the Buddha, nor did they have the time or patience for meditation and other ascetic practices. They did not seek nirvana, but something quite different, namely a loving god and a salvation that promised a paradise after death (Sharot, 2001). And thus by the first-century BCE statues of the Buddha began to appear. He came to be seen as a “higher being” and an object of prayer and loving devotion (Smart, 1996). A new form of Buddhism was developing, what came to be called Mahayana Buddhism. The Mahayana Buddhists thought that the original Buddhism was too narrow and restrictive. It gave too much emphasis to monasticism, was not sufficiently compassionate, and left no room for the salvation of the laity (Smart, 1996). Mahayana means “Greater Vehicle,” and Mahayana Buddhists characterized original Buddhists as Hinayana, or “Lesser Vehicle,” Buddhists. (Hinayana Buddhism later came to be called Theravada Buddhism as it spread beyond India into Southeast Asia.) Mahayana Buddhists did not entirely reject original Buddhism, but sought to bring together contemplative and devotional experience. The Buddha was seen not just as a teacher, but also as a personal savior (Smart, 1996). As Buddhism evolved it came to be thought that there was not just one Buddha, but an extraordinary number, the so-called celestial Buddhas. Ninian Smart says that “devotion to the Buddha was reflected in a richly mythological way by the idea of heavenly Buddhas whose paradises were open to living beings who called on them with faith. Such Buddhas were in effect divine beings: they were certainly objects of worship” (1996: 80). Moreover, it became possible for anyone to become a Buddha. Thus, “one could climb up from earthly life to heavenly existence, and from heavenly existence to identity with the Absolute. The ordinary person can, after an immense round of lives, become a Buddha. No wonder it was a Mahayana saying that the Buddhas are as numerous as the sands on the Ganges!” (Smart, 1996: 80) Some persons close to having achieved “Buddhahood” became bodhisattvas, who became central to Mahayana Buddhism. Bodhisattvas were thought to

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live in a celestial realm in which they are not subject to the physical limitations of human life (Parrinder, 1983). They choose to delay their achievement of nirvana in order to help others in a selfless way. They help others gain release from misery and suffering by achieving ten “perfections”: generosity, morality, patience, vigor, meditation, wisdom, skill, conviction, strength, and knowledge (Smart, 1996; Kinnard, 2006). Interestingly, this idea of a selfless concern for others is quite similar to the Christian doctrine, although differing of course in the specific ways in which others are helped. This helps to explain why Jerry Bentley (1993) would say that Buddhism came to have an appeal to the masses that resembled the appeal of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Three very popular bodhisattvas were Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, and Maitreya. The second of these was “the quintessential Buddhist savior figure, and the embodiment of compassion, perhaps the most popular of all bodhisattvas in India” (Kinnard, 2006: 62). His name means “the lord who sees everything,” which is to say the suffering of all people, and he responds to this suffering. In some Mahayana doctrines, Maitreya was thought to be the last manifestation of Buddhahood. Because there is inevitable decay in the world, the Buddha’s teachings will also decay, and life will become intolerable. Maitreya will then be reborn and provide for the welfare of everyone (Kinnard, 2006). Once again we see a parallel with Christianity, in this case the predicted return of Christ to earth. Concerning Mahayana Buddhism, I return once again to the key point made by Weber on the very different audiences for elite and mass religions: The transfer of salvation doctrines to the masses practically always results in the emergence of a savior, or at least in an increase of emphasis upon the concept of a savior. One instance of this is the substitution for the Buddha ideal, viz., the ideal of exemplary intellectualist salvation into Nirvana, by the ideal of a Bodhisattva, i.e., a savior who has descended upon earth and has foregone his own entrance into Nirvana for the sake of saving his fellow men. (1978: 487)

Pyysiäinen (2009) points out that, although the Buddha and Buddhas cannot be considered gods—when the Buddha was asked whether he was a man or a god, he said he was not a man and not a god, but a Buddha—their representations “partly serve similar functions as representations of God in the Judeo-Christian traditions” (Pyysiäinen, 2003a: 159). Buddha and the Buddhas have numerous counterintuitive features. For example, the Buddha is said to have lived in heaven and then chose the family into which he would be born. He descended from heaven into his mother’s womb, and she gave birth to him through her right side and the right side was not pierced. This belief, of course, is very much

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like the idea of the virgin birth of Jesus. Right before the Buddha died his skin is said to have become especially radiant, which he attributed to enlightenment. Buddhas were also thought to appear in different bodies or forms. The Buddha was considered to have the ability to perform miracles, such as crossing a river miraculously. In short, “the Buddha and the buddhas are not constrained by ordinary lawful biological and physical processes, and their minds work in non-standard ways. Although the Buddha was a human being, the followers’ representations of him have, in the course of time, gradually grown ever more counter-intuitive” (Pyysiäinen, 2003a: 161). Although Buddhism was the dominant religion in India at the end of the Axial Age, it was eventually to die out there. But long before this happened Mahayana Buddhism began to spread to China by way of Central Asia. India and China shared a border, but they knew little of each other because of the huge barrier posed by the Himalayas. In any event, Buddhism may have been in Central Asia as early as the third-century BCE (Reat, 1994). From there it traveled along the Silk Road into China, probably arriving sometime in the firstcentury CE. Because Confucianism and Daoism were already there, it faced considerable competition. Initially there was strong resistance and it took until the sixth or seventh century before Buddhism had become well established (Bentley, 1993; Reynolds, 1999). Gradual acceptance of Buddhism was made easier by its accommodation to Chinese folk religions. It did not seek to get rid of ancestor worship, extremely important to the Chinese, nor did it oppose cults that were focused on popular deities. There was actually an intermingling of Buddhas and bodhisattvas with existing Chinese gods (Smart, 1996). Buddhism also was carried to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, although in its Theravada rather than Mahayana form. As Buddhism was thriving in China and Southeast Asia, it was on the wane in its Indian homeland. By 700 CE or perhaps earlier it was in serious decline (Reynolds, 1999). By the seventh century many temples had deteriorated or been destroyed, and most monasteries were largely uninhabited. By 1200 CE it had disappeared from India almost completely (Stark, 2001a). Hinduism had become reinvigorated and it gradually absorbed what was left of Buddhism. But by this time the distinctions between Hinduism and Buddhism had become blurred. By “the tenth century virtually everyone in India—Buddhist or otherwise— worshiped a variety of deities with the understanding that they represented collectively a single ultimate reality which is beyond human comprehension. The average person could not have cared much whether the deities worshiped were Buddhist or Hindu” (Reat, 1994: 76).

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Why did Buddhism die out in India? One problem was that Buddhism could lay no claim at all to being a monotheistic religion. Its Buddhas and bodhisattvas were seemingly limitless. Around the fifth-century CE Hinduism was being reinvigorated and could lay legitimate claim to monotheism. Vishnu and Shiva were gods of far greater power and scope than anything found in Buddhism. When it comes to questions of release from suffering, people prefer fewer gods of great power and scope (or a single God of unlimited power and scope) to more gods of limited power and scope (Stark, 2001a). In this regard Buddhism simply could not compete with Hinduism for popular appeal. Another problem, pointed out by Weber (1958) long ago, was Buddhism’s insufficient attention to the laity. Although the Mahayana version of Buddhism gained a fair amount of popular support, even it failed to meet certain critical religious needs, especially in the area of ritual. As the great world historian William McNeill has argued, “Buddhism knew no ceremonies for birth and death, marriage, illness, and other critical turns of private life; and Buddhist observances for occasions of more public moment likewise failed to develop. Only for the community of monks did Buddhism provide a complete and well-defined way of life” (1963: 345). Buddhism could not survive competition from those Hindu sects that had created lay organization (Weber, 1958). Jacob Kinnard (2006) adds that Indian Buddhism became increasingly philosophical and esoteric and the monks became more and more distant from the life of the average layperson. Chinese Buddhism did not suffer the same fate, but it did fall on hard times. During the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) Buddhist monasteries had amassed a great deal of wealth, and this created resentment. Buddhism suffered several instances of suppression, the last and most severe of which occurred during the reign of Wu Zong, who was a devout Daoist. After this time Buddhism declined and never completely recovered (Reat, 1994). After the death of Wu Zong in 846, Buddhists were able to resume their religious practices, and so Buddhism thus remained, but it “gradually melted into an increasingly homogeneous syncretism with Daoism and Confucianism” (Reat, 1994: 148). The boundaries between the three religions became increasingly blurred.

Between East and West One of the more striking things about the Axial Age religions is the differences between those in the Near East and those in East and South Asia. Max Weber

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had much to say about this matter, and the neo-Weberian scholar Wolfgang Schluchter has also weighed in. If we combine their main points (which overlap substantially), we come up with the following (Weber, 1978; Schluchter, 1981): In the Near Eastern religions, ●

● ● ● ● ●

● ● ● ● ● ●

There is a transcendent personal God who is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. God is perfect and eternal and is an ethical God. God grants grace to sinful humans. Humans are conceived as instruments of God. Salvation is a matter of gaining God’s favor. What humans fear most is violating God’s commandments and being disowned by Him. Icons and images are forbidden (Jesus excepted). Ethics are faith oriented. Apocalyptic and eschatological themes are common. In their original forms, strict demands were placed on their followers. There are hells or purgatories into which people may descend. Dogmatism and intolerance of other religions are common. In the East and South Asian religions,

● ● ● ●

● ●

● ● ●

● ● ●

There are numerous gods. Gods are not fully transcendent (Hinduism partially excepted). Religion and philosophy are difficult to disentangle. Salvation involves an escape from the eternal cycle of rebirths and the misery and suffering continual rebirths entail. But for some social groups (e.g., Buddhist masses), salvation involves ascension to a heaven or paradise. Humans are conceived as vessels of the divine. What humans fear most is their inability to escape the unending cycle of reincarnations and rebirths. Apocalyptic or eschatological doctrines are uncommon. Tolerance of other religions is high. There are hells or purgatories into which people may descend but they are less consequential. Ethics are intellectualist. Icons and images are common and elaborate. Contemplation and meditation are emphasized.

98 ●

● ●

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In elite versions, the supreme spiritual entities are impersonal abstract essences. In popular versions, there is a loving god or gods. Good and evil deeds are weighed against each other and the balance determines the nature of life in a future incarnation or rebirth.

Why these differences exist is unclear. Although many would argue that they are reflections of broader cultural differences between East and West, this explanation is unsatisfying because it simply begs the question of the origin of these cultural differences in the first place. I am unaware of any systematic scholarship that has attempted to offer causal explanations of these differences. The issue is obviously a crucial one for further research. Indeed, numerous articles and several books remain to be written.16

Excursus: monotheism among the Greeks? Greece and Rome produced no monotheistic or world transcendent religions, but there was a philosophical revolution in Greece (less so in Rome) that many scholars have considered part and parcel of the Axial Age achievements (Schwartz, 1975; Momigliano, 1975; Humphreys, 1975, 1986; Elkana, 1986; Meier, 1986; Eisenstadt, 1986d; Jaspers, 1953, 1962; Bellah, 2011). There was a clear shift in the thinking of several of the great Greek philosophers— Aristotle, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, and Antisthenes, inter alia—toward a monotheistic world view (West, 1999; Frede, 1999). Xenophanes ridiculed Greek polytheism, with its pantheon and human-like gods with all their foibles, seeing it as silly and almost childlike, but he was only one of the Greek philosophers to strongly criticize the anthropomorphizing of the gods. S. C. Humphreys remarks that the attack directed against the traditional beliefs by the prose-writers—philosophers, historians, and doctors—in the late sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. was a radical one. What the poets have told us about the gods, they claimed, is ridiculous. Who can believe that gods get wounded in battle, catch each other in adultery, or fall in love with humans? Why should the gods be supposed to have human forms and human passions? (1986: 95)

Xenophanes was perhaps the first to stress One God who was all-seeing, all-thinking, and all-hearing, and who was nothing like humans in either physical substance

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or thought (West, 1999; Bellah, 2011). Aristotle spoke of “the God” who was the “unmoved mover” on whom heaven and all of nature depended (Frede, 1999). The Greeks seemed to be moving toward both monotheism and transcendence. And yet the One God being proposed was not quite the same as the God of the Near Eastern religions developing nearby at about the same time. Xenophanes’s god was not in fact the only god, but a god who was greater than the rest, and so Xenophanes was actually a monolatrist or henotheist (West, 1999). There was no jealous god who required denying the existence of other gods. Most importantly, the god being proposed by the philosophers—and in fact most did not propose one and continued to accept the Greek pantheon—remained a purely elite intellectual construct. The idea of an all-powerful god did not catch on among the masses at all. And how could it? The Greek conception of such a god was a matter of how the universe came to be created and ordered. This god had nothing to do with personal salvation, something that seemed of no interest to the great philosophers (West, 1999). Even if we concede that Greece went through an Axial Age of its own, we are still confronted with the question why it was not a religious Axial Age—why it produced no new world religion. W. G. Runciman (2012) suggests that this is often thought of as a puzzle, but then concludes that it really isn’t. For Runciman, the core of the Axial Age was the emergence of “righteous rebels” seeking to overturn an existing order. He asks, Why should it be assumed that critical reflection and theoretical speculation should lead to the formulation of a transcendental moral standard by which the mighty will be judged and the institutions empowering them found wanting? Why should advances in mathematics and logic on the one hand, and empirical study of the natural and the social worlds on the other, lead to the conclusion that it is the duty of subjects to overturn unrighteous regimes? (2012: 330)

This seems to me more a confession of ignorance than an actual answer. The fact that the rebels and the renouncers were to be found in three other world regions, regions in which the religious contributions outshone contributions in philosophy and science, suggests that there must have been something special about Greece that made a difference. Runciman’s answer is no answer at all. In short, he doesn’t really know the answer. Paul Johnson (1976) doesn’t really know the answer either. He says that “the world was intellectually ready for Christianity. It was waiting for God. But it is unlikely the Hellenic world could have produced such a system from its own resources. . . . The Greek culture was an intellectual machine for the

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elucidation and transformation of religious ideas. . . . But Greece could not, or at any rate did not, produce the ideas themselves. These came from the east, from Babylon, Persia, Egypt” (1976: 7–8). Unfortunately, this is only a restatement of the problem, not a solution to it. (To be fair to Runciman and Johnson, it is a very difficult question, which is why they are struggling for an answer. I do not pretend to know the answer either.)

What was new in the Axial Age? What, then, were the critical elements of the Axial Age religions? What was new in the Axial Age? At least five features can be identified: 1. Monotheism in the Near East, and more or less in Hinduism in South Asia. 2. Transcendence in the Near East, but some ambiguity regarding the East and South Asian gods. 3. Salvation or release from suffering, this being common to all (Confucianism perhaps excepted). 4. A dramatic increase in the potential punitiveness of God and the increasing strictness of religious demands (especially in the Near East). 5. Decline or disappearance of animal sacrifice. Let us look at each of these in turn. 1. Monotheism. As we have seen, the Near Eastern religions all had an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God, a One True God, whereas the Asian religions, Hinduism being something of an exception, were not really monotheistic. For these reasons, it is inappropriate to speak of the Axial Age as a whole as a “transition from polytheism to monotheism.” And it calls into question, or at least qualifies, Wallace’s fourfold typology in which the last stage is monotheism.17 With monotheism came something else that was new—religious intolerance. Indeed, this is inherent in the very idea of One True God. If your religion has the One True God, then by definition other religions have either One False God, or many false gods. The pagan religions were notable for their high levels of religious tolerance. Not only were many gods worshiped, but one could pick and choose among them. And the gods of your enemies could usually be easily incorporated into your religion once you had conquered them. Gods could travel by diffusion from one society or empire to another, and often did.18

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2. Transcendence. It is perhaps more accurate to call the Axial Age religions world transcendent religions (or world salvation religions—see below). What is implied by the notion of transcendence is basically a God who is nothing like humans and who, although creating the world, stands outside it. This is in marked contrast to the pagan religions, which conceived of their gods as having human characteristics and desires. A transcendent God does not eat, have sex, marry, produce offspring, get drunk, murder other gods, go to war, play malicious tricks on humans, or have numerous foibles and weaknesses. He is the “uncaused cause” and the “unmoved mover.” He is perfection itself. Yehezkel Kaufmann (1960) makes the point that pagan gods are derived from a primordial realm, whereas in the Axial Age religions the deity is underived. (Kaufmann is actually speaking only of Judaism, but his argument can be extended to at least some of the other world religions.) Kaufmann says that a transcendent God is one “who is the source of all being, not subject to a cosmic order, and not emergent from a pre-existent realm” (1960: 29). A transcendent religion is one in which there is creation ex nihilo—“creation out of nothing” (Weber, 1978; McGrath, 2012). The shift from anthropomorphic gods to a transcendent God is especially well illustrated by the development of Judaism. As Mark Smith (2001) points out, prior to the eighth century, Yahweh is depicted in anthropomorphic terms in early biblical works. But in later biblical works of the period between the eighth and sixth centuries anthropomorphism becomes muted. In Deut. 4: 13, 15 Yahweh is said to have no “form.” Ps. 17: 15 uses the language of “divine form.” Moreover, “the vision of the divine in Ezekiel 1 deliberately attempts to stress the transcendent character of Yahweh by reducing the anthropomorphic presentation of Yahweh in the heavenly divine council” (Smith, 2001: 176). Pyysiäinen (2009) adds that the decreasing anthropomorphism of Yahweh went hand in hand with his increasing power and elevation to the status of the Only True God.19 They were part of the same package of traits.20 However, it is not completely clear that the God or gods of the East and South Asian religions are transcendent, or at least fully so. Kaufmann treats these religions as still pagan, claiming that their gods were derived from a primordial realm rather than being underived. There is a transcendent order, but the gods are subject to it and did not create it. He says that in the Upanishads, for example, we “find here the conception of an eternal, supreme, impersonal being, the source of all—Brahman-Atman. This is not the creator of the world but the world itself. . . . it has always existed” (1960: 39–40; emphasis added). Consistent with Kaufmann’s argument, the Asian gods retained something of a human-like quality. Shiva is often thought of as “destructive” and as taking

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the side of demons. Vishnu and Shiva are said to have relatives, consorts, and offspring. And of course there were elaborate statues and other physical representations depicting the Asian gods, something disallowed in the Near Eastern transcendent religions. On the other hand, Stephen Sharot suggests transcendence when he says that Vishnu-Shiva are “unknowable” and “without form” (Sharot, 2001). Flood tells us that “many Hindus believe in a transcendent God, beyond the universe, who is yet within all living beings and who can be approached in a variety of ways” (1996: 10). This is a knotty problem to resolve, but there is another way of thinking about it. Even if the East and South Asian gods are not truly transcendent, they are certainly different from pagan gods, a difference glossed over by Kaufmann. Consider once again the nature of pagan gods. Kaufmann himself gives a very good description. He notes that “Gilgamesh rebukes Ishtar for her wantonness and cruelty. . . . Indra, having committed murder, is depressed, and so purifies himself. Cronus castrates his father, and Zeus brings him, in turn, down to Hades. Zeus, Aphrodite, and most of the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon are steeped in promiscuity. The Teutonic Odin is a drunkard, a deceiver, an adulterer, a murderer” (1960: 38–39). The Asian gods do not behave this way, not even remotely. Neither the Buddha nor the bodhisattvas get drunk, marry, have offspring, or commit murder. The same is true for Vishnu-Shiva, as well as for Confucius and Laozi. Such behavior would be unthinkable for them (indeed, it is hard to think of them as “behaving” at all). Relatedly, gods vary in terms of how dependable and responsive they are to human needs, and in their power and scope (Stark and Bainbridge, 1987). Like the Near Eastern gods, the East and South Asian gods are dependable, responsive, and of great scope. Pagan gods are not like this. Their power and scope are limited, and many of them are notorious for their unreliability. Moreover, if the Asian gods are derived from a primordial realm, that realm is very different from the primordial realm of the pagan religions. In pagan religions, a common feature of the primordial realm is something concrete, such as “waters.” Yet we see nothing like this in the Asian religions. Their primordial realm is some sort of abstraction. Hindus, for example, believe in an uncreated “transcendent” principle (Brahman-Atman) that is the only reality and the cause and foundation of all existence. And it is a reality that is beyond human comprehension. This is nothing like “waters.” In short, even though Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism may not be fully transcendent religions, it makes little sense to call them pagan

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religions. For the most part they are very different. In this case Kaufmann’s underived/derived distinction, although very important, misleads us. 3. Salvation. It was Max Weber more than anyone who emphasized that the core feature of the world religions was their emphasis on salvation, which could take a variety of forms but which for most people took the form of a desire for release from suffering (Weber, 1978). (Closely bound up with this theme was an emphasis on God’s love and mercy.) That this was something new has also been recognized by William McNeill, who points out that earlier religions “viewed the afterworld as essentially a continuation of life as lived on earth, perhaps with some inescapable diminution of its fullness. The new religions of salvation, on the contrary, held that life beyond the grave involved radical change and improvement in society, so that only purged and purified spirits could share in life eternal” (1963: 338n). Although earlier types of religion postulated an afterlife that the spirit entered upon death—a concept of soul—the soul was not something that had to be “saved” from anything.21 4. Increasing potential punitiveness and strictness of religious demands. The Near Eastern religions constructed a God who, although loving and compassionate, could also inflict severe punishment on those who failed to acknowledge Him and live up to his great demands. Failure to make amends for sin condemned one to an afterlife filled with eternal pain and suffering on an unprecedented scale—Hell. Indeed, God could inflict all sorts of horrible punishments in this world for failure to acknowledge and obey Him. God’s potential wrath is greatest in the Old Testament. Both Judaism and Christianity placed strong demands on their followers. Jews were expected to keep the Law through regular attendance at synagogue, practicing circumcision, and following kosher dietary practices, among numerous other things. The Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai prescribed a strict moral code. The Commandments, of course, became a fundamental part of Christianity. The punitiveness of the deities was less severe in the East and South Asian religions, but existed nonetheless. Concepts of sin and hell existed in China, and Buddhism had a dark side in which people who had done evil had to pay for their sins. “The Pure Land to which the faithful might be transported and the other paradises of popular teaching were complemented by the purgatories, often depicted in a most grisly and terrifying way, in which evil men would have to work off their sins” (Smart, 1996: 136). How can we make sense of one and the same supernatural power being simultaneously compassionate and loving, on the one hand, and demanding

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and potentially punitive, on the other? One suggestion has been made by Lee Kirkpatrick (2005). He points to considerable research which shows that children form stronger attachments to authoritarian and demanding parents than to less demanding ones and thus people will form a stronger attachment to an authoritarian and demanding God than to one who requires much less. A different idea has been suggested by Rodney Stark (1999): humans will pay higher “prices” to the extent that the gods are believed to be dependable, responsive, and of greater scope.22 Dependable gods are those who can be trusted to “keep their word” in a consistent way. Responsive gods are those who show concern for the well-being of humans by acknowledging their appeals and answering their prayers. The scope of a god is the diversity and range of its powers. Generally the three are found together: gods of great scope are usually highly dependable and responsive. This is particularly so if there is just One True God. But it is more than a matter of people’s willingness to pay higher “prices.” A god of great scope, dependability, and responsiveness expects or requires that people pay more. It is a matter of social exchange and reciprocity; the greater the rewards one party provides to another, the greater the obligations the other incurs. This is a fundamental principle of human interaction everywhere. It should be expected to apply to god-human relations just as it does to relations between humans. 5. The decline and virtual disappearance of animal sacrifice. It is not difficult to see why this would have occurred. Such sacrifice makes no sense except as an offering to an anthropomorphic god. A transcendent god does not eat or drink and cannot be fed or nourished. Whether fully transcendent or not, Vishnu, Shiva, and celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas do not eat or drink either, and thus it makes no sense to offer sacrificed animals to them. Some animal sacrifice did continue, but its goals were different. For example, in Judaism at the time of Christ and shortly thereafter animals were sacrificed in the Temple, but such sacrifice was not devoted to “feeding God” (Anderson, 1987). It was devoted to other goals, such as atonement for sins and expressing thanks to God (Hallo, 2011). Because the most important features of the new Axial Age religions were salvation and to some extent transcendence rather than monotheism sensu stricto, it seems most appropriate to call them world transcendent or world salvation religions. The indisputable core dimension, though, has to be salvation, because it is the only dimension that is fully common to them all. Indeed, that is precisely why Weber called them salvation religions. Table 3.1 summarizes these religions’ predominant features.

Table 3.1 Predominant features of the world salvation religions Feature

ZOR

JUD

CHR

HIN

Probably sixth-century BCE in Bactria or Southwestern Iran

BUD

CON

DAO

Late-sixth-century BCE in North India

Sixth-century BCE in China

Sixth-century BCE in China

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha)

Confucius

Laozi

Spread throughout Spread throughout China to become India in early its principal centuries BCE, religion, although but then died folk religions out in India remained in favor of important (often Hinduism more important); around 1200 linked closely to CE; spread Chinese state to China and Southeast Asia in early first millennium CE

Replaced Confucianism during Han period and became main popular faith along with Chinese folk religions; underwent decline in seventhcentury CE

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Earliest form (the In Palestine about 1300 Shortly after 1 CE in Eastern Vedas) about 1500 BCE in original Mediterranean BCE in North polytheistic India, but classical form; shift to version 500 BCE monotheism – CE 1 around 600 BCE No known founder Jesus Christ, as Founders/ Zoroaster Biblical version: early interpreted by Prophets (Zarathustra); Hebrew prophets, Saul of Tarsus Saoshyans as savior for example, (Paul) and the Moses, Abraham, authors of the Isaac; revisionist Gospels version: later prophets and kings, for example, Hosea, Hezekiah, Josiah Spread throughout Spread slowly but Development and Became official religion Throughout Palestine India in first then more after 600 BCE, spread of Persian Empire few centuries rapidly through with diaspora in sixth-century BCE, eventually cities of Roman communities BCE; very limited displacing Empire; throughout eastern spread and Buddhism as adopted and Mediterranean; geographical range principal Indian promoted by limited spread and religion Constantine geographical range around 312 CE

Date and Place of Origin

(Cont.)

105

106

Table 3.1 (Continued) ZOR

JUD

Conception of Supernatural

Transcendent God Ahura Mazda; Angra Mainyu as evil polar opposite

Transcendent God (Yahweh) as the One True God

Salvation Doctrines

Radical distinction between good and evil; day of reckoning in which the faithful rise to Heaven and the unfaithful descend into Hell

CHR

HIN

BUD

CON

DAO

The Dao eventually Traditionally Original Buddhist Powerful High God Transcendent One evolved into a understood to doctrine Vishnu-Shiva, True God; Jesus personal God in the have no concept atheistic, conceived either Christ as Son form of Laozi; he of supernatural but eventual as two gods or two of God and assumed an incarnate agents; largely a deification of dimensions of a personal savior, form and descended secular philosophy the Buddha; single God; many but equal with to earth as a savior; rather than a Mahayana other minor deities God the Father but not monotheistic; religion; but some Buddhism worshiped in and unified contained a complex contend that it believed in local and regional with him and pantheon of gods did emphasize bodhisattvas traditions the Holy Spirit; dependence on a who delay their doctrine of the supreme power, achievement Trinity and Confucius of nirvana and himself deified descend to and people pray to earth to help him at temples others attain salvation For elite Daoists, For elite Buddhists, None; doctrines Release from earthly Forgiveness of Elimination of achievement of emphasizing right release from suffering and sins and entry wickedness living and good ecstasy and becoming earthly endless cycle of into an eternal from the world, government one with the Dao; suffering and reincarnation; afterlife in restoration of Israel for ordinary Daoists, endless cycle attainment of a heavenly to its rightful place avoidance of death of rebirths; nirvana; no heaven paradise among nations, and eternity of the attainment or paradise and resurrection of body; those who of nirvana; the righteous dead avoid death go Buddhist straight to paradise masses did not seek nirvana but salvation in a paradise by a loving god (Cont.)

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Feature

Table 3.1 (Continued) ZOR

Means of achieving salvation

Adherence to the Law Humans have free will (e.g., dietary rules, and determine circumcision, rest their fate; salvation on the sabbath) is for those who perform good deeds and avoid sin (or repent)

JUD

CHR

Religious practitioners

Priests

Priests, rabbis

Principal rituals and practices

Temple worship; celebration of seven annual high feasts; prayer

Imagistic depictions of God

No

Participation in Participation in formal church formal rituals of rituals led synagogue led by by priests; priests; recognition recognition of Jewish holidays of religious (e.g., Hannakuh); holidays (e.g., transition rites Easter); prayer (e.g., Bar Mitzvah) God is beyond human God is beyond human comprehension comprehension and therefore and therefore incapable of incapable depiction of depiction (Jesus as Son of God can be depicted)

HIN

Belief in Christ as Rejection of material personal savior; world through repentance of ascetic discipline sin, etc. and mystical contemplation; performance of obligations and devotion to a personal god Priests Priests, monks, wandering ascetics Meditation; temple worship

Elaborate

BUD

CON

DAO

No concept of Rejection of salvation, but material world five principles of through ascetic correct behavior discipline and mystical contemplation; following eightfold path Priests, monks, None wandering ascetics Meditation; temple Cultivation of worship the scholarly gentleman

Elite Daoists entered trances to achieve ecstasy; masses used various techniques to achieve salvation and immortality; avoid sin (or repent)

Elaborate

Yes

Yes

Priests

Trances, respiratory techniques, magical formulas, collective rituals

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Feature

(Cont.)

107

Feature

ZOR

Apocalyptic Yes Movements Extent of Moderately demanding demands to demanding Tolerance of other Moderate religions

108

Table 3.1 (Continued) JUD

CHR

HIN

BUD

CON

DAO

Many

Many

No

No

No

No

Demanding to very demanding Low to moderate

Demanding to very demanding Low to moderate

Moderately demanding Moderately demanding Moderate to high Moderate to high

Moderately demanding Moderate to high

Moderately demanding Moderate to high

Descriptions refer to the nature of these religions at their time of origin and in ensuing centuries. They do not necessarily apply in all respects to contemporary versions.

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Sources: Weber (1951, 1952, 1958, 1978), Kaufmann (1960), Zaehner (1961), McNeill (1963), Schwartz (1975), Momigliano (1975), Humphreys (1975), Johnson (1976), Morton Smith (1978), Maspero (1981), Parrinder (1983), Zeitlin (1984, 1988), Lyons and Peters (1985), Elkana (1986), Meier (1986), Weinfeld (1986), Eisenstadt (1986d), Boltz (1987), Cohen (1987), Overmyer (1987), Basham (1989), Cohn (1993), Reat (1994), Flood (1996), Smart (1996), Stark (1996, 2001a, 2006, 2011), Arney (1999), Ehrman (1999, 2014), Hopkins (1999), Reynolds (1999), Gnoli (2000), Yao (2000), Lopez (2001), Sharot (2001), Boyce (2001), Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), Mark Smith (2001, 2002), Kinnard (2006), Wilson (2008), MacCulloch (2009), Rafael (2009), Walker (2009), Rainey (2010).

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Conclusion This chapter and the last have described the long-term evolution of religion from its early shamanic forms to the world transcendent religions that began to develop two-and-a-half millennia ago and that dominate the world today. The problem now is to explain this evolutionary process, especially the transition to the Axial Age religions. The next chapter begins the effort to address this problem.

4

Explaining Religion

To understand why religion has changed so much over the millennia, we need to understand why there is religion at all. There have been many theories, but I limit myself here to two of the best-known classical theories, along with three recent theories that I regard as having special significance.1

Religion as the worship of society One of the most famous sociological analyses of religion was carried out by Emile Durkheim in the early part of the twentieth century. In his book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim (1965) attempted to understand the social role of religion by studying its simplest or most elementary forms. In this book he analyzed the totemic religious rituals of the Aranda, an Australian huntergatherer society about which considerable ethnographic knowledge already existed as a result of the research of the anthropologists Sir Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen (1938). Durkheim’s general sociological perspective was that social life constitutes a level of reality all its own that is not interpretable in terms of the characteristics of individuals. Sociologists, he claimed, study social facts, phenomena that exist apart from individuals and exert a controlling influence on them. Durkheim believed that social facts can only be explained in terms of other social facts, and he applied this sociological perspective in his study of religion. Religion is something eminently social, not psychological. It arises because humans live in societies and societies have certain collective needs. Religion exists because it fulfills certain crucial social functions that cannot be fulfilled without it. Its chief role, Durkheim thought, is that of a societal integrator. It binds people together by uniting them around a common set of

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beliefs, values, and social rituals. It thus helps to preserve society or the group as a moral community. In reading Spencer and Gillen’s ethnography Durkheim observed that among the Aranda ritual and ceremony were exceptionally important parts of social life. He derived a radical (and highly speculative) thesis from this. He contended that the fact that the Aranda worshiped supernatural powers was not what was most important about their activity. Whether they knew it or not, they were really worshiping the power of their society over them. Their religious rituals demonstrated and symbolized the need for individuals to submit themselves to the will of the group. In coming together in ritual, the Aranda publicly reaffirmed their commitment to one another and to society as a whole. Since religion is about sacred things, it was society that was surreptitiously being made sacred. Durkheim thought that this was not only what the Aranda did, but is what people in all religions do. He thus concluded that it is the ritualistic component of religion that is most important because it is through ritual that the binding power of the community is symbolized. Durkheim’s analysis of religion has been enormously influential in twentiethcentury sociology. His notion that religion plays a role as an integrator of society contains at least a kernel of truth. The cohesion of any group or society is enhanced when people share the same values, including religious values. And yet Durkheim’s theory suffers from numerous problems that make it unsuitable as a general theory of religion. The theory was harshly judged as soon as it appeared. The anthropologist Alexander Goldenweiser (1915, 1917) wrote two highly critical reviews of it, one of the original French edition and a second of the English translation. In both reviews he essentially dismissed the theory as wrong in all of its fundamentals. Durkheim’s theory has continued to be heavily criticized in the century after which Goldenweiser first reviewed it. The following are the most serious problems: 1. The theory is in trouble at the very start in terms of Durkheim’s definition of religion. As we saw in Chapter 1, he erroneously thought that Buddhism had no supernatural beings and that there were small-scale societies without them. This is what led him to identify the sacred as the essence of religion. But Durkheim’s cure was worse than what he thought was the original disease. As Pascal Boyer points out, “Durkheim’s original distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ situations and ideas just does not pass the test of cross-cultural comparisons. Many actions and contexts that appear

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undoubtedly ‘religious,’ in our ordinary understanding of the term, are not performed in the atmosphere of mystery and awe suggested by Durkheim’s description” (1994: 46–47). Moreover, in the religions of small-scale societies, both creator gods and lesser spirits are only infrequently objects of any particular awe or reverence. The shift to treating the gods with great awe and reverence occurs primarily in the transition to pagan religions, which was probably for the most part a reflection of the increasing stratification of society and hierarchization of social relations. Durkheim was right to claim that many of the contents of religions are reflections of the specifics of the underlying social order. In the kinds of societies most likely to have shamanic or communal religions, since most social relations are fairly egalitarian the relations between individuals and supernatural beings are much less hierarchical than what we find in much more stratified societies. Spirits and gods are much more likely to be objects of awe and reverence when some individuals within the society expect this kind of behavior to be shown to them. The creator gods given the greatest amount of awe and reverence are the monotheistic gods that were created during the Axial Age within the most stratified societies that have ever existed. In these societies, individuals were always submitting to superiors even in the subtleties and nuances of everyday interaction (Collins, 1975, 2009). As we saw in the first chapter, Durkheim’s privileging of ritual over belief is questionable. When people engage in religious rituals, there has to be some sort of supernatural agent—or, in Durkheim’s terms, sacred object—to which these rituals are devoted. Beliefs are at least on a par with rituals, if not more important. Durkheim thought that totemism was the most elementary form of religion, but this is highly dubious. As should be clear from earlier discussions, shamanism appears to be religion’s earliest and most elementary form. It is unsurprising that Durkheim would ignore shamans, because the society he studied, the Aranda, had no shamans. This is unusual for a hunter-gatherer society, which makes the Aranda an atypical case. Relatedly, it is methodologically problematic in the extreme to assume that one can generalize to all religions from a single case, and an atypical one at that. Durkheim was highly critical of the comparative method that was commonly used in his day—studying a wide range of societies and comparing and contrasting them—but that is precisely what is needed to

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understand religion. This method has proved its legitimacy and value again and again. 6. Durkheim’s emphasis on the collective effervescence produced by ritual is misplaced because many rituals don’t produce effervescence at all. The collective effervescence of which Durkheim speaks is limited to Whitehouse’s imagistic mode of religiosity in which rituals produce a great deal of emotional intensity and are highly arousing. How then to explain the doctrinal mode, in which rituals involve little emotional intensity, are highly routinized, and often lead to tedium rather than arousal? 7. Religion may produce social cohesion, but this is likely an effect rather than a cause. This is one of the serious problems with the functionalist type of reasoning Durkheim employed—the unfalsifiability of functionalist explanations. And how can religion be explained as something intended to support a moral order when in most societies religion and morality are in fact separate realms? Religion and morality are most closely linked in societies with pagan and world transcendent religions. In small-scale societies, the realms of the religious and the moral are not closely linked or not linked at all. 8. Perhaps most importantly, Durkheim’s conception of the relationship between individual and society in the foundations of religion is utterly out of balance. In his general sociology, individuals were always imbedded in and the product of social relations, acted upon by social forces of great power. The mental life of individuals was not a product of individual brains—categories of individual thinking—but socially determined. This carried over into his sociology of religion in an even more extreme way. Using Durkheim’s perspective, how are we to make sense of such religious leaders as prophets, reformers, saints, and shamans? Such leaders “do not require the social stimulant, they shun the crowd, the church, the world, [and] their god is within them” (Goldenweiser, 1915: 728). Moreover, “How is it that the . . . novice, in anticipation of the most significant, if not initial religious experience of his life, withdraws from human companionship, spends days, nay months in isolation, fasts and purifies himself, dreams dreams and sees visions?” (Goldenweiser, 1915: 728). One of the best pronouncements ever made about Durkheim’s theory was that of the anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard: “It is his society that primitive man worships in the symbol of a god. It is to his society that he prays and makes sacrifice. This postulate of sociologistic metaphysic seems to me to be an

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assertion for which there is no evidence. It was Durkheim and not the savage who made society into a god” (1956: 313; emphasis added).

Religion as the opium of the people Karl Marx (1963) wrote very little about religion, but what he did have to say was highly critical if not downright venomous. His most famous comments on religion were made in an early essay written in 1843. In this essay he described religion’s social role in the following terms: Religion is the general theory of this world, . . . its logic in popular form . . . , its moral sanction, its solemn complement, its general basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human being inasmuch as the human being possesses no true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly a struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. (1963: 43–44; emphasis in original)

In this passage, Marx declares religion to be an expression of oppression and suffering, as well as a means of rationalizing and justifying the prevailing social order. Most importantly, Marx refers to religion as the “opium of the people.” By this he means that religion acts upon people in a drug-like fashion: it alleviates suffering, but it does not eliminate the conditions that produce suffering. Therefore it merely placates people, allowing them to accept the social conditions under which they live in the hope of an afterlife in which all suffering and misery will be forever banished. Since religion merely soothes human suffering but does not eliminate its basis, it allows people to continue to accept the world as it is and not try to change it. Thus Marx saw religion as an inherently conservative force since it mutes the possibility of people acquiring a revolutionary consciousness through which the world itself can be changed—which of course was Marx’s overriding life goal. Marx held religion in utter contempt. Although originally a Jew—both of his grandfathers were rabbis—he hated Judaism, and Christianity as well. He formulated a list of theses—Marx was famous for formulating lists of theses— that he referred to as “The Social Principles of Christianity.” They are (as summarized in Draper, 2007):

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The social principles of Christianity have now had eighteen hundred years to develop and need no further development by Prussian councilors. The social principles of Christianity justified the slavery of Antiquity, glorified the serfdom of the Middle Ages, and equally know, when necessary, how to defend the oppression of the proletariat, although they make a pitiful face over it. The social principles of Christianity preach the necessity of a ruling and an oppressed class, and all they have for the latter is the pious wish the former will be charitable. The social principles of Christianity transfer the councilors’ adjustment of all infamies to heaven and thus justify the further existence of those infamies on earth. The social principles of Christianity declare all vile acts of the oppressors against the oppressed to be either the just punishment of original sin and other sins or trials that the Lord in his infinite wisdom imposes on those redeemed. The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, dejection, in a word all the qualities of the canaille [rabble]; and the proletariat, not wishing to be treated as canaille, needs its courage, its self-reliance, its pride, and its sense of independence more than its bread. The social principles of Christianity are sneakish and the proletariat is revolutionary. So much for the social principles of Christianity.

Marx favored the abolition of all religion in order to facilitate the proletarian socialist revolution, which is why communist societies in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been officially atheistic. Two lines of evidence provide some support for this theory. Looking at things at the societal level, we see that in more politically advanced societies, large-scale chiefdoms and states, there is usually a close connection between religious and political institutions. The earliest chiefdoms and states were typically theocracies, forms of government in which the roles of priests and political rulers were combined in the same person. With further political evolution there was usually a differentiation of religious and political roles, but religion and politics were by and large mutually supporting. In societies with pagan religions in particular, political elites used the gods to reinforce their rule, usually proclaiming it to be divinely ordered.

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The second line of evidence comes from surveys of people’s religious and political attitudes in contemporary Western societies. In a classic study, Charles Glock and Rodney Stark (1965) examined the relationship between religion and political party affiliation in France. They placed six French political parties on a continuum ranging from the most radical, the Communists, to the most conservative, the Peasant and Independent Party. They then examined the religious beliefs and practices of the members of these parties. They found a very strong relationship between political conservatism and orthodox religious belief and practice, and a corresponding antagonism between orthodox religion and radical politics. Only 7 percent of the Communists were currently engaged in the practice of a religious faith, whereas 68 percent of the members of the Peasant and Independent Party were practicing a faith. In terms of religious beliefs, only 9 percent of the Communists were certain of the existence of God, whereas a full 77 percent of the Peasant and Independent Party members were certain of God's existence. In addition, they found that the members of the more radical parties were much more likely than the members of the conservative parties to harbor specific forms of hostility toward the church. The authors also examined the relationship between religion and political party membership in the Netherlands, and their results were essentially the same as those for France. Another study showing the same pattern was conducted by another Marx, in this case the contemporary sociologist Gary Marx (1967). Marx sought to discover whether religion among black Americans served as an “opiate” or an inspiration for militant action in the struggle for civil rights. He found that religion generally served as an opiate. For example, only 26 percent of his respondents who were classified as “very religious” held a militant stance, whereas 70 percent of the respondents identified as “not at all religious” expressed a militant position. Thus the studies of Glock and Stark and of Marx are consistent with the opium of the people thesis, as is much other research (studies summarized in Sanderson, 1973). However, the Marxian thesis, like Durkheim’s, can explain only a very small part of religion. Religion is often a catalyst for change instead of a suppressor of political action (Firth, 1981). In the world salvation religions, prophets and other religious innovators were challenging the dominant political order, not trying to maintain it. In many ways this was what the new world religions were all about. Moreover, Pascal Boyer (2001) proposes an interesting twist on the relationship between religious and political elites. Boyer essentially inverts the Marxian notion that political elites use religious elites to legitimize their rule.

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He suggests that, in fact, it is the religious elites who have often tried to use the political elites for their purposes. Religious elites try to garner political influence to gain a monopoly in the market for their services. Boyer says: It is both largely true and somewhat misleading to construe religion as the ally of the oppressors, as an institution that invariably supports centralized political power and offers supernatural justifications for the established order. This is true in the sense that many successful religious guilds were successful precisely because they adopted this strategy. But it is misleading in the sense that organized religious guilds of this kind are not the whole of religion. Indeed, they choose this strategy precisely because the competition is constant and in fact highly successful too. (2001: 276–77)

In other words, the relationship between political and religious institutions can run in two directions, not just one. But the most serious problem with the Marxian theory is that it leaves almost entirely unanswered the question of why people are religious at all. Religion is universal and the Marxian theory has no relevance whatsoever to the religions of small-scale societies in which there are no political or economic elites for religion to legitimize. Considering the wide range of religious beliefs and practices found throughout the world and throughout history, it is obvious that most of people’s religiosity is motivated by conditions having nothing to do with what Marx was talking about.

Religion as a source of scarce or nonexistent rewards A quarter-century ago Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge (1987) formulated a general theory of religion containing several hundred propositions. Their theory draws on the sociological approach known as rational choice or exchange theory, which assumes that humans are self-interested actors whose behavior seeks to maximize rewards and minimize costs, or at least to achieve a favorable ratio of rewards to costs. People seek such things as status, wealth, love, affection, and personal companionship, but they also seek religious rewards, which are rewards that are otherwise scarce or nonexistent. Some of Stark and Bainbridge’s central propositions are: 1. In life people seek to obtain rewards and avoid costs, and exchange with each other in order to accomplish these ends. Most rewards are worldly rewards, such as the desire for status and wealth, good education for one’s children,

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and so on. But there are some areas of human concern for which worldly rewards are not possible. In this regard, people seek religious rewards mainly as compensators for what they are unable to obtain. People thus exchange not with other humans, but with gods or other spiritual forces. Persons who specialize in producing and exchanging compensators of great generality based on supernatural assumptions are religious specialists. Persons with acute unmet needs for scarce or nonexistent specific rewards are more likely than others to become religious seekers, often chronic seekers. As social enterprises, religious organizations tend to provide some worldly rewards as well as compensators. Humans seek to exchange with good gods, and to avoid exchanging with evil gods. People will prefer those good gods who are thought to protect them from exchanges with evil gods. If changes in the external environment result in an intensification of the need for, and the number of people in need of, effective compensators, the tendency toward the formation of religious sects and cults is strengthened. Religious groups and organizations exist within a competitive market, or religious economy. Those that compete most effectively by promoting themselves and by offering doctrines and rituals that are highly appealing to most people will tend to survive and proliferate at the expense of others.

The idea of a religious economy is an especially important part of Stark’s approach. In some societies there is a state church, for example, the Catholic Church in France or Italy, Lutheranism in Scandinavia. Here the official religion becomes less and less capable over time of meeting people’s religious needs, so they tend to drift away from it and religious practice declines, often markedly. We see this throughout contemporary Europe. But other societies have open religious economies with no religious monopoly. There may be many different religious organizations competing for people’s attention. This has been true of the United States and of ancient Rome, and is currently the situation in Latin America, where Protestantism has grown enormously. There the Catholic Church had a monopoly, but Catholicism gradually failed to meet the religious needs of most of the population, and so the monopoly largely collapsed. People outside the church became open to new ideas, which were introduced from the outside by Protestant evangelists (mostly from the United States), and a

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sufficiently large Protestant base has now been established in Latin America so that Protestantism has become self-sustaining. A decade later, Stark (1999) reformulated some of his principles and added to them. The most important change he made was to drop the concept of compensator and replace it with otherworldly reward. This seems to have been motivated by a desire to make religious motivations more general than simply compensation for such things as suffering and anxiety. This is an important alteration, especially when one is dealing with the entire range of religious types throughout history. Another important change is the greater attention Stark gives to the worldly rewards offered by religion. These are legion. In pagan religions, for example, elites propitiate their gods for such things as success in love and war, and the masses pray for good health and their children’s success. In his update Stark sets forth a number of new propositions. Here are four: 1. The greater the number of gods worshiped by a group, the lower the price— the less the cost—of exchanging with each. 2. In exchanging with the gods, humans will pay higher prices to the extent that the gods are believed to be dependable, responsive, and of greater scope. 3. The greater their scope, and the more responsive they are, the more plausible it will be that gods can provide otherworldly rewards. Conversely, exchanges with gods of smaller scope will tend to be limited to worldly rewards. 4. A religious organization will be able to require extended and exclusive commitments to the extent that it offers otherworldly rewards. These propositions are especially important because they relate closely to one of the principal aims of this book, which is to understand the rise of gods of great scope. In general, Stark’s theory is very useful. In fact, it is one of the best theories of religion ever offered in sociology, far superior to those of Durkheim or Marx. Moreover, it is compatible in a general sense with some of the other theories examined below and in the next chapter. (But only partially compatible. David Sloan Wilson [2002] makes the important point that Stark’s theory is limited by its focus on proximate causes. Evolutionary theories, still to be discussed, give emphasis to ultimate causes.) However, there is one peculiarity: Stark’s definition of religion. He refers to religion as a set of explanations concerning a god or gods. He says, “Within the context of clarifying what the gods want, religious

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explanations often explain the fundamental meaning of life: how we got here and where we are going. Religion is first, and foremost, an intellectual product and hence I propose that ideas are its truly fundamental aspect” (1999: 270). Although it can be agreed that ideas are the fundamental aspect of religion, this definition misses a great deal of religion and emphasizes something that is found only in some religions: a quest for life’s meaning (Boyer, 1994). The question of life’s meaning is a major concern primarily in the world transcendent religions, and even then this is not the primary religious concern of many of these religions’ followers. As Stark knows full well, people use religion to obtain numerous kinds of rewards, such as ontological security and release from suffering. How is it that, in seeking such rewards, people are engaged in explaining anything? It seems to me that they are believing in something, not explaining it.

Religion as a source of ontological security The idea that religion plays an important role in helping people cope with existential anxiety has been widely endorsed. One of the first to make this claim was the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1954) nearly a century ago. He contended that both religion and magic function to deal with emotional stresses from “crises of life, lacunae in important pursuits, death and initiation into tribal mysteries, unhappy love and unsatisfied hate. Both magic and religion open up escapes from such situations and such impasses as offer no empirical way out except by ritual and belief into the domain of the supernatural” (1954: 87). Malinowski studied both magic and religion among the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia. In an example that has become legendary, he observed that when the Trobrianders sailed their canoes not far from shore they performed no magical rites beforehand. But when they sailed for long distances over the open sea, which they frequently did, magical rites entered the picture. The reason, Malinowski claimed, was because open-sea sailing was fraught with much more danger than sailing close to shore. Greater danger led to greater anxiety, and magical rites helped to assuage it. Malinowski thought that the greatest anxiety people experience is the fear of death. However, this is dubious. In all societies there is concern about the dead and religious rituals are performed in connection with death. But death is not universally feared; in many societies there is no real fear of death or even any particular concern with an afterlife. It only seems to be with the development

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of more complex religious doctrines that death and the afterlife become major concerns (Pyysiäinen, 2009). However, Malinowski’s more general point linking religion to existential anxiety can still stand. Much more recently Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart (2011) have used the term existential security to describe the key factor that they believe motivates religious belief and practice. Their main concern is to understand why some societies in the modern world have undergone substantial secularization whereas others have not. They show that it is primarily the rich Western nations, and some non-Western countries like Japan and South Korea, that have become the most secular. Religiosity remains strong in the world’s poorer countries. The reason, according to the authors, is that life in the richer countries has become much safer and more secure, whereas many people in poor countries are still plagued by hunger and disease and are much more severely affected than wealthy nations by such natural disasters as droughts, earthquakes, and floods. “Poor nations,” they say, “have limited access to the basic conditions of survival, including the provision of uncontaminated water and adequate food, access to effective public services offering basic healthcare, literacy and schooling, and an adequate income” (2011: 14). Lee Kirkpatrick (2005) has formulated a slightly different and more elaborate theory. (Kirkpatrick is actually one of the newer students of religion to study it from the standpoint of cognitive psychology, but I discuss here the dimension of his theory that I consider most important and most relevant to the aims of this book. I discuss other dimensions later.) He has applied John Bowlby’s (1969) classic evolutionary attachment theory to explain certain features of religious belief and behavior. Bowlby was combining psychoanalytic theory with Darwinism. He assumed that the human infant is primed to form a strong bond with its parents, its mother in particular, because parents are needed for nurturance and protection in an ancestral environment filled with a wide range of dangers. For Kirkpatrick, many religious notions are extensions or generalizations of the parent-child bond. Supernatural agents are seen as protectors from harm in much the way that parents are. God becomes a haven of safety and a secure base. Kirkpatrick points out that people in modern societies often turn to religion in times of psychological distress and crisis, such as personal catastrophes, serious illness or injury, and death and grieving. He notes that much of Christian scripture, for example, reveals the importance of God in providing “a shield” or “strength.” Other attachment theorists, Pehr Granqvist, Mario Mikulincer, and Phillip Shaver (2010), point out that “in Buddhism, a

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common form of compassion meditation involves vividly remembering what it feels like to have an attachment figure (often one’s mother) provide one with unconditional love” (2010: 56). They add, “One of the simplest and most common Buddhist prayers . . . is ‘I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha’” (2010: 57). Taking refuge in the Buddha, for these authors, means that people are seeking a safe haven and a secure base. Kirkpatrick stresses that God or gods are primarily substitute attachment figures for natural attachment figures, that is, fathers, mothers, and other close kin. The feeling of a relationship with God or gods is most likely to be activated, therefore, when an individual’s sense of security, safety, and freedom from anxiety falls below a certain threshold as a result of natural attachments being inadequate to life’s challenges. Thus, children who fail to develop adequate attachments to parents should be more likely than other children to develop an attachment to God. Kirkpatrick calls this the compensation hypothesis. This language is particularly revealing because it shows how Kirkpatrick’s argument dovetails with the sociological rational choice theory of Rodney Stark, who in the original version of his theory actually employed the term “compensator,” as well as with some aspects of the sociology of religion of Max Weber (1978), who argued that what disprivileged classes seek most from religion is compensation. In terms of empirical support, Kirkpatrick reviews research showing that people who display strong attachments to God show better physical and mental health and report less loneliness and depression, fewer psychosomatic symptoms, and greater life satisfaction. He also points to research on religious converts to sects and cults showing that 80 percent of converts reported poor attachments to their fathers and 53 percent poor attachments to their mothers compared to, respectively, only 23 percent and 7 percent of a control group (Ullman, 1982, 1989). A strong challenge to evolutionary attachment theory has been issued by Scott Atran (2002). He makes three main points (my responses in parentheses): 1. If religion is an extension of mother-child love, then why are there religious puberty ceremonies devoted to rupturing the mother-child relationship, often in violent ways? (This can be explained as a way for boys to pass the threshold into manhood and does not indicate loss of a mother’s love. Boys have to become men in all societies and many societies give great emphasis to this.) 2. Interactions with deities are very different from interactions with and attachments to parents. (True, but gods are conceived of as protectors in

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many societies [Boyer, 2001]. The two forms of attachment do not need to be just the same for the attachment theory to work; they just need to be similar. Also, in Christianity at least, god is the Father, the Virgin Mary is the mother, priests are fathers, nuns are sisters, and so on. Note as well that in modern Christianity, which has spread all over the world, Jesus is love, and people give their lives over to Jesus so they can run smoothly and be free from bad things. So it is not unusual to see the kind of family attachment theme proposed by Kirkpatrick represented in various religions.) 3. Supernatural deities are often evil as well as protective. Atran points out that “among the pre-Columbian Maya and Mexicans, for example, there appears to have been no entirely benevolent deity, and all were feared (to greater or lesser degrees) for their ability to bring death on almost anyone, almost anywhere” (2002: 75). He also points out that many of the gods of the Maya, Toltecs, Aztecs, and other related groups required large-scale bloody sacrifices. In rural villages in south India deities have both benevolent and very evil qualities. (Yes, but a very good reason for having deities that are protectors is that there are other deities who do harm. Even if Atran is right about Mesoamerican deities, this would be an aberration. Moreover, not all parents are protectors. They can do evil themselves in the form of physical and mental abuse, neglect, and so on, but such parental behavior does not overturn Bowlby’s attachment theory.) By contrast, Boyer and Bergstrom suggest that attachment theory has much to offer, saying that under some circumstances gods or spirits can simulate a real-world attachment figure: that is, offer a safe emotional haven in times of distress, enable a sense of security, and provide a secure base from which to explore life. Such a perspective illuminates certain aspects of religion that are not easily explained by the dynamics of coalition or social exchange. For example, the need for physical proximity to icons, churches, or written texts; the importance of prayer in moments of extreme psychological distress; the importance of spiritual relationships to those in a state of bereavement all receive some explanatory purchase from attachment dynamics. (2008: 122)

Returning to Atran’s critique, what he could have said (and might be implying) is that Kirkpatrick’s theory is restricted in scope: it works best for the world religions, but not so well for many others. And, indeed, almost all of Kirkpatrick’s

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discussion is limited to religion in modern societies.2 His argument, or so it will be argued in Chapter 7, is most relevant to large-scale societies. It has little relevance to small-scale societies, largely because in those societies most people maintain strong social attachments, especially to kin. Be that as it may, some of the thinking of the sociological theorist Anthony Giddens converges with the attachment theory in that Giddens (1990, 1991) has argued that the need for ontological security is a fundamental human need. This involves a need to feel that one’s life and the lives of kin are secure, safe, free from harm, stable, predictable, and so on. Giddens defines this concept as “the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and in the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action. A sense of the reliability of persons and things, so central to the notion of trust, is basic to feelings of ontological security” (1990: 92). In the human ancestral environment the most important things that can diminish ontological security are danger from animal predators, natural forces, manipulative and deceitful humans, and chronic warfare, and the types of religion found in this environment largely reflect these concerns. In more advanced societies, the sense of ontological security is most likely to be disrupted by rapid and massive social change, and in these societies we see very different kinds of religion that seem to reflect these new concerns. In such societies the problems of cosmological order and meaning and the fear of death also seem to loom larger. Central to Giddens’s notion of ontological security is the problem of trust. Giddens notes that the first context of trust is the kinship system, “which in most pre-modern settings provides a relatively stable mode of organizing ‘bundles’ of social relations across time and space” (1990: 101). In a sense Giddens has virtually rediscovered evolutionary attachment theory, as is evident in the following passage: “The trust which the child, in normal circumstances, vests in its caretakers, I want to argue, can be seen as a sort of emotional inoculation against existential anxieties—a protection against future threats and dangers which allows the individual to sustain hope and courage in the face of whatever debilitating circumstances she or he might later confront” (1991: 39–40; emphasis added). Giddens identifies two other types of social relations that contribute importantly to ontological security, the local community and religion. “Religious cosmologies,” he says, “provide moral and practical interpretations of personal and social life, as well as of the natural world, which represent an environment of security for the believer” (1990: 103).

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Atran and Boyer say that we cannot explain religion as an adaptive anxietyreduction system because religion is itself often the source of anxiety. This is undeniable—for example, in all societies there are evil spirits and gods that induce fear, and in many strains of Christianity throughout history people have been tormented by fear of violating God’s commandments and being cast into Hell—but the mistake in arguments like this is the implicit assumption that a trait must be optimally designed in order to be an adaptation. Many biologically adaptive traits in many species are far from optimally designed because evolution never starts with a clean slate. It is always working with preexisting structures and must make do with what is available. It would be like saying that the shape and dimensions of the human pelvis are not adaptations because the birth canal is narrow and infants and their mothers have often died in childbirth throughout most of human history. Evolutionary advantage frequently involves tradeoffs— the size and shape of the human pelvis is an evolutionary compromise between successful childbirth and bipedal locomotion—and thus the key question is whether a trait or structure yields more benefits than costs. As long as a religion’s supernatural entities provide more benefits and rewards than fear and punishment, that religion can be said to be operating adaptively. Kirkpatrick’s evolutionary attachment theory and Giddens’s notion of ontological security provide us with an important component for understanding some of the features of religion, especially the evolution of the world salvation religions. Since Kirkpatrick formulates his general principle as the compensation hypothesis, and since Giddens contends that religion is one of the principal means whereby people cope with (“compensate for”) ontological insecurity, the connection of their ideas to rational choice theory should be clear. The rational choice theory is a much more comprehensive and elaborately developed theory, but the Kirkpatrick and Giddens arguments fit reasonably well inside a major part of it.

Religion as how the brain works The most recent theoretical work on religion has come from scholars using ideas from cognitive and evolutionary psychology. This work has been highly interdisciplinary, being carried out not only by psychologists but also by anthropologists and students of comparative religion. Scholars from these various disciplines have often joined forces. Here I begin by discussing the

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work influenced primarily by cognitive psychology, after which I turn to the evolutionary dimensions of this approach.

Religion’s cognitive foundations The best-known cognitive theories of religion are those of Pascal Boyer (1994, 2000, 2001, 2003), Scott Atran (2002; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004), Justin Barrett (2000, 2002a,b), and Ilkka Pyysiäinen (2003a,b, 2004, 2009). Boyer starts by rejecting some of the common theories that we have been discussing, in particular that religion explains the otherwise unexplainable, that it reduces anxiety and provides comfort, or that it integrates society and supports morality. According to Boyer, these explanations are not entirely wrong, but they fail as general explanations of religion. They fail to tell us, he says, why religions have many of the particular features they do. For example, ●

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existing theories fail to tell us why there are so many different types of supernatural agents; salvation or release from suffering has not been a preoccupation of most religions; religious explanations are often more puzzling than illuminating; religions often create more anxiety than they reduce; and in many societies mortality is not considered unbearable and death does not make existence seem pointless.

Cognitive theorists stress that religious beliefs must be counterintuitive beliefs, or beliefs that are contradicted by the information people acquire through their ordinary experience of reality (Boyer, 2001; Atran, 2002; Barrett, 2004). Counterintuitive beliefs violate our natural intuitions. Violations can occur with respect to folk biology, folk physics, and folk psychology. A being who requires no food to live, who is born in some exceptional way, or who does not age or die violates our biological expectations. Beings who are invisible or who can walk on water violate intuitive physics. And a being who knows everything and can read minds violates folk psychology. In some cases, a being may violate all three categories at the same time (Boyer, 1994, 2000; see also Barrett [2000] and Pyysiäinen [2003b]). For example, the God of the monotheistic world religions is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, but he does not have a brain or eyes or even any type of body, and he is invisible. He therefore violates all three natural intuitions.

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Cognitive theorists also emphasize that religious beliefs must be minimally counterintuitive. If a belief is excessively counterintuitive, it violates natural human inclinations so severely that it has no staying power in the brain. In some societies people believe in a single high god who created the universe but who then withdrew and took no interest in human affairs. In other societies people believe in a single omniscient and omnipotent god who has a very serious interest in human affairs. These beliefs are counterintuitive, the cognitive theorists say, but not in the extreme. It would be utterly senseless to believe in an omniscient and omnipotent god who exists only on Thursdays, or in an omniscient god who frequently forgets what he knows (Boyer, 2001). Ilkka Pyysiäinen (2003a) points out that there are many types of counterintuitive agents, and that gods are only one type. He suggests that gods are “interested parties”: “They know and understand everything that humans do and think, are interested in it, and also are believed to intervene in human activities, punishing and rewarding us according to our deeds” (2003a: 162). However, this is overstating the case. Many gods do not know everything that humans do and think; many gods are not omniscient and some are even “dumb gods” who can be fooled or tricked (Barrett, 2002a,b). Indeed, Boyer goes so far as to say that “many spirits are really stupid”! (2001: 7). Moreover, as just noted, many gods do not take any interest in humans or the world in general. After creating the universe they withdraw from it and do nothing else. In societies that live by hunting and gathering or horticulture more than two-thirds of high gods take no interest in human affairs. Even in pastoral and intensive agricultural societies nearly a third of high gods do not display any interest in humans. Boyer argues that supernatural entities are for the most part structured by our natural intuitions concerning agency. Humans have cognitive adaptations for agency in the sense that they recognize that persons and animals have goals and pursue various means to reach them. They cause things to happen. However, humans have a very strong tendency to extend their natural intuitions about agency beyond persons and animals to many features of nature, such as the sun, moon, or wind. They have a bias to assume that, if the wind blows, it is because there is some agent that is causing it to blow, and to blow for some reason or purpose (Boyer, 2001). One of humans’ most important cognitive modules is therefore an agencydetection module, and this module is biased toward overdetection. Justin Barrett (2000) has coined the term Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD, to

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identify this postulated module. Because of our evolutionary heritage, we need to be able to detect both predators and prey, and it is far better to overdetect than to underdetect because the costs of not detecting agents when they are around are much greater than the costs of detecting them when they are not around. In the ancestral environment, it was highly adaptive for humans to know what animals or other humans might be around and capable of doing them harm (Boyer, 2001). Religious concepts are very practical. They are activated when there is a special need for them. What humans need most is information about the world (the natural and social environment) and cooperation with fellow humans. These needs for information and social cooperation are extended to supernatural entities. Whereas humans always have limited access to strategic information, supernatural agents have full access to strategic information (Boyer, 2001). Note that the phrase “full access” does not imply that supernatural agents are always omniscient. Indeed, most supernatural agents in the world’s societies are not. The operative word is strategic: supernatural agents have full access to information that is relevant to human life. Humans depend greatly on information about other people’s mental states. They especially need to know others’ intentions— are they reliable and trustworthy, can they be counted on to cooperate or will they be uncooperative, and so on (Boyer, 2000)? These concerns are evolutionarily important because they are either directly or indirectly related to matters of survival and reproduction. Gods need not have information about other things, and in fact usually do not. Full-access supernatural agents know about those things that humans care about (Barrett, 2004). It does not matter if a god does not know the efficiency of every machine operating in the world, the precise moment at which every alligator in the world leaves land and enters the water, what every insect in the world is doing at every microsecond, or what every woman named Alice had for lunch last Tuesday (Boyer, 2000). A fully omniscient god may know these things, but even for the adherents of religions that have such a god it makes no difference whether or not he knows them. Like Boyer, Atran (2002) considers traditional theories of religion as at best partial explanations; they cannot be necessary or sufficient causes of religious beliefs and practices. Also like Boyer, Atran argues that religious beliefs emerge from agent-based interpretations of complex events. Human brains appear to be programmed to look for agents as the causes of complex and uncertain happenings. The agent-detection schema or module of the brain is built for detecting predators, prey, and protectors. Our brains are wired to spot lurkers

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and seek protectors everywhere. In social interaction, people manipulate this hypersensitive cognitive aptitude so as to create the agents who order and unite the culture and the cosmos. The operation of this module makes snakes and many other dangerous animals just as reasonable objects of deification as kind and nurturant parents. People in all religions believe that the world has been deliberately created by unseen agents, that humans (and even some animals) have souls that live on after their bodies die, and that through rituals they can persuade gods or spirits to change the world for human betterment. The extremely adaptive evolutionary imperative to look out for predators, whether dangerous beasts or dangerously manipulative and deceptive humans, generates universal cognitions involving supernatural demons, ghouls, goblins, vampires, and the like. In many (perhaps all) religions, supernatural beings include monsters which, more often than not, have characteristics typical of animal predators. The human brain is “trip-wired” as an agency-detection system. We recognize faces in the moon, see armies or dragons in clouds, insist that the image of Jesus exists in the Shroud of Turin, or are even sure that we can spot the image of Mother Theresa in a cinnamon bun sold in a pastry shop in Tennessee (Guthrie, 1995)!3 In addition to Barrett’s concept of the HADD, Pyysiäinen (2009) conceives of two other features of the brain that lead to concepts of supernatural agents. One is the Hyperactive Understanding of Intentionality, or HUI. This is the tendency to conceive of other minds and believe that events are intentionally caused. If one cannot detect a visible agent that is responsible for the event, then a supernatural agent is easily inferred. The other cognitive mechanism is one for Hyperactive Teleofunctional Reasoning, or HTR. This is the tendency to view things that exist as existing for a purpose or events that occur happening for a purpose. Another key point is that the cognitive architecture of the brain imposes strong constraints on the kinds of counterintuitive ideas and thus the kinds of supernatural agents that can be imagined (Boyer, 1994, 2001). Certain kinds of religious concepts exist rather than others because they are “attention grabbing.” They resonate with people and are relatively easy to transmit to others. Boyer notes that human minds did not become vulnerable to just any odd kind of supernatural beliefs. On the contrary, because they had many sophisticated inference systems, they became vulnerable to a very restricted set of supernatural concepts: the ones that jointly activate inference systems for agency, predation, death, morality, and social exchange. (2001: 324–25; emphasis in original)

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There is also the idea of inferential potential. Supernatural concepts can be arranged along a continuum from inferentially easy to inferentially difficult. Those concepts that are easier to acquire and transmit—that require less cognitive effort—have a selective advantage. These are intuitive or nonreflective concepts. The idea that “God is angry” is easy to understand and transmit because it is a simple projection of a common human emotion. It is “cognitively cheap.” The same is true of the idea that “God is merciful.” By contrast, the idea that “God is the ground of being,” or God is “being-itself,” as formulated by the theologian Paul Tillich (1951, 1955), is highly reflective. It is a high-level abstraction far removed from ordinary human intuition or experience. As such, it is extremely difficult to acquire and transmit, and is therefore “cognitively expensive.” It has no staying power among the vast majority of people in any society, and thus is entertained only by the theologically astute (Pyysiäinen, 2009).4 We can summarize this discussion of supernatural agents by listing their properties as understood by cognitive theorists (Barrett, 2008). Supernatural agents (1) are counterintuitive, usually minimally so, (2) are intentional agents, and (3) possess access to strategic information, especially information that is relevant to human survival and reproduction. These properties we have already discussed. But supernatural agents also (4) act in ways that are detectable by humans, and (5) motivate ritual practices that reinforce belief in them. Number 4 means that humans have to be aware of supernatural agents and recognize what they do or are capable of doing (or, in the case of inactive creator gods, what they did at some point in the past). For example, a statue that sees everything but fails to respond in any way to prayer directed to it is extremely unlikely to qualify as a supernatural agent. It would have no consequences for human life. The key to number 5 is rituals that are reinforcing and thus will continue to be performed. As Barrett suggests, if a potential supernatural agent requires rituals in which all females must be killed when they reach puberty, those rituals would have no chance of being performed nor would the potential agent have any chance of ever becoming an agent. Using these criteria, we might ask why some beings that appear counterintuitive are never put into the category of religion. In a provocative article, Justin Barrett (2008) asks why Santa Claus is not considered any sort of supernatural agent. Santa is counterintuitive in one sense because it is inconceivable that a person could ride a reindeer-pulled sleigh through the air and deliver presents all over the world in a single night. But Barrett points out that Santa is not sufficiently counterintuitive; he is essentially a person who uses magic to do what he does.

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And he himself doesn’t fly; only his reindeer do. Santa is an intentional agent, but not a full-access strategic agent. Basically he only knows whether children have been bad or good and what presents they would like for Christmas. None of what he knows is relevant to the things people care most about. Santa doesn’t really act in detectable ways because he does something only once a year. There are no rituals built around belief in Santa, except for a few minor things like leaving out milk and cookies. And then there is Mickey Mouse. He is counterintuitive because everyone knows that mice cannot talk, sing, or dance. But that’s it. Mickey can’t even do those few things that Santa does; he can’t do anything except entertain small children. True supernatural agents do important things, like curing disease, promoting the growth of crops, saving people from misery and suffering, or, in the case of evil ones, causing misfortune. No one prays to Santa Claus or Mickey Mouse to achieve good things or propitiates them to avoid harm. But one does interact in these ways with many gods and spirits. What to make of the cognitive approach? On the positive side, it has opened up a whole new line of inquiry into the nature of religion that has produced important new insights, in particular the demonstration that religion is rooted in the brain. Its concepts of HADD, HUI, and HTR are ingenious and it seems likely that they are an important part of the neural foundations of religion. Its notion of cognitive constraints on religious cognition is also a significant contribution. The cognitive approach can tell us why some kinds of beliefs are too implausible to become part of any religion—an omniscient and omnipotent god that exists only on Wednesdays or that forgets everything instantly, or spirits that punish you if you follow their commands (Boyer, 2001). One should also mention the insightful distinction between the cognitively “cheap” and the cognitively “costly.” And yet there are a number of problems. One of these concerns cognitive theory’s notion of counterintuitiveness, specifically its claim that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive. It seems that many religious concepts, perhaps even most, are highly or even radically counterintuitive. This is particularly true of the theologically complex world religions (Whitehouse, 2004). Take, for example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This is certainly a doctrine that is extremely difficult to get one’s mind around. One might argue that this doctrine is of interest only to Christian theologians and other Christian elites, but that is not the case. Even though many ordinary Christians may not think deeply or probingly about it, many in fact do discuss it and debate it (Peterson, 2013). Dimitris Xygalatas puts it especially well when he says that the

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notion of “an eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, immaterial, and invisible being in the sky, who is three in one, who gave birth to himself via a virgin woman and then killed his son/himself (making him immortal in the process) in order to save humans from a sin some other human committed in the distant past may well be the most counterintuitive idea that has ever existed. In fact, this idea is virtually impossible to grasp” (2013: 164). Consider also that when the Buddha was asked whether he was a man or a god, he replied that he was neither a man nor a god, but a Buddha. Since most people would divide the world into either humans or supernatural agents, what are they to make of the Buddha’s claim that he is neither? People would wonder, what possible kind of existence can the Buddha be talking about? What else can there be but the natural or the supernatural? It is little wonder that over time the Buddha came to be considered a god and prayed to. And then there is the belief in many societies that witches can steal your organs without leaving any physical evidence that your body has been tampered with. Since this is so far beyond the realm of ordinary human experience, it would seem to be more than minimally counterintuitive.5 Another difficulty is cognitive theory’s rather impoverished concept of causation. Boyer says that religious “concepts are not around because they are good for people or for society or because of an inherent need or desire to have them. They are around because they are more likely to be acquired than other variants” (2000: 211). Such a position might be called “possibilism”: if something is possible, it will happen in one way or another at some time or another. Religion exists simply because it is possible for it to exist. The cognitive analysis of religion is not interested, Boyer says, in the question of whether religious concepts form a coherent whole or represent or explain the world. He deems such questions irrelevant in any cognitive analysis. But this makes it difficult not to conclude that, although a useful starting point, the cognitive approach does not appear to be a very ambitious undertaking.6 By itself it seems unable to answer questions that seem most central to students of religion. It is also difficult to see why, if religion is a derivation of natural human inference systems, it is specifically religion that is doing the inferring. Why not just use the inference systems themselves? The human brain did not evolve to do sophisticated science, which is why so few people can do it, and most of these have existed only in the modern world (Wolpert, 1994; McCauley, 2011). But the brain apparently did evolve to do proto-science in the form of folk biology and folk physics (Atran, 1990). Why do people use religious explanations when natural proto-scientific reasoning would seemingly work

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just as well if not better?7 There is a well-known ethnographic example from a tribal society in which the roof of a house collapses and several people are killed (discussed in Boyer, 2001: 12–13). The collapse was explained as the result of witchcraft. When a Western anthropologist then said it was because the roof was weak, the response was, “Yes, but it was a witch who made the roof weak.” So here we have supernatural agency. But why don’t the witch believers simply say, “Oh, so-and-so built this house, and he did a bad job with the roof, so he’s to blame.” Or the witch believers could say that so-and-so “had it in for those people” and so deliberately made the roof weak. We still have agency, just ordinary human agency. Why should there be counterintuitive agency? Why specifically supernatural concepts playing on our cognitive architecture? It would appear that something more has to be going on to produce specifically supernaturalistic concepts of agency, something that makes supernaturalism useful or functional. To his credit, Boyer recognizes that this is an important question and therefore has proposed an answer: Why would people assume that something in the world, over and above the real agents they deal with, has strategic information? But the question is misguided, at least in this formulation. The fact that some kinds of notions are selected in cultural transmission does not depend on people’s inclinations but rather on the aggregation of acquisition and memory processes over which they have no control. So a better formulation would be, why are accounts of such strategically informed imaginary “somethings” more likely to be acquired and transmitted than other possible accounts? (2000: 210)

I have to confess to finding Boyer’s answer highly unsatisfying. If this is all the cognitive approach can tell us, then it would not seem to be a very powerful theory. Physicists stress that they want their theories to be correct, but they also want them to be beautiful. The cognitive theory, regardless of its (questionable) empirical status, is not a beautiful theory. Robert McCauley (2011) shows, apparently unwittingly since he is a cognitive theorist himself, just how unbeautiful the cognitive approach is. He compares religion to a Rube Goldberg device. Rube Goldberg devices are complicated imaginary devices designed to achieve a particular goal. (Goldberg was a cartoonist and so his devices were presented in cartoon form.) In one such device designed to take a photograph, a man sits on a pneumatic cushion, which forces air through a tube, which starts an ice-boat, which in turn lights a cigar butt, which touches a balloon and causes it to explode. A dictator standing

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nearby interprets the loud sound to mean he has been shot, at which point he falls over onto a bulb attached to a camera that snaps a photograph. (The cartoon is shown in McCauley, 2011: 155.) McCauley contends that this is what religion is like. He tells us that religions enlist a variety of regular psychological propensities that are otherwise basically unconnected in what are often elaborate arrangements of beliefs and behaviors, many of which are utterly superfluous to handling the practical, intellectual, and social problems on which they are brought to bear. The standard features of religious mentality and conduct are cobbled together from sundry psychological dispositions that develop in human minds on the basis of very different considerations. (2011: 155)

McCauley’s analogy is scarcely apt. Rube Goldberg devices are the very antithesis of how evolutionary selection works. Evolution strives for simplicity and efficiency. It could not produce Rube Goldberg-like devices because they would be highly maladaptive and thus strongly selected against. Of course, McCauley is talking about by-products, not adaptations, but it is difficult to believe that even evolutionary by-products could be so unwieldy. Another problem with the cognitive approach is that it focuses excessively on cognitions to the exclusion of emotions. Cognitive theorists fail to take into account the fact that much of religion involves people’s strong commitments to supernatural beliefs and practices. This point has been emphasized by Atran and Norenzayan (2004) even though they themselves use cognitive theory. They say that cognitive theories “do not account for the emotional involvement that leads people to sacrifice to others what is dear to themselves, including labor, limb, and life. Such theories are often short on motive” (2004: 714). This is an important point because it helps to counteract the “possibilism” of purely cognitive approaches. Religion must be more than merely possible. Human emotions are necessary for people to pursue it; religion has to be for something. The cognitive approach is also limited by its apparent lack of interest in the causal significance of socioecological context. Boyer says that he is interested only in the cognitive constraints acting on the acquisition and transmission of religious concepts, and that ecological and economic conditions do not interest him (Boyer, 1994).8 These are to be treated merely as contingent background factors even though Boyer concedes that they are among the kinds of factors that anthropologists regularly study. I suppose it is fair enough if one wants to delimit one’s subject matter in this way. But Boyer makes a more problematic statement: “There is no indication . . . that changes in the way subsistence and exchange

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are organized could be correlated to [sic] changes in, for example, the recurrent connections between religious and intuitive ontologies” (1994: 295). If he means that religious concepts and practices are unrelated to the economic and ecological differences among societies, this is simply wrong, as previous chapters have amply shown. In any event, the question of the relationship between religious concepts and practices and “contingent background conditions” is crucial if one wants a good general theory of religious variation (cf. Laidlaw, 2007).

Religion as an evolutionary by-product Cognitive theories of religion are evolutionary theories, but evolutionary theories come in two main types, adaptationist theories and by-product theories. Adaptationist theories assume that anatomical structures or behavioral traits were directly selected for in evolution because they promoted survival and reproductive success. Such theories are the most common type of evolutionary theory generally speaking. But it is by-product theories that have come to be dominant in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion.9 In contrast to adaptationist theories, by-product theories of religion assume that its elements are secondary side-effects of other cognitive structures. A by-product is just along for the ride; it emerges from something that was selected for, but is not itself an adaptation. For by-product theory, in the evolution of the human brain there was no specific evolutionary selection for religious concepts. There is no special religious center in the brain, no network of neurons that is specialized for handling thoughts about supernatural entities. There is no reason to assume that there is some sort of special mode of cognitive functioning that is operating only when religious thoughts are being processed. Religious concepts are parasitic upon other mental capacities (Boyer, 2001). They have piggybacked on the extremely adaptive cognitive structures that are involved in agency detection. At the risk of oversimplification, religion is in essence some sort of “gigantic mental accident” (Norenzayan, 2013). Boyer, Atran, and Pyysiäinen are all by-product theorists, but by-product theory’s most aggressive defender is Kirkpatrick. This is ironic in the case of Kirkpatrick because his evolutionary attachment theory looks very much like an adaptationist theory. Indeed, I think it works much better that way, as Chapter 7 will seek to show. Be that as it may, he offers the following arguments against the adaptationist view (2005; see also Kirkpatrick, 2008):

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1. Adaptationists often argue that if something is universal, there is a strong suggestion that it is an adaptation. But Kirkpatrick contends that religion is not really universal because in numerous societies, especially modern societies, many people have no religious beliefs and engage in no religious practices. “How many people per culture must be religious,” he asks, “for that culture to count as a plus in the universality column?” (2005: 217). However, Kirkpatrick misunderstands the meaning of universality. It’s not a question of whether all individuals have religiosity—certainly many do not—but whether there are religious institutions (established beliefs and practices) in all societies. And there are. The question of religion’s universality is an anthropological or sociological question, not a psychological one. 2. If religion is part of our genetic makeup, then we should look to other species for the origin of religion, that is, for precursors, but we don’t find any. But this is also misguided. There is excellent evidence that language is an adaptation (Pinker, 1994; Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Pinker and Jackendoff, 2005), but we don’t find language in other species. So this cross-species comparison proves nothing. (It is true that some rudimentary language skills have been taught to chimpanzees, but these have never developed naturally—that is, without human intervention—and these skills are very rudimentary indeed. From an evolutionary point of view, chimpanzees do not have language, nor does any other nonhuman primate.) 3. We cannot call religion an adaptation simply because it promotes group cohesion or makes people feel better, as some adaptationists have tended to argue. Instead, we have to look at effects in terms of reproductive success. Kirkpatrick is quite right here, but I shall show in the next chapter that in fact we do find such effects. 4. The most convincing indicator of an adaptation is evidence of special design, such as complexity, efficiency, precision, and functionality. According to Kirkpatrick, it is hard to find anything in religion that provides such evidence. Here is where the adaptationist position is most vulnerable. Nonetheless, a case can still be made for special design, and I will make one in the next chapter. Steven Pinker (2002; see also Sanderson, 2014: 369–74) has suggested that music is not an evolutionary adaptation, only a by-product. Although universal and important, it is in all likelihood “evolutionarily useless.” There is no indication that it promotes survival and reproductive success. If it had never

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been invented, life would go on much the same. Pinker calls music “auditory cheesecake.” To solidify his by-product argument, Kirkpatrick draws on Pinker’s cheesecake analogy. The desire for cheesecake is obviously not an adaptation; it simply exploits the natural human desire for sweets and fats, which is a wellknown adaptation. Cheesecake “titillates” evolved human taste preferences. For Kirkpatrick, religion works like cheesecake. Just as there are numerous kinds of cheesecake that people may choose from, there are many kinds of religions and people can pick the religious beliefs and rituals that resonate best with them. Or they might choose no religion at all, just as they may not like cheesecake. But this “religion as cheesecake” metaphor not only trivializes religion, but insults religious people everywhere, especially the devout. In all societies people who devote themselves to religion are looking for much, much more than mere “titillation.” Atran (2002) and Pyysiäinen (2009) say that religion cannot be an adaptation because there is no coherent entity that can be called religion. Religion consists of bits and pieces that frequently do not connect well with each other. Since there is no such thing as “religion,” it doesn’t make any sense to ask how “it” evolved. However, this does not rule out the possibility that the elements of what we call religion could have been selected for on a sort of one-by-one basis. Pyysiäinen adds that religion cannot be an adaptation because people can live without it in the same sense that they can live without an appendix, a spleen, or a gallbladder. This is of course true since many people who are irreligious live meaningful and evolutionarily successful lives. But this misses the point. It is not a question of whether people can live without religion, but of whether they can live better with it, better in this case being a matter of having better health, greater longevity, and greater reproductive success. In the next chapter I will show that this is indeed the case. Although by-product theories of religion are favored over adaptationist theories by the majority of evolutionary social scientists who study religion, this seems to me a rather odd position for an evolutionist to take. It is sometimes claimed that religion as a by-product should be the default assumption. Kirkpatrick in particular takes this line. But this is not the standard approach of evolutionary theory. The standard approach starts out by trying to show how something is an adaptation, and, failing to do so, then and only then resorts to a by-product argument (for further discussion, see Sosis, 2009: 318). In a sense the by-product theorists exhibit a kind of intellectual complacency. They use the by-product argument as a kind of fall-back position on the assumption that

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demonstrating that something is an evolutionary adaptation is more demanding than showing it is simply a side effect of something else. But in fact this is not the case. Richard Sosis (2009) makes the important point that by-product theories have to be defended just as adaptationist theories do. By-product theorists have to meet the same standards of evidence that the adaptationists must meet, and thus far they have failed to meet these standards. At this point most of the by-product theorists seem to have declared victory and let the matter rest there. So much for the cognitive by-product theories. In the next chapter I explore the main alternative to these theories, the adaptationist theories.

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Evolutionary adaptationists Adaptationist theories of religion assume that religious beliefs and rituals are adaptations that evolved because of the benefits they provide in terms of survival and reproductive success. There are several such theories and they vary in important details. An especially influential adaptationist argument has been developed by Richard Sosis and Candace Alcorta (Sosis, 2003; Sosis and Alcorta, 2003; Alcorta and Sosis, 2005), who focus mainly on religious ritual. Following up on William Irons’s (2001) suggestion that religious rituals are “hard-to-fake” indicators of commitment, Sosis and Alcorta use costly signaling theory to explain why religious rituals are so important in all religions. The Israeli evolutionary biologists Amotz and Avishag Zahavi (1997) have added a new wrinkle to Darwinian evolutionary theory, the notion of a costly or honest signal. Animals communicate information to others about their fitness by means of certain signals. But not just any signal will do, because signals can be faked. Therefore, a good signal of fitness is one that is hard to fake and thus honest, and an honest signal is one that will impose some cost or handicap on the signaler (hence the Zahavis call their idea the Handicap Principle). The example of the peacock’s tail is a classic one. Peacocks fan out their beautiful and elaborate tails and strut in front of peahens in order to show them off. There is an evolutionary foundation to this behavior, since peahens are most attracted to the peacocks with the most beautiful tails, and elaborate peacocks mate more frequently than less elaborate ones. In their displays, peacocks are showing off their tails—signaling—in order to attract mates. We now know that these ritual displays are honest signals because it takes a lot of energy to grow a beautiful tail, and thus the peacocks with the most beautiful tails will be the fittest (have the best genes). The cost to the peacocks takes the form of their tails’ handicaps. The best tails are long and heavy, have many eyespots, and are

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especially beautifully colored, and such tails make it more difficult for peacocks to escape predators. So what is the connection to religious rituals? Sosis and Alcorta argue that human religious rituals are forms of costly signaling. This is especially true in religions whose ritual demands are very great. Sosis (2003) gives as an example the demands placed upon Hutterites, a communal religious sect in western Canada. Hutterites are expected to devote themselves to daily church worship, to communal meals three times a day that are preceded and followed by prayer, and to frequent fasting. There are also many restrictions on their behavior. They are prohibited from owning or playing musical instruments, wearing jewelry, smoking tobacco, dancing, and gambling. Adhering to these demands is therefore costly, and therein lies the key, Sosis claims. Adhering to costly demands intensifies religious belief and communicates to others that one is highly committed to the group. When religious communities ask their members (including prospective members) to pay such high costs, they are in essence asking them for clear signs of commitment. Continued participation in costly rituals actually serves to create or intensify religious belief. At the same time, strong believers come to evaluate ritual performances as less costly than those whose beliefs are weaker. For strong believers, ritual performance is seen as less of a burden, and, moreover, the opportunity costs of engaging in other behaviors are lower. They therefore receive a large payoff in religious group membership, whereas those who cannot muster a sufficient level of belief and commitment tend to drop out. Thus, in enhancing belief and commitment, costly, hard-to-fake signals contribute to interpersonal trust and social cohesion. Sosis and Alcorta conclude that the main evolutionary function of religion is to promote group cooperation. Although this looks a lot like Durkheim’s social cohesion argument, there is an important difference. Even though religion tends to promote social cohesion, belonging to a group with highly committed members also confers individual benefits. Other group members can be trusted and can be counted on to provide aid and assistance when it is needed. Because the costs of commitment are so great, highly committed members are also unlikely to be “free-riders,” or individuals who reap the benefits of membership while giving back little or nothing in return. Sosis and Alcorta also acknowledge that religion has other individual benefits, such as the reduction of individual anxiety and the promotion of health.

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Sosis and Alcorta agree with the by-product theorists that religion is all about counterintuitive beliefs and rituals, and that religious systems engage mental modules regarding agency. However, they contend that this does not preclude these counterintuitive beliefs from being adaptations. Religious beliefs seem to go well beyond cognitive modules for agency detection. The core aspect of the authors’ adaptationism is ontogenetic. There is an innate predisposition to believe in supernatural agents that is rooted in the neural architecture of the brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex, the temporal lobes, and the limbic areas. This predisposition is activated during childhood and adolescence, and thus there is a “developmentally sensitive window” for learning supernatural concepts. The authors take note of cross-cultural research suggesting that children between the ages of three and twelve have a sort of “natural theism.” They go on to say: This developmental predisposition to believe in socially omniscient and declarative supernatural agents contrasts with evolved mental modules of folk-psychology for natural categories. It also goes far beyond natural agencydetection modules to encompass socially strategic agents with behaviorally motivating characteristics.

. . . If religious beliefs are merely by-products of mental modules evolved to deal with the “natural world,” why do such beliefs consistently violate the basic cognitive schema from which they are presumed to derive? (Alcorta and Sosis, 2005: 327; emphasis added) Joseph Bulbulia (2005) agrees with the adaptationist position of Alcorta and Sosis, but gives more emphasis to the contribution of religious commitments to physical and psychological well-being. Religion, he argues, is important in helping people to cope with what he calls a “traumatic world”: in all societies people are subject to disease and disability and poor reproductive prospects. People experience grief, anxiety, and fear, which create stresses that often lead to poor physical and mental health. Religion helps to shield people from the “slings and arrows of existence . . . by altering damaging assessments of the world” (2005: 89). “Supernaturalisms,” he says, “seem to help us to endure the foxholes of life” (2005: 89). It is important to see that some theories that are not evolutionary, or at least not adaptationist, mesh with the kind of adaptationist argument Bulbulia presents. I refer specifically to Kirkpatrick’s evolutionary attachment theory, Giddens’s ontological insecurity thesis, and Stark’s rational choice theory. Although Kirkpatrick strongly rejects adaptationist theories of religion, his

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theory’s focus is on the role of religion in providing safety and security. Religion provides a means of coping with psychological distress, personal catastrophes, and serious illness or injury. Given his emphasis on religion’s psychological benefits, his theory can easily be reconceptualized in adaptationist terms, as can Giddens’s. Stark is a harsh critic of the new evolutionary theories of religion, but his emphasis on religion as a compensator and a source of rewards that are otherwise difficult if not impossible to achieve has a similar emphasis. Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili are neuroscientists with a special interest in human mystical states and their sources in the brain (Newberg, d’Aquili and Rause, 2001; d’Aquili and Newberg, 1999). They contend that the brain did not evolve to experience spiritual transcendence. Rather, the neurobiology of transcendence piggybacked onto existing neural circuitry, especially circuitry that evolved for mating and sexual experience. In this respect Newberg and d’Aquili are by-product theorists. However, the authors also point out that humans are myth-making creatures, and to understand the neurological foundations of religion we need an understanding of myth. The mind has “cognitive operators” that work to reduce intolerable anxiety and help us make sense of the world. There is an irresistible need to understand the meaning of things. People have existential worries: Why do we die and what happens after we die? How do we fit into the universe? Why is there suffering in the world? What is the origin of the universe and of humans? Newberg and d’Aquili point out “that in every human culture, across the span of time, the same mythological motifs are constantly repeated: virgin births, world-cleansing floods, lands of the dead, expulsions from paradise, men swallowed down the bellies of whales and serpents, dead and resurrected heroes, the primeval theft of fire from the gods” (Newberg, d’Aquili and Rause, 2001: 74). Newberg and d’Aquili contend that these myth-making and religious tendencies evolved because of their adaptive value in promoting survival and well-being. The power of religion is that it alleviates “existential stress”; it decreases anxiety and uncertainty and gives people a greater sense of control in a terrifying world. Religion therefore seems highly adaptive, and thus Newberg and d’Aquili conclude that it did indeed evolve by natural selection even though it used preexisting neural circuitry. For them, religion is an adaptation and (except for mysticism) not just some sort of by-product. This theory obviously dovetails with the ontological insecurity argument, as well as with Stark’s notion of religion as compensators. It is an evolutionary version of those theories.1

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Erica Harris and Patrick McNamara (2008) are adaptationists in this sense. They identify three criteria whereby a trait can be considered to be an adaptation: it is a cultural universal, is acquired effortlessly, and has an “associated biology,” that is, a known set of genetic, anatomical, or physiological systems. They point out that the first two criteria are easily met. Religion has been found everywhere at all times, and children acquire religious beliefs with extraordinary ease. The third criterion is more difficult to meet, but Harris and McNamara point to research showing that religiosity appears to be moderately to highly heritable (they suggest a heritability coefficient of 0.28 to 0.72);2 to neuroimaging studies indicating that parts of the brain high in the frequency of dopamine receptors, especially the prefrontal cortex, seem to be associated with religious experience; and to pharmacological studies showing that the DRD4 gene correlates positively with different measures of religiosity. Brain neurochemistry is also invoked in the adaptationist positions of Michael Winkelman (1990, 2000) and James McClenon (2002), who focus on the nature of shamanism. As Winkelman notes, shamans have been found throughout the world and are virtually universal in hunter-gatherer societies. He points to the striking similarities among shamanistic practices all over the world—healing and curing of illness, protecting and finding game animals, communicating with the dead, recovering lost souls, and protecting people from evil spirits and the practitioners of malevolent magic—and contends that they cannot be explained by diffusion. The fundamental similarities across time, space, and cultures in the phenomena of shamanism indicates that these traditions develop from a common psychobiological basis. The cross-cultural distribution of fundamental aspects of shamanism reflects an underlying psychobiological basis and its adaptive consequences. These universal and crosscultural characteristics of shamans reflect biosocial and neurophenomenological structures that constitute the primordial basis for religion. (2000: 71)

Like Winkelman, McClenon (2002) emphasizes the striking similarities of shamanic rituals everywhere, in this case not so much what shamans do but how they do it. Shamanic rituals typically involve a great deal of rhythmic repetition, especially chanting, singing, drumming, and dancing, which are able to induce altered states of consciousness and “anomalous experiences.” Such altered states can produce high levels of relaxation and benefits for physical and psychological health. McClenon points to research indicating the existence of a so-called “shamanic syndrome,” which is “characterized by hypnotizability, dissociative

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ability, propensity for anomalous experience, fantasy proneness, temporal-lobe lability (measured by EEG), and thinness of cognitive boundaries” (2002: 134).

Deconstructing adaptationism Thus far we have discussed by-product versus adaptationist approaches to religion without delving into the concepts of “adaptation” or “adaptationism” themselves. These concepts need to be unpacked. I begin by making a simple distinction between calling a trait an adaptation and calling it adaptive. Perhaps the most common definition of an adaptation is a trait that has arisen by natural or sexual selection because it promotes the survival and reproductive success of the organisms having the trait (Buss et al., 1998). Because the trait has these consequences, it is therefore said to be adaptive. The concepts of adaptation and adaptive are therefore joined in a single larger meaning. However, they do not always need to be, and sometimes cannot be. Some qualifications are therefore essential. As Timothy Shanahan (2004) has pointed out, to characterize something as an adaptation is to say something about its origin or causal history, but to call something adaptive is to characterize its current usefulness. Shanahan uses the simple example of the human appendix. The appendix presumably is or was an adaptation, which is to say that at some point in human or nonhuman primate evolutionary history it arose by means of natural selection and did something useful. However, it no longer seems to be an adaptive organ because it can easily be removed without the organism in question suffering in any way. In other words, it arose as an adaptation but no longer is.3 Conversely, it is possible to say that a trait is adaptive without its ever having been an adaptation. Not every trait arises by natural or sexual selection. Some traits become fixed in a population by means of genetic drift, which occurs when a single population becomes separated into two or more reproductively isolated populations. Other traits develop because they are part of the basic design of an organism or one or more of its parts; they “hitch a ride” on traits that themselves arose as adaptations. This, of course, is the basis for the by-product arguments for religion’s origins. Scott Atran (and to an extent some of the other by-product theorists), despite denying that religion is an evolutionary adaptation, regards it as adaptive in its effects. Even though Atran insists that religion is a by-product, he considers it a “functional” rather than a “functionless” by-product. (These concepts are discussed in Buss et al., 1998.) Atran (2002) says that religion did

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not evolve to cope with death, manage existential anxieties, keep moral order, or provide causal explanations of things—but that it often does these things nonetheless. Atran and Ara Norenzayan say that their by-product argument does not entail that religious beliefs and practices cannot perform social functions, or that the successful performance of such functions does not contribute to the survival and spread of religious traditions. Indeed, there is substantial evidence that religious beliefs and practices often alleviate potentially dysfunctional stress and anxiety . . . and maintain social cohesion in the face of real or perceived conflict. . . . It does imply that social functions are not evolutionarily responsible for the cognitive structure and cultural recurrence of religion. (2004: 718; emphasis added)4

What, then, is adaptationism as a scientific perspective? It is the claim that many of the characteristics of organisms evolve by means of natural or sexual selection because they promote survival and reproductive success. There are a number of complex conceptual problems here, but I restrict myself to the simple distinction between empirical adaptationism and methodological adaptationism (Godfrey-Smith, 1999, 2001; Shanahan, 2004). Empirical adaptationism is the claim that natural or sexual selection are such powerful evolutionary forces that most of the characteristics of organisms have arisen by means of one or the other of these forces and therefore deserve to be called adaptations. Methodological adaptationism, by contrast, is not a claim about what we will actually find when we study the traits of organisms, but rather a strategic or methodological guidepost which tells us to proceed as if a given trait has arisen as an evolutionary adaptation. Methodological adaptationism assumes that the majority of traits (or at least many traits) are likely to be adaptations, but it does not prejudge the matter. It simply tells us to start with the assumption that something is an adaptation, and then investigate it and see what you find. Armed with methodological adaptationism, investigators can proceed in a variety of ways. Buss et al. note that the “hallmarks of adaptation are features that define special design—complexity, economy, efficiency, reliability, precision, and functionality” (1998: 536), and Andrews, Gangestad, and Matthews indicate that a trait that is an adaptation should, in particular, “exhibit specificity and proficiency when in its evolutionary environment” (2002: 497). The eye, for example, is understood to be an adaptation because it has evolved in a number of biological lineages and is a complex structure that reveals elaborate special design (rather exquisite design in fact). Andrews et al. point out that evidence of special design is the most important criterion for determining whether a trait is an

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adaptation. Therefore, investigators would most likely begin by looking for such evidence. Other criteria for determining adaptation identified by Andrews et al. include “beneficial effects” and “fitness maximization.” A trait may be considered a probable adaptation if members of a species with the trait lead longer and healthier lives and outreproduce individuals not possessing the trait. It is my impression that in the history of evolutionary biology methodological adaptationism has been the default assumption and that by following it evolutionists have in fact discovered to their reasonable satisfaction that most biological traits are empirical adaptations. However, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, in their classic article “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme” (1979), have contended that adaptationism has come to be practiced uncritically by most evolutionists. Nearly all evolutionists, they say, are “panadaptationists”; they practice a kind of rigid methodological adaptationism that leads them into rigid empirical adaptationism—to adaptationist explanations for everything, many of which count as Rudyard Kipling’s proverbial “just-so stories.” But the authors are engaged in overkill. Methodological adaptationism in the hands of most evolutionists is more flexible than Gould and Lewontin suppose. Unsurprisingly, the authors have their own agenda, which is to give nonadaptationist explanations center stage. They propose several alternative evolutionary processes, the most important of which, to them, stems from the concept of the Bauplan, or basic body plan of an organism. They say that “the basic body plans of organisms are so integrated and so replete with constraints upon adaptation . . . that conventional styles of selective arguments can explain little of interest about them. . . . Constraints restrict possible paths and modes of change so strongly that the constraints themselves become much the most interesting aspect of evolution” (1979: 594). The idea of organisms as integrated wholes that are not decomposable into independent parts means that a part of an organism is often “a correlated consequence of selection directed elsewhere”—in other words, a type of by-product (1979: 591). Kirkpatrick (2005) seems to be endorsing the kind of position advocated by Gould and Lewontin when he contends that by-product theory rather than adaptationism should be the default assumption in the evolutionary study of religion. I am at a loss to comprehend this claim, which, Gould and Lewontin notwithstanding, has little warrant in the entire history of evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology. At any rate, in the study of religion I urge us to be methodological adaptationists, not because I am sure that religion is an

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adaptation, but because this investigatory strategy has proved its worth in the past and thus deserves to be continued. Is there, then, evidence for empirical adaptation in the study of religion? Can we find evidence of special design in religion’s many features? Atran (2002) contends that, unlike such mental capacities as language, religious beliefs generally do not reveal any unambiguous evidence of special design, a point also made by Kirkpatrick (2005) and others. However, this seems unduly pessimistic. As Andrews et al. point out, if something shows evidence of specificity and proficiency in its evolutionary environment, this is suggestive of special design. We can therefore look at the nature of religious belief and ritual in the human ancestral environment. If there are strikingly similar beliefs and rituals in societies that typify this environment, then an inference of adaptation seems warranted. In addition, we can employ two of the other criteria suggested by Andrews et al., beneficial effects and fitness maximization. Do religious beliefs and rituals lead people to live longer, healthier lives and to leave more offspring? Boyer and Bergstrom claim that a “striking characteristic of most religious thought and behavior is that it does not seem to confer any direct fitness advantage on the practitioners” (2008: 115). However, as we shall see below, this is simply untrue. A fourth line of evidence comes from the study of religious beliefs in very young children. If such children appear to form beliefs in supernatural agents spontaneously, such early onset suggests adaptation. A fifth line of evidence I wish to pursue concerns the biological foundations of religious ritual, and a sixth is the importance attached to religion in nearly all societies and the enormous amount of time and energy people invest in it.

Evidence of adaptation: religion in the ancestral environment As we have seen on numerous occasions, religion in the ancestral environment was fundamentally centered around the role of the shaman. Winkelman (1990, 2000) argues that shamanism is universal (or at least nearly so) among huntergatherers because it is a product of a fundamental human neurophysiology interacting with the ecological conditions of the hunter-gatherer mode of subsistence. Winkelman explains: Shamanistic traditions have arisen throughout the world because of the interaction of innate structures of the human brain-mind with the ecological and social conditions of hunter-gatherer societies. This is possible because this ASC

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[Altered State of Consciousness] basic to selection, training, and professional activities occurs spontaneously under a wide variety of circumstances. These ASC experiences can be induced naturally as a consequence of injury, extreme fatigue, near starvation, ingestion of hallucinogens, perceptions of natural phenomena, bioelectric discharges, or as a consequence of a wide variety of deliberate procedures that induce these conditions. . . . Consequently, shamanism was reinvented or rediscovered in diverse cultures as a result of those experiences and because the experiences provide important adaptive capabilities. These are illustrated in a functional relationship of ASC to shamanistic activities. This is derived from their usefulness in meeting challenges to survival, including healing through ASC-induced stress reduction and other physiological changes that enhance systemic integration of the information-processing strata of the brain.  .  . . The functional relationships of ASC to the shamanistic abilities of healing and divination derive from their psychophysiological effects on biological processes and social psychology. The uniformities in these practices worldwide are a result of the interaction of the psychobiological mental potentials with similar social conditions and human needs. . . . The shaman’s role in the evolution of human consciousness derives from adaptive potentials of ASC, animistic beliefs, visionary perceptions, soul flight, and death-rebirth experience. These universal adaptations to biocognitive potentials derived from systemic integration of brain functions. Their biological structuring makes them neurognostic structures, reflecting their biological contribution to the bases of knowing. The neurognostic structures provide experiences that facilitate adaptation to the operational environment. (2000: 77–78; emphasis added)

Winkelman contends that the critical “physiological mechanisms underlying ASCs and integrative forms of consciousness are found in activation of the paleomammalian brain, specifically the hippocampal-septal circuits, the hypothalamus, and related areas that regulate emotions and the balance in the autonomic nervous system” (2000: 128). In shamanic healing rituals, the ASCs that shamans induce in their clients are remarkably effective in producing results in the absence of anything remotely resembling modern medicine. Generally the rituals are most effective in producing results in illnesses that have at least a partial psychological basis. The ASCs produce their effects primarily through improving physiological relaxation and reducing tension and anxiety, both of which have positive effects on overall immune system function. Relaxation responses derive from the fact that the induction of ASCs creates a state of dominance of the parasympathetic

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nervous system. Remarkably, Winkelman’s conclusions, as we will see in the next section, dovetail exceptionally well with the findings of scientific research concerning the positive effects of religiosity on the physical and psychological health of people in modern industrial societies. As he notes, the “relaxation response has preventive and therapeutic value in diseases characterized by increased sympathetic nervous system activity, particularly in lowering of blood pressure, control of hypertension, treatment of heart disease, and reduction of premature ventricular contractions” (2000: 195). Shamans were, in effect, the first physicians or psychotherapists. It is noteworthy that shamans do not disappear with the transition to agricultural societies. They persist, at least in the slightly altered forms that Winkelman calls shaman/healers, healers, sorcerer/witches, and mediums. These new types of practitioners are not all that different, however; they engage in many of the same activities as the shaman. Such practitioners continue to be found even in societies where religions with formal religious doctrines and fulltime priesthoods have developed. Indeed, even in affluent industrial societies a religious practitioner strikingly reminiscent of the ancient shaman is found in the form of the “faith healer.” A similar analysis of shamanism has been provided by James McClenon (2002). McClenon suggests that the ASCs that shamans induce in their clients are in essence hypnotic trances, a point endorsed by Winkelman. McClenon cites research showing that approximately 15 percent of persons in various societies are highly susceptible to hypnosis. In the ancestral environment, shamans themselves would have been among such people, and they had greatest success with other highly susceptible individuals. Since these individuals received greater health benefits from shamanic activity than less susceptible individuals, they would have had greater reproductive success, and thus genes for hypnotic suggestibility and spiritual belief would have spread by natural selection. In addition to the kinds of psychological and physiological effects pointed to by Winkelman, McClenon notes that pregnant women who are highly hypnotizable have fewer childbirth complications than other women. Since stress also reduces the likelihood of impregnation, more hypnotizable women would have higher fertility, with the genes for hypnotizability spreading in the gene pool. Here are, McClenon suggests, the first seeds of religion, which were planted and began to sprout perhaps as early as 30,000 years ago. And it is from these early shamanic seeds that later religions developed (cf. LewisWilliams, 2002).

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Evidence of adaptation: religion and health A great deal of research has been conducted on the relationship between religiosity and both physical and mental health. Reynolds and Tanner (1995) have reviewed some older studies. One showed that, for the United States in the 1960s, persons attending church once a week or more had approximately 50 percent lower rates of mortality from cardiovascular disease, emphysema, and suicide, and a 75 percent lower rate of mortality from cirrhosis of the liver, compared to less frequent attenders (Comstock and Partridge, 1972). A much older study showed that members of the English and Welsh Protestant clergy in the nineteenth century had substantially lower mortality rates than the general male population, especially in the reproductive years between twentyfive and forty-five (Stussi, 1873–75). More recently, a study of US adults found that persons who never attended church were nearly twice as likely to die in a follow-up period as persons who attended church weekly. The investigators found that this translated into 7.6 fewer years of life expectancy at age 20 (for blacks, life expectancy at age 20 was shortened by 13.7 years) (Hummer et al., 1999). An extremely comprehensive survey of research on religiosity and health has been carried out by Koenig, McCullough, and Larson (2001), who looked at literally hundreds of studies. In terms of physical health, 75 percent of sixteen studies found lower heart disease and cardiovascular mortality among persons assessed as more religious. The authors examined sixteen studies of the relationship between religiosity and blood pressure; 88 percent found lower blood pressure (especially diastolic blood pressure) among the more religious. In terms of longevity, 75 percent of fifty-two studies reported that more religious people lived longer, and only one study reported a shorter lifespan for the more religious. In terms of mental health, the authors examined ninety-three studies of religiosity and depression and found that 65 percent reported significant correlations between religiosity and lower levels of depression, with only 5 percent reporting higher levels of depression among the more religious. Similarly, out of sixty-eight studies of suicide, 84 percent found lower suicide rates among the more religious, and none of these studies found more religious individuals to have higher rates of suicide. Of sixty-nine studies of anxiety, 51 percent found that the more religious reported lower anxiety levels, and only 14 percent reported higher levels of anxiety in more religious individuals. The

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authors also surveyed studies that related religiosity to alcohol and drug abuse. The vast majority of eighty-six studies of alcohol abuse (88 percent) and fiftytwo studies of drug abuse (92 percent) reported significantly lower levels of these addictions among the more religious. The role of religion in promoting physical health seems to be that it alleviates “existential stress”; it decreases anxiety and uncertainty and gives people a greater sense of control in a difficult world. It has become very well established by mental health professionals that stress, especially prolonged stress, has a debilitating effect on bodily functioning. Prolonged stress leads to an increase in the body’s endogenous steroids, which negatively affects the body’s immune system. Stress also increases circulating levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine, which if prolonged lead to damage of the coronary and cerebral arteries. Thus religiosity, by providing people with important coping mechanisms, seems to promote better physical health by also promoting better mental health (Koenig, McCullough and Larson, 2001; Seybold, 2007).

Evidence of adaptation: religion and reproductive success It is reproductive success rather than health and longevity that is the appropriate currency for identifying a genuine Darwinian adaptation, but it is almost inconceivable that people in better health would not also have greater reproductive success. People in better health are more likely to find mates, and to find good mates (i.e., those with high reproductive value), than people in poor health, and thus to leave more offspring. This would be true in all types of societies. And even if the reproductive difference is marginal, we know very well that even tiny differences in reproductive success can have major evolutionary consequences over many generations. Moreover, there is direct evidence that religion does promote reproductive success. All of the major world religions have been pronatalist to one extent or another, and many religions have encouraged sexual intercourse between married couples during the wife’s most fertile period (Reynolds and Tanner, 1995). Catholicism has long opposed birth control and is very “pro-life.” Mormonism, one of the world’s fastest growing religions, is also very pro-life, and Mormon fertility is often astonishingly high, with even well-educated, upper-middle-class Mormons sometimes having completed family sizes of four to six children. Religion is also a major source of opposition to infanticide and

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abortion. Most of the major world religions have tolerated these practices only under very special circumstances, and have usually been strongly opposed to them. Islam has forcefully condemned both, as has Orthodox Judaism. Catholics and Protestant evangelicals are also among the strongest antiabortion advocates in the contemporary United States, and, of course, evangelical Protestants are among the leading pro-family groups. Note also that in many earlier religions religion and fertility were often linked. Numerous figurines have been found in many preliterate societies that represent fertility goddesses or spirits. Fertility cults have been common in a wide range of religions. The celebrated early anthropologist Sir James Frazer (1922), for example, called attention nearly a century ago to the ancient Roman goddess Diana, who was worshiped as a goddess of childbirth and was thought to bestow offspring on women and men. Other fertility goddesses have included Hathor in ancient Egypt, Aphrodite in ancient Greece, Freyja among the ancient Teutons, and Brigit among the ancient Celts. Frazer also pointed out the widespread practice of theogony, or beliefs and rituals involving the marriage of gods and their ensuing reproduction. There is also empirical research linking individual religiosity to higher fertility. One important study used data from the European Values Survey conducted in 2000 to assess religion’s impact on childbearing rates of women aged 18–44 in the United States and Europe (Frejka and Westoff, 2006). The investigators found a significant contribution of religiosity to fertility. In the United States, women who attended religious services more than once a week had an average fertility rate of 1.65 children compared to 1.18 for women who never attended services. In terms of religious belief, women who regarded religion as very important in their lives had a fertility rate of 1.61 compared to women who regarded religion as unimportant, whose fertility rate was 1.04. For Western Europe, women who attended church more than once a week had an average of 2.66 offspring compared to 1.10 for women who never attended. Western European women who regarded religion as very important in their lives averaged 2.07 offspring compared to 1.15 for women who regarded religion as unimportant. With respect to Southern Europe, women who attended services more than once a week had an average fertility level of 1.38 compared to women who never attended, whose fertility averaged 0.58. And Southern European women who regarded religion as very important averaged 1.25 children compared to 0.67 for women who regarded it as unimportant.

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In a study of ten Western European countries during the period between 1981 and 2004, the author claims to have found that, after a woman’s age and marital status, the strongest predictor of her number of offspring was her religiosity (Kaufmann, 2006).5 A recent study of fertility rates among Jewish women found the average rate for all Jewish women living in Israel to be 2.7. Among Orthodox Jewish women in the United States the fertility rate is 3.3 children, and among the ultra-devout American Orthodox Haredim the rate is an exceptionally high 6.6 (Singer, 2006). All of these rates are higher than the overall rate for American Jewish women, which is only 1.86. It seems clear that greater religious intensity among Jews is a strong predictor of higher fertility. Another study looked at nearly seven million Swiss individuals (making up 96 percent of the Swiss population) whose religious affiliations and fertility levels were recorded in the 2000 Swiss census. The highest completed fertility rates were found among Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish women (2.79, 2.44, and 2.06, respectively), and the lowest rate was found among women with no religious affiliation (1.11). Members of fundamentalist Protestant sects also had relatively high fertility (average around 2.0) (as summarized in Blume, 2009). In another recent study, this one of eighty-two nations, fertility levels were 2.50 for persons attending services more than once a week, 2.01 for persons attending once a month, and only 1.67 for persons never attending (summarized in Blume, 2009).

Evidence of adaptation: children’s natural theism Banerjee and Bloom (2013) ask whether someone like Tarzan of the Apes, who had never been introduced to religious ideas, would have developed them anyway. Their answer is no. They contend that human cognitive biases are incapable of generating religious ideas, but only make people receptive to them. They deny that there is any evidence to suggest that children spontaneously generate beliefs about supernatural agents. Children simply adopt the supernatural agents that already exist in their society. But, in fact, numerous empirical studies suggest that very young children have strong biases toward supernatural concepts. Bulbulia (2004) refers to a number of studies that reach this conclusion. Children (and adults as well) have deeply entrenched teleological beliefs, or beliefs that things exist “for a purpose.” Bulbulia comments that

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the developmental literature suggests that children’s pervasive teleological ideas about things and events of the world are closely linked to their endorsements of intentional design by a supernatural agency—leading them to distinguish supernatural beings as the designing agents of nature. Moreover, current evidence suggests the systems that generate these beliefs emerge without any specific or robust cultural input. . . . It may well be that a child’s default theory of the world includes an “intuitive theism.” (2004: 677)6

Justin Barrett (2012) has accumulated considerable anecdotal evidence indicating that the children of atheists often display strong religious propensities even though their parents do not teach them god concepts or, in some cases, actually discourage them from adopting religious beliefs. He reports on a coworker whose three daughters professed a belief in God even though their father was an atheist (the mother was Christian) and the children were not pushed in any direction. In fact, the oldest daughter argued with her father about the existence of God. Barrett also mentions an atheist couple who reluctantly let their five-year-old daughter attend vacation Bible school, during which she indicated an intense desire to continue to learn about God. Based on these and numerous other anecdotes, as well as some of the research mentioned above, Barrett concludes that it is usually very difficult to indoctrinate children against religious belief. Of course, even if children do have natural theistic intuitions, by-product theorists can still argue that this does not prove that religion is an evolutionary adaptation. Natural theistic intuitions can still be piggybacking on other cognitive adaptations. But usually behaviors that emerge this early and in the absence of parental socialization are not mere by-products.

Evidence of adaptation: biological roots of religious ritual To my mind, an extremely important breakthrough in the understanding of the biology of religious ritual has been made by the anthropologist Alan Fiske and his colleagues (Dulaney and Fiske, 1994; Fiske and Haslam, 1997; Rapoport and Fiske, 1998; see also Boyer and Liénard, 2006). Fiske has noticed a large number of striking similarities between religious rituals and the mental illness known as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. Table 5.1 lists the most prominent similarities identified by Fiske. In perusing the table, consider the following rituals. The Sherpas of Nepal repeat a prayer three times on each of two days, and in doing so prostrate themselves several hundred times. Many rituals in South Asia show concerns about bodily secretions,

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Table 5.1 Similarities between religious rituals and obsessive-compulsive disorder Religious rituals

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Washing and other forms of ritual purification

Concern with dirt, germs, or anything regarded as impure, unclean, or polluting; repeated hand washing, showering, bathing, tooth brushing, etc. Attention to a threshold or entrance

Orientation to thresholds and boundaries Stereotyped actions Precise spatial arrays and symmetrical patterns Scrupulous adherence to rules and frequent creation of new rules Performance of acts in precise sequences Repetitive sequences, such as counting Imperative measures to prevent harm and protect against imminent dangers

Stereotyped actions Ordering or arranging objects in precise spatial configurations Scrupulous adherence to rules and frequent creation of new rules Performance of acts in precise sequences Frequent counting to specific numbers; repetitive checking to make sure of something (e.g., door locked, oven turned off, no water running) Fear of harming others or the self; feeling horror, repugnance, and guilt about violations; forbidden, aggressive, or perverse sexual thoughts Intrusive nonsense sounds, words, or music

Sources: Dulaney and Fiske (1994), Fiske and Haslam (1997), and Rapoport and Fiske (1998).

contamination, and consequent purification, and there are other rites that focus on removing danger and harm. Some of the rituals are pervaded by numbers, colors, and precise spatial configurations. Usually there are extreme forms of verbal repetition. One rite begins with bathing and is followed by offerings to twelve deities of twelve red and white substances. Another ritual involves bathing and teeth cleaning followed by offerings of a variety of black things, such as black cloth, black flowers, or a black cow. Various kinds of purification with water are common in the major world religions, such as bathing in the Ganges River for Hindus, foot baths among Muslims, and submerging in water in baptismal rituals in certain Christian denominations (Dulaney and Fiske, 1994). One of the most elaborate rituals anywhere in the world occurs among the Turkana of Kenya (Liénard, 2006). The ritual is carried out over five days. On the first day the ritual begins with the placing of two clay pots filled with water several feet apart on a North-South axis. Participants begin to dance, and for two hours they stomp their feet on the ground, sing as loudly as they can, and turn counterclockwise around the pots. Eventually the dancers stop west of

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the clay pots and form a semicircle facing toward the east. Then, in a west to east movement, they cross the dance area and pass between the pots. On the second and third days this sequence of actions is repeated again and again, with further complications being added. On the fourth day the focus involves the consumption of milk, butter, and cream according to very precise rules. Then, on the fifth day, the ritual is capped by an elaborate ox sacrifice. When the ox is brought to the ritual scene, it is driven around the dancers three times in a counterclockwise direction. Participants go around the pots three times and then form a semicircle facing to the east. An acacia tree is prepared by clearing out shrubs that surround it, and the ox is then brought to the tree. People advance toward the ox and, one by one, rub their bodies on the ox’s forehead in an upward movement. The parts of the body rubbed on the animal’s forehead are then smeared with chyme (stomach contents) or colored clay. People are then sprayed with water. They dip their hands into a pile of chyme and smear it on the ox’s head while marking two bands on its body. The ox is then ready to be sacrificed. The person performing the sacrifice should belong to the clan that owns the ox, and ideally should be a left-handed twin. This person cuts open the ox with a spear held in his left hand, and then the animal is killed by means of two blows of an axe, which essentially cuts the ox into halves. These halves are spread out and placed to the north. Participants are required to walk through the area between the two halves of the ox. The ox’s owners go through first, and participants from other clans follow them. As the participants complete their passage, some raise their arms toward the sky. Once everyone has passed through, they return to the dance floor and are splashed with water. Elders of each clan wish their members a long life and many offspring, and also urge them to be honorable and to fight disease. The ritual ends with its leader announcing various prohibitions that must then be followed for a specified period of time, such as not exchanging animals or hunting large game. Now consider some ritualized actions performed by OCD patients. One patient, Jacob, felt compelled to touch everything seven times. When he requested something he asked for it seven times, and when he swallowed he had to do it seven times. Another boy, Zach, felt constantly dirty and washed his hands thirty-five times each day. When he swallowed saliva he crouched down and touched the ground. Later he developed the practice of blinking his eyes when he swallowed, and also the habit of touching his shoulders to his chin. Still later he would touch all of his fingers to his lips if he swallowed saliva (Dulaney and Fiske, 1994).

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Why do people do such elaborate things, nearly all of which seem to have no underlying rationale and to be essentially arbitrary? Fiske argues that there is an innate tendency to perform rituals and that it is an evolutionary adaptation. Presumably there is a kind of “ritual module” in the brain, which seems to be most thoroughly activated in religious as compared to other types of rituals. But why is it there? What does it do? Why would it be an adaptation? Fiske’s answer is that it involves marking boundaries and creating order and regularity. Fiske and his colleague Nick Haslam contend that this search for order and clarity of meaning is the foundation of science, religion, mythology, poetry, and other arts. This is the way people understand, explain, and control their worlds. In particular, people tend to carry out collective cultural rituals to create or restore order, particularly when the normative order is threatened or problematic. Many rituals are responses to illness, death, other misfortunes, or social chaos. Calendrical rituals mark (and partially constitute) categorical temporal boundaries. Life cycle, incorporation, and divinatory rituals mark the essential social categories, delineating basic social statuses and defining membership in them. (1997: 221)

Fiske’s argument seems to apply especially well to life-cycle rituals, such as puberty rituals and those focused on marriage, childbirth, and death. In band and tribal societies these rituals are universal; they are also found in many horticultural, agrarian, and pastoral societies, and even to some extent in modern industrialized societies. (Puberty rituals have certainly declined in modern societies, although there are still bar mitzvahs among Jews, Christian confirmation ceremonies, and so-called training programs for adolescent males among some Buddhists.) And these rituals are usually intertwined with religion and given religious meaning. Most religious rituals are not life-cycle rituals, but Fiske’s theory may apply to them as well. Maintaining order and regularity is an important psychological need in all societies and, indeed, is an important part of the need for ontological security. (I am not certain that this is the specific meaning that Fiske attaches to the maintenance of order and regularity, but in any event it is how I wish to construe it. The excessive need for order and regularity seems to be a critical component of OCD, violations of which cause very high levels of anxiety.) Atran says that “existential anxiety is an important factor in generating religious experience; the emotions that motivate religious beliefs must be validated, and this is what rituals help to do” (2002: 149). Boyer (2003) suggests that rituals protect people from invisible danger (see also Boyer and Liénard, 2006; Liénard and Boyer, 2006). Atran and Norenzayan say that religious belief and ritual

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performance help people to overcome “the dreads and uncertainties of both spontaneously occurring natural events and the manipulated happenings of the social world.” (2004: 717) If maintaining ontological security is the main function—or at least one of the main functions—of religious rituals, the connection to OCD becomes apparent. The psychiatric understanding of OCD has advanced greatly in recent years. It is now understood to be a brain disorder involving a dysfunction of specific neural circuits, especially the cortical-striato-pallidal-thalamic circuit and basal ganglia (Boyer and Liénard, 2006, 2008; Szechtman and Woody, 2004). Damage to these areas of the brain, or malfunctioning arising for other reasons, leads to a kind of hyperactivation of the ritual mechanism contained therein. The ontological security interpretation is reinforced by the fact that OCD shares features in common with anxiety and mood disorders and often responds to treatment with certain kinds of antidepressants (many of which also have anxiolytic, or anxiety-reducing, effects). Like religious ritual, OCD seems to be found in all societies and cultures, and there are similar rates of prevalence in such contemporary societies as the United States, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, and New Zealand (Rapoport and Fiske, 1998). Similarly, Henry Szechtman and Erik Woody (2004), whose focus is only on OCD, posit the existence of what they call a security motivation system, which is “a set of biologically based (hardwired), species-typical behaviors directed toward protection from danger of self and others, suggesting the operation of a tendency that is biologically primitive and necessary for species survival” (2004: 113–14). And they add that “wariness and/or anxiety is the emotional state of the security motivation system” (2004: 114).7 An important difference between religious rituals and OCD is that the former are largely anxiety reducing, whereas OCD does not reduce anxiety over the long run. OCD patients need to perform their rituals in order to reduce anxiety, but any such reduction is ephemeral. Anxiety quickly returns, thus prompting the need to perform the rituals again and again. But this difference is to be expected since religious ritual stems from normal mental functioning, OCD from abnormal functioning.

Evidence of adaptation: religion’s widespread importance A final reason for thinking of religion as an adaptation is the enormous amount of time and effort that is put into it in every known society (with modern highly

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secularized societies somewhat excepted). As we have seen, in small-scale societies, especially hunter-gatherer societies, shamanic activities pervade social life. In societies devoted to simple or more advanced forms of horticulture, many religious rituals center around agricultural practices. In the pagan religions of the ancient world, priests directed religious rituals, often performed daily—in ancient Roman religion the daily performance of rituals was de rigueur practically to the point of obsession—in which various gods were propitiated by offerings of food and other substances. In the religions of the modern world, rituals are elaborate. In Catholic Christianity, for example, priests wear elaborate garb, preside over communion, and regularly hear confessions. In Judaism the synagogue is a central part of life for many Jews, and the Judaic life transition rituals of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs are imbued with considerable religious significance. Islam contains five “pillars,” which are duties of every Muslim: frequent repetition of the creed “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet,” prayer five times a day facing toward Mecca, fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime but preferably once a year, and almsgiving. Serious Buddhists and Hindus spend a great deal of time in meditation and various ascetic practices in addition to worshiping at temples. Many members of the Protestant sects that have swept through Latin America in recent decades engage in formal religious practices two or three times a week, and their religious revivals sometimes fill entire soccer stadiums (Martin, 1990; Stoll, 1990). In all of the world religions, appeals to God through prayer are a major activity of the majority of adherents. Something that takes up so much of people’s time and energy in societies the world over does not look like something that is merely hitching a ride on something else—some sort of “gigantic mental accident.”

Conclusions In conclusion, I take the adaptationist position that there really is some sort of “religion module”—a bundle of highly specialized neurons and neuronal connections built by a set of genes—in the brain. It is possible that very early religious beliefs and rituals originated as by-products of cognitive modules intended for some other purpose, but, if so, I think it likely that at some point they became decoupled from these modules and evolved their own independent structure, that is, became adaptations.8 Sosis is making the same suggestion in saying,

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While many adaptationists argue that the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that produce religious beliefs and behaviors did not evolve for this purpose, they argue that co-opting of pre-existent structures for novel solutions to ecological challenges is a hallmark of evolutionary adaptation. . . . The critical issue of the adaptationist-byproduct debate is therefore whether or not the cognitive and emotional mechanisms [of] the religious system have been adaptively modified by the new socioecological niche created by religion. If yes, the religious system is an adaptation. (2009: 324; emphasis added. See also Pyysiäinen and Hauser [2009] and Powell and Clarke [2012])

But the religious brain is only part of the story of the evolution of religion. There is also the equally important sociocultural side, which I begin to address theoretically in the following chapter.

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The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 1: The Overall Pattern

The phrase “religious evolution” in the title of this book has a double meaning: it refers to the biological evolution of the religious architecture of the brain, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to the sociocultural evolution of different forms of religious belief and practice. We have had a long look at the latter from a descriptive point of view (Chapters 2 and 3), but now we need to try to understand the process theoretically. Why have religions evolved along a roughly shamanic-to-communal-to-pagan-to-world transcendent path? In this chapter I begin by examining some important theories of sociocultural evolution, after which I provide an empirical application of one of them in order to identify some of the preconditions or necessary causes of the long-term religious changes. Several decades ago Donald Campbell (1965, 1975) identified two main types of theories of sociocultural evolution: those that attempt to address the fact and course of sociocultural evolution, and those that are concerned to articulate the process of sociocultural evolution. The first type of theory is as old as anthropology and sociology, dating from the middle of the nineteenth century. Theories within this category differ in important ways, but for the sake of simplicity I should like to group them together under the name historical theories. The second type of theory is much more recent. It also comes in different versions, but all of these attempt to use Darwinian natural selection theory to describe and explain cultural evolution, so I refer to them collectively under the name cultural Darwinian theories. Cultural Darwinian theories have been developed in order to correct what their creators regard as a “wrong turn” taken many years ago by the historical theories, of which they are entirely dismissive. However, I shall argue that, on the contrary, the historical theories were on the right track all along. For this reason, I will discuss these two types of theories in reverse chronological order so as to expose the weaknesses of

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cultural Darwinism and bring to light the strengths of the historical theories. (NB: A point of terminology. The cultural Darwinians insist on using the term cultural evolution because it is culture, which they define as systems of ideas and information, that is their concern. They are only secondarily concerned with behavior (some of them not at all) and do not seem to have any interest in social structure or organization. So when discussing the cultural Darwinians I shall follow their terminology. But the historical evolutionists are concerned with behavior and social organization in addition to ideas—in some instances they are more interested in behavior and social organization—and therefore I use the term sociocultural rather than cultural when referring to their theories.)

Darwinian cultural evolution and its problems The first modern Darwinian theory of sociocultural evolution was formulated by Donald Campbell himself.1 (I say sociocultural with respect to Campbell because that is the term he uses. In fact he hyphenates it: sociocultural.) For Campbell, the key principles of his proposed theory are the sociocultural analogues of the Darwinian concepts of variation, selection, and the transmission of selected variants. A Darwinian theory of sociocultural evolution has three fundamental features: 1. a conception of sociocultural variations as occurring through a process that is “random,” “chancelike,” or “blind” (and thus directly analogous to genetic mutation in biology) 2. a criterion specifying that there is differential survival of sociocultural variants (which is directly analogous to the differential survival of genes and organisms) 3. a mechanism specifying that surviving sociocultural variants propagate and spread throughout a sociocultural system (which is directly analogous to the mechanism of natural selection in evolutionary biology) Campbell calls his theory the “variation-and-selective-retention model,” which he proposes is as applicable to the evolution of social and cultural life as Darwin’s natural selection theory is to life itself. He contends that it is this model that accounts for sociocultural evolution as a cumulative and progressive process: the natural selection of cultural variants produces increasingly complex and welladapted sociocultural forms.

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L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus Feldman (1981) are also proponents of Darwinizing cultural evolution. The heart of their theory lies in four basic concepts: cultural mutation, selection, transmission, and drift. Unlike Campbell, they claim that cultural variations are not directly analogous to biological mutations in that they are directed and purposive rather than random or blind to effects. They note several forms of transmission, such as between parent and child (vertical transmission) and between unrelated individuals (horizontal transmission). A new wrinkle is also added, that of cultural drift, which is considered directly analogous to genetic drift as a secondary mechanism of biological evolution. All of these concepts are subjected to mathematical modeling, and it is clear that Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman regard their theory as having great scientific rigor. Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson (1985, 2005) were also among the earliest cultural Darwinians. They put a particular emphasis on culture as the primary human adaptive system, defining culture as “information capable of affecting individuals’ behavior that they acquire from other members of their species” (Richerson and Boyd, 2005: 5). They stress that in studying culture we should be true to the Darwinian principle that culture and cultural evolution require population thinking: culture is not something superorganic, as many anthropologists have assumed. Rather, culture is “something that is acquired, stored, and transmitted by a population of individuals” (2005: 8). The authors identify two main mechanisms of cultural evolution. There is guided variation, in which new cultural variants emerge through the invention or adaptive modification of existing variants. There is also biased transmission, a process whereby cultural traits are transmitted through social learning but in which individuals are predisposed (“biased”) to adopt certain cultural variants rather than others. Biased transmission consists of three subtypes. Contentbased bias occurs when individuals are more likely to learn some cultural variants rather than others because of their specific content; some variants are more attractive or easier to learn and remember than others. In frequency-based bias, also known as conformist bias, individuals copy what most people do or how they think. Model-based bias involves individuals choosing to copy specific individuals, usually those who are the most successful or have the highest prestige. Biased transmission is closely intertwined with the natural selection of cultural variations. This means that “individuals characterized by alternative cultural variants differ in their probability of surviving and becoming effective models” (Boyd and Richerson, 1985: 173). When natural selection operates on

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cultural variants it may produce effects that increase genetic fitness, but often this natural selection process works on cultural variants alone. When the latter occurs, genetic fitness can remain unchanged or in some cases actually decline. Boyd and Richerson also identify their theory as a dual inheritance theory, which emphasizes that there are two parallel systems of inheritance that operate to produce evolutionary outcomes. There is a biological system in which selection and transmission occur genetically and produce traits that are adaptive from the point of view of genetic fitness. And there is a cultural system of inheritance in which selection and transmission occur through nongenetic mechanisms. This system is intertwined in some ways with the biological system, but it is also autonomous. Thus it may produce effects having nothing to do with, or even antagonistic to, genetic fitness. Much of the time the cultural system of inheritance produces outcomes that are selected and transmitted for their adaptive value, but maladaptive traits can also result. Some of the most recent strong proponents of cultural evolution are Joseph Henrich, Alex Mesoudi, and their collaborators (Henrich, 2009; Henrich and McElreath, 2003; Mesoudi, 2007a,b, 2011; Mesoudi, Whiten and Laland, 2004, 2006; O’Brien et al., 2010). Mesoudi is highly critical of John Tooby and Leda Cosmides’s (1989, 1992; Cosmides and Tooby, 1989) concept of “evoked culture,” saying that it is very different from the notion of cultural transmission. (Indeed, it is. Evoked culture, one of the key concepts of evolutionary psychology, is a set of ideas and behaviors that are the result of innate psychological mechanisms, often called “modules,” rather than social learning. Examples, which are myriad, include the universal male preference for younger rather than older females as mates, and the universal favoring of kin over non-kin.) “If evolutionary psychologists are correct,” Mesoudi says, “then transmitted culture plays little or no role in shaping human behavioral variation, and a theory of cultural evolution would be unnecessary. So it is important to demonstrate that individual learning and genes cannot fully explain human behavioral variation and that culture plays an important role” (2011: 12). Notice that Mesoudi says “cannot fully explain,” in which case he seems to be leaving the door open to evoked culture’s ability to explain behavioral variation to some degree, possibly even to a substantial degree. But the cultural Darwinians, while sometimes nodding in its direction, largely ignore evoked culture, at least as it is formulated by the evolutionary psychologists. Henrich (2009) gives particular emphasis to the idea of credibility enhancing displays, or CREDs. Individuals are genetically primed, he says, not only to

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imitate prestigious or talented people, but especially to imitate those who behave in ways that prove costly. For example, a religious practitioner who tithes, attends all Sunday services, and regularly devotes a great deal of his time to church activities at the expense of other activities (e.g., playing golf, going to ballgames) is signaling his commitment to his religion. This gives him credibility in the eyes of those who might imitate him, and thus makes them much more likely to do so. Even more extreme CREDs occur in the case of religious martyrs, who are willing to be tortured or even die on behalf of their faith.2 The cultural Darwinians’ overarching goal is to link the study of cultural microevolution to the study of cultural macroevolution. Darwinian cultural evolution explains cultural change by identifying microevolutionary mechanisms. As Mesoudi writes, “A Darwinian theory of cultural evolution provides the necessary conditions for an evolutionary synthesis for the study of culture, wherein the microevolutionary forces studied by psychologists, economists, and ethnographers can be used to explain the specific macroevolutionary patterns observed by archaeologists, historians, and sociologists” (Mesoudi, 2007a: 272). Mesoudi, Whiten, and Laland (2006) note that the Darwinian cultural evolution approach in general has not gained much traction in anthropology and the other social sciences. Numerous criticisms have been made, in particular: many cultural mutations are not random or blind to effects but purposive; cultural traits are not particulate (as are genes) and therefore the units of culture, whatever they may be, do not replicate reliably; and there is no genuine cultural equivalent of the biological genotype-phenotype distinction. To these I would add the point that the cultural Darwinians focus mostly on how units of culture get transmitted and fail to say enough about how various cultural patterns get created in the first place (MacDonald, 2014). They do refer to the invention of new patterns or the adaptive modification of existing ones (their guided variation), but these get short shrift. The cultural Darwinians do not seem overly concerned by these criticisms and, to be fair, have formulated some plausible responses to some of them (e.g., Henrich and Boyd, 2002; Henrich, Boyd and Richerson, 2008; Mesoudi, 2007b), mainly by saying that the concepts of cultural evolution don’t have to be strictly Darwinian. But if the biology-culture analogy has to be significantly qualified, isn’t the Darwinism in the Darwinian theory of cultural evolution thereby weakened? Mesoudi (2011) also claims that cultural evolution is not neo-Darwinian but just plain Darwinian. But if neo-Darwinism has superseded classical Darwinism, doesn’t this also weaken the attempt to extrapolate from biology to culture?

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To my mind the most serious problem concerns how the cultural Darwinians deal with change at the macroevolutionary level, or even how they conceptualize macroevolution. In terms of identifying real causes of macroevolution, their results so far are quite meager. In fact, most of the examples they give of macroevolutionary change are not macroevolutionary at all as historical evolutionists would use the term (by which is usually meant “of very large scale” and “over long periods of time”). The substantive applications of their principles include changes in such things as teddy bear design (!), hammers, corrugated pottery, painted pottery, projectile points, Acheulian handaxes, and verb usage. They also discuss the transmission of rumors, the diffusion of new types of seeds, and changes in antibiotic use among doctors (Mesoudi, 2007a; Mesoudi, Whiten, and Laland, 2004, 2006; Acerbi and Mesoudi, 2015). In what sense are these examples of macroevolution? There are, however, a couple of exceptions. Richerson, Boyd, and Bettinger (2001) have tackled one of the major macroevolutionary transitions in human history, the origins of agriculture beginning some 11,600 years ago. Around this time there was a major climate change from colder and highly variable climate patterns to warmer and more stable patterns. Prior to 11,600 years ago, they say, the climate made agriculture impossible, but after this time it became possible and even mandatory because the growing populations of early agricultural societies made them larger and more competitive against hunter-gatherers. As a result, agriculturalists gradually replaced hunter-gatherers throughout much of the world. This is a very insightful argument, but it seems hardly to depend at all on any Darwinian principles. Indeed, it relies mainly on one of the major causal factors (ecological change) proposed by several historical evolutionists (see below). In a related article, Richerson and Boyd (2001) trace out the major increases in social complexity from the origins of agriculture down to the present day but, again, their Darwinian principles are not on prominent display. They sketch out a process that has been well known to historical evolutionists for many decades, and thus there is little new in their analysis. They say, “Human social institutions must undergo a revolution to cope with the increased population densities that follow from agricultural production” (2001: 218), and “The increasing scale of social institutions associated with rising population densities during the Holocene has dramatically reshaped human social life” (2001: 222). Exactly right on both counts, as historical evolutionists have shown in detail for many years. But Darwinian cultural evolution is not necessary to understand

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this process, or even adequate to understand it. To do so requires importing causal conditions that lie outside the Darwinian cultural approach. In the end, long-term sociocultural evolution is not really Darwinian, except perhaps in the most general sense that cultural variations or innovations that are beneficial (or necessary) may be retained and spread. But this does not tell us very much because we still need to identify the principal causal factors that are at work in sociocultural evolution (Carneiro, 1992)—that is, the causal factors that lead to particular variations or innovations in the first place—which is what the long-standing historical theories of sociocultural evolution try to do. Sociocultural evolution simply works differently from biological evolution, and efforts to Darwinize it are at best a matter of metaphors or analogies (Pinker, 2012; Kundt, 2015). Cultural evolution is not just a little bit different from biological evolution; it is a lot different. The explanation of sociocultural evolution requires its own theories, which will be non-Darwinian theories.3

Historical theories of sociocultural evolution What I am calling historical theories of sociocultural evolution date from the middle of the nineteenth century. What they all have in common is their concern with long-term historical change, hence the name.4 But unlike historians, sociocultural evolutionists are primarily interested in the very long term, usually on the order of thousands of years, and they argue that long-term change reveals strikingly similar patterns throughout the world, which they usually refer to as parallel and convergent evolution. Sociocultural evolutionists take a nomothetic (generalizing) view of history, whereas most historians take an ideographic (particularizing) perspective. Evolutionists do not deny historical uniqueness—indeed, who would, since it should be obvious to any sufficiently alert observer—but find the broader trends more interesting and more worthy of discussion. These kinds of theories have ebbed and flowed down to the present day, at some times highly popular and at other times out of favor (Sanderson, 1990, 2007). Richerson and Boyd (2005) indicate that these theories have virtually nothing in common with the Darwinian cultural evolution theories. They admit that there is a long-term trend toward greater sociocultural complexity, but don’t find this very interesting. They contend that historical evolutionism is mainly

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descriptive; economic intensification and increasing political complexity are more like ecological succession than evolution. Mesoudi (2007a) calls the historical theories unilinear and progressive theories, or ones which assume that there is a built-in drive toward an end-point of perfection through a series of fixed, invariant stages. Cultural evolution is seen as something like the progressive development of an embryo. Like Richerson and Boyd, Mesoudi contends that these theories aren’t even real theories because they fail to provide a mechanism or mechanisms whereby societies move from one stage to another. “It seems that societies somehow magically jump from one stage to the next,” he says (2011: 38). But as we will see in a moment, this astonishing statement is a gross misrepresentation of historical theories because nearly all of them propose specific mechanisms of evolution. The study of cultural evolution took a wrong turn in the nineteenth century, Mesoudi says, when “several anthropologists and sociologists devised schemes of cultural evolution based not on Darwin’s theory of descent-based trees and natural selection, but rather on Herbert Spencer’s progressive, ladderlike, unilinear theory of evolution” (2016: 482). Mesoudi apparently believes that this kind of thinking is still the norm among modern-day historical theorists and that it is the role of the cultural Darwinians to break free from it. Distressingly, Mesoudi and other cultural Darwinians are engaged in the perpetuation of myths created long ago by antievolutionists who demonstrated little understanding of historical evolutionary theories largely because they didn’t bother to read the works of those who developed them. The myths die hard—very hard. (I have written two books [Sanderson, 1990, 2007] dispelling these myths in great detail, but the message has obviously not gotten through to everyone.) The most prominent early evolutionists were Herbert Spencer, Lewis Henry Morgan, and Edward Burnett Tylor (for citations and exposition, see Sanderson, 2007: ch. 2). Their theories were somewhat crude first attempts to map out long-term sociocultural evolution, and as such they are partially vulnerable to Mesoudi’s criticisms. However, these thinkers are largely of historical interest. With the partial exception of some of Spencer’s ideas (see below), no one uses their evolutionary schemes today. Therefore I want to skip ahead to more recent evolutionists whose ideas are a good deal more sophisticated and acceptable and based on more and better empirical data. (Mesoudi writes as if all modern evolutionary theorists are still Spencerians, but this is not even remotely the case. Two important exceptions are the anthropologist Robert Carneiro and the

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sociologist Jonathan Turner, but they draw on the very best of Spencer’s ideas and put them to very good use.) Evolutionary theories became unpopular in anthropology and sociology from about 1890 to 1930 (Sanderson, 2007: ch. 3), but were later revived and became influential once again. The earliest and most important of the revivers was the anthropologist Leslie White (1943, 1959). White was actually a crypto-Marxist. Reminiscent of the Marxian distinction between base and superstructure and the impact of the former on the latter, he compartmentalized sociocultural systems into technology, social systems, and ideology, and saw the first as determining the other two. He is best known for formulating a law of evolution in which he stated that “culture develops when the amount of energy harnessed by man per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the technological means of putting this energy to work is increased; or, as both factors are simultaneously increased” (White, 1943: 338; emphasis in original). Somewhat later Gerhard Lenski (1966, 1970) reintroduced evolutionary thinking into sociology. Drawing heavily on White, he focused mainly on the evolution of subsistence technology, which he saw as the leading determinant of overall sociocultural evolution. Societies moved from hunter-gatherer societies, to simple and advanced horticultural societies, to complex agrarian societies, and then on to modern industrial societies, and as the level of technological development advanced there were major changes in the other dimensions of social and cultural life. The most recent of the prominent historical evolutionists have been the anthropologists Robert Carneiro (1962, 1968, 1970, 2000, 2003) and Marvin Harris (1968, 1977, 1979). Carneiro drew mainly on Spencer and considered himself a Spencerian evolutionist. He considered the main direction of evolution to be from simple to complex, although he did not adhere rigidly to Spencer’s Law of Evolution, and he used Spencer in a sophisticated way. Spencer’s influence was most apparent in his identification of such factors as population pressure, the natural environment, economics, and warfare as the prime movers of evolution. (This was the most important part of Spencer’s evolutionism, far more relevant than his rather sterile Law of Evolution.) In this regard Carneiro (1970) formulated a famous theory of political evolution in which societies moved from simple tribes of a few hundred people with politically autonomous villages, to chiefdoms in which societies of a few thousand to as many as 100,000 were ruled over by powerful chiefs and their retinues. Chiefdoms evolved into states when even more powerful monarchs of some sort (kings, emperors) gained a monopoly over the means of violence and ruled the masses despotically. State-

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level societies usually contained millions of members. When states attacked and conquered other states, empires would form. Another important contribution made by Carneiro (1962, 1968) is his contention that sociocultural evolution can be conceptualized as a sequence in which particular traits appear in a largely fixed order. He has demonstrated that the ethnographic and archaeological record confirms this. For example, in human history and prehistory social status differences generally appear before full-time craft specialists, who generally appear before economic markets, which in turn usually appear before legal codes. Carneiro shows, for example, that the Copper Eskimo have none of these traits, the Nuer only the first, the Tuareg only the first two, the ancient Hawaiians the first three, and the Incas, Assyrians, and Romans all four. As such, they can be arranged on an evolutionary continuum. This can be applied to religious evolution as conceptualized by Wallace. Shamans appear first and the majority of small-scale societies have them. Collective rites are added later, priests and polytheistic pantheons still later, and world transcendent religions last. In this evolutionary sequence the earlier religious beliefs and practices are generally retained, and so there is both religious transformation and religious cumulation. Returning to our ethnographic examples, the Copper Eskimo had only the first of these types of religious practitioners, the Nuer the first and second, and the Hawaiians, Incas, Assyrians, and Romans the first three. (The world transcendent religions are not represented here.) Marvin Harris formulated a unique evolutionary model meant to apply to the past 10,000–11,000 years. For Harris the essence of long-term sociocultural evolution lies in the need for people to intensify their modes of economic production against inevitable environmental depletions and consequent lowered living standards. The main form of intensification is the development of more productive technologies: hunter-gatherers become agriculturalists, small-scale agriculturalists become large-scale agriculturalists, and so on. Unlike White and Lenski, Harris makes technological advance dependent on other factors, especially ecology and demography, although when they occur technological changes obviously do play an important causal role. What sets off the process of depletion that necessitates productive intensification? For prestate societies, Harris contends that the main engine is population growth and subsequent population pressure. The pressure of population ultimately leads to the depletion of environments and consequent reductions in living standards. When living standards deteriorate up to or beyond a certain point, people are prompted to develop new technologies that

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will halt or reverse the deterioration. But with a more productive technology, population growth resumes once again, which in turn will bring about a new wave of depletion and deterioration. With the rise of highly stratified societies this process is aggravated and made more complicated by the exploitation of much of the population by dominant classes, as well as by severe forms of intersocietal competition and aggression. With this depletion-intensification-renewed depletion model Harris attempts to explain numerous features of sociocultural evolution. These include the origin of agricultural modes of production, the rise of economic and political hierarchies out of an earlier condition of equality, the origin of states, the origins of modern capitalism and industrialism, and the emergence of monotheistic religions of love and mercy. I have modified and partially replaced Harris’s approach with the one I call evolutionary materialism (Sanderson, 1994, 1999, 2007). I propose the material conditions of human existence as the principal causal factors in sociocultural evolution. These are the demographic, ecological, technological, and economic forces at work in social life. Demographic factors are those involving the size, density, sex and age ratios, rate of growth, etc., of populations. Population pressure (density within the context of technological capacity and resource availability) is the most significant demographic force in sociocultural evolution. Ecological factors involve all aspects of the natural or physical environment, especially as these interact with technology and demography. Technological factors are the tools, techniques, and methods the members of a society possess, and include both subsistence technology and military technology. Economic factors involve the modes of social organization whereby people produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services. Economic factors involve both subsistence economy (production of the basic means of subsistence at the household level) and political economy (production and exchange of goods and services for economic gain). These causal factors operate probabilistically—in the long run and in the majority of cases. It is not being claimed that the material conditions of human existence determine, by themselves, all sociocultural evolution. Such a claim would be foolish. It is only claimed that the bulk of long-term evolution, and especially the most significant evolutionary transformations, are rooted in material conditions. Plenty of allowance is made for nonmaterial conditions to be causal variables. Christianity, for example, has had a large impact on the development of European civilization over the past two thousand years. Evolutionary materialism proposes that different types of sociocultural systems in different historical eras and at different evolutionary stages embody different

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“evolutionary logics.” The principal causal forces of sociocultural evolution differ from one historical era or evolutionary stage to another. For example, the causal conditions responsible for the origins of agricultural societies are quite different from those promoting the transition from agrarian societies to modern capitalist and industrial societies over the past few centuries. There is no universal cause of sociocultural evolution. The causes of sociocultural evolution themselves evolve. Evolutionary materialism also contains principles regarding the adaptative character of sociocultural evolution, attempts to identify the unit or units of evolution, examines the tempo of evolution (e.g., whether evolution is fast or slow, gradual or punctuated, etc.), and disentangles evolution and progress. Most of the twentieth-century historical theories are adaptationist theories, but we need to be clear as to what this means. In the most general sense, adaptationist theories assume that new traits emerge because they are useful or beneficial. In evolutionary biology this has a precise meaning: an evolutionary adaptation is a trait that evolved because it leads to differential reproductive success. An organism possessing the adaptive trait is positioned to outreproduce those of its competitors not having the trait. In sociocultural evolutionism (evolutionary materialism in particular), a social or cultural trait—for example, a norm, social role, institution, or behavior—arises as an adaptation because it is beneficial in meeting one or another human need in a way that is superior to a prior arrangement or that provides a solution to an ongoing or new problem. Although this meaning is obviously less precise than the biological meaning, there is a very long and well-established history of the use of the adaptation concept in theories of sociocultural evolution (see Sanderson, 1990, 2007: esp. ch. 10). But this raises an additional problem: In the case of sociocultural evolution, what is the unit to which an adaptation applies? Is it a social group, organization, or entire society? Or is it the individual? Many sociocultural evolutionists argue for adaptation at the societal level. Gerhard Lenski contends that as societies move through the various forms of subsistence technology they improve their overall functioning. The evolutionist Talcott Parsons (1966, 1971) introduced the concept of adaptive capacity. He held that societies are self-organizing, goal-oriented systems that seek ways of adapting themselves to their environments. For him, the key to adaptation is the increasing differentiation of societies. By differentiating, sociocultural systems increase their adaptive capacity, or undergo what Parsons called adaptive upgrading. But others reject this group selectionist approach. Harris, who once defended it, changed his mind and became an individual selectionist. He says, “The selectionist processes responsible for the . . . evolutionary trajectories of

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sociocultural systems operate mainly on the individual level; individuals follow one rather than another course of action, and as a result the aggregate pattern changes” (Harris, 1979: 60). The evolutionary materialist extension of Harris is an individual selectionist approach.5 Adaptation at the level of the individual demands an answer to the question “adaptation to what?” The answer is basic human needs. These include, in particular, diets that provide more rather than fewer calories, animal proteins, and nutrients; good health and physical and mental well-being; a long and complete life; minimization of the amount of time and energy expended in burdensome or unpleasant work (a Law of Least Effort); accumulating material possessions that save time and energy and that make life easier; reproductive success in present and future generations; social status and, to the extent that a society makes it possible, wealth; and such abstract things as understanding the meaning of life, artistic expression, and, of most importance to the present book, religious belief and ritual expression (Harris, 1979; Arnhart, 1998). Group adaptationists are generally progressivists. But none of the twentiethcentury evolutionists discussed here is a progressivist in the sense that the nineteenth-century evolutionists were. The former have never claimed that Western civilization is somehow the pinnacle of greatness and that everyone else is or was inferior. White said that the degree to which cultures had progressed could be determined objectively, the criterion for assessment being the degree of survival and security of a society’s members. Lenski held essentially the same view. Harris is a nonprogressivist or even antiprogressivist. He holds the view that much of the record of the past 11,000 years is a record of retrogression—of greater workloads, declining standards of living, increasing economic inequalities, and growing economic exploitation and political coercion. However, he does readily acknowledge that major improvements in survival and security have taken place with the shift to modern industrial societies in the past two centuries. In any event, the concepts of evolution and progress are analytically separate, and each evolutionary transition has to be assessed in its own terms. (For a detailed discussion, see Sanderson, 2007: 307–26.6) No twentieth-century evolutionist is a unilinearist in the sense of claiming that all sociocultural evolution proceeds through a rigid sequence of stages. In fact, different stage schemes have been employed, and some theorists don’t even rely on stages. Carneiro, however, defends what we might call a weak unilinearism. There are overall trends; most societies evolve along similar lines, but certainly not all do. Some societies go off in their own directions, and

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there is stage skipping, stasis, and retrogression. Carneiro even claims that the unilinearism of the earliest evolutionists was of this weak form (rather than a strict or strong form), and the evidence will support that (see Sanderson, 2007: 40–42). They recognized historical divergence, but were simply more interested in overall trends. Sociocultural evolutionists differ from traditional historians not in rejecting historical uniqueness but in recognizing that “history is not just one damned thing after another.” To sum up, we can characterize a historical theory of sociocultural evolution, of which evolutionary materialism is one version, as one having four basic features (Wright, 1983): 1. It proposes a typology of sociocultural forms with potential directionality. 2. It orders these forms in the way it does on the assumption that the probability of remaining at the same stage in the typology is greater than the probability of regression. 3. It asserts a probability of transition from one stage of the typology to another. 4. It identifies a mechanism or set of mechanisms whereby the transition from one stage to another occurs. A historical evolutionary theory therefore assumes a tendency toward directionality, no matter how weak, in social change. There is an overall set of evolutionary trends (parallel evolution), but divergent evolution may also occur. Directionality may take several forms, such as from simpler to more complex societies, from egalitarian to highly stratified societies, or from autonomous village societies to powerful states and empires. Evolutionary transitions do not represent a teleological unfolding of latent potentialities, and the sequence of stages is not rigid. The mechanisms of transition need not be the same, as the transition from one particular stage to another may differ from other stage transitions. There is no single, universal mechanism of transition. Persistence at a stage is common, and retrogression to earlier stages sometimes occurs. Evolutionary transitions are usually adaptive, but may also occur due to the actions of elite groups, and for other reasons (Runciman, 2009; Wright, 1983). Evolutionary movement may be progressive in that the quality of life is improved, but some evolution is neutral and some may be associated with declines in life’s quality. In this book I employ an evolutionary materialist perspective to understand long-term religious evolution in which the mechanisms of change—the principal causal factors—are the demographic characteristics of populations, advances in

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both subsistence and military technology, and modes of economic production and exchange.7

Necessary causes of religious evolution I now turn to applying the evolutionary materialist approach to explaining longterm religious evolution. Explaining this evolution necessitates understanding causation on two levels: consideration of those factors that have made religious evolution possible, on the one hand, and considering those that have made it actual, on the other. Because religion is part of society, it is part of sociocultural evolution more generally, which means that religious evolution cannot occur without certain sociocultural preconditions, or necessary causes. But just because religious evolution can occur does not mean that it will occur. If religious evolution is a process of sociocultural adaptation, there have to be new kinds of religious needs to convert the possible into the actual. The remainder of this chapter seeks to identify some of religious evolution’s social prerequisites, although it touches briefly on what these prerequisites do to make the possible actual. What new religious needs do these changing sociocultural conditions call forth? To identify some of the necessary causes of religious evolution a number of previous studies using a quantitative approach have been conducted. All of these have used Swanson’s high gods (or a slight variation) as their primary dependent variable, and they have used a variety of independent variables. Variables found to be related to the presence or absence of high gods include the number of sovereign groups in a society (a sovereign group being one that has an independent jurisdiction over a particular realm of social life) (Swanson, 1960; Peregrine, 1996), the mode of subsistence technology (Davis, 1971), the degree of economic and political complexity (Underhill, 1975), and the size of the population (Roes and Raymond, 2003). Unfortunately, all of the studies are deficient in one way or another. In the majority of cases the studies tested a single hypothesis, or a set of hypotheses drawn from a single perspective. With one or two exceptions, competing hypotheses were not tested against one another. In order for this to have been done, appropriate statistical controls would have had to be introduced and multivariate analyses employed. In addition, the studies have used a range of cross-cultural samples, and in two instances the samples were very small. But

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the most serious problem is that, as a measure of religious evolution, the high gods variable leaves a lot to be desired. There are two principal difficulties. First, in his original formulation Swanson equated the presence of high gods with monotheism. As noted in Chapter 1, this is highly problematic because there is a very large difference between the high gods of small-scale societies and the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent gods characteristic of the world transcendent religions. Even Swanson himself recognized that the high gods of simpler societies were very different from the high gods of the world religions. This is especially true of high gods who are inactive, or who are active but unconcerned with human morality, but it is also the case with respect to active high gods who are concerned with human morality. The One True God of the Near Eastern world religions is active and concerned with human morality, but He is much, much more besides. Moreover, restricting the study of religious evolution to the social origins of high gods is troublesome because religion is a multifaceted phenomenon that includes ritual practices as well as beliefs. The high gods variable says nothing about religious organizations, personnel, and practices. As previous chapters should have clearly demonstrated, an adequate analysis of the religion of any society requires understanding how that society’s religious practices are socially organized.

An empirical analysis Because of these difficulties, Wesley Roberts and I carried out our own study using a different dependent variable based on Wallace’s four-stage typology, a variable we call simply Stage of Religious Evolution (SRE). As has been apparent, Wallace’s typology (suitably amended) has, along with Bellah’s, underlain our discussion of long-term religious evolution throughout this book. The sample we used for our analysis is the set of 186 societies that George Peter Murdock and Douglas White (1969) extracted from the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock, 1967), the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS or Standard Sample for short).8 These societies represent every single micro-region in the world and are generally considered the optimal set of societies for doing empirical research that goes beyond mere description, that is, that can be used for hypothesis testing. The independent variables we chose for study already existed in the SCCS, but SRE was not included. Therefore, to create SRE research was done that examined various religious dimensions of the SCCS societies. Three sources were drawn

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upon: the Encyclopedia of World Cultures (EWC) (O’Leary and Levinson, 1990); the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), a huge compilation of ethnographic data on several hundred nonindustrial societies throughout the world; and various individual ethnographies. The EWC includes full descriptions of many of the societies contained within the SCCS, and thus full descriptions of the available societies’ religions were taken from it. It was consulted first and most of our data came from it. If data on a particular society were not available in the EWC, the microfiche version of HRAF was consulted next. When using the HRAF, one of us (WWR) took notes on the eighteen categories of religious belief and practice coded in the HRAF’s Outline of Cultural Materials. If information could not be found in either the EWC or HRAF, individual ethnographies were consulted. Of the 186 societies in the SCCS, adequate information on the religious beliefs and practices of ten societies could not be found. In addition, there were eight societies that we considered too missionized to provide reliable information on their indigenous religious practices. These eighteen societies were therefore excluded, leaving us with a final sample size of 168. SRE was coded based on the information contained in notes taken from each resource. Each society in the SCCS was placed into one of Wallace’s four stages. To assure coding reliability, all 168 societies were coded independently by each of us. The variable was coded as (1) shamanic, (2) communal, (3) pagan, and (4) world transcendent. We were guided by the following assumptions. A religion is shamanic when a shaman is the center of most religious practice, a strong belief in animism is present, there are no calendrical rites, and laypersons rely on a shaman as the sole intermediary between themselves and the supernatural. A religion is communal when laypersons are the center of religious practice and calendrical or other collective rites of some sort are present. Although a shaman may be present, there are groups (e.g., kinship groups, age grades) that specialize in acting as a mediator between the people and the supernatural. A religion is pagan when a hierarchically organized priestly class is present to direct laypersons in ritual practices, and the focus of these practices is a pantheon of anthropomorphic gods. A religion is world transcendent when it is one of the salvation religions discussed in Chapter 3. A high degree of inter-rater reliability was obtained between the two coders. After arriving at the two independent codings, we then looked at the discrepant codes, reevaluated them, and arrived at a mutually agreed-upon code. These final codes are given in Appendix A. The frequency distribution of the religious types was shamanic = 30, communal = 89, pagan = 12, and world transcendent = 37.

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The independent variables we employed were chosen on the basis of those used in previous research and by what was concluded earlier about the principal causal factors in long-term sociocultural evolution. The variables and their codes are: 1. Societal Size (total population with the following categories: 1 = 10–99; 2 = 100–999; 3 = 1,000–9,999; 4 = 10,000–99,999; 5 = 100,000–999,999; 6 = 1,000,000–9,999,999; 7 = 10,000,000–99,999,999; 8 = 100,000,000 or more). 2. Class Stratification (1 = egalitarian; 2 = wealth distinctions only; 3 = elite or dual; 4 = complex). 3. Subsistence Economy (1 = hunting and gathering; 2 = shifting cultivation with digging sticks; 3 = shifting cultivation with metal hoes; 4 = intensive agriculture without the plow; 5 = intensive agriculture with the plow; 6 = pastoralism). 4. Stage of Political Evolution (1 = band or tribe; 2 = small chiefdom; 3 = larger chiefdom; 4 = small state; 5 = larger state). 5. Writing and Records (1 = none; 2 = mnemonic devices; 3 = nonwritten records; 4 = true writing but no records; 5 = true writing with records). 6. Technological Specialization (1 = none; 2 = pottery only; 3 = loom weaving only; 4 = metalworking only; 5 = smiths/weavers/potters). 7. Sovereign Groups (number of jurisdictional levels beyond the local community: 1 = none; 2 = one level; 3 = two levels; 4 = three or more levels); this variable is not identical to Swanson’s original measure, but it is very similar, and in any event is the closest approximation in the SCCS that is available. We carried out several analyses, the results of which are shown in the following tables. First we calculated the correlation coefficients between the independent variables and SRE, as well as the correlations among the seven independent variables themselves.9 As Table 6.1 shows, all of the independent variables are moderately to strongly correlated with SRE, with the zero-order correlations ranging from 0.492 in the case of technological specialization to 0.704 in the case of writing and records (average correlation = 0.602). But the coefficients among the independent variables are also of considerable strength, ranging from 0.490 (Technological Specialization X Writing and Records) to 0.764 (Stage of Political Evolution X Sovereign Groups), with an average correlation of 0.635. Because the independent variables are significantly correlated with SRE and with each other, it was necessary to perform a regression analysis in order to

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Table 6.1 Correlations among the independent and dependent variables

Societal size Class stratification Subsistence economy Stage of political evolution Writing and records Technological specialization Sovereign groups Stage of religious evolution

Size

Strat

Econ

Pol

Writ

0.597 0.757

0.568

0.744

0.697

0.670

0.568

0.561

0.632 0.630

0.702

0.689

0.737 0.610

0.490

0.627 0.649

0.624 0.513

0.645 0.764 0.662 0.662

0.502 0.704

Tech

Sov

0.518 0.492

0.534

SRE

Ns range from 148 to 186.

Table 6.2 Ordered logistic regression of stage of religious evolution on seven independent variables Variable

Unstandardized estimate (SE)

Standardized estimate

Societal size Class stratification Subsistence economy Stage of political evolution Writing and records Technological specialization Sovereign groups

0.525 (0.254)* −0.155 (0.263) 0.687 (0.237)** 0.280 (0.294)

0.765 −0.167 1.063 0.362

0.678 (0.197)*** −0.257 (0.214)

0.994 −0.363

0.257 (0.250)

0.316

*Wald chi-square p < 0.05 **Wald chi-square p < 0.01 ***Wald chi-square p < 0.001 Pseudo R² = 0.659 N = 136 Note: The standardized estimate is the approximate equivalent of the standardized beta coefficient (β) in OLS regression, allowing direct comparisons of the relative effects of the independent variables. It is obtained by multiplying a variable’s unstandardized coefficient by its standard deviation.

determine the separate effect of each independent variable on SRE, that is, the effect once the effects of the other independent variables are taken into account or controlled for (the so-called net effect).10 Here we performed an ordered logistic regression to estimate the net effect of each predictive (independent) variable on SRE (Table 6.2). Like Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression, results can be presented in the form of unstandardized and standardized beta coefficients

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and accompanying tests of significance. In looking at the standardized estimates we see that only three of the independent variables have a significant net effect on SRE. Subsistence Economy and Writing and Records have the largest (and approximately equal) effect, followed by Societal Size. All of the variables considered together explain a very large 65.9 percent of the variance.11

Long-term religious evolution What do these results mean? An interesting and coherent story emerges. Long-term religious evolution appears to be the joint product of three major evolutionary forces, each of which exerts its own effect independent of the others. It appears that societies move to later stages of religious evolution primarily when their populations become large, when they advance their level of subsistence technology, and when they acquire writing and record keeping. But how, exactly, do these factors exert their effects? To answer this question we conducted a series of cross-tabulations, the results of which are summarized in Tables 6.3 through 6.5. Table 6.3 cross-tabulates SRE with subsistence economy. In the case of shamanic religions, the majority (60 percent) are found in hunter-gatherer societies. Communal religions, by contrast, are most common in societies with shifting cultivation (horticultural societies) (54 percent). Since many of the communal rituals found in these religions concern agricultural and seasonal cycles, this seems as it should be. Many pagan religions (42 percent) are found in horticultural societies, but half (50 percent) are found in societies with intensive agriculture. In the case of world transcendent religions, the vast majority (76 percent) are found in intensive agricultural societies, most of which have the most intensive form of agriculture, that is, plow agriculture. Nearly all the rest (22 percent) are located in pastoral societies. These data suggest that, although pagan religions by no means require intensive agriculture, such agriculture nevertheless predisposes toward this type of religion. Why should intensive agriculture be so important to the development of ecclesiastical, and especially world transcendent, religions? Part of the answer, we think, is that it is necessary to produce economic surpluses large enough to support a class of full-time professional priests. But larger economic surpluses also lead to population growth and increases in urbanization that, as we will see in the next chapter, have played an important role in the historical formation of the world transcendent religions during the Axial Age.

Stage of religious evolution Shamanic Communal Pagan World transcendent Ns in parentheses.

Hunting and gathering

Shifting cultivation: digging sticks

Shifting Intensive cultivation: metal agriculture hoes without plow

Intensive agriculture with plow

Pastoralism

60% (18) 21% (19) 8% (1) 3% (1)

17% (5) 38% (34) 17% (2) 0% (0)

3% (1) 16% (14) 25% (3) 0% (0)

0% (0) 6% (5) 25% (3) 68% (25)

13% (4) 6% (5) 0% (0) 22% (8)

7% (2) 14% (12) 25% (3) 8% (3)

The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 1: The Overall Pattern

Table 6.3 Stage of religious evolution and subsistence economy

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Table 6.4 Stage of religious evolution and writing and records

Stage of religious evolution Shamanic

None

43% (13) Communal 48% (43) Pagan 25% (3) World transcendent 5% (2)

Mnemonic Nonwritten devices records

True writing but no records

True writing and records

47% (14) 33% (29) 8% (1) 3% (1)

0% (0) 6% (5) 0% (0) 19% (7)

0% (0) 1% (1) 33% (4) 68% (25)

10% (3) 12% (11) 33% (4) 5% (2)

Ns in parentheses.

In Table 6.4 SRE is cross-tabulated with writing and records. Here we see that 100 percent of shamanic religions are found in societies where there is no writing. Much the same is true for communal religions, 93 percent of which are found in nonliterate societies. Two-thirds of pagan societies are also nonliterate, although the remaining one-third have both true writing and records. The big shift occurs with the world transcendent religions, 87 percent of which are found in literate societies. This finding corresponds to Walter Ong’s point that writing has made “possible the great introspective religious traditions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All these have sacred texts” (1982: 104). Writing is essential for the creation of these texts. Writing also leads to profound changes in religious practices and in the nature of religious personnel. Jack Goody (1986), a leading anthropological student of the evolution of literacy and its social significance, suggests that with the advent of the written word a specialist priest class formed. Likewise, Pascal Boyer explains that literacy allowed for “stable associations of religious specialists [that] were transformed into an organized social group akin to a corporation or guild” (2001: 275). Writing was also necessary for a specialized priesthood’s ability to achieve a monopoly over religious knowledge. The written word allowed for a “standardization” of religious belief and ritual. Writing down prayers and rituals ensures that they will be practiced in a similar way each time. According to Boyer, “In order to offer a unique set of religious services and a stable one from one religious specialist to the next, a [religious] guild requires a description of what it offers” (2001: 277-78), adding that “literate guilds promote texts as a source of guaranteed truths” (2001: 278). Moreover, Goody points out

Stage of religious evolution Shamanic Communal Pagan World transcendent Ns in parentheses

10–99

100– 999

1,000– 9,999

10,000– 99,999

100,000– 999,999

1,000,000– 9,999,999

10,000,000– 99,999,999

100,000,000 or more

0% (0) 1% (1) 0% (0) 0% (0)

30% (9) 11% (10) 8% (1) 0% (0)

40% (12) 42% (37) 8% (1) 0% (0)

20% (6) 18% (16) 17% (2) 19% (7)

10% (3) 24% (21) 42% (5) 19% (7)

0% (0) 5% (4) 25% (3) 32% (12)

0% (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) 24% (9)

0% (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) 5% (2)

The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 1: The Overall Pattern

Table 6.5 Stage of religious evolution and societal size

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that, because ritual texts tend to become increasingly complex and elaborate over time, they “may become mumbo-jumbo to the populace, requiring a specialist body of interpreters to ‘translate’ . . . the words addressed to the deity” (1986: 39; see also Whitehouse, 2004: 58). Hence the written word establishes the authority of the priestly class and the authority of its religious tradition, giving priests a great deal of power (Boyer, 2001; Beard, 2004). Likewise, HenriJean Martin explains that “initially an instrument of power in the hands of small groups of priests, soothsayers, and scribes serving a deified monarch, writing was above all a means to domination” (1994: 27). This power in the hands of a religious elite finds no counterpart in the simpler oral religions. Indeed, it is clearly the establishment of written dogma that allowed complex religions to emerge and grow. Goody also indicates that the written word helps to make religion a “universalizing” force, and Boyer suggests that writing is especially important in establishing moral codes for the laity and converting the members of other religions. It is clear, however, that the arguments of Goody, Boyer, and Martin apply mainly to world transcendent priesthoods, since only a minority of pagan societies have true writing. Writing seems to be a virtual necessity for the development of world transcendent priesthoods, and the reason is in all likelihood the much greater doctrinal elaboration of world transcendent religions and, perhaps, the greater priestly monopolization of religious knowledge. Or at least this would seem to be the case for an endogenous evolution of world transcendence, that is, absent diffusion or conquest. (For example, of the five nonliterate world transcendent societies in the SCCS, three—the Bambara, Fulani, and Hausa— are West African societies that became world transcendent as the result of Muslim conquest.) What then of the role of societal size? Table 6.5 shows the cross-tabulation of SRE and this variable. The critical demographic threshold for the emergence of world transcendence seems to be one million people contained within a single society. Approximately a third (32 percent) of world transcendent societies contain between one million and ten million members, another 24 percent between ten million and a hundred million members, and 5 percent in excess of one hundred million members. Thus 61 percent of world transcendent societies contain a million members or more. Richard Alexander (1987) has argued that in societies with large populations there is a need to provide a set of doctrines and moral rules that can unify very large numbers of people (cf. Norenzayan, 2013). This is one way of interpreting the world transcendent-societal size

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relationship, but an alternative explanation of the role of large numbers—and quite likely a better one—hinges on the psychologically negative effects of highdensity urban living, which would create a need for new gods of great power and scope (Stark, 1996; Stark and Bainbridge, 1987). This is one of the main themes of Chapter 7.

Earlier religious transitions Much of the preceding discussion has emphasized the transition to ecclesiastical religions, especially world transcendent religions, and has paid insufficient attention to earlier transitions. First, let us consider the transition from shamanic to communal religions. To analyze this transition, we conducted a separate regression analysis (not shown) in which pagan and world transcendent societies were eliminated from the analysis. In this analysis, only subsistence economy was a significant predictor (p < 0.05), and 27 percent of the variance was explained. Writing could not be important because the vast majority of societies with shamanic and communal religions (95 percent) have no writing. And the likely reason societal size is not a significant predictor is that populations have not yet become large enough: 70 percent of shamanic and 53 percent of communal religions are found in societies with fewer than 10,000 members, and only 28 percent of communal religions are found in societies numbering 100,000 or more (Table 6.5). The importance of subsistence economy is primarily a matter of the transition from hunting and gathering to horticulture. Sixty percent of shamanic religions are found among hunter-gatherers compared to only 21 percent of communal religions. By contrast, only 20 percent of shamanic religions are found in horticultural societies but 54 percent of communal religions are (Table 6.3). The shift from hunting and gathering to horticulture, then, is associated with a marked decline in the prevalence of shamanic religions and their replacement by communal religions. How does the shift to horticulture bring about a shift from shamanic to communal religions? Some of the most important rituals in communal religions are collective agricultural rites. Mircea Eliade (1958) points out that in agricultural societies the rhythm of the seasons is of great importance and is therefore given religious significance. “Because farming communities are thus bound up with the closed cycles of time,” he explains, “a great many ceremonies connected with the driving out of ‘the old year’ and the coming of the ‘new year,’ the driving out of ‘ills’ and the regeneration of ‘powers,’ are always found

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interwoven with the rites of agriculture” (1958: 331). Eliade goes on to note that agricultural rites are “intended to assist the growth of cereals and hallow the work of the farmer” (1958: 332). The agricultural rites of communal religions, in other words, relate to the anxieties that inevitably accompany the precariousness of agriculture. If the rains do not come the crops will likely fail, and if there is too much rain the crops may rot. These kinds of anxieties are not found in huntergatherer societies, and they seem to call forth new kinds of religious practices designed to alleviate them. An additional regression analysis (not shown) explored the transition from shamanic to communal to pagan religions. The mode of subsistence economy was once again the only important predictor (p < 0.05), and 37 percent of the variance was explained. Writing was not important, which is unsurprising considering that the majority of pagan societies (67 percent) do not have writing (Table 6.4). And societies are apparently still not large enough to make a difference: 75 percent of pagan societies have fewer than one million members (Table 6.5). The communal to pagan shift seems to be primarily determined—that is, made possible—by the intensification of agriculture. Only 20 percent of communal religions are found in societies with intensive agriculture, but 50 percent of societies with pagan religions practice intensive agriculture (Table 6.3). But if agricultural intensification makes the transition to pagan religions possible, why in particular paganism with its anthropomorphic gods? Here two fundamental things are happening. First, the numerous deities found in shamanic and communal religions are elevated to a higher and more powerful status. Why are the deities elevated in status and why do they become more powerful? Because, with more intensive agriculture, societies become more stratified by status, wealth, and power, and people of higher status and greater power feel a need for gods of higher status and greater power to respond to their worldly needs. These needs are far greater than the needs of the leaders of relatively egalitarian societies with communal religions. In societies with intensive agriculture, the leaders are often powerful chiefs, kings, monarchs, and the like, and one of their principal goals is the conquest of other societies. Powerful war gods can be appealed to for success in such endeavors—Yahweh in pagan Israel, Mars in Rome, Ares in Greece. The males of powerful elites also seem to have insatiable needs for sex with many females (Betzig, 1986, 1993, 2005), and so we see the emergence of such goddesses as Venus in Rome and Aphrodite in Greece.

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The second thing that is happening is the emergence of priests to become the interpreters of the nature and actions of these elevated deities. Agriculture intensive and productive enough to generate sizable economic surpluses makes it possible for priests to be supported by a portion of these surpluses. Priests usually have strong religious motives, but in most cases they are power seekers. Or, putting it another way, small-scale religious specialists aspire to become priests when conditions permit. And priests are normally allied with and dependent on chiefs and kings, who in turn depend on priests (Martin, 1994; Boyer, 2001). Not all humans seek power, but many do. In small-scale societies the desire for power is usually suppressed, but in large-scale societies it is much more difficult to suppress. Power-wielding chiefs, kings, and priests want powerful gods who can assist them in gaining and maintaining power. We should note that pagan gods, priests, and associated rituals are largely confined to ruling elites. The great mass of the common people usually have little or no involvement in elite religious activities and often care little about them (with respect to ancient Rome, see Champion, 2017). They generally have their own separate beliefs and practices. They worship some of the same gods as elites, but also have gods of their own that they worship at local or household shrines (cf. Johnston, 2004: 423–37). Their religious needs are different from the needs of elites and resemble those found in communal religions. The transition all the way to world transcendent religions takes the full combination of changes in subsistence economy, writing and records, and societal size. As Chapter 3 was at pains to show, the transition to these religions was the “great leap forward” in religious terms—the point at which the most dramatic changes occurred. Both intensive agriculture and writing and records were crucial prerequisites of the formation of world transcendent religions, the former because it provided the necessary economic surplus to support a class of full-time, highly specialized priests (and for other reasons to be explored in the next chapter), and the latter because elaborate religious doctrines had to be written down in order to be transmitted successfully across the generations. Note that the preconditions or necessary causes of religious evolution identified in this empirical analysis are largely material conditions, and therefore make sense from an evolutionary materialist perspective. Subsistence economy is a technological and economic factor and societal size is a demographic factor. Initially it might not seem that writing and record keeping is a material condition, but in fact it is, although of a somewhat different kind. It is generally understood that writing and record keeping arose in conjunction with the emergence of the

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first states around 5,000 years ago. These early states needed these capacities primarily in order to keep track of the large number of economic goods under state control and to carry out other state functions. Once in existence, writing could be put to other uses.

Conclusions This chapter has focused on the sociocultural side of religious evolution and concentrated primarily on the so-called sociocultural prerequisites or necessary causes of the evolution of religion. It has shown that advances in subsistence economy, increases in the population sizes of societies, and the development of writing and record keeping were necessary conditions for religious evolution over the long term, that is, all the way from shamanic to world transcendent religions. We have also tried to explain why the changing sociocultural conditions produced the effects they did—why they turned evolutionary possibilities into actualities. However, this part of the analysis stopped at the pagan religions. Although we now know what some of the necessary causes are for the evolution of the world transcendent religions, we have not yet identified the sufficient causes. This requires a return to our understanding of the religious brain and how it interacted with two dramatic economic and political changes during the period of the Axial Age to produce a new and unique set of religious needs and thus a new and unique set of religions.

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The Sociocultural Evolution of Religion, 2: The Axial Age

Although the term Axial Age did not exist until Jaspers coined it in 1953, and although most of the attention given to this transformative period has been within the past three or four decades, the Axial Age changes were noted as long ago as the mid-nineteenth century. Jaspers quotes the scholars Peter Ernst von Lasaulx and Viktor von Strauss, writing in 1856 and 1870, respectively. Lasaulx said: “It cannot possibly be an accident that, six hundred years before Christ, Zarathustra in Persia, Gautama Buddha in India, Confucius in China, the prophets in Israel, . . . and the first philosophers—Ionians, Dorians, and Eleatics—in Hellas, all made their appearance pretty well simultaneously as reformers of the national religion” (quoted in Jaspers, 1953: 8). As for von Strauss, During the centuries when Lao-tse and Confucius were living in China, a strange movement of the spirit passed through all civilized peoples. In Israel Jeremiah, Habbakkuk, Daniel and Ezekiel were prophesying and in a renewed generation (521–516) the second temple was erected in Jerusalem. Among the Greeks Thales was still living, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Xenophanes appeared and Parmenides was born. In Persia an important reformation of Zarathustra’s ancient teaching seems to have been carried through, and India produced Sakyamuni [Siddhattha], the founder of Buddhism. (Quoted in Jaspers, 1953: 8–9)

Even though Lasaulx and von Strauss seemed tempted to do so, Jaspers notes that the facts of the Axial Age have never been grasped as a whole, and for Jaspers this was a goal of great importance. Jaspers thought that the Axial Age was a matter of independent developments in each world region rather than the result of cultural contact, but he frankly admitted that a real explanation escaped him. He concluded that it was impossible to explain the Axial Age in terms of

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the knowledge available in his day, suggesting that it might have been just some sort of “miracle.” But today we know more, and an explanation is possible. In this chapter I offer my own interpretation of the Axial Age transformation, but first I review and critically evaluate existing explanations.

Earlier theories Mutual influence The most obvious explanation would seem to be that the world religions did not arise independently but exerted strong influences upon each other. The “simultaneity” of occurrence of the world transcendent religions gives this argument an inherent plausibility. The mutual influence explanation has been suggested in a work of fiction by the celebrated novelist Gore Vidal, Creation (2002), a book that reveals a not insubstantial level of historical knowledge. But science it is not. Stark (2007), who is doing science, insists that the diffusion argument is basically correct, resting his case on the evidence of sustained social and economic contact among the three major regions of the Old World. He suggests that if technology and other elements of material culture were diffusing, then ideas would have been even more likely to diffuse. Unfortunately, this is an undefended assertion; Stark presents no evidence to support his claim. Nor is the argument on its face logically compelling. The only sustained mutual influence argument by a current historian or social scientist that I have been able to uncover is George Modelski’s. Modelski (2003) sees four of the world religions significantly influencing each other in terms of an evolutionary sequence: Confucianism → Buddhism → Christianity → Islam. This is a sequence in which each subsequent religion “learned” important ideas from its predecessors. Confucianism emphasized scholar-officials “learning to be human”; Buddhism created monastic communities freed from the constraints of the traditional social life; Christianity was notable for its strong forms of religious organization; Islam was a community of the faithful proselytizing and converting far and wide. This is a type of social evolutionary argument highly reminiscent of the theories of Talcott Parsons (1966) and Jürgen Habermas (1979), whose evolutionary theories leave a great deal to be desired (Sanderson, 1990, 2007). Modelski tries to support his theory by way of looking at the formation of world cities in time. He contends that Buddhist large cities preceded Christian ones, and Christian ones preceded Muslim ones. While it is true that such a

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temporal order can be identified, it is insufficient to establish a learning sequence. Modelski makes no effort to demonstrate an actual learning process, and without such a demonstration his argument remains speculative. Another problem is that Modelski fails to mention four of the world religions, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Daoism. Zoroastrianism and Judaism are in fact the earliest, so why are they not included at the beginning of the sequence? Modelski would have done far better to have emphasized the influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism and Christianity. The latter two clearly “learned” from the former. As noted in Chapter 3, many of the key ideas of Judaism seem to have been influenced by Zoroastrianism. These include a savior who would arrive to aid people in their struggle against evil; the belief that people’s souls would survive death, be resurrected, and then be assigned to either heaven or hell; and the eschatological vision that the end of time would be marked by a great struggle between the Creator God and his evil opposite, a struggle that the Creator God would win and thereby establish His Kingdom on earth (Bentley, 1993). These same doctrines are also carried over into Christianity. What is uncertain is whether Judaism and Christianity would have developed essentially the same basic doctrines if Zoroastrianism had not been present in the historical background. When peoples borrow ideas from other peoples, these ideas have to resonate with the borrowers. Borrowing may simply save people the trouble of developing very similar ideas on their own; if you see something you like, want, and need that is already there, why go to the trouble of re-creating it yourself? Just as ideas from Zoroastrianism seemed to influence Judaism, and just as Judaism was a huge edifice on which Christianity built, there was in all likelihood some influence among Asian religions. Early Buddhism, for example, was so similar to early Hinduism that it is difficult to deny direct influence. Indeed, they both emerged from the same “renouncer” tradition. However, the issue is really whether or not there was significant diffusion of ideas between the Near Eastern religions, on the one hand, and the East Asian and South Asian ones, on the other. I am not persuaded that there is sufficient evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to support such a conclusion. In 650 BCE, just prior to the beginning of the Axial Age, there were no substantial trade connections between the Near East and the other major regions of the Old World. The “world oikumene,” as David Wilkinson (1992, 1993) refers to it, extended only from approximately the eastern Mediterranean into northeast Africa and southwest Asia. The Near East was not linked by trade with either India or China. It was not until about 200 BCE that the trade ecumene had incorporated all of India and much of China and the famous Silk Road was established. In addition to economic goods,

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religious ideas did travel along this vast trade route. For example, a region of Bactria (Afghanistan) contained some Buddhist communities with monasteries and priests (Foltz, 2010), and Christian communities were established in China by Iranian merchants and missionaries. There were apparently Zoroastrian communities in China as well (Foltz, 2010). However, these diaspora communities were small, exerted limited mutual influence, and were found mostly during the Common Era. And all of the Axial Age religions except Christianity were already underway by about 500 BCE. To reinforce the point of independent evolution let us take an analogy. Archaeologists regard at least four (and possibly as many as seven or eight) of the major regions where agriculture originated as having developed agriculture independently (Wenke, 1990; Bellwood, 2005; Richerson, Boyd and Bettinger, 2001). Several thousand years later civilizations and states developed in some of these same regions, and parallelism rather than diffusion is suggested by important differences that can be observed in these civilizations. In determining whether events in one region were largely responsible for events in another, one looks for clear evidence of the diffusion of ideas, material objects, cultural symbols, and so on. What do we find in the world transcendent religions? There are, of course, similarities between them, but there are important differences as well, particularly between the Near Eastern religions, on the one hand, and the East and South Asian religions, on the other. For example, the Near Eastern religions are strictly monotheistic, but Hinduism is not strictly monotheistic, and Buddhism and Daoism are not monotheistic at all. The Near Eastern and Asian religions’ respective concepts of salvation are also different. Hinduism’s and Buddhism’s notions of salvation as an escape from an eternal cycle of reincarnations and rebirths contrast significantly with the Near Eastern concept of salvation as life spent in an eternal paradise. And images and icons are much more widespread and highly elaborate in the Indian and Chinese religions than in the Near Eastern ones. The diffusionist argument was popular with historians as far back as the nineteenth century; early scholars, for example, emphasized that Buddhism had a major influence on the development of Christianity (Bentley, 1993). However, more recent scholarship has turned away from this idea, seeing in these two religions largely independent developments (e.g., Weil, 1975). Even among the Asian religions themselves, mutual antagonisms seemed to outweigh mutual influences. Buddhism arose in India and had an early influence there, but it did not resonate well with most of the Indian population and in time was almost

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completely replaced by Hinduism. Buddhism then began to travel into the more eastern parts of Asia, but it was strongly resisted by most of the Chinese, who far preferred their main indigenous religions, Confucianism and Daoism, and who thought of Buddhism as part of an alien cultural tradition. It took many centuries before Buddhism began to be accepted by a large segment of Chinese society (Bentley, 1993).

World empires require world religions A common argument relates world transcendent religions to the politics of empire. Speaking specifically of the monotheistic religions, the sociologist Bruce Lerro (2000) contends that a single powerful ruler requires a single powerful god to legitimize and reinforce his rule, or at the very least to “reflect” him. “Monotheism,” he says, “is understood as imperialism in the sacred world, just as an empire is in the material world” (2000: 151). This seems to imply that powerful imperial rulers find a single omnipotent god extremely helpful in supporting their rule, a kind of Marxian argument. Lerro adds a twist that invokes the psychologies of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. He contends that there was a major shift in the direction of more abstract thinking—toward what he calls hyperabstract thinking—during the Iron Age, and that this was given greater encouragement by empires: “The need of some societies to develop occupations which specialize in thinking about political and economic problems in a centralized way eventually leads to the emergence of ways of thinking about sacred deities in a centralized, monotheistic way” (2000: 151). Randall Collins (1974) has also linked world transcendence and empire. His argument is a rather straightforward derivative of his sociological conflict theory. He says that the “world religions arose with the development of cosmopolitan states, ‘world empires’ transcending the previously localized and self-contained kingdoms and their legitimating local gods. Moreover, the world religions have everywhere played a predominantly political role, especially in their early phases, providing the legitimation as well as the administrative apparatus for the large-scale state” (1974: 424). There are several reasons why this type of explanation is problematic. During the several millennia that pagan religions reigned supreme, empires were commonplace, and few of these developed a world transcendent religion. The Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, and Romans,

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for example, remained pagan. Table 7.1 summarizes the relationship between empires and pagan versus world transcendent religions. As can be seen, twelve of the empires listed have pagan religions, whereas only four have world transcendent ones. (The lists of imperial and non-imperial states are not intended to be exhaustive, but they do include those that are commonly recognized as the most prominent.) In short, most empires have had pagan religions. In addition, the historical evidence shows that pagan religions were perfectly suitable for the political purposes of nearly all of the major empires up through the Axial Age. In fact, they were more suitable. These religions were much more closely linked to the state and to political rule than were the world transcendent religions, which were often engaged in criticizing or opposing the rule of some state. Jesus and the early Christians were strongly opposed to Roman rule, and the Judaic monotheism that preceded it was also a protest against imperial powers. Jewish monotheists were trying to liberate themselves from empires, Table 7.1 Empires and pagan versus world transcendent religions

Non-imperial state

Empire

Pagan

World transcendent

Minoan Greeks Mycenaean Greeks Macedonian Greeks Athenian Greeks Phoenicians Carthaginians Early Israelites Etruscans Roman Republic Aryan India Vedic India Zhou China Shang China Early Egyptian Dynasties Ptolemaic Egypt Early Roman Egypt Sumerians Akkadians Assyrians Babylonians Hittites Roman Empire Mongol Empire Aztecs Incas

Later Israelites

Persian Empire Mauryan India Qin China Han China

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not provide ideological support for them (Weinfeld, 1986). And Buddhism and Hinduism are largely religions of world renunciation, hardly the kinds of religions that would be useful to political rulers. If the material world is the source of suffering and therefore should be rejected, and if power is an integral part of the material world, then power should be rejected. It was only many centuries after world transcendent religions emerged that they came to be employed by rulers for their own purposes (see, for example, Fowden, 1993). This makes the political function of world transcendence the social equivalent of what the evolutionary biologists Gould and Vrba (1982; Gould, 1991) call a biological exaptation—something that originates for one purpose but eventually comes to serve another—rather than an adaptation.1 The political functions of pagan religions, by contrast, were social adaptations for ruling elites. Nevertheless, having said all this, it cannot escape our attention that Table 7.1 does list four empires that were home to world transcendent religions: the Persian and Mauryan empires, and Qin and Han China. These empires were much larger than earlier empires. More generally, there was a rather dramatic increase in the size of empires during the period when the world transcendent religions arose. In 1000 BCE, the world’s largest empire (China) covered an area of approximately 174,000 square miles, and all of the world’s empires together covered about 386,000 square miles. But by 600 BCE the world’s largest empire (Persia) was much larger, covering some 2.12 million square miles, and all the world’s empires combined covered some 3 million square miles. In 200 BCE the world’s largest empire (the Xiongnu Empire in Central Asia) was 2.2 million square miles, not much larger than the largest empire in 600 BCE, but the world’s empires collectively nearly doubled in size by this time, to 5.85 million square miles (Taagepera, 1978; Eckhardt, 1992). Based on these figures, it might therefore be argued that very large empires require (or at least find very useful) a world transcendent religion to legitimize and reinforce political rule. However, I am skeptical of this idea as well. At the beginning of the Axial Age in the sixth-century BCE, the empires that existed in China and India were not especially large (39,000 and 183,000 square miles, respectively) and were smaller than the pagan empires in Egypt (251,000 square miles) and Mesopotamia (232,000 square miles) (Eckhardt, 1992). Seemingly more favorable to the large empire thesis at first glance is the growth of the Chinese and Indian empires in the ensuing centuries. By the third-century BCE the Indian empire had increased in size sevenfold (to 1.35 million square miles) and by the first-century BCE the Chinese empire had

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grown even larger, to 2.39 million square miles (Eckhardt, 1992). Although it is possible that the Asian religions spread because of larger empires, I think it unlikely. For example, although Confucianism was closely intertwined with Chinese empires, its role was not to help hold down the masses. King Ashoka of India (ruled 272–232 BCE) made Buddhism the official religion of his empire, but not for political reasons. He was genuinely committed to Buddhism on religious grounds and wanted his kingdom to promote the key Buddhist values of kindness, compassion, tolerance, and nonviolence. He built monasteries and sent missionaries throughout Asia (Kinnard, 2006). A third objection is that at the time Jesus was spreading his message in the first-century CE, the Roman Empire was the world’s second largest at about 1.7 million square miles. But, of course, the Romans were pagans who executed Jesus and persecuted Christians off and on for centuries. Rome only adopted Christianity in or around 312 CE, when the Emperor Constantine converted, and it was not made the official religion of Rome until later in the fourth century. Moreover, as the empire declined and eventually disintegrated, Christianity only grew stronger. Finally, between the third- and second-centuries BCE the Xiongnu Empire in Central Asia increased in size from 193,000 square miles to 2.2 million (Eckhardt, 1992). Yet it remained pagan. And one of its later successors, the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth-century CE, the largest empire the world has ever known with a territory that stretched over nearly 10 million square miles (Eckhardt, 1992), gave rise to no world transcendent religion. It too remained pagan. In sum, the argument linking world transcendent religions to the political needs of large empires is inconsistent with a wide range of facts. Nevertheless, my objections do not substitute for a more rigorous and systematic empirical test of the large empire thesis. Such a test is attempted later in this chapter.

An inner religious evolutionary dynamic Max Weber’s (1951, 1952, 1958, 1978) views on religion are complex to say the least. He offers numerous interpretations of the major world religions, not all of them consistent, and his precise views are not always easy to pin down. Weber was one of the first to suggest a version of the empire theory, saying that the growth of empires in China, Persia, and Rome favored universalism and monotheism. He also accepted the Marxian theory to some extent, noting that state bureaucratic officials often see religion as something useful for controlling the masses. In a

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similar Marxian vein, Weber argued that whereas privileged classes and ruling elites look to religion for legitimation of their rule or position in society, a society’s disprivileged classes seek in religion compensation or release from suffering. However, Weber also noted that, although the growth of empires contributed to the growth of the world religions, it was a secondary factor and, in fact, not even a necessary one. The shift of Judaism from polytheism to monotheism, for example, was a result of the international politics in which ancient Israel was caught up, not of imperial aspirations. And the quest for salvation takes a variety of forms, not just relief from psychological distress. One of Weber’s most important arguments was that humans have fundamental religious needs that center around the “quest for meaning”—to understand the world as a “meaningful cosmos.” This is an “inner compulsion,” especially of intellectuals, but not always limited to them. In both primitive and salvation religions there is a deep intellectual need to understand man’s place in the cosmos, to explain why there is suffering and injustice in the world, and to answer the question of why humans must die (Weber, 1978; Kalberg, 1994). Weber’s emphasis on religion’s role in giving life a sense of meaning or purpose was intertwined with his view of the engine of long-term religious evolution. Here Weber argued that there is an “inner tendency” for religious concepts to evolve of their own accord toward higher levels of religious rationalization. This is not some sort of abstract process occurring above the heads of concrete individuals, but rather a result of continued thought by real people, religious intellectuals in particular, about matters religious. Over long stretches of time religious doctrines become increasingly elaborated and “rationalized,” and it is largely the religious literati who carry this out. Thus, religious evolution is primarily a matter of the application of human reason to formulating an increasingly adequate understanding of the cosmos and man’s place in it. In terms of the evolution of the world religions, for Weber the application of reason was destined to end up with a conception of universal gods. It is at this stage of religious evolution that rationalization becomes most apparent (Weber, 1978; Kalberg, 1994). Weber’s discussion can be related to some of the recent cognitive theories of religion. Pyysiäinen points out that “highly abstract supernatural agent concepts and beliefs tend to appear in religious traditions only after a long historical process of reflection” (Pyysiäinen, 2009: 98). This is because abstract concepts are more cognitively costly, and it therefore takes time for such ideas to be worked out. The “cognitively costly elaboration of the idea of God takes place

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as a refinement and expansion of more intuitive ideas,” Pyysiäinen says (2009: 98). Moreover, it normally takes a special class of religious literati or a special religious virtuoso to develop them, a relatively late historical development. Weber understood the importance of socioecological context. For example, he commented that even though the world religions were largely the result of the sustained application of reason, they tended to evolve during periods of significant social and political change. He also pointed out that when a salvation religion of intellectual origin becomes a mass religion, an aristocratic ethic suitable to the needs of these intellectuals arises; but the mass version is altered so as to emphasize a popular savior who is able to meet the needs of the nonintellectual masses. In the salvation religions there are thus fundamentally different types of salvation quest. The intellectual quest for salvation is remote from everyday life and is essentially the quest for meaning, whereas the salvation quest of the masses is relief from distress. And other social groups, the petite bourgeoisie, for example, have their own distinctive forms of salvation quest. Different kinds of religious doctrines and ethics are carried by different social groups (Weber, 1978). But Weber repeatedly stressed that the doctrinal elements of a religion—for example, the Indian doctrine of karma, the Calvinist notion of predestination, the Catholic notion of the sacrament—have their own autonomy. Weber thought that the Chinese religions, in particular, were almost entirely the product of “genteel strata of intellectuals devoted to the purely cognitive comprehension of the world and of its ‘meaning’” (1958: 282). Weber’s emphasis on the largely autonomous internal elaboration of religious concepts is an important argument and forms part of the theory of the Axial Age I offer in this chapter. Because much of religion consists of sets of ideas, ideas can evolve through a process in which they become increasingly refined. After all, this is what intellectuals, religious and otherwise, do—concoct ideas, ideally new and original ones. This is a progressive process in the sense that it is directional, but not necessarily some sort of “improvement.” We do see in the historical record a progressive elaboration of religious concepts, and not only with respect to the world transcendent religions but also in cases where no world transcendent religion emerged. Ancient Greece, for example, remained polytheistic, but produced a philosophical revolution that is frequently considered an integral part of the Axial Age achievements (Schwartz, 1975; Momigliano, 1975; Humphreys, 1975, 1986; Elkana, 1986; Meier, 1986; Bellah, 2011). As noted earlier, there was a clear shift in the thinking of several of the

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great Greek philosophers toward a monotheistic world view (West, 1999; Frede, 1999). Xenophanes may have been the first to stress One God, and Aristotle spoke of “the God” who was the “unmoved mover” on whom heaven and all of nature depended (West, 1999; Frede, 1999). Yet even though Weber’s notion of semiautonomous religious evolution is essential for understanding the rise of the world transcendent religions, Weber pushed this notion a little too far and gave insufficient attention to socioecological context. Highly innovative religious ideas usually are the products of intellectuals, but most of these ideas go extinct—in evolutionary terms, are selected against— before they can gain a foothold. Ideas have to catch on, and they have to catch on among large numbers of people, before we can speak of a major world religion. So there is a two-step process: new religious ideas emerge, and key elements of the socioecological context determine whether they are accepted or rejected and, if accepted, how far and wide they spread. (This is one sense in which the kind of variation-and-selective-retention evolutionary model of the Campbell and Runciman type does apply.)

Recent theories Big gods promote social cooperation in big societies As discussed earlier, theories drawing on evolutionary and cognitive psychology have focused primarily on religion in general and thus have not been specifically designed to explain religious evolution, the Axial Age transformations included. But two recent theories have implications for the Axial Age, one of which is an explicit theory of the age. In his much discussed book Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, Ara Norenzayan (2013) sets out to solve what he regards as a “puzzle”: why people in large-scale, complex societies are so cooperative. He notes that in small-scale bands and tribes, where people live in groups of a few dozen to a few hundred, kinship and reciprocity can explain cooperation. But in societies numbering into the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions, most people are strangers and thus kinship and reciprocity no longer serve as the basis for cooperation between people who do not know each other. Norenzayan’s solution to the puzzle is the evolution of “Big Gods,” which are powerful and omniscient gods that are concerned with human morality and as a result monitor human behavior and punish wrongdoers. When people know

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that a Big God is watching them, they are more apt to follow social norms and to be cooperative than when there is no such god. Norenzayan’s Big Gods seem to be similar to Swanson’s fourth type of high gods, a god that is active in human affairs and intervenes in human morality. Big Gods are found in many of the pagan religions of prehistoric chiefdoms and states, but also in the world religions (these being the “biggest” of the Big Gods). Because Big Gods promote cooperation and thus more cohesive societies, they have a competitive advantage over societies without such gods. As a result, Norenzayan contends, they have spread by cultural group selection throughout the world. Norenzayan notes that because evidence for the relationship between Big Gods and large-scale societies is mostly correlational, the question of causality naturally arises. At first he seems to argue that the causal arrows point from Big Gods to cooperation in complex societies, but in a more recent work with several colleagues it is suggested that causation is bidirectional (Norenzayan et al., 2016). The most likely scenario is that Big Gods led to social complexity and cooperation, but then, once complexity and cooperation were established, they reinforced moralizing Big Gods in a kind of positive feedback loop. However, the authors consider as a possible alternative that cooperative complex societies may have developed for other reasons and then religions with Big Gods came later as a consequence. In order to evaluate this theory, let’s first consider it on its own terms and then see what relevance it may have to explaining the origins of the Axial Age religions. One major difficulty concerns the question of how moralizing gods that can monitor and punish got started in the first place. Norenzayan seems to suggest that these gods arose as a kind of cultural mutation, but this idea is completely unconvincing. Why would people have hit upon that idea rather than others? The argument seems to be based on a strict Darwinian variation-and-selectiveretention argument of the type discussed in Chapter 6, one in which variation in the form of cultural mutations is deemed to be random and then mutations that are beneficial are selected. This model may work for biological evolution, but it is straining at the leash to apply it to social and cultural evolution. Most variation in the sociocultural realm is likely purposive, not random.2 In addition, most pagan Big Gods have not been especially interested in human morality or in promoting prosocial behavior (Baumard and Boyer, 2013). In the Standard Sample, only 30 percent of societies organized into chiefdoms have moralizing high gods, and in societies organized into states only 42 percent have such gods. Nearly all of the most successful ancient empires—for example,

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Sumer, the Greeks and Romans, and the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas—had nonmoral high gods. Concerning the Greco-Roman gods, Stark comments that they “were quite morally deficient. They were thought to do terrible things to one another and to humans as well—sometimes merely for amusement. And while they were quite apt to do wicked things to humans if the humans failed to propitiate them, the gods had no interest in anything (wicked or otherwise) humans might do to one another” (2001b: 620). In fact, cooperation in large-scale societies is not that much of a puzzle. Markets, economic interdependence, contracts, laws, courts, political power, and military force have been the main factors promoting cooperation and maintaining order in such societies, and reciprocal altruism still plays a very important role, even among strangers (Sanderson, 1999; Martin, 2014; Wiebe, 2014: esp. 678–81). To look at just one of these, in one of the classic works in the history of sociology, The Division of Labor in Society, Emile Durkheim (1964) noted that in large-scale societies it was the economic division of labor that brought about extensive cooperation and held societies together. (He called this organic solidarity, in contrast to the mechanical solidarity of small-scale societies, in which people are united by common values and sentiments.) In societies with market economies, there are many occupations that are highly interdependent (in fact, most of them are, especially in the modern market economies found in the most complex societies that have ever existed). People performing certain occupational roles are almost always dependent on people performing other occupational roles. Cooperation occurs out of economic necessity. What then of the theory’s relevance to the Axial Age? Because Norenzayan is interested in pre-Axial Age gods as well as those of the Axial Age, this makes the theory of limited use in explaining the kinds of gods that arose during the Axial Age. But the problem is actually worse. In the most recent installation of the Big Gods theory (Norenzayan et al., 2016), the theory may not be relevant to the Axial Age gods at all. This is because Norenzayan and his colleagues deny the central premise of this chapter, and of Axial Age scholars generally, when they insist that the Axial Age was not the major transformation it has been made out to be. They give three reasons for this view. First, they say that cultural evolution is generally gradual and big moralizing gods appeared in chiefdoms and states thousands of years before the Axial Age. True, but the Axial Age gods were fundamentally different from earlier Big Gods in being transcendent and the source of salvation, a critical consideration that goes unacknowledged by Norenzayan and his colleagues. Second, the authors claim that the sheer length of

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the alleged Axial Age casts into doubt its usefulness as a category for explanation. They comment in particular on Islam, which developed some six centuries after the end of the so-called Axial Age. But Islam is simply an historical outlier and there were at least seven major religions that developed during the period 600 BCE–1 CE, a relatively short period of time when viewed against the broad sweep of world history. And consider Mormonism, a new religion that was born in the nineteenth century and that has now swept throughout the world. It developed two millennia after the end of the Axial Age, but this obviously has no bearing on the Axial Age as a coherent historical category. Third, the authors contend that because many religions prior to the Axial Age were prosocial (moralizing), the Axial Age religions do not stand apart in this regard. This is not exactly true, since the moral codes of the Axial religions were more elaborate, explicit, and emphatic, but in any event it is largely beside the point because it assumes that the only important dimension of the Axial religions was the development of new moral codes. This was but one aspect of the new religions, and arguably not the most important. Most of the things people seek in religion have nothing to do with morality and avoiding supernatural punishment (Fuentes, 2015). So, in the end, the Big Gods theory fails to pass muster.

Life history theory Life history theory (LHT) is a specific sub-theory within evolutionary biology that studies how organisms adjust their reproductive strategies to particular types of environments in order to maximize reproductive success (for summaries see Hill, 1993; Fabian and Flatt, 2012; and Del Giudice, Gangestad and Kaplan, 2016). In particular, it is concerned with such factors as the age at which puberty occurs, the number of offspring produced, and the degree of parental investment in offspring. Basic to LHT is the distinction between r and K selection. r-selected species are those whose members reach sexual maturity early, have many offspring, and provide little or no parental care. By contrast, K-selected species are those whose members reach sexual maturity later, have few offspring, and invest heavily in those offspring. LHT was originally developed to explain differences between species. However, it can also pertain to differences within species. Humans are highly K-selected, but their behavior can vary somewhat on the r-K spectrum depending on environmental conditions. When conditions are poor for rearing offspring, sexual maturity tends to occur earlier, more offspring are

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produced, and parental care is reduced. But when conditions for rearing are good, sexual maturity tends to occur later, fewer offspring are produced, and there is greater parental care. The logic of r-selection is that if, say, three surviving adult offspring are desired, it may be necessary to produce five or six because some will die early. By contrast, the logic of K selection is that, because the offspring survival rate is higher, under a goal of three surviving offspring it may be sufficient to produce only three because all are likely to survive to reproductive age. Very recently some theorists have applied LHT to the origin of the world religions (Baumard and Chevallier, 2015; Baumard, Hyafil and Boyer, 2015; Baumard et al., 2015). The basic argument is that at the beginning of the Axial Age there was a major increase in energy production in the ancient empires, which led to a higher standard of living and thus more favorable environments for child rearing. As a result people began to adopt religions that emphasized those things that would be more characteristic of a K-reproductive strategy. Like Norenzayan, the life history theorists emphasize the moralizing nature of the Axial Age religions. During the Axial Age, they say, there were new moral codes emphasizing self-discipline, asceticism, and increased cooperation. In terms of reproductive strategies, people shifted from a “fast” (r) strategy to a more “slow” (K) strategy. Sexual promiscuity came to be disdained, investment in children increased and, in general, there was a greater emphasis on “family values.” Monogamy often replaced polygyny. There are several empirical difficulties with this theory. The authors’ central causal variable, the increase in per capita energy production, is actually belied by their own data. Those areas where Axial Age religions emerged differed little in this regard from those regions where there was no Axial Age. For example, in Greece, South Asia, and China, energy capture (measured in terms of kilocalories per capita per day) averaged 21,000, whereas in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where no Axial Age occurred, the average was slightly more than 22,000 (calculated from Baumard et al., 2015: Figure 5c). Moreover, as I show later, during this same period there were also important changes in the level of urbanization and the extent of warfare that would actually have reduced the quality of life. In addition, the authors offer no convincing evidence to show that there was a switch to a slow life history strategy during the Axial Age. All of the Axial Age religions were strongly pronatalist, and monogamy was characteristic only

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of Greece and Rome. The other Axial Age civilizations permitted polygyny and polygyny was widely practiced among elites. In India and China marriage occurred very early and fertility was high; in those societies most people lived in large extended families headed by a patriarch. These are features more characteristic of a fast than a slow strategy. The life history theorists also intend their theory to apply only to the behavior of elites, such behavior spreading later to the masses. This makes it inadequate to the aims of this chapter, since, as was pointed out earlier, what was happening with the masses is a critical part of the overall argument. In the end the theory is just too reductionist. Although reductionism is a critical part of scientific explanation, the life history theorists take this to an extreme. It is difficult to imagine how a major religious shift could be understood in essentially biological terms.

A new interpretation: urbanization, war, and disrupted attachments So much for earlier theories. I now seek to formulate a new theoretical interpretation of the transition to the world transcendent religions. Several major changes were underway at the beginning of the Axial Age that had major consequences for people’s religious needs. Existing religions were losing their usefulness and there was selection pressure for the creation of new religions. What were these changes and how and why were they important?

Urbanization About 1200 BCE, a major technological change occurred that affected both economic subsistence and political organization. This was the invention of iron metallurgy by the Hittites and the gradual shift from bronze to iron tools and weapons far and wide. The shift from bronze to iron had a major impact on subsistence technology, because plows could now be made of iron and iron plows were much more efficient cultivating instruments. Iron plows permitted increases in economic productivity and in the size of economic surpluses, which in turn made possible another major change that can be observed in the historical record in the time period after 600 BCE: expanding urbanization. Tertius Chandler (1987) has attempted to estimate the size of cities of 30,000 or more

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inhabitants in all regions of the world from very ancient times to the present. Chandler estimates that in 2250 BCE there were only eight cities in the world with a population of 30,000 or more (total population of those cities = 240,000). By 650 BCE there may have been some twenty cities ranging in population from 30,000 to 120,000 (total population = approximately one million). That represents about a fourfold increase in 1,600 years. But in the 220 years between 650 and 430 BCE, the number of large cities (30,000–200,000) increased to fiftyone (total population = nearly three million), a threefold increase in a much shorter period of time; between 430 and 200 BCE, there were fifty-five cities of 30,000 or more (the largest being Changan, China, at 400,000) totaling almost four million people; and between 200 BCE and 100 CE, the number of large cities (30,000–450,000) increased to seventy-five (total population = over five million). So in the centuries of the Axial Age urbanization occurred on a far greater scale than in the previous two millennia: there were many more large cities, and the largest of these were much larger. These large increases in urbanization were facilitated primarily by two conditions: increases in the size of economic surpluses (as mentioned above) and the expansion and deepening of world trade networks (Wilkinson, 1992, 1993; Sanderson, 1999). The expansion of world trade networks and urbanization went hand in hand since cities were the primary foci of trade. Urbanization was also related to the growth of empires, and bigger empires led to increased military might, the importance of which shall be discussed shortly. What were these cities and where were they located? All of the twenty largest world cities in 650 BCE were located in the very regions where the Axial Age proper was soon to begin: the Near East, India, and China. In 430 BCE fifty of fifty-one of the largest cities were located in the very same regions. The corresponding figures for 200 BCE and 100 CE are fifty-one of fifty-five and sixty-nine of seventy-five, respectively. It is extremely noteworthy that 62 percent of the population of these cities in 650 BCE lived in or around the very small region that produced Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity; the figures for 430 BCE, 200 BCE, and 100 CE are, respectively, 57, 48, and 48 percent. (See Tables B1 through B4 in Appendix B for complete lists of the cities and their estimated sizes.) Modelski (2003) has made a concerted effort to improve on Chandler’s city size data. (Modelski’s figures for the Axial Age period are reported in Table  B5, Appendix B.) His methods and results differ in two important respects from Chandler’s: he uses intervals of a single century and, for the

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time period we are considering, he sets a minimum city size of 100,000 instead of Chandler’s 30,000 as the operational definition of a world city. Modelski tends to give higher estimates of city size than Chandler. For example, he considers Alexandria to have had 600,000 inhabitants in 200 BCE compared to Chandler’s estimate of only 200,000, and, for the same period, Modelski estimates Loyang in China at 200,000 compared to an estimate of only 60,000 by Chandler. But sometimes Modelski’s estimates are lower; for example, he estimates Changan in China in 200 BCE at only 100,000 compared to Chandler’s much larger estimate of 400,000. Obviously these are wide discrepancies. Nevertheless, Modelski’s data show the same overall pattern as Chandler’s, which is a dramatic increase in the size of large cities during the Axial Age. As shown in Table B6 of Appendix B, Chandler shows a 276 percent increase in urban populations from the beginning of the Axial Age to 200 BCE, Modelski a 352 percent increase. For the longer period between 650/600 BCE and 100 CE, Chandler shows a 386 percent increase, Modelski an increase of 614 percent. The correspondence should actually be considered very close when we realize that both scholars are making estimates based on certain broad assumptions and inferences for a time period when data are much more scanty and much less reliable than for more recent times. And the key point is that both Chandler’s and Modelski’s figures show very large increases in urban populations during the Axial Age. And it is not simply a matter of the number of cities and the size of their populations. The density of populations matters also. Densities in some cities in the Roman Empire were extremely high. Antioch had a population of some 100,000, but it covered a mere two square miles, thus giving it a density of 50,000 persons per square mile. And density in Rome was even greater, at about 150,000 per square mile. These are staggering figures for preindustrial cities without modern technology and modern conveniences (Stark, 2006). But how, exactly, would an increase in urbanization create new religious needs? Here is where we need to return to Kirkpatrick’s evolutionary attachment theory and Giddens’s notion of ontological security: rapid and large-scale urbanization was tremendously disruptive of people’s lives. One of the most important things that was being disrupted was people’s attachments to kin and other social intimates (Bellah, 2005; Marangukadis, 2006). People were increasingly living in a world of strangers. Given the enormous importance of kin relations to humans everywhere, this was a significant blow. And the

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strangers people were increasingly living among were not just non-kin, but often members of alien ethnic groups. This brought with it increased ethnic conflict, which became another source of disruption. People turn to God, Kirkpatrick says, as a substitute attachment figure, and God functions psychologically as a safe haven and secure base. And, as noted earlier, Giddens also specifically mentions religion as a major source of ontological security. This, I submit, is what was happening to encourage the formation of the Axial Age religions of compassion, love, and mercy. Life increasingly in a world of strangers led to a much higher level of insecurity and anxiety, and it was this that generated new religious needs. An all-powerful, loving God was an excellent prescription for people’s new sense of threat and danger. Humans evolved to live in small groups of kin, which they did in hunter-gatherer, horticultural, and even most intensive agricultural societies. They did not evolve to live in densely packed cities in which most of their social relations were carried on with non-kin and strangers (Massey, 2005). The result was new religious needs, and the world transcendent religions that offered love, mercy, and release from suffering evolved to assist people in adapting to their radically changed circumstances. McNeill puts it almost perfectly: Christianity, Hinduism, and Mahayana Buddhism provided perhaps the first really satisfactory adjustment of human life to the impersonality and human indifference that prevails in large urban agglomerates. Nature religions, personifying the forces of earth and sky, could meet the psychological needs of village farmers whose social ties to their fellows were personal and close. State religions were adequate for the early civilized peoples, whose cultural inheritance was nearly uniform and who maintained a close personal identification with the body social and politic. But when such uniformity and cohesion in civilized society broke down . . . such official, state religions could not satisfy the growing number of deracinated individuals whose personal isolation from any larger community was barely tolerable at best. . . . Something more than either nature religion or a religion of state was needed for peace of mind in a great city, where strangers had to be dealt with daily, where rich and poor lived in different cultural worlds, and where impersonal forces like official compulsion or market changes impinged painfully and quite unpredictably upon daily life. Knowledge of a savior, who cared for and protected each human atom adrift in such mass communities . . . certainly offered men a powerful help in the face of any hardship or disaster. In addition the religious community itself, united in a common faith and in good works, provided a vital substitute for the sort of primary community where all relations were personal,

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from which humankind had sprung and to which, in all probability, human instinct remains fundamentally attuned. (1963: 352–53; emphasis added)

But urbanization was also very likely important in another major way. In his major study of early Christianity, Stark (2006) points out that during the period when Christianity arose, urban life was a source of chaos, misery, and crisis everywhere. People were often packed together in crowded tenements, living only in tiny cubicles. Privacy was scarce, tenements did not have furnaces or fireplaces, and rooms were smoky in winter. Problems of sanitation loomed large, and huge burdens were placed on systems of sewerage, water provision, and the disposal of garbage. “Most people in Greco-Roman cities,” Stark contends, “must have lived in filth beyond our imagining” (1996: 153). Moreover, the average Greco-Roman city must have been pervaded by infectious disease; mortality rates were very high, and thus longevity was short. Most people must have suffered from the pain and disability of chronic health problems. In addition, crime and disorder were no doubt rampant. Ethnic divisions and ethnic conflicts were common, and riots were a frequent occurrence (Stark, 1996). Describing the city of Antioch in particular, Stark says that it was “a city filled with misery, danger, fear, despair, and hatred” (1996: 160). “People living in such circumstances must often have despaired. Surely it would not be strange for them to have concluded that the end of days drew near. And surely too they must often have longed for relief, for hope, indeed for salvation” (1996: 161). Continuing, Stark says that Christianity arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world. Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. . . . And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services. (1996: 161; emphasis added)

Stark speaks only of Christianity, but there is no reason in principle why his argument does not apply to the other major world religions that arose during the same historical period. Indeed, since urban densities were in all probability even greater in India and China than in the Near East, the conditions of life may well

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have been even worse, and thus people may have had an even more critical need for salvation doctrines that offered them release from suffering.

Warfare Although the world transcendent religions did not evolve to serve the political purposes of empires, empires may nevertheless have been involved indirectly. The main reason empires form and grow larger is war: more war leads to bigger empires and bigger empires generate more war, in a classic case of positive feedback. In the agrarian empires of the Axial Age, war was the principal means of acquiring wealth, in fact a kind of huge business (Snooks, 1996). In China in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–475 BCE) nobles rode chariots and used bows, and the infantry used lances. A major technological development during this period was the crossbow, which was used along with the sword. New iron technology was used for the manufacture of new versions of weapons already used, such as swords, lances, and dagger axes (Lewis, 1999; Tanner, 2010). During the Warring States Period (481–221 BCE) there was a dramatic increase in the scale of war accompanying major changes in military technology and strategy. Chariots declined in importance and there was a major shift toward large-scale infantries. Military campaigns lasted much longer, and there was greater military specialization, with experts in command emerging (Tanner, 2010). Siege warfare was also an important innovation, as was the increasing use of cavalry (soldiers on horseback), and cavalries accompanied infantries. In the previous period armies numbered at most some 30,000 soldiers, but they became much larger during the Warring States. In the state of Qin there were a million armored infantry, 1,000 chariots, and 10,000 horses. In Zhao the state was able to field several hundred thousand armored men, 1,000 chariots, and 10,000 cavalry. In Chu there were a million infantry, 1,000 chariots, and 10,000 cavalry (Lewis, 1999). What was happening in China was also happening in the Near East and South Asia. As in China, empire and war were aided dramatically by the development of iron weapons, which became widely disseminated after about 1200 BCE. The Assyrians had used a battering ram with an iron head, and Greek hoplite soldiers had bronze shields and helmets but iron swords and iron-tipped spears (Derry and Williams, 1960; Mann, 1986; Runciman, 1998). Gradually, iron weapons spread and helped to intensify warfare and greatly increase the number of war casualties because iron weapons dramatically increased the killing power of

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combatants. The number of war deaths soared at the time the Axial Age was beginning (Eckhardt, 1992). It was this dramatic increase in warfare, I contend, that was a second crucial factor in the creation and spread of the world transcendent religions. Evolutionary attachment theory enters the picture once again. As we know, war is a tremendously socially disruptive and psychologically distressing phenomenon. It is not hard to see how a dramatic increase in the scale of war and the number of people being killed would create new needs for security and comfort. And not only do people die, but many are uprooted and displaced from their homes, which reduces ontological security and creates a greater need for a substitute attachment figure. Recall that one of the major themes of the emerging Axial Age religions was love and mercy—God’s compassion. Consider in particular the situation of the Israelites. For centuries the ancient Israelites were located at a crossroads between empires, and as a result were often caught in the middle of wars between these empires (Eisenstadt, 1986b). They also suffered direct destruction from warfare. As discussed earlier, in 721 BCE the kingdom of Israel was overwhelmed by the Assyrians, and many leading Hebrew families were forced into exile (McNeill, 1963). And in 586 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar captured and destroyed Judah, sending much of its population into exile. These were massive social and political crises. William McNeill says that the Hebrews “had to wrestle with crushing national disaster and human suffering” (1963: 157). And Max Weber says that Syria became a theatre of hitherto unprecedented military events. Never before had the world experienced warfare of such frightfulness and magnitude as that practiced by the Assyrian kings. . . . The Israelite literature preserved from the period, above all, the oracles of classical prophecy, express the mad terror caused by these merciless conquerors. As impending gloom beclouded the political horizon, classical prophecy acquired its characteristic form. (1952: 267)

Weber adds that the “popular fear of war surged up to them with the question as to the reasons of God’s wrath, for means to win his favor, and the national hope for the future in general” (1952: 300). Norman Cohn (1993) contends that the Yahweh-alone movement was a response to a situation of severe political insecurity. The Israelites were worried about a “final defeat” and a “humiliation.” Yahweh as a great god, as the only god, was a response to this situation. Yahweh might be punishing the Israelites for failing to live up to moral demands. If they lived up to these demands, he would save them from disaster. Finkelstein and Silberman say that “we now know that

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the Bible’s epic saga first emerged as a response to the pressures, difficulties, challenges, and hopes faced by the people of the tiny kingdom of Judah in the decades before its destruction and by the even tinier Temple community in Jerusalem in the post-exilic period” (2001: 318). These pressures, difficulties, and challenges were primarily the result of massive warfare. Concerning Antioch, a major city with a large Jewish diaspora population and then later a center of Christianity, Stark tells us that during the course of about six hundred years of Roman rule, Antioch was taken by unfriendly forces eleven times and was plundered and sacked on five of these occasions. The city was also put to siege, but did not fall, two other times. In addition, Antioch burned entirely or in large part four times, three times by accident and once when the Persians carefully burned the city to the ground after picking it clean of valuables and taking the surviving population into captivity. (1996: 159)

Consider once again the case of China. The situation Confucius faced was one of social anarchy, brought on mainly by increasing warfare. Between the eighth- and third-century conditions were very similar to what was happening in Palestine at the same time. In China warfare had become almost continual, indeed virtually interminable. In previous times prisoners of war were often held for ransom, but now conquerors killed them in large-scale executions. Entire populations were beheaded, even women and children, or, worse still, thrown into boiling cauldrons. Mass slaughters of up to 400,000 people have been reported (H. Smith, 1991).

Recapitulation Summing up, the overall theory is one in which the Axial Age religions are understood as adaptations to the dramatically disruptive social changes of the second half of the first-millennium BCE. The theory is presented diagrammatically in Figure 7.1. Verbally, it says the following (and takes as given the preconditions or necessary causes identified in Chapter 6): 1. The Bronze Age-to-Iron Age transition in the late second millennium BCE led to the development of both iron tools and weapons. 2. Iron tools, especially iron plows, permitted large-scale agricultural intensification, thus increasing economic productivity and the size of economic surpluses. Population growth followed, as did increasing

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Figure 7.1 The causal chain in the evolution of the world religions

urbanization. Urbanization was also promoted by the expansion and deepening of world trade networks. Their effects were reciprocal. 3. Iron weapons dramatically increased the killing power of soldiers, which led to major increases in the number of war casualties. 4. Larger economic surpluses and more devastating wars led to increases in the size of empires, which in turn led to increased war for political conquest. Empires made war, and war made empires, each ratcheting the other up in turn.

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5. Increasing urbanization and warfare had major consequences for people’s social attachments and sense of ontological security. These were primarily increased social displacement and dislocation; the disruption of kin networks; increased interaction with strangers and members of alien ethnic groups; the increasing impersonality of urban life; and dramatic increases in the scale of urban misery and chaos. 6. Within this socioecological context, religious literati and virtuosi, largely in the form of prophets, began to develop and elaborate religious doctrines emphasizing transcendent gods capable of providing salvation and release from worldly suffering. The new supreme deities were outside the world and not in human form, and some were omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. They were all, on the whole, loving and merciful. 7. There were many prophets during, before, and after the Axial Age. The ideas of most of these prophets died out—were selected against—for lack of acceptance. The tiny number of doctrines that resonated best with certain key individuals and groups were taught and promoted. If they resonated well with the masses, or at least certain segments of them, the new doctrines grew and spread, fairly rapidly in some cases (e.g., Christianity), more slowly in others (e.g., Buddhism). 8. Once in existence, world transcendent religions could be co-opted by political elites for the legitimation of their power, and these elites often took advantage of this opportunity. The world religions eventually became exaptations that could be appropriated for state rule even though they did not evolve for that purpose.

Toward an empirical test The above arguments are interpretations based on a sifting of a considerable amount of historical evidence. But can a more rigorous empirical test be made using quantitative data and multivariate statistical analyses? It would be ideal to perform a regression analysis using three independent variables: empire size, the scale and scope of war, and the extent of urbanization. But this proves impossible because there are no suitable quantitative data on war. Eckhardt (1992) has assembled data on the number of war deaths between 3000 BCE and the end of the Axial Age, but these pertain only to Europe and are therefore useless for our analysis. The warfare theory therefore cannot be quantitatively

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tested. Nevertheless, Eckhardt has assembled data on empire size and of course there are Modelski’s data on city size. This means that these two variables can be tested against each other. Table 7.2 presents correlations (Pearson r) between the number of world transcendent religions per century and empire and city size per century. Type of religion spanned the time period between 3000 BCE and 1 CE. Empire size for the Near East spanned this same period. For China it ran from 1900 BCE through the Axial Age, and for India from 2400 BCE through the Axial Age. As can be seen from the table, with two exceptions in the case of China, all of the variables are very highly correlated, just as expected based on earlier discussions. The highest correlations are for city size and the number of transcendent religions, and these are exceptionally high. However, this analysis suffers from two serious limitations: there are many missing cases, and city size and empire size as causal factors are not disentangled. One could outweigh the other, or both could be of approximately equal importance. The second problem can be dealt with, however tentatively, by means of a regression analysis (using OLS regression in this case). Table 7.3 regresses transcendent religions on empire size and urbanization for the Near East. Here we see that both variables are strong predictors, although urbanization is slightly better. The same analysis is performed for China in Table 7.4. In this case urbanization is a strong predictor and empire size washes out. When the analysis is performed for the world as a whole (Table 7.5), urbanization is again a strong predictor and empire size is nonsignificant. However, these analyses must be interpreted with considerable caution because of the large number of Table 7.2 Correlations between the number of world transcendent religions per century and empire and city size per century Region

World transcendent religions X empire size

World transcendent religions X city size

Empire size X city size

Near East China India World

0.740* (31) 0.406 (19) 0.836* (14) 0.754* (31)

0.895* (14) 0.868* (12) 0.829* (12) 0.957* (14)

0.783* (14) 0.245 (11) 0.814* (7) 0.894* (14)

Sources: City size data are from Modelski (2003) (total size of cities of 100,000 or more per century). Empire size data are from Eckhardt (1992) (total size of empires per century). Data for the type of religion were coded 0 for no transcendent religion in a century or the actual number of world transcendent religions in a century. All variables were logarithmically transformed to correct for excessive skewness. Cases coded 0 had to be reset to 0.01 in order for the logarithmic transformation to be possible. Ns in parentheses. *p < 0.001

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Table 7.3 Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, Near East Variable

Unst. Beta(SE)

β

t

Urbanization Empire size

1.651 (0.514) 1.315 (0.469)

0.531 0.464

3.21** 2.81*

Sources: City size data are from Modelski (2003) (total size of cities of 100,000 or more per century). Empire size data are from Eckhardt (1992) (total size of empires per century). Data for the type of religion were coded 0 for no transcendent religion in a century or the actual number of world transcendent religions in a century. All variables were logarithmically transformed to correct for excessive skewness. Cases coded 0 had to be reset to 0.01 in order for the logarithmic transformation to be possible. N = 14 Adj. R2 = 0.863 *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01

Table 7.4 Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, China Variable

Unst. Beta(SE)

β

t

Urbanization Empire size

2.011 (0.319) 0.366 (0.272)

0.864 0.184

6.31* 1.34

Sources: City size data are from Modelski (2003) (total size of cities of 100,000 or more per century). Empire size data are from Eckhardt (1992) (total size of empires per century). Data for the type of religion were coded 0 for no transcendent religion in a century or the actual number of world transcendent religions in a century. All variables were logarithmically transformed to correct for excessive skewness. Cases coded 0 had to be reset to 0.01 in order for the logarithmic transformation to be possible. N = 11 Adj. R2 = 0.824 *p < 0.001

missing cases. Ideally, regression analysis requires eight cases per variable. This is almost achieved in the analyses for the Near East and the world as a whole, but not in the case of China. And an analysis could not be performed at all for India because so many cases were missing. Can we learn anything from these analyses? A little. They suggest—but only just—that urbanization is an important causal factor in the emergence of the Axial Age religions and that empire size may be of minor importance or unimportant, as argued earlier. But they do not address the role of the increase in the scope and scale of war at all, which leaves half of our theory untested

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Table 7.5 Regression of pagan/world transcendent transition on urbanization and empire size, World Variable

Unst. Beta(SE)

β

t

Urbanization Empire size

2.509 (0.612) 0.745 (0.613)

0.756 0.224

4.10* 1.21

Sources: City size data are from Modelski (2003) (total size of cities of 100,000 or more per century). Empire size data are from Eckhardt (1992) (total size of empires per century). Data for the type of religion were coded 0 for no transcendent religion in a century or the actual number of world transcendent religions in a century. All variables were logarithmically transformed to correct for excessive skewness. Cases coded 0 had to be reset to 0.01 in order for the logarithmic transformation to be possible. N = 14 Adj. R2 = 0.911 *p < 0.01

quantitatively. It is to be hoped that quantitative data on warfare in the centuries before and during the Axial Age can eventually be located, but that is a big hope. And yet hope springs eternal!

Theoretical reprise Although the simplest definition of religion is “beliefs and practices associated with supernatural agents,” there are many kinds of supernaturalistic beliefs and practices, and religion is responsive to a range of human concerns. This is why Boyer and Atran are critical of all existing theories of religion, such as: (1) religion explains the unexplainable (their response: religious explanations are often more puzzling than illuminating); (2) religion reduces anxiety and provides comfort (their response: religions sometimes create more anxiety than they reduce); (3) religion helps people deal with the unbearableness of death (their response: the belief that death is unbearable is culture-specific and not a concern of many religions) (Boyer, 2001; Atran, 2002). What these scholars of religion apparently mean is that these long-standing explanations fail as general explanations of religion, that is, as explanations of all of the features of religion. That is certainly true, but it does not mean that a given explanation does not work for at least one of the important dimensions of religion. Take the second point, that religion often creates anxiety in addition to reducing it. This is indeed the case. In the modern world many people fear

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disobeying religious dictates because to do so may condemn them to an everlasting life in hell (remember Pascal’s Wager). And in bands and tribes people fear witches and other kinds of evil spirits. Boyer and Atran use this point to argue against Kirkpatrick’s evolutionary attachment theory. But, as noted earlier, a social belief or practice does not have to be optimal or perfect in order to be adaptive. That religion can be a source of anxiety and discomfort is beside the point; the key question is, what are the net benefits provided by the belief or practice? Parents, who are the attachment figures par excellence, are often the source of punishment and anxiety, yet this fact would scarcely overturn Bowlby’s attachment theory. So the reduction of anxiety and the maintenance of ontological security are important functions of religion for individuals even if they are not optimal or perfect functions. In this chapter I have used this idea to situate one major stage in the evolution of religion, world transcendent religion, in its socioecological context, and thereby explain why this new type of religion emerged when and where it did. The main argument has been that the enormously disruptive effects of large-scale and rapid urbanization and the intensification of warfare during the second half of the first-millennium BCE created new human needs for ontological security, anxiety reduction, and release from suffering. People’s existing social attachments were being undermined by the altered circumstances they faced. The old pagan religions of the ancient world were not up to the task of meeting these new challenges. As a result, people began to create new kinds of religion.3 The theory of the Axial Age offered here fits well within the framework of evolutionary materialism discussed in the previous chapter. It seems clear from Figure 7.1 and the associated point-by-point summary that the principal causal factors in the Axial Age transition were material forces. The initiating technological change was the transition from bronze to iron, which led to the creation of both iron tools and iron weapons. Iron tools, especially iron plows, allowed for increases in the size of economic surpluses. Larger surpluses led to population growth (a demographic factor) and, in conjunction with expanding trade networks (an economic factor), to increasing urbanization (both an economic and a demographic factor). And iron weapons led to increases in the scale and scope of war. It was these factors that combined to intensify existential anxiety and ontological insecurity, and thus the Axial Age began. It cannot be overstressed that the Axial Age changes were evolutionary in a twofold sense. To call religion an evolutionary adaptation means that it evolved

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in the human species because it promoted the survival and reproductive success of those who had religious thoughts and performed religious practices. This is a biological adaptation. But from a sociological or anthropological perspective religion is also a sociocultural adaptation: particular types of religious beliefs and practices arise in various times and places because of the religious needs called forth by the socioecological context within which people are living. In other words, a predisposition to think and act religiously in general is an evolved biological adaptation, but the specific forms that religion takes are evolved sociocultural adaptations. More precisely, it might be said that the religious changes of the Axial Age were biosocial or biocultural adaptations because they represented the interaction of selectionist forces of both a biological and a sociocultural nature. Nevertheless, even though the new world religions were an outcome of a process that was sociocultural in nature, it is not inconceivable that they led to changing gene frequencies, and thus were biologically adaptive as well. Take Christianity, for example. Because religiosity has substantial heritability (Koenig et al., 2005; Koenig and Bouchard, 2006; Bradshaw and Ellison, 2008), converts to Christianity may have included a disproportionate number of people with genetic predispositions to strong religiosity. Christians or likely converts to Christianity had higher survival rates than pagans because Christians nursed the sick, especially during epidemics, and pagans generally did not (Stark, 1996). With higher survival rates, Christians would also have had higher reproductive rates, and thus genes for strong religiosity would have spread widely in a spiraling coevolutionary process (cf. Rowthorn, 2011). Of course, without direct evidence the idea is speculative, but it is certainly worth entertaining.

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I conclude the analysis at this point not because religious evolution was somehow complete two thousand years ago, but because, with the exception of Islam, no new major world transcendent religions have been born since then. Religious evolution has continued, of course, but it has mainly been within the world transcendent religions rather than outside them. At any rate, to continue an evolutionary analysis beyond the Axial Age was never a goal of this book because to accomplish that would require another book, if not several more. In this concluding chapter we consider three questions. First, religion evolves, but does it progress? Are later religions somehow “better than” or “improvements on” earlier ones? Second, if religion is an evolutionary adaptation, then why are there atheists? Finally, what will happen to religion? What kind of future might it have, and why might it have such a future?

Do religions progress? The long-term trend: religious abstractification In his sociology of religion Weber (1978) stressed that there was a long-term process of historical development in which religions became increasingly rationalized. He considered this especially true of the Near Eastern religions. What Weber was describing was a process of endogenous intellectual religious evolution that carried itself forward in response to the fundamental human need for meaning. There is much to recommend in this view, as long as we realize that the process has been only partly independent of socioecological influences, and as long as we acknowledge that the desire for meaning is not a universal human need. (It is most prominent among religious intellectuals, and can be found to some extent among the masses, but many people do not have such a need, and in

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many religions it has scarcely been present at all.) Socioecological influences have interacted in major ways with the cognitive or intellectual evolution of religion to produce the main types of religion that we observe in the world through the work of anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, sociologists, and students of comparative religion. The kinds of religions characteristic of the human ancestral environment were variants of shamanic and communal religions. These religions often had creator gods that were personifications of the physical environment—the sun, moon, sky, earth, wind, and so on—and sometimes of animals. In most cases these gods were rather remote from human affairs and took no interest in them. There were often many other supernatural beings in the form of spirits (both good and evil) that were thought to be directly involved in human affairs and on which people focused most of their attention. There was also a lot of ancestor worship, and in communal religions there were group-oriented lay rites focusing heavily on matters of subsistence. Shamans were major practitioners in both types of religions, and their work was primarily devoted to healing the sick. In these religions people did not “love” their gods or normally form “attachments” to them. As societies evolved economically and technologically many of the gods and spirits found in shamanic and communal religions were elevated in status such that people built shrines and temples to them and worshiped them in much more formal and regular ways, usually through the mediation of priests. In contrast to the gods and spirits of the early religions, these elevated gods normally evoked great awe. The shift to treating the gods with great awe and deference in the pagan and later religions was probably for the most part a reflection of the increasing stratification of society and hierarchization of social relations. One of the things Durkheim did get right was that many of the contents of religions are reflections of the underlying social order. In the kinds of societies most likely to have shamanic or communal religions, since most social relations are fairly egalitarian the relations between individuals and supernatural beings are much less hierarchical than what we find in highly stratified societies. Spirits and gods are much more likely to be objects of awe and reverence when some individuals within the society, rulers in particular, expect this kind of behavior to be directed toward them. The creator gods evoking the greatest amount of awe are the monotheistic gods that were created in agrarian states, the most stratified societies that have ever existed. In these societies, individuals were always submitting to superiors even in the subtleties and nuances of everyday interaction (Collins, 1975, 2009).

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In pagan religions the gods were sometimes sky or earth or moon gods (as in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt), but more often they took on animal and, especially, human form. They were very much like humans in that, among many other things, they needed food and drink, fornicated and debauched, acted wisely or stupidly, and were mortal and died. These kinds of religions existed all over the world for thousands of years after the evolution of chiefdoms and early states. They seemed adequate to meeting people’s needs, rulers included. With the evolution of the world transcendent religions, especially the Abrahamic monotheistic religions, a new realm of religious abstraction was reached. Here we find gods of great scope and power who could provide comfort and salvation in the face of misery and suffering. These gods were much more dependable and responsive than pagan gods and could offer much greater rewards (Stark and Bainbridge, 1987; Stark, 1999). The overall process I have been describing might be represented something like the four stages of religious abstraction identified in Figure 8.1. This process of increasing abstraction—for which I should like to coin the admittedly awkward neologism religious abstractification—is similar to Weber’s notion of religious rationalization, only more general and encompassing. Note that these stages represent Weberian ideal-types that correspond quite imperfectly to distinct religions. Shamanic and communal religions may have creator gods of both the first and second type combined, so in actual religions the first two stages are not always clearly differentiated. In the pagan religions gods of all three types may be found, although anthropomorphic gods predominate. The true monotheistic religions have One True God of the Stage 4 type, although there is always a range of minor supernatural beings. Today, at least for the vast majority of ordinary persons, we are still in the fourth stage, although there have certainly been various and sundry major developments within this stage (e.g., the Protestant Reformation, the proliferation of a multitude of sects and cults, Deism, increasing theological sophistication and elaboration). Perhaps it is the last (“highest”?) stage. At least it is the last (“highest”?) stage that we know of so far.

Figure 8.1 Four evolutionary stages of religious abstractification

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Increasing religious abstractification involves not only new kinds of gods, but new kinds of religious concerns and questions. At the “highest” stage of religious abstractification, which we find in the religions of high modernity, the question of meaning looms larger than it has in previous religions. The problem of the meaning of things, especially of life itself, was often of little significance in the earliest religions, although such religions did have cosmogonies and cosmologies. Weber was right to think of the “problem of meaning” as important, but wrong to think that it was a universal human problem. People in simpler societies pretty much lived their lives concerned primarily with the practical matters of bringing off successful hunts or harvests, being cured of illness, avoiding danger from animal and human predators, and ensuring their own and their children’s reproductive success. In the pagan religions the problem of meaning did not loom particularly large. Only in modern societies have everyday people become highly concerned with the meaning of things. Few hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, peasant farmers, or ancient merchants or craftsmen ever asked themselves the question “Who Am I?” or wondered “What Is It All About?” These kinds of questions reflect evolutionarily much later religious concerns.

Is religious abstractification progressive? As shown in Chapter 6, theories of sociocultural evolution have been an important part of the social sciences for a century and a half, and they have usually been intertwined with conceptions of social progress. The earliest evolutionists generally equated the two, with evolution said to yield increasing technological, economic, intellectual, and moral improvement. Later evolutionists, however, questioned equating evolution and progress and were right to do so. Evolution is not always progressive and, indeed, sometimes runs in the other direction (Sanderson, 1990, 2007). So, is there any sense in which religious evolution might be progressive? Is increasing religious abstractification an indicator of the development of “better” religions? Few social scientists would say so, but Rodney Stark (2007) has made a forceful case. Stark contends that many religions throughout history have developed at least fragments of knowledge of the divine. In this regard he uses the ancient principle of Divine Accommodation: God’s revelations of Himself to humans are limited to the ability of humans to comprehend Him. In early smallscale societies, the level of cultural development was low, and thus people could

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have at best a very minimal understanding of the Divine. As social and cultural evolution proceeded, new religions evolved based on a deeper understanding of God: The principle of divine accommodation provides a truly remarkable key for completely reappraising the origins and history of religions. Calvin said straight out that Genesis is not a literal account of the Creation because it was directed to the unlearned and the primitive, even though, when they conceived it, the ancient Jews were far from being truly primitive. How much greater an accommodation would be required to enable God to reveal himself to the truly unsophisticated humans living in the Stone Age? So, it is at least plausible that many religions are based on authentic revelations as God has communicated within the limits of human comprehension. (Stark, 2007: 7)

According to Stark, religious evolution has undergone many fits and starts, with many false and fraudulent religions being created and with various regressive developments, such as, in Stark’s view, pagan polytheism. Nevertheless, he contends that religious progress has been made and is most evident in the development of the world transcendent religions. But of these, only the Near Eastern religions can be considered divinely inspired. These represent what Stark calls the “central core” of faiths. The East and South Asian religions are ruled out by definition because they are not “revealed” religions, and as such “could not have made any contribution to the discovery of God” (Stark, 2007: 391). They are also inferior in not possessing a rational and loving god who cares for humans and prepares their path to salvation. Zoroastrianism and later Judaism possessed such a god and were marked by a series of revelations. Christianity surpassed them because it “epitomizes revealed religion and offers a substantially more complex and nuanced vision of God as is appropriate for a faith that fulfills the Old Testament and presents a more comprehensive doctrine of salvation” (Stark, 2007: 394). What to make of Stark’s arguments? From the point of view of the scientific study of religion, they fail because they are not scientific (although Stark claims otherwise). Stark is an excellent empirically oriented social scientist, but here he is not doing social science. He is drawing conclusions based on his newfound and deeply held religious faith after spending many years as an explicit atheist. And yet there is still a sense in which we can say that there is religious progress, at least with respect to the world transcendent religions. The world religions were superior to their predecessors because they offered a new means of ontological security in a world that had become increasingly insecure. In addition, although it is impossible to evaluate Stark’s claim that the Abrahamic religions, Christianity

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in particular, can be regarded as divinely inspired, these religions have spread far and wide in the modern world. Judaism is a small and nonproselytizing religion, but Christianity today claims some 2.1 billion adherents and Islam 1.5 billion. A large majority of the world’s population today lives in Asia, but Hindus, Buddhists, Daoists, and Confucians together total only some 1.5 billion adherents, less than half the number of Christians and Muslims (see Sanderson, 2015a: Table 9.1). Justin Barrett argues that the Abrahamic monotheisms have enjoyed a strong selective advantage over other religions because their One True God is superknowing, superperceiving, superpowerful, and supergood. Still, this conception of progress is a limited one. There is no overall religious progress throughout human history and prehistory, only progress relative to existing socioecological conditions.

Why atheism? If religion is an evolutionary adaptation, then why are there atheists? In order to answer this question, we need to consider the extent of atheism in societies past and present. We also need to consider who the atheists are. In societies where atheism may be prevalent, what distinguishes atheists from believers?

Atheism past and present It appears that atheism is largely a product of the modern world (Barrett, 2004).1 Barrett says that we have all heard the saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. A safer claim is that there are no atheists in the preindustrialized world. Subsistence huntergatherers, farmers, and others with organic lifestyles are almost uniformly theists of one sort or another and always have been. With any distribution beyond a few peculiar individuals, true atheism (the rejection of all superhuman agents, including gods, ghosts, ancestors, demons, and spirits) has occurred only in communities largely divorced from natural subsistence and hence only in industrialized or postindustrialized contexts. On examination, the preindustrialized world and foxholes have much in common to encourage theism: survival-related urgency to make sense of the world, a reliance on natural and not human processes for survival, and being surrounded by

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apparent agency that cannot be simply attributed to human endeavor or simply ignored. (2004: 116–17)

Research by Richard Lynn, John Harvey, and Helmuth Nyborg (2009) on levels of religious disbelief in 137 contemporary societies is highly consistent with Barrett’s contention. For fifteen Western European countries, the four British settler colonies, and Japan, an average of 30.3 percent of their populations claim not to believe in God. Japan has the most atheists (65 percent), closely followed by Sweden (64 percent), whereas the United States, Italy, and Ireland have the fewest, at 10.5, 6, and 5 percent, respectively. By contrast, there are very few atheists in the less-developed countries, an average of only 3.5 percent, and in over half of these countries a mere one percent or less of the population expresses religious disbelief. To explain why atheism is much more common in the developed world, Norris and Inglehart (2011) invoke the by now highly familiar notion of ontological security. Ontological security is much greater in modern societies, they say, because poverty has been reduced, people enjoy much better health and longer lifespans, people benefit from strong social safety nets, and so on (see also Norenzayan and Gervais, 2013). To test Norris and Inglehart’s argument, I computed the correlation coefficient between the Quality of Human Conditions index (QHC)—a weighted average of Gross National Income per capita, adult literacy, tertiary educational enrollments, life expectancy, and the level of democracy—and the percentage of the population in a society expressing disbelief in God.2 Using the same 137 countries used by Lynn, Harvey, and Nyborg, I found a very high correlation of 0.682. Since the QHC is intended to measure people’s sense of well-being and thus ontological security, atheism appears most likely when this sense of security is high. Atheism in high-security societies is, in other words, an option that people can “afford.” However, it has often been argued that atheists are more prevalent in modern societies because of advanced science and technology. When people can explain phenomena in naturalistic terms, they need to rely less or not at all on supernaturalistic explanations. A good way to test this proposition is by examining the relationship between disbelief and a society’s tertiary educational enrollments, and in our 137 societies these variables correlate at 0.661. But because QHC and tertiary enrollments themselves correlate at an extremely large 0.865, it is important to estimate the net effect of each independent variable. This was done using a regression analysis, and results

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show that QHC has a significant net effect (β = 0.470, t = 3.038, p < 0.01) but the level of tertiary enrollments does not (β = 0.232, t = 1.498, NS). The ontological security argument is therefore supported over the advance of science interpretation.

Who are the atheists? So we can identify those societies with many atheists and give at least a partial explanation of why they have so many. But there is still the question of atheism at the individual level. In other words, in a society with a substantial number of atheists, who are the atheists likely to be? What sets them apart from believers? One possibility is intelligence. A number of observers have suggested that atheists have higher IQs. People with higher IQs are more likely to question received wisdom and are more committed to reaching conclusions on the basis of sifting through and weighing empirical evidence. Here is yet another testable proposition. IQ is related to disbelief at the aggregate level. Gerhard Meisenberg (2007) found a very strong correlation (r = 0.74) between national IQs and levels of disbelief. Lynn, Harvey, and Nyborg (2009) also found a strong correlation (0.60). At the individual level, considerable evidence supports the IQ hypothesis. Helmut Nyborg (2009), using a sample of several thousand white American adolescents, found that disbelievers scored 5.13 IQ points higher than believers. More precisely, atheists scored 1.95 points higher than agnostics, 3.82 points higher than religious liberals, and 5.89 points higher than religious dogmatics. Larson and Witham (1997; as discussed in Nyborg, 2009) found that, of the members of the United States National Academy of Sciences with the highest IQ scores, 72 percent declared themselves to be atheists, and 77 percent denied the existence of an afterlife. Richard Dawkins (2006; as discussed in Nyborg, 2009) reports that 79 percent of the Royal Society (an association of top British scientists) claimed to be nonbelievers and only 3 percent believers (the remainder said they were undecided). But surely more is going on with atheists than just high intelligence. There are many strong religious believers who are highly intelligent. Individuals differ in a very large number of traits, including inclinations toward religiosity. Considerable research has established that there is an important genetic component in individual variations in religiosity. (See Note 2 of Chapter 5.) The genetic basis of religiosity (and irreligiosity) has been pursued in a very interesting way by Benson Saler and Charles Ziegler (2006). Saler and Ziegler

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correctly note that if something is an evolutionary adaptation, then it must be fairly uniform throughout a species. However, some degree of variation is still possible. Language, for example, is very likely an evolutionary adaptation; nearly all individuals begin acquiring the language of their society beginning at about eighteen months of age and rapidly become proficient at using it. Nevertheless, there are individual differences in verbal fluency, and many language deficits are by now well known. One of the most recent deficits to be discovered is associated with a gene known as FOXP2. In a well-known study, half of the members of an extended family were found to suffer from a type of language disorder known as verbal dyspraxia. They could not speak intelligibly, had difficulty with grammatical rules, and often failed to understand complex sentences. Genetic testing showed that the impaired family members all had a mutated allele of the FOXP2 gene, whereas all of the unimpaired members possessed the normal version of the gene. (For citations and further details, see Sanderson, 2014: 31–32.) Many genes obviously are involved in language. Analogously, if religion is an adaptation, many genes must be involved there as well. Saler and Ziegler return to the idea of agency detection as the primordial basis of religion and argue that anxiety is involved in how the agency-detection module functions. They say it is likely “that functional connectivity exists between the circuits that create anxiety related to harm avoidance and the circuits that regulate the sensitivity of the agency detection module” (2006: 27). They refer to a gene that is known to regulate both anxiety and depression. This gene, SLC6A4, transports serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation. SLC6A4 contains two alleles, a long one and a short one. The short one is just like the long one except for the deletion of 44 DNA base pairs. The long allele functions to remove excess serotonin from the neural synapse. The short allele, however, fails to remove the excess serotonin, which leads to the elevation of anxiety. Individuals who carry the short allele frequently experience high levels of anxiety related to harm avoidance, sometimes on a daily basis. (For technical details of the genetics of SLC6A4, see Pezawas et al., 2005.) Because the neural circuits of anxiety regulation and agency detection are connected, heightened anxiety should be associated with heightened sensitivity of the agency-detection module. Therefore individuals with highly sensitive modules are likely to be more theistic than those with less sensitive modules. Some persons may have detection modules that are at an unusually low level of

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sensitivity, and these may be the persons who are most prone to very low religiosity or even atheism. Saler and Ziegler are clearly on to something, but I think it is necessary to go beyond an agency detection module directly to a religiosity module. This is more consistent with the adaptationist perspective of this book. If there is such a module, the SLC6A4 gene should be tied in here as well in terms of the module’s sensitivity. It seems to me that this is a good foundation for future research on the genetics of individual religiosity (as well as for the entire by-product/ adaptationist debate on the origins of religion).3

The future of religion Beginning with the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, scholars have sounded the death knell of religion countless times. Yet, despite the decline in religiosity in the West and in East Asia since the 1950s, it is still here. And it remains extremely strong in the rest of the world, with the vast majority of individuals being religious, often intensely so. Christianity continues to spread throughout the world, and Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which are strongly missionizing religions, are spreading rapidly as well. During the past forty or fifty years there has been a major Protestant invasion of traditionally Catholic Latin America, and in some Latin American countries Protestants now constitute a third or more of the population. The Latin American Protestant movements have also had a favorable effect on a heretofore ossified Catholic Church, with major increases in attendance at mass and the formation of Catholic sects that resemble the Protestant sects (Martin, 1990; Stoll, 1990). The growth of religion is largely fundamentalist religion. In the United States, the more liberal or moderate denominations have suffered major declines in their membership, but membership in the more conservative and fundamentalist denominations has grown dramatically. For example, between 1960 and 2007 membership in the liberal United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, and Presbyterian Church declined by 69, 61, and 57 percent, respectively. Membership in the moderate Methodists and Lutherans declined by 55 and 47 percent, respectively. By contrast, the conservative Mormons increased their membership by 138 percent, the fundamentalist Assembly of God by 242 percent, the fundamentalist Church of God by 260 percent, and the fundamentalist Church of God in Christ by a whopping 743 percent. People

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are leaving denominations that are “not religious enough” for them and joining denominations that meet their strong religious needs much better (Stark, 2011). The United States is often referred to as a religious “outlier” among industrialized countries. But in fact Western Europe and East Asia are the outliers. The United States is much more in tune with the rest of the world. Excluding Western Europe and East Asia, the world as a whole is still highly religious, and in fact seems to be becoming more so. In the coming decades religion may well grow stronger than ever. But why? One reason is the relationship between religiosity and fertility. As shown in Chapter 5, women in a large number of countries who are highly religious have higher fertility rates than women who are weakly religious or not religious; in some instances these fertility rates are twice as high. But we must also consider the importance of recent demographic trends (Kaufmann, 2010). Several decades ago many of the world’s countries entered a phase of what demographers call below replacement fertility, sometimes called low-low fertility (Frejka and Ross, 2001; Chesnais, 2001). This is a rate of reproduction insufficient to keep a population stable; absent in-migration, over time the population will decline. To replace the population the average fertility rate of women aged 15–44 must be 2.11 children in the advanced industrial countries. Today every single Western country is well below this level. In 2010 the average fertility rate for the European countries and the four original British settler colonies was 1.53. Seven of eight East Asian countries are also below replacement level, averaging 1.50 in 2010. Replacement level fertility for the lessdeveloped world ranges from about 2.5 to 3.3 because of higher mortality and shorter lifespans. A number of less-developed countries are below replacement level, but in general fertility remains much higher in these countries. In subSaharan Africa average fertility is 4.92, in the Islamic world 3.03, and in Latin America 2.35. In the less-developed half of the world fertility averages 3.60. The significance of these numbers is that fertility is correlated with a country’s overall level of religiosity (r = −0.461). The two regions of the world with the highest levels of disbelief in God are those that are well below replacement level. In Europe and the British settler colonies, 24 percent of people express disbelief in God. In East Asia, an average of 29 percent say they do not believe in God. But in the Islamic world less than 2 percent say they do not believe in God, and in sub-Saharan Africa only about 1 percent disbelieve in God. In the less-developed half of the world, just 2.4 percent are disbelievers. The upshot is that the least religious societies are starting to experience declining populations, whereas the most religious societies are still growing, some of them rapidly. If these trends

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continue, the number of religious people in the world will increase, whereas the number of irreligious people will decrease. In the words of Eric Kaufmann, “The religious seem destined to inherit the earth” (2010).4 But even if the fertility differentials between the secular and the religious did not exist, religion would not and will not perish. The world is becoming increasingly scientifically advanced all of the time, but science is no substitute for religion. As Robert McCauley (2011) notes, religion is natural but science is not. It takes a great deal of effort to do serious science, but religion is a natural human inclination. Science outdoes religion in terms of explaining phenomena, but that is its only advantage. As Scott Atran comments, “Science treats humans and intentions only as incidental elements in the universe, whereas for religion they are central. Science is not particularly well suited to deal with people’s existential anxieties, including death, deception, sudden catastrophe, loneliness or longing for love or justice” (2006: 7). He adds that religion is the only mode of thought and behavior capable of dealing both routinely and comprehensively with these problems. “As long as people share hope beyond reason,” he says, “religion will persevere. For better or worse, religious belief in the supernatural seems here to stay” (2002: 280).

Coda: is God a delusion? The New Atheism is the name given to the anti-religious social movement of a group of scholars and educated laypersons led by Richard Dawkins (2006), Christopher Hitchens (2007), Daniel Dennett (2006), and Sam Harris (2004). Dawkins’s book The God Delusion is the most famous statement of the agenda of this movement, a book for the general public having sold well in excess of a million copies. Dawkins and his fellow travelers are not only atheists, but are resolutely hostile to religion. As scientists or scientifically oriented thinkers, religion grossly offends their sense of reason, which for them is the royal road to truth. They contend that not only does religion fail to help people be moral, but it is in fact a source of evil in the world, most significantly as the leading cause of war. Moreover, children become religious through parental indoctrination, and are harmed by their religious upbringing. For all these reasons, they advocate abolishing religion; a society without it, they say, would be a much better society. There is no need for an extended critique of these views, for many very good ones have already been written. Amarath Amarasingam (2010) lists more than

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twenty books criticizing the New Atheism that had appeared by 2010, and undoubtedly more (quite likely many more) have been published since then. And there are countless articles and essays. A brief summary of the principal criticisms can suffice: 1. The New Atheists present a highly unbalanced view of religion, picking out and emphasizing the worst parts and ignoring all of the positive aspects. Their understanding of religion is so limited and selective that it amounts to a vulgar caricature (Eagleton, 2006). 2. The New Atheists portray religious persons as dolts, simpletons, yokels, and hayseeds beneath contempt. But many religious persons are highly intelligent and their religious beliefs are reflective and well thought out. Dennett refers to himself and other New Atheists as “brights”—a conceited, arrogant, and condescending statement if ever there were one—but atheists hardly have a monopoly on intelligence. 3. The New Atheists are extremely dogmatic and intolerant and promote their own brand of fundamentalism. They stress that science involves the openminded weighing of evidence, but they show no such open-mindedness with respect to religion. 4. The New Atheists claim that children become religious only through parental indoctrination, but in fact children appear to have natural religious inclinations and much of the religion that children acquire is due to parental modeling or moderated teaching. 5. On the basis of their indoctrination claim, and their view that religion is overwhelmingly negative in its effects, the New Atheists regard teaching children about religion as a form of child abuse and suggest that criminalizing it should be considered. But the child abuse claim is absurd and just another indication of the New Atheists’ extreme intolerance.5 6. The New Atheists claim that religion is the leading cause of war, but this is simply untrue. One study that surveyed nearly 2,000 violent historical conflicts found that less than 10 percent involved religion in any way at all (Phillips and Axelrod, 2007). Another study examined 3,500 years of violent conflicts and found that in 40 percent religion played a role, but rarely was it the key factor (Austin, Kranock and Oomen, 2003). Most wars stem from economic, political, and ethnic factors. 7. Despite the apparent insecurity of the New Atheists, religion is not a serious threat to science. The United States, for example, is one of the most religious of the industrialized societies and yet is far and away the world’s leading

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contributor to scientific knowledge. It is true that creationists and intelligent design theorists have challenged the teaching of evolution in public schools, or have advocated that intelligent design be taught alongside evolution. However, they have made limited headway and this only concerns the teaching of evolution, not its scientific practice by tens of thousands of evolutionary biologists, biological anthropologists, and the members of numerous other scientific disciplines. Religion has not inhibited research by evolutionary biologists, or by any other natural scientists, in any way. American evolutionary biology is a dynamic field with a rapidly growing list of outstanding accomplishments and many fascinating new hypotheses. 8. The New Atheists misunderstand the nature of religious beliefs and the essence of religion. Most fundamentally, they misconstrue religion as a “hypothesis about the world” that is in competition with scientific hypotheses (Falcioni, 2010). This last point is especially important. Ryan Falcioni says that “religious beliefs are not hypotheses about the world. They do not function this way in the lives of believers to any noticeable extent. Yet the dominant epistemology of the New Atheists and their philosophical friends treat them this way. And it is this epistemological approach that distorts the meaning and value of religious beliefs” (2010: 211). Falcioni continues: Religious beliefs do not occupy the same space, and are not held in the same way, as scientific beliefs are held. They are not tentative and are not held in proportion to evidences. A statement of religious belief is a statement about one’s life, one’s values, about ultimate things. The religious believer does not engage religious beliefs as hypotheses that may or may not turn out to be true. To believe in the religious sense is an act of commitment. (2010: 218; emphasis added)

The reasonable conclusion would seem to be that the agenda of the New Atheists goes badly off the rails. Even many atheists disavow it, saying that it gives atheism a bad name.6 The present book is a work of science. It seeks neither to promote religion nor to reject it, but simply to understand it. What then is a proper stance on the relationship between religion and science in a modern or postmodern society? The paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (1999) has suggested what seems to me a very sensible and realistic solution: mutual respect and coexistence. He says that he fails to understand why the two endeavors should necessarily be in conflict. “Science tries to document the factual character

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of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve” (1999: 4). However, Gould hastens to add that his principle of respectful separation does not apply to specific religious claims when these are contradicted by scientific evidence. For example, the claim made by fundamentalist Christians that the earth is only some six thousand years old is inconsistent with detailed scientific evidence that it is at least four billion years old. In this case science wins the day because the age of the earth is a factual, not a normative, question. But if a Christian wishes to believe in a personal and loving God who is the source of salvation in an afterlife, then we are back in the proper domain of religion upon which science can cast no light. Why should scientists object to individuals holding such a belief in and of itself, especially when it provides comfort and a sense of life’s purpose for those individuals?

Appendix A: Codes for Stage of Religious Evolution in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample

Ethnographic data used to code Stage of Religious Evolution for the 186 societies in the Standard Cross-cultural Sample were obtained from the following sources: ● ● ●

O’Leary and Levinson, Encyclopedia of World Cultures (EWC, vols. 1–9) Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) Miscellaneous ethnographies

The societies and their codes are:

Society

Religion

Data Source

1. Nama 2. !Kung 3. Thonga 4. Lozi 5. Mbundu 6. Suku or Pindi 7. Bemba 8. Nyakyusa 9. Hadza 10. Luguru 11. Kikuyu 12. Ganda or Baganda 13. Mbuti 14. Nkundo Mongo 15. Banen 16. Tiv 17. Ibo 18. Fon or Dahomeans 19. Ashanti 20. Mende 21. Wolof 22. Bambara 23. Tallensi

Shamanic Shamanic Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Shamanic Shamanic Communal Communal Communal Communal N/A Communal Communal Pagan Pagan Communal Communal World transcendent Communal

HRAF, FX13 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 HRAF, FP13 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 Stephenson (2000) Pels (1999) EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 N/A EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 HRAF, FE12 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 HRAF, FA8 HRAF, FE11

238

Society 24. Songhai 25. Fulani 26. Hausa 27. Massa 28. Azande 29. Fur 30. Otoro 31. Shilluk 32. Mao 33. Kafa or Kafficho 34. Masai 35. Konso 36. Somali 37. Amhara 38. Bogo or Belen 39. Nubians 40. Teda 41. Tuareg 42. Riffians 43. Egyptians 44. Hebrews 45. Babylonians 46. Rwala 47. Turks 48. Gheg 49. Romans 50. Basques 51. Irish 52. Lapps 53. Yurak Somoyed 54. Russians 55. Abkaz 56. Armenians 57. Kurd 58. Basseri 59. Punjabi 60. Gond 61. Toda 62. Santal 63. Uttar Pradesh 64. Burusho 65. Kazak 66. Khalka Mongols 67. Lolo 68. Lepcha 69. Garo 70. Lakher 71. Burmese

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

Religion Communal World transcendent World transcendent Communal Communal N/A N/A Communal N/A N/A Communal Communal World transcendent World transcendent N/A World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent Pagan World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent Pagan World transcendent World transcendent Shamanic Shamanic World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent Communal World transcendent Communal Communal Communal World transcendent Communal World transcendent World transcendent Pagan World transcendent Communal Communal World transcendent

Data Source EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 N/A N/A EWC, vol. 9 N/A N/A EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 N/A EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 9 HRAF, MR13 EWC, vol. 1 N/A HRAF, MD4 EWC, vol. 9 HRAF, EG1 N/A EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 4 EWC, vol. 4 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 9 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 HRAF, AW19 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 6 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 5

Appendix A

Society 72. Lamet 73. Vietnamese 74. Rhade 75. Khmer or Cambodians 76. Siamese or Central Thai 77. Semang 78. Nicobarese 79. Andamanese 80. Vedda 81. Tanala 82. Negri Sembilan 83. Javanese 84. Balinese 85. Iban or Sea Dyak 86. Badjau 87. Toradja 88. Tobelorese 89. Alorese 90. Tiwi 91. Aranda or Arunta 92. Orokaiva 93. Kimam 94. Kapauku 95. Kwoma 96. Manus 97. New Ireland 98. Trobrianders 99. Siuai 100. Tikopia 101. Pentecost 102. Mubau Fijians 103. Ajie 104. Maori 105. Marquesans 106. Samoans 107. Gilbertese 108. Marshallese 109. Trukese 110. Yapese 111. Palauans 112. Ifugao 113. Atayal 114. Chinese 115. Manchu 116. Koreans 117. Japanese 118. Ainu 119. Gilyak

Religion Communal World transcendent N/A World transcendent World transcendent Communal Communal Communal Pagan Communal World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent Communal World transcendent Communal Too missionized Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Pagan Pagan Too missionized Communal Too missionized Too missionized Too missionized Too missionized Pagan Communal World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent World transcendent Shamanic Shamanic

239

Data Source Hickey (1964) EWC, vol. 5 N/A EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 EWC, vol. 3 HRAF, FY8 HRAF, AN5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 Serpenti (1965) EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 HRAF, OM10 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 2 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 5 HRAF, AD4 EWC, vol. 6C EWC, vol. 6C EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 5 EWC, vol. 6R

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Society 120. Yukaghir 121. Chukchee 122. Ingalik 123. Aleut 124. Copper Eskimo 125. Montagnais 126. Micmac or Sourisquois 127. Saulteaux 128. Slave 129. Kaska 130. Eyak 131. Haida 132. Bellacoola 133. Twana 134. Yurok 135. Pomo 136. Yokuts 137. Paiute 138. Klamath 139. Kutenai 140. Gros Ventre 141. Hidatsa 142. Pawnee 143. Omaha 144. Huron 145. Creek 146. Natchez 147. Comanche 148. Chiricahua Apache 149. Zuni 150. Havasupai 151. Papago 152. Huichol 153. Aztec 154. Popoluca 155. Quiche 156. Miskito 157. Bribri 158. Cuna or Tule 159. Goajiro 160. Haitians 161. Callinago or Island Carib 162. Warrau or Guarauno 163. Yanomamo 164. Carib 165. Saramacca 166. Mundurucu 167. Cubeo

Religion Shamanic Shamanic Communal Shamanic Shamanic Shamanic Communal Communal Shamanic Too missionized Too missionized Communal Shamanic Shamanic Communal Communal Communal Communal Shamanic Shamanic Communal Communal Communal Communal Shamanic Communal Communal Shamanic Communal Communal Shamanic Communal Communal Pagan Pagan Communal Communal Communal Shamanic Communal Communal Shamanic Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal Communal

Data Source EWC, vol. 6R EWC, vol. 6R EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 HRAF, ND12 Krauss (1982) EWC, vol. 1 HRAF, NE6 Elmendorf (1974) EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 Schaeffer (1966) HRAF, NQ13 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 HRAF, NQ12 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 van Tuyl (1979) EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 1 HRAF, NT14 EWC, vol. 1 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 8 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7

Appendix A

Society 168. Cayapa 169. Jivaro 170. Amahuaca 171. Inca 172. Aymara 173. Siriono 174. Nambicuara 175. Bororo 176. Timbira 177. Tupinamba 178. Botocudo 179. Karaja 180. Aweikoma 181. Cayua or Cainga 182. Lengua 183. Abipon 184. Mapuche 185. Tehuelche 186. Yahgan

Religion Shamanic Communal Communal Pagan Communal Communal Communal Communal Shamanic Shamanic N/A Communal N/A N/A Shamanic Shamanic Communal Shamanic Shamanic

241

Data Source HRAF, SD6 HRAF, SD9 EWC, vol. 7 HRAF, SE13 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 EWC, vol. 7 HRAF, SO8 HRAF, SO9 N/A EWC, vol. 7 N/A N/A EWC, vol. 7 HRAF, SI4 EWC, vol. 7 HRAF, SH5 HRAF, SH6

Appendix B: Ancient Cities and Estimated City Sizes

Table B1 Twenty largest world cities, 650 BCE Near East

South Asia

East Asia

Ninevah (Assyria) 120,000 Memphis (Persia) 80,000 Babylon (Persia) 60,000 Miletus (Greece) 50,000 Sais (Egypt) 48,000 Marib (Arabia) 45,000 Jerusalem (Persia) 45,000 Ecbatana (Persia) 42,500 Napata (Nubia) 42,500 Calah (Assyria) 40,000 Van (Persia) 35,000 Susa (Persia) 30,000

Kausambi 55,000 Ayodhya 35,000

Lintzu (China) 80,000 Loyang (China) 70,000 Kingchow (China) 42,500 Hsintien (China) 40,000 Changan (China) 35,000 Pyongyang (Korea) 30,000

Totals 623,000 Grand total 1,010,500

90,000

297,500

Source: Chandler (1987: 460). Names in parentheses refer to the state, empire, or geographical location in which the city existed at the given time period. Some Greek cities were in Greek colonies in Italy or elsewhere.

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Table B2 Fifty-one largest world cities, 430 BCE Near East

South Asia

East Asia

Babylon (Persia) 200,000 Athens (Greece) 155,000 Syracuse (Syracuse) 125,000 Memphis (Persia) 100,000 Ecbatana (Persia) 90,000 Corinth (Greece) 70,000 Susa (Persia) 70,000

Patna 100,000 Benares 54,000 Anuradhapura 47,000 Sravasti 47,000 Vaisali 45,000 Kausambi 39,000 Dantapura 37,000

Persepolis (Persia) 50,000 Carthage (Carthage) 50,000 Jerusalem (Persia) 49,000 Meroe (Nubia) 47,000 Marib (Arabia) 45,000 Ephesus (Persia) 42,500 Sparta (Greece) 40,000 Agrigentum (Greece) 40,000 Argos (Greece) 40,000 Tarentum (Greece) 40,000 Messina (Greece) 38,000 Sidon (Phoenicia) 36,000 Sardis (Anatolia) 35,000 Croton (Greece) 35,000 Tyre (Phoenicia) 35,000 Cyrene (Phoenicia) 35,000 Corcyra (Greece) 35,000 Rome 35,000 Gela (Greece) 35,000 Kerch (Greece) 32,500 Damascus (Syria) 30,000 Elis (Greece) 30,000

Rajagriha 32,500 Ayodhya 32,500 Trichinopoly 32,500

Yenhsiatu (China) 180,000 Loyang (China) 100,000 Hsueh (China) 75,000 Soochow (China) 60,000 Lintzu (China) 60,000 Lucheng (China) 50,000 Fenghsiang (China) 42,500 Changsha (China) 40,000 Champa (Vietnam) 37,000 Pyongyang (Korea) 32,500 Taiyuan (China) 32,500

Totals 1,665,000 Grand total 2,841,000

466,500

709,500

Source: Chandler (1987: 461). Names in parentheses refer to the state, empire, or geographical location in which the city existed at the given time period. Some Greek cities were in Greek colonies in Italy or elsewhere.

Appendix B

245

Table B3 Fifty-five largest world cities, 200 BCE Near East

South Asia

East Asia

Alexandria (Egypt) 200,000

Patna 350,000

Seleucia (Syria) 200,000

Ujjain 87,500

Carthage (Carthage) 150,000 Rome 150,000 Antioch (Syria) 120,000 Syracuse (Rome) 100,000 Rayy (Syria) 87,500

Anuradhapura 65,000 Paithan 60,000 Taxila 60,000 Benares 51,000 Aror 51,000

Athens (Greece) 75,000 Balkh (Bactria) 75,000 Corinth (Greece) 70,000 Memphis (Egypt) 65,000 Babylon (Syria) 65,000 Ecbatana (Syria) 51,000 Jerusalem (Egypt) 51,000 Marib (Arabia) 51,000 Rhodes (Greece) 42,000 Ephesus (Persia) 40,000 Cirta (Algeria) 39,000 Meroe (Nubia) 36,500 Messina (Greece) 35,000 Pergamum (Anatolia) 35,000 Damascus (Syria) 32,500 Amasia (Greece) 32,500 Cyrene (Phoenicia) 30,000 Sparta (Greece) 30,000 Olbia (Sardinia) 30,000

Vaisali 51,000 Tosali 51,000 Kolkai 51,000 Broach 40,000 Peshawar 39,000 Kolhapur 36,500 Sopara 36,500 Srinagar 32,500 Trichinopoly 32,500 Madurai 32,500

Changan (China) 400,000 Pingcheng (China) 87,500 Soochow (China) 65,000 Loyang (China) 60,000 Nanking (China) 51,000 Lucheng (China) 39,000 Changsha (China) 38,000 Kaifeng (China) 32,500

Totals 1,893,000 Grand total 3,793,000

1,127,000

773,000

Source: Chandler (1987: 462). Names in parentheses refer to the state, empire, or geographical location in which the city existed at the given time period.

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Table B4 Seventy-five largest world cities, 100 CE Near East

South Asia

East Asia

Rome 450,000 Seleucia (Persia) 250,000 Alexandria (Egypt) 250,000 Antioch (Syria) 150,000 Carthage (Carthage) 100,000 Smyrna (Rome) 90,000 Ecbatana (Syria) 82,500 Athens (Greece) 75,000 Edessa (Anatolia) 72,500 Nisibis (Anatolia) 67,500 Zafar (Arabia) 60,000 Rayy (Syria) 55,500

Anuradhapura 130,000 Peshawar 120,000 Paithan 82,500 Patala 72,500 Patna 67,500 Dohad 62,500 Kavery 55,500 Broach 55,500 Madurai 50,000 Kolhapur 47,500 Aror 47,500 Srinagar 47,500

Syracuse (Rome) 55,500 Babylon 55,500

Benares 47,500 Ujjain 38,500

Ephesus (Anatolia) 51,000 Corinth (Greece) 50,000 Memphis (Egypt) 47,500

Junnar 36,500 Tosali 33,000 Jullundur 33,000

Leptis (Libya) 47,500

Ayodhya 33,000

Loyang (China) 420,000 Soochow (China) 95,000 Changan (China) 82,500 Nanking (China) 82,500 Chengdu (China) 70,000 Wuchang (China) 67,500 Tonggoo (China) 55,000 Kashiwara (Japan) 50,500 Kanchow (China) 47,500 Taiyuan (China) 42,000 Peking (China) 38,500 Pingchang (China) 38,500 Canton (China) 38,500 Kingchow (China) 38,500 Namhan (Korea) 36,500 Keishu (Korea) 34,500 Hangchow (China) 33,000 Changsha (China) 33,000 Tunhuang (China) 32,000

Balkh (Anatolia) 47,500 Merv (Turkmenistan) 42,000 Stakhr (Persia) 42,000 Pergamum (Anatolia) 40,000 Apamea (Syria) 37,000 Capua (Rome) 36,000 Byzantium (Anatolia) 36,000 Thessalonica (Greece) 35,000 Oxyrhyncus (Egypt) 34,000 Angora (Greece) 34,000 Milan (Rome) 30,000 Petra (Jordan) 30,000 Gortyn (Greece) 30,000 Ostia (Rome) 30,000 Totals 2,513,500 Grand total 4,909,500

1,060,000

1,336,000

Source: Chandler (1987: 463). Names in parentheses refer to the state, empire, or geographical location in which the city existed at the given time period.

Appendix B

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Table B5 Total size of world cities 100,000 or larger, 700 BCE–100 CE Century 700 BCE 600 BCE 500 BCE 400 BCE 300 BCE 200 BCE 100 BCE 1 CE 100 CE

Near East 200,000 (2) 200,000 (2) 500,000 (5) 670,000 (5) 1,550,000 (7) 1,510,000 (7) 2,025,000 (8) 2,160,000 (8) 3,015,000 (11)

South Asia

100,000 (1) 200,000 (2) 700,000 (3) 700,000 (4) 550,000 (4) 600,000 (6) 750,000 (6)

East Asia 200,000 (2) 400,000 (3) 1,000,000 (8) 1,650,000 (12) 2,020,000 (11) 500,000 (4) 900,000 (5) 1,860,000 (9) 520,000 (2)

Total 400,000 (4) 600,000 (5) 1,600,000 (14) 2,520,000 (19) 4,270,000 (21) 2,710,000 (15) 3,475,000 (17) 4,620,000 (23) 4,285,000 (19)

Source: Modelski (2003: 42, 44, 45, 49). Numbers in parentheses are the number of cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants.

Table B6 Chandler’s and Modelski’s city size totals, 650 BCE–100 CE Century

Near East

South Asia

East Asia

Grand total

650/600 BCE 430/400 BCE 200 BCE 100 CE Total % increase 650/ 600 BCE to 200 BCE Chandler, 276% Modelski, 352% Total % increase 650/600 BCE to 100 CE Chandler, 386% Modelski, 614%

623/200 1,665/670 1,893/1,510 2,514/3,015

90/0 467/200 1,127/700 1,060/750

298/400 710/1,650 773/500 1,336/520

1,010/600 2,841/2,520 3,793/2,710 4,910/4,285

Sources: Chandler (1987: 460–63). Modelski (2003: 42, 44, 45, 49). The first number is Chandler’s estimate and the second Modelski’s. Numbers are expressed in thousands (e.g., 200 = 200,000).

Notes Prologue 1 These include Stewart Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion (1993); Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (2001); Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002); Justin Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (2004); Ilkka Pyysiäinen, How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion (2003), and Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas (2009); Lee Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (2005); Joseph Bulbulia et al., (Eds.), The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques (2008); Jay Feierman (Ed.), The Biology of Religious Behavior: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion (2009); and D. Jason Slone and James A. Van Slyke (Eds.), The Attraction of Religion: A New Psychology of Religion (2015). 2 Among others, Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures (2009); Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life (2011); Justin Barrett, Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief (2012); and Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (2013). 3 For example, Religion, Brain, and Behavior, Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Journal of Cognition and Culture, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The last two are more general journals but publish a fair number of articles on the new cognitive and evolutionary approaches to religion.

Chapter 1 1 When talking about sociocultural evolution over the long term, we are referring to changes in social and cultural life over approximately the past 10,000 or 11,000 years. The major sources of data used to describe these changes come from archaeology and history. But we also use ethnographic data on small-scale societies assembled by anthropologists to serve as representatives of small-scale societies of the past, and we arrange them in an order assumed to be the order in which they evolved over time. This methodological approach is known as the comparative

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Notes

method and has been in use since the nineteenth century. It has been heavily criticized, but when used cautiously and thoughtfully it is a reasonable approach and yields important results. With respect to the evolution of technologies, economies, and polities, the archaeological and historical records are full enough so that comparative ethnographies are less essential than they are in the case of other social and cultural phenomena. And religion is clearly one of these other phenomena. The historical record of religion is reasonably good relatively speaking (although highly imperfect and not nearly as good as historians of religion would like it to be), but the prehistoric record is much thinner. For this reason, the comparative method becomes essential, and therefore the discussion of the religious beliefs and rituals in this chapter and in later ones (especially Chapters 2 and 6) makes extensive use of it. Despite this method’s limitations, there is no realistic alternative. For further discussion, see Sanderson (2007: 36–40, 267–8). 2 As a matter of convenience, these small-scale societies are described here and elsewhere in what is known as the “ethnographic present.” Many of them were described by ethnographers years ago, sometimes as far back as the early to midnineteenth century. They may still exist, but almost never in the form they took when they were first described. Nearly all have been subject to outside economic, political, cultural, and religious influences. In the case of historical societies that obviously no longer exist, such as the Roman Empire, they are obviously described in the past tense.

Chapter 2 1 There seems to be a clear basis in brain biochemistry for the religious use of hallucinogens. Griffiths, Richards, McCann, and Jesse (2006) carried out an interesting experiment in which they administered the drug psilocybin to thirtysix subjects. Psilocybin is a hallucinogen found in a genus of mushrooms, some of which have been used for hundreds or possibly thousands of years in a variety of societies to induce altered states of consciousness. The results were striking. Sixty-one percent of the subjects who had received psilocybin reported having a “complete mystical experience,” and some two-thirds described their experience as being either the single most meaningful experience of their lives or one of the top five experiences. Seventy-nine percent said that their sense of personal well-being or life satisfaction increased either moderately or very much. 2 Steadman and Palmer (2008) contend that it is universal, but this is mainly because they use a very expansive definition. There is, for example, no ancestor worship in modern industrial societies, unless we count such things as people placing flowers on the graves of their dead ancestors. But this is not really a form of worship. People

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often hang pictures of their ancestors in their homes, but they do not worship or offer meat and libations to these pictures. 3 Van Tuerenhout (2005) lists seventeen major gods, whereas Parrinder (1983) lists twenty. Only five gods in these two lists overlap. This is probably because gods are often known under two or more names.

Chapter 3 1 The sociologist W. G. Runciman (2009) rejects the very notion of an Axial Age, saying that the intellectual content of what developed in China, India, Iran, and among the Hebrew prophets and Greek philosophers was quite different in each and every case, although he does not deny some similarities. He says that “Jaspers’ ‘Axial Age’ . . . is defined by elective affinities which are the products more of Jaspers’ own existential philosophy than of the selective affinities in the world whose distinctive cultures and societies evolved as they did” (2009: 203–04). But Runciman concentrates on the philosophical ideas of elites and almost completely ignores the religious dimensions of the evolutionary trajectories of these areas during this historical period, which is where the similarities are most apparent. He also ignores the fact that many other scholars have followed Jaspers in recognizing a distinct Axial Age, and therefore it is not simply a matter of Jaspers imposing on history his own philosophical worldview. 2 Some of these are turning out to be important, as this book will show, but until now their significance has never been properly understood. They have remained largely undeveloped suggestions. 3 The view that the Israelites were actually Canaanites may be too extreme. But the Israelites likely lived in Canaan from an early point and at the very least were closely related to the Canaanites. 4 Gnuse (1999) summarizes a large literature proposing a gradual evolutionary transformation of Israelite polytheism into Jewish monotheism. 5 Jesus may not actually have been a carpenter. The Aramaic word for carpenter, nagger, can also refer to a scholar or a man of learning. Stark (2011) thinks it much more likely that he was a scholar rather than a carpenter. Indeed, many of his followers called him rabbi, meaning teacher. But we cannot really be sure what his occupation was. 6 Actually, this view was originally proposed by the celebrated Albert Schweitzer in his classic book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, originally published in German in 1913. 7 Hopkins says that “Jesus was a retroconstructed sacred hero. Most of the important Christian claims about him—his preexistence before his earthly life, his cocreation

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of the universe with God, his miraculous birth, life, teachings, miracles, arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, postresurrection appearances, and reunion with God, his Father—were invented after his death. I do not mean that none of these events occurred. What I mean is that the significance of all these events was imagined, discovered, contemplated, and magnified only once Christians had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, and son of God” (1999: 287). 8 The reason Jewish Christianity died out was the outcome of the Jewish War against Rome in 66–70 CE. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and the Jewish Christians were obliterated. 9 In contending that Paul “killed off the historical Jesus,” Wilson argues that he drew to some extent on figures found in the Roman mystery cults. Stark (2006) points out that the cults of Cybele and Isis, which were imported into Rome from elsewhere (Cybele from Anatolia and Isis from Egypt), contained the idea of special virgin births (something entirely absent in Judaism) and of a supreme goddess capable of saving humanity in an afterlife. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (1999) go further—much further—in arguing that Paul’s view of Jesus was based almost entirely on the mystery cults. They propose that the biography of Jesus was based on the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, pointing to such similarities between Jesus and OsirisDionysus as: Osiris-Dionysus is a savior who is the Son of God and a mortal virgin, he gives his followers a chance to be born again, he turns water into wine, he rides into town on a donkey, he dies at the time of Easter, he is resurrected and ascends to Heaven, and a ritual meal of bread and wine celebrates his death and resurrection. It strains the imagination in the extreme to believe that Jesus was simply some sort of carbon copy of an earlier mythic figure. But there is no reason to believe that Paul and his followers, as well as the writers of the first four Gospels, could not have drawn on ideas already in wide circulation in the ancient world. Very likely they did. 10 A half-century ago S. G. F. Brandon (1967) put forth the thesis that Jesus, although not himself a Zealot, was comfortable with the outlook of the Zealots and one of his disciples, Simon, was a Zealot. Brandon notes, among many other things, that Jesus apparently said “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.” The Zealots were engaged in resistance movements against Rome for more than half of the first-century CE. These movements culminated in the famed Jewish war against Rome in the period 66–70 CE, which led to the complete destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Christians. Jewish Christianity disappeared without a trace. Brandon argues that other Christians feared that the Romans would associate them with the militant Jewish Christians, and as a result an image of the “pacific Christ” was gradually created by the authors of the Gospels as a strategy of self-protection. A more recent version of Brandon’s thesis has been developed by Reza Aslan (2013), who calls

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Jesus a “politically conscious Jewish revolutionary.” For a critical discussion of the Brandon thesis, see Zeitlin (1988: 129–52, 160). This date may be too late. Hopkins (1999) says that the shift to the conversion of pagans was already occurring by about 150 CE. An interesting source of empirical support for Stark’s argument, although indirect, is provided by Botticini and Eckstein (2012). They show that the entire Jewish population of the Near East, North Africa, and Europe declined from about 5 to 5.5 million in 65 CE to about 1 to 1.2 million in 650 CE. The reasons for such a precipitous decline cannot be known with any certainty, but it seems reasonable to believe that much of the Jewish population disappeared simply by being absorbed into Christianity. Stark’s emphasis on the conversion of Jews has hardly gone unchallenged. Many scholars still believe that Paul’s mission was mainly to the gentiles. See, for example, MacCulloch (2009) and Ehrman (2014). Justin Barrett generalizes the point, saying “that a superknowing, superperceiving, superpowerful, immortal, and (perhaps) supergood god possesses strong selective advantages, such that once it is introduced, belief in such a god should spread quite well. This supergod concept matches well (but not perfectly) with the God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism” (2004: 89). The matter is somewhat different in the case of Judaism, which had in the past and has today only a very small number of adherents. However, this is partly because Jews have regarded themselves as an exclusive ethnoreligious group (the “Chosen People”) and thus have not sought new members. It is also because many Jews converted to Christianity during its early centuries. There are no specific dates. Indeed, there is some doubt as to whether Laozi was an actual person. That the Aryans came from outside India is the traditional understanding, but this interpretation has recently been contested (see Flood, 1996). The revisionist position is that Aryan culture and religion were part of a social transformation within India and were developments from the Indus Valley civilization that had formed about 2500 BCE. This is not a disagreement that can be resolved here; it is a matter for archaeological and historical specialists. In any event, we need not resolve it because it has no particular bearing on our main focus, Hinduism. But it seems an interesting aside. Pyysiäinen (2009) points out that the idea of karma determining the nature of a rebirth is similar to the Christian doctrine that one’s deeds in life determine one’s fate in the afterlife. Of course, just because I am unaware of such scholarship doesn’t mean that there isn’t any. If a knowledgeable reader is aware of some, I would be very grateful to have it pointed out to me.

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17 The theologian Paul Tillich (1951) distinguishes three forms of monotheism. What he calls exclusive monotheism is characteristic of the Near Eastern religions, Islam included. A slightly different form is mystical monotheism, exemplified by Hinduism. A third form is monarchic monotheism, which Tillich says straddles the line between monotheism and polytheism, although it seems closer to the latter than to the former. It would be very difficult to make a case for placing either Buddhism or Daoism in any of these categories. For further discussion, see Tillich (1951: 225–29). 18 Numerous scholars have bemoaned the intolerance associated with monotheistic religions. See, for example, Kirch (2004) and Assmann (2010). 19 This seems to be true in general, not just for Judaism. As the power of gods increases, there is declining anthropomorphism and increasing transcendence (Pyysiäinen, 2005). 20 Tillich (1951) points out that there is a certain danger in the creation of a fully transcendent One True God. People still desire a living God. A transcendent God’s “ultimacy and universality tend to swallow his character as a living God. The personal traits in his picture are removed as anthropomorphisms which contradict his ultimacy, and the historical traits of his character are forgotten as accidental factors which contradict his universality” (1951: 227–28). This gives rise to what Tillich calls the “trinitarian problem.” This is “the problem of the unity between ultimacy and concreteness in the living God. Trinitarian monotheism is concrete monotheism, the affirmation of the living God” (p. 228). The term trinitarian as used by Tillich does not necessarily imply three of something, only something more concrete to go along with the highly abstract. Thus in Christianity there “are the angels, the divine messengers who represent special divine functions” (p. 229). More importantly, there “is the divine-human figure through whom God works the fulfillment of history, the Messiah. In all these the God who had become absolutely transcendent and unapproachable now becomes concrete and present in time and space. The significance of these mediators grows as the distance between God and man increases” (p. 229). Likewise, in Zoroastrianism there is Ahura Mazda, but also the savior Saoshyans, in Islam Allah, but also Muhammad, and so on. Anthropologists and psychologists who have been studying religion from the perspective of cognitive psychology make much the same point—that it is extremely difficult for ordinary persons to think of God as completely transcendent. It is very difficult for them to get rid of all anthropomorphic qualities. People find it much easier to understand a personal, living God (Barrett, 1999, 2004; Barrett and Keil, 1996; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004; Pyysiäinen, 2005, 2009). 21 Martin Riesebrodt (2010) contends that the desire for salvation is common to all religions and is the essence of religion, but his conceptualization of salvation is much too broad. He says that all religions assist people in dealing with a range

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of misfortunes, such as natural disasters, disease and death, and various forms of social conflict. But salvation is more than just dealing with misfortune; it is the ending of suffering and the elevation of those who suffer on earth to an afterlife of perpetual bliss and harmony. Only a few religions do this. 22 Stark’s concept of a religious “price” is based on his exchange and rational choice theory of religion, which is discussed in Chapter 4.

Chapter 4 1 Some other important classical theories are discussed in Zeitlin (2004) and Xygalatas and McCorkle (2013). In addition to Marx and Durkheim, theorists discussed by Zeitlin include Weber, E. B. Tylor, Sir James Frazer, Malinowski, and Freud. The book is intended primarily for the uninitiated. Xygalatas and McCorkle is a higher-level compilation of commissioned essays on, inter alia, Weber, Malinowski, Freud, William James, Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, and of course Marx and Durkheim. It seeks to relate these theorists to the cognitive science of religion discussed later in this chapter. The essential discussion of Max Weber, arguably the greatest of all of the classical theorists of religion, is sprinkled throughout the present book but one of his most important theories is examined more systematically in Chapter 7, where it forms part of the explanation for the emergence of the Axial Age religions. 2 Actually, as a psychologist Kirkpatrick is really interested in individual differences in the need for a religious substitute attachment figure. But his argument can easily be generalized so that it becomes sociological or anthropological, that is, relevant to societies as a whole or at least very large segments of them. 3 I have seen a picture of that bun and, believe it or not, it really does look like Mother Theresa! 4 Between the cognitively cheap “God is angry” and the cognitively costly “God is the ground of being” is the idea of “One True God who is all-knowing and all-powerful.” This is intermediate, but more on the costly side of the continuum. Recall from earlier discussions that most people have difficulty conceptualizing an absolutely transcendent god. They tend to reintroduce anthropomorphic qualities that may have been eliminated over time in the development of religion. As Stark has argued repeatedly, people want a personal, living God. This is true in all of the major religious traditions. Boyer (1994) suggests that there is a cognitive optimum for counterintuitive ideas to grab attention and spread. Pyysiäinen (2003a), however, challenges this claim, noting that the Buddha is counterintuitive in all three possible ways: biological, physical, and psychological. However, Pyysiäinen admits (p. 162) that

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this may be because in Buddhism there is a written tradition, thus allowing more violations. The Abrahamic God is equally counterintuitive: He has no body, can be anywhere or everywhere at once, and knows and can do everything. There are of course written traditions here also. The cognitive optimum may only occur in oral traditions, Pyysiäinen suggests, because, without writing, the memory system is overloaded when there are several types of violations at once. Nevertheless, it seems that even when there are written traditions people will still tend to revert to a kind of cognitive optimum in terms of a living God. Justin Barrett notes that “many theologies teach about a god that violates many intuitive assumptions: an actor with no physical properties, an agent with no attentional or perceptual limitations, a ‘living’ being that can never die and is outside historical time. These types of properties make for difficult inference generation in many everyday, informationprocessing tasks. So, the theological God concept is simplified into something more manageable: the basic concept, with all of its mundane, intuitive properties, like a person” (1999: 331; see also Barrett and Keil, 1996). 5 For an extremely technical discussion of some of the difficulties with the concept of counterintuitiveness, perhaps understandable mainly (or only) to cognitive scientists, see Purzycki and Willard (2016). 6 The limitations of the cognitive approach can also be seen in terms of the question why there are individual differences in religiosity, from the intensely religious to confirmed atheists. Boyer throws up his hands, concluding that the question is unanswerable and, in fact, not even interesting. To try to answer this question is the same as asking why Mary is taller than Jane. Mary has taller parents and thus genes for tallness. Mary was a better-fed child, took vitamins, and so on. But this cannot really explain the difference between Mary and Jane, Boyer contends, only that “people like Mary” on average tend to be taller than “people like Jane.” It’s just a matter of probability. But, in fact, we can probably explain close to 100 percent of the variance in the respective heights of Mary and Jane by identifying genetic factors and a number of key environmental factors, such as nutrition, known to affect height. Explaining religious differences is harder, but in principle the same. People’s brains are not all the same. For example, some people have high native intelligence, others low. Some people at the same overall IQ levels have much better verbal abilities, others much better mathematical and spatial abilities. If the brain produces religion, there is every reason to think that some people’s brains may be highly primed for religion, other people’s not. Take a person with a brain that is weakly primed for religion and then bring that person up in a family for whom religion is unimportant, and you may well end up with an adult who is relatively indifferent to religion, or an agnostic or atheist. 7 Powell and Clarke (2012) also raise this question.

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8 In his otherwise excellent book Supernatural Agents, Pyysiäinen (2009) says that he intends to keep discussion of sociocultural environments to a minimum. This seems to be standard practice for the cognitive theorists. 9 This dominance is indicated by the fact that the by-product approach is sometimes referred to as the “Standard Model.” I wonder, is this a subtle reference to the Standard Model in elementary particle physics and therefore a way of stressing the scientific rigor of by-product theories?

Chapter 5 1 For a discussion of a variety of neuroscientific approaches to religion, including the results of experimental research, see Schjoedt (2009). 2 See Koenig et al. (2005), Koenig and Bouchard (2006), and Bradshaw and Ellison (2008) for discussions of research findings on the genetics of religiosity. In a study of twins, Bradshaw and Ellison found that genetic influences explained between 19 and 65 percent of the variance of various dimensions of religiosity. The highest percentage was for born-again religious or spiritual commitment. 3 Actually, in recent years new research suggests that it may still have an adaptive function even if not an essential one. See, for example, Bollinger et al. (2007). 4 Atran is even more explicit about religion’s adaptive significance in an interview he gave to Discover Magazine in 2003. The interviewer asked Atran why he has referred to religion as an “evolutionary riddle.” Atran’s response was that “religion increases anxiety as well as relieves it,” and “it explains events but is also unable to explain them.” But this led the interviewer to ask why religion has survived in so many cultures if it is such a riddle. Atran’s answer was that it is “because humans are faced with problems they can’t solve. Think about death. Because we have these cognitive abilities to travel in time and to track memory, we are automatically aware of death everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is something that our organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term solution” (Glausiusz, 2003: 4). Atran also claims that science will never replace religion “because it doesn’t solve any of the problems that religion solves, like death or deception.” He even claims that “there is no society that survives more than a generation or two that isn’t religiously based—even the Soviet Union, where half the people were religious. Thomas Jefferson’s Unitarian God fell by the wayside. The French Revolution’s neutral deity also fell by the wayside. People want a personal God, for obvious reasons, to solve personal problems” (Glausiusz, 2003: 4). 5 See also “Breeding for God,” Prospect Magazine, Issue 128, December 2006. Online at www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7913.

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6 Bulbulia’s argument compares favorably with that of Alcorta and Sosis (2005) discussed earlier. 7 A similar concept has been developed by Boyer and Liénard (2006; Liénard and Boyer, 2006), which they call the Hazard Precaution System. They apply it to both pathological rituals (OCD) and cultural and religious rituals. 8 This does not necessarily mean that all features of religion are evolved adaptations. Some features of religions are in all likelihood by-products rather than adaptations. Religion is complex—multidimensional and multifaceted. For example, all religions contain evil deities or spirits alongside beneficent ones, and it is difficult to see how conceptualizing some supernatural entities as evil would be an evolved adaptation. Evil supernatural agents seem to have the earmarks of a by-product, in this case a mental projection of the genuine evil that is often found in the everyday world of human interaction. All over the world in all kinds of societies people often conceptualize their enemies as evil supernatural beings (Atran, 2002). The widespread belief in witches would seem to fit in here as well. People are often mean, devious, and treacherous, and it seems only natural that, given their beliefs in supernatural agents, people would project these qualities onto some of them. Boyer says that people see witches as free-riders; they steal other people’s health or happiness, thrive only if other people suffer losses, and so on (2001: 199–200). Free-riders are both commonplace and negatively regarded in all societies, so it is unsurprising that some supernatural agents would be seen in these terms. Evil supernatural agents are often the source of blame for such misfortunes as illness and disease, bad outcomes of social relationships, failure to achieve a highly valued goal, or natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes (Winkelman and Baker, 2010). Winkelman and Baker suggest that the “universal tendency to attribute our misfortunes to malevolent humans and spirits reveals something about our innate attributional tendencies to blame ‘others’ for our personal misfortunes” (2010: 271). But is blaming evil supernatural agents for misfortune in any way adaptive? It is difficult to see how. Consider also religious cosmogonies. These may be useful in assisting people to understand where they and the world came from, and therefore contribute to a sense of meaning, but do they contribute anything to survival and reproductive success? It seems unlikely. Of course, humans do wish to understand their world. Throughout their entire history they have been folk scientists—folk biologists, folk botanists, folk physicists, and so on (Atran, 1990). They need to be in order to adapt to their environments and survive. If they are not able to figure out, for example, which plants are edible and which are poisonous, they are unlikely to become anyone’s ancestor. They also need to be able to build houses that won’t collapse as soon as they are built, construct reliable bridges to cross streams, and so on. Such knowledge is extremely practical. The ability to acquire it is obviously an adaptation

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because it is essential to survival and reproductive success. But cosmogonies? They may give satisfaction, but they don’t seem to do much more.

Chapter 6 1 A much earlier Darwinian theory was developed by William Graham Sumner and Albert Galloway Keller nearly a century ago, and it is a very interesting theory. However, despite their use of the concepts of transmission and selection, it is quite different from the theories of the recent cultural Darwinians, who seem completely unaware of it. See Sumner and Keller (1927) and, especially, Keller (1931). For a brief summary, see Sanderson (2007: 83–94). 2 Unfortunately, Henrich takes this idea quite a bit too far. He asks why Mickey Mouse is not a god. His answer: “To turn Mickey Mouse into a god, we need CREDs, especially by prestigious individuals or large groups (conformist transmission), and preferably by models sharing the learners’ sex and ethnicity (two other evolved biases). From the perspective of a learner, the difference between Mickey and Yahweh, or Yahweh and Zeus, is that learners observe members of their social group, including their chosen models, performing CREDs” (Henrich, 2009: 258). But who would display CREDs regarding Mickey Mouse, or, if anyone would be foolish enough to do so, who would be convinced by them? The differences between Mickey, on the one hand, and Yahweh or Zeus, on the other, is that Mickey is not a supernatural being at all but just a children’s fantasy character. As shown in Chapter 1, he doesn’t do anything that supernatural beings can do; he is counterintuitive, but he just entertains. He offers no other rewards, in this life or any other. Is Henrich really serious? 3 Another type of Darwinian selectionist theory has been developed by the sociologist W. G. Runciman (2009). Runciman uses the concepts of heritable variation and competitive selection and applies them to a wide range of social and historical phenomena. He also makes liberal use of such neo-Darwinian concepts as social and cultural genotypes and phenotypes. In fact, he is so committed to the Darwinian nature of his approach that, with reference to a remark made by the historian Eric Hobsbawm, he suggests that human history is essentially the continuation of biological evolution by other means (2009: 220). Runciman’s approach, which he calls “selectionist sociology,” is quite different from that of the cultural Darwinians in eschewing any analysis of the mechanisms of cultural transmission. This is welcome, since, as pointed out earlier, the Darwinians focus mostly on transmission to the relative neglect of how different cultural patterns get established. A major advantage Runciman’s work has over theirs is his concern with the origins of many macro-level social and cultural phenomena, and thus

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with the way in which cultural patterns on the relatively large scale get created. Yet it is difficult to see how Runciman’s use of Darwinian selectionist language adds anything to what he is engaged in, which is in essence a type of comparative macrosociology. Jonathan Turner and Alexandra Maryanski (2008) also claim to be doing a kind of natural selectionist sociology, but their selectionism owes little to Darwin and is based primarily on a reworking of the functionalist ideas of Durkheim and Spencer. They have just published a book that develops a natural selectionist approach to the evolution of religion (Turner, Maryanski, Petersen, and Geertz, 2018), but it is also more Durkheimian and Spencerian than Darwinian. (As an aside, it is radically different from the present book, the degree of theoretical overlap between the two being essentially zero.) I suspect that those who attempt to apply Darwinian ideas to areas outside the biological sciences are trading on the enormous success and prestige of Darwinian natural selection theory in those sciences. (This applies a fortiori to the cultural Darwinians.) If so, this would explain why Darwinian applications in the social sciences are rather forced and as a result do not accomplish very much. In my view the best Darwinian theory of sociocultural evolution is one of the oldest, that of Sumner and Keller mentioned in Note 1 above. It is closer to Darwinism and is much more substantive and useful than the more recent theories. 4 In his exposition and critical evaluation of the cultural Darwinian theories, Tim Lewens (2015) uses the term historical as part of a tripartite typology of evolutionary approaches. He characterizes historical evolutionism as an approach that is concerned with changes over time that are typically gradual. Unfortunately, he finds these changes “bland,” and contends that the “historical approach is evidently unobjectionable, but also exceptionally permissive” (2015: 7). Lewens does not mention any concern with parallel or convergent evolutionary trends. It seems to me that this would make the approach a good deal more than bland. It is not completely clear what he means by permissive. Perhaps he means that for the historical evolutionists anything counts as evolutionary change, or that they don’t have particularly rigorous epistemic standards—or both. Obviously, I do not regard historical evolutionary theories as either bland or permissive. 5 Space does not permit an extended discussion of the controversy over group selection, but a few comments are possible. Group selection had been firmly rejected for several decades by evolutionary biologists, but was resurrected in the 1990s and 2000s, most significantly by the evolutionary biologist and anthropologist David Sloan Wilson and the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson (Wilson and Wilson, 2007; Nowak, Tamita and Wilson, 2010). D. S. Wilson, Elliott Sober, and the cultural Darwinians have eagerly extended the idea to cultural evolution, and therefore speak of cultural group selection. But there is still strong resistance. The cultural group selectionists seem to think that because humans live in groups that are often very well organized and because they cooperate extensively

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even in large-scale societies, group selection must be occurring; only group selection can explain this (Pinker, 2012). Opponents of group selection contend that selection at the level of the individual is sufficient to explain these things, and I agree. The only form of group selection that might be defensible is between-group selection: a group with superior organizational skills, military power, and so on can outcompete and displace or conquer another. There is no true group selection within groups. But even selection that appears to be operating between groups may not really be group selection sensu stricto, as it is the individuals in these groups who have organized them and who are using the groups in order to pursue their own individual goals. When one group outcompetes another, it may only be some of the individuals of the successful group who benefit. I leave it to readers to sort out the controversy for themselves. Arguments in favor of cultural group selection can be found in Wilson and Sober (1994), Sober and Wilson (1998), D. S. Wilson (2002 [on religion as a group adaptation], 2007); Boyd and Richerson (2005, esp. chs. 8–14); Henrich (2004); Wilson, van Vugt, and O’Gorman (2007), Mathew and Boyd (2011); Turchin (2013, 2016); and Smaldino (2014). Arguments against include Palmer, Fredrickson, and Tilley (1997), Sanderson (2013), and Davis and Margolis (2014), but there are many others. An essay by Steven Pinker in the online magazine Edge (18 June 2012) provides a stellar critique of cultural group selection, with responses by numerous scholars both for and against, and a reply by Pinker. (Online at http://edge.org/conversation/thefalse-allure-of-group-selection#edn1.) 6 Radek Kundt (2015) misrepresents my position here, arguing that I conflate evolution and progress. But he is mistaken. Kundt seems to be implying that my list of basic human needs that form the basis for adaptations is tantamount to a list of subjective values. But they are not. I identify these needs as human universals, and I think the evidence will support that. Who would say that humans prefer bad health to good, short lives to long ones, bad food to good and starvation diets to ample ones, large amounts of hard and unpleasant work to easy and enjoyable work, and so on? One might quibble about whether some of the needs are truly universal (e.g., status and wealth seeking), but they are needs, not values. Kundt overlooks entirely my long discussion of the need to keep evolution and progress analytically separate and my argument that much of sociocultural evolution has been retrogressive in several ways (Sanderson, 2007: ch. 12). Kundt also discusses my evolutionary materialism as part of a critique of classical evolutionism. This is peculiar because the classical evolutionists have been dead for a century or more, whereas I am still alive. His critique of historical evolutionism in general is based on the same misconceptions held by Boyd and Richerson, Mesoudi, and the other cultural Darwinians. 7 Evolutionary materialism is actually part of an even broader approach that I call Darwinian conflict theory (DCT), which is more accurately described as a

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research program in the sense of the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos. It tries to formulate the universal psychobiological processes that, in interaction with socioecological conditions, generate social behavior, sociocultural systems, and sociocultural evolution. It draws heavily on sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. It is a highly formalized theory, with many axioms, postulates, and propositions. This chapter and the next are representative of DCT because they unite biological and sociocultural principles in understanding religious evolution. An early version of DCT was published in Sanderson (2001), and a more recent and much more fully developed version can be found in Sanderson (2015b). It is not necessary to understand DCT’s details in order to understand the theoretical logic of this book, but some readers may find it useful. 8 Again, as discussed in Note 1 of Chapter 1, Roberts and I are using ethnographic data on a set of societies studied by anthropologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the comparative method. Despite its limitations, it is essential to the study of religious evolution. 9 Because not all readers of this book are likely to be statistically sophisticated, I shall explain. A correlation coefficient is a measure of the degree of relatedness between two variables, which are known respectively as independent and dependent variables. An independent variable is one assumed to have a causal effect on another variable, the dependent variable. The simplest correlation is one between just two variables and is known as a zero-order correlation. A zero-order correlation may be between two independent variables or between an independent variable and a dependent variable. There are several types of correlation coefficients, but the one most commonly used is known as Pearson’s r, which is what is used in this book. This coefficient can vary between 1.0 and -1.0. A correlation of 1.0 means that two variables are perfectly positively related: as the value of one increases, the value of the other increases in direct proportion. A correlation of -1.0 means that two variables are perfectly negatively related: as the value of one increases, the value of the other decreases in direct proportion. A coefficient of 0 means that two variables are unrelated. The larger the correlation coefficient, whether positive or negative, the more closely two variables are related. This is one of the most elementary statistics that social scientists can use, but not everyone can be expected to know what it is. 10 Again, for nonstatistically oriented readers, regression analysis must be explained. Regression analysis depends on the correlations between variables (explained in Note 9 above). Normally we are interested in the effects of several independent variables on one dependent variable. We can calculate the zero-order correlations, but since the independent variables are likely correlated with each other in addition to being correlated with the dependent variable, we want to know the effect of

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an independent variable when the effects of the other independent variables are controlled for or removed. These are usually called net effects. Regression is a statistical technique that allows us to determine the net effect of each independent variable. To interpret the results of an analysis, the view I take (not shared by everyone) is that one should look most closely at the standardized beta coefficient (signified by β) of each independent variable, which is an indicator of the net effect of that variable. Say we are doing an analysis with four independent variables, all of which are highly correlated with a dependent variable and with each other. In doing the regression analysis we find that variable A has a large β whereas the βs of variables B, C, and D are low, perhaps even near zero. This means that variable A is the only one having a net effect on the dependent variable. But if the β’s remain high for, say, all four independent variables, then we would say that each is having a net effect on the dependent variable. Regression analyses come with a statistic known as Adj. R2 (adjusted R-squared). This estimates how much of the total variance in the dependent variable is being explained by the independent variables. Thus an Adj. R2 of, say, .855, means that 85.5 percent of the variance in the dependent variable is being explained. The maximum amount of variance that can be explained is, of course, 100 percent, which would mean that we have a complete explanation of the dependent variable. This never happens in the social sciences (and only rarely in other sciences that use regression techniques). There are several types of regression analysis, two of which we use in this book (ordered logistic regression and OLS regression), but this gets too technical to explain and need not be worried about. (If after this explanation you still don’t know how to interpret the results of a regression analysis, you will have to take the author’s word that they mean what he says they mean!) 11 Note that in this regression analysis the sample size was reduced from 168 to 136. The main reason for this is that pastoral societies had to be eliminated from the subsistence economy measure, since there is no place to put them without destroying the linearity of that scale. Pastoralism is not something more “advanced” than agriculture, but an alternative to it in arid climates. However, in our cross-tabulational analyses pastoral societies are retained. It should also be pointed out that in regression analyses, the issue of multicollinearity— the correlations among the independent variables—is always important. If multicollinearity is too high, it can distort the results. In OLS regression, a measure of multicollinearity is available, but there is no such measure in ordered logistic regression. Therefore, we looked at the zero-order correlations among the independent variables and decided that, although in most cases substantial, the coefficients were not large enough to have significantly influenced our findings.

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Chapter 7 1 A classic example of an exaptation is feathers. They arose as adaptations that conferred warmth; only later were they reengineered by natural selection to have a different adaptive function, the capability of flight. 2 Actually, the long-standing assumption that all mutations are random may not work any longer even for biological evolution. Persuasive arguments have been put forth in recent years that evolution is not simply genetic, but in some cases epigenetic. Environmental changes may induce favorable genetic mutations that can actually be transmitted to future generations. These mutations are therefore directed in an adaptive manner, not random. This new thinking comes from the new subfield of evolutionary biology known as evolutionary developmental biology, or colloquially as “evo-devo.” See West-Eberhard (2003), Jablonka and Lamb (2005), Carroll (2005), and Pigliucci and Müller (2010) for good discussions. 3 Note that some parts of Stark’s rational choice theory fit well with the emphasis here on the role of socioecological factors in changing religious needs, especially the role of acute unmet needs in the intensification of religiosity. Recall that in Chapter 4 two of Stark’s propositions are mentioned: “Persons with acute unmet needs for scarce or nonexistent specific rewards are more likely than others to become religious seekers, often chronic seekers”; and “If changes in the external environment result in an intensification of the need for, and the number of people in need of, effective compensators, the tendency toward the formation of sects and cults is strengthened.” Christianity began as a sect of Judaism. Not all theories of religion are mutually exclusive; some can converge in certain important ways. Of course, Stark rejects evolutionary theories and focuses only on proximate causation, whereas evolutionary theories consider both proximate and ultimate causation.

Chapter 8 1 For a dissenting view, see Thrower (1980) and Geertz and Markússon (2010). They maintain that atheism is very old and more common in human history than is usually imagined. 2 The QHC was constructed by the British psychologist Richard Lynn and the Finnish political scientist Tatu Vanhanen. 3 For more on atheism at both the individual and societal levels, see Zuckerman, Galen, and Pasquale (2016) and McCaffree (2017). 4 Of course, we do not know whether these demographic trends will continue. It is likely that an increasing number of less-developed countries will reach below

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replacement fertility levels, thus slowing the trend toward increasing religiosity. The trend may not continue to the end of the century, but it is likely to continue until at least 2050. 5 Criminalizing parents teaching their children religion would be an extreme violation of a fundamental parental right, if not downright Orwellian. Justin Barrett has offered a superb riposte to the child abuse claim: “The ideal of not directly or indirectly teaching your moral or metaphysical values and commitments to your children is sheer fantasy, and the attempt could prove emotionally and psychologically harmful. Would a child feel loved and affirmed if her parents refuse to tell her what they believe in answer to her most heartfelt questions?” (2012: 228) He goes on to say: “Children (generally) want to be what their parents are, on any number of religious and nonreligious dimensions, and to disallow them inclusion in that social circle is a form of emotional exile. Identifying with their parents is natural. I fear that . . . Dawkins’s strategy of parents’ not providing children with a thought-through belief system (religious or otherwise) is pragmatically doomed and more likely than not to create relational distance and estrangement within families” (2012: 228–29). 6 Moreover, Dawkins’s and Hitchens’s critiques are mean-spirited in the extreme, and often vicious. Here is 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” (2006: 31). How ironic it is for someone who worships at the altar of reason to make a statement, as this one surely must be, based largely on emotion. In a similar vein, Hitchens refers to the Old Testament as a “nightmare,” and claims that the New Testament is even worse. What’s more, “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” (2007: 56). The subtitle of Hitchens’s book says it all: “How Religion Poisons Everything.”

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Index Abrahamic religions 223, 225, 226, 255–6 n.4 adaptationism empirical 147–9 evolutionary 3, 5, 143, 146, 147, 161, 162, 230 methodological 147, 148 sociocultural 174 adaptationist theories. See evolutionary adaptationist theories adaptations biological 3, 126, 128, 135–9, 141, 144, 147–50, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159–61, 197, 219–21, 226, 229, 258 n.8, 260–1 n.5, 264 n.1 biosocial 3, 5, 145, 220 sociocultural 174, 175, 177, 213, 220 afterlife 11, 60, 69, 70, 80, 82, 84, 103, 115, 121, 122, 228, 235, 252 n.9, 253 n.15, 255 n.21 agency detection 3, 4, 128, 130, 134, 136, 143, 156, 227, 229, 230. See also Hyperactive Agency Detection Device agrarian societies 14, 159, 171, 174, 211, 222 agriculture 2, 21, 36, 82, 188, 263 n.11 origins of 168, 194 Ahura Mazda (Ohrmazd) 53, 57, 58, 59, 254 Alcorta, Candace S. 4, 8, 10, 141–3, 258 n.6 Alexander, Richard D. 186 Allah 81, 161, 254 n.20 altered states of consciousness (ASCs) 18, 28, 31, 33, 145, 150, 250 n.1 Amarasingam, Amarath 232 Amenhotep IV (Akhenation) 38 ancestor worship 2, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 32, 34, 35, 46, 63, 64, 82, 95, 222, 226, 250 n.2, 258 n.8

ancestral environment 28, 81, 122, 125, 129, 149, 151, 222 ancient cities, sizes of 243–47 Andrews, Paul W. 147–49 Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) 57, 58 Antioch (city) 208, 210, 213 apocalyptic doctrines 67, 71, 97 Aramaic 251 n.5 archaeological record 62, 172, 194, 222, 249–50 n.1, 253 n.14 Aristotle 98, 99, 201 Arney, Paul 90 Aryans 86, 253 n.14 Aslan, Reza 252–3 n.10 atheism 5, 7, 8, 92, 116, 156, 221, 225–8, 230, 232, 234, 256 n.6, 264 n.1,3 Atran, Scott 9, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, 135, 136, 138, 146, 147, 149, 159, 218, 219, 232, 257 n.4 Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (Kirkpatrick) 249 n.1 attachment figures. See substitute attachment figures attachment theory. See evolutionary attachment theory Attraction of Religion, The: A New Psychology of Religion (Stone and van Slyke) 249 n.1 Axial Age 1–5, 36, 49, 51–109, 113, 182, 190–221, 251 n.1, 255 n.1 in China 52, 82–6, 95–6 in Greece 52, 98–100 in India 52, 86–90 in Iranian lands 52, 53, 56–60 in Near East 52, 61–81 theories of 192–220 Bactria (Afghanistan) 194 Bainbridge, William Sims 118 bands 4, 14, 81, 158, 201, 219 Banerjee, Konika 155

290

Index

Barrett, Justin L. 127, 128, 130, 131, 156, 226, 227, 253 n.12, 255–6 n.4, 265 n.5 Basham, A. L. 86, 88 Belief Instinct, The: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life (Bering) 249 n.1 beliefs. See supernatural beliefs Bellah, Robert N. 4, 8, 9, 25, 27, 28, 36, 52, 53, 54, 178 Bentley, Jerry H. 94 Bergstrom, Brian 124, 149 Bettinger, Robert L. 168 Bhagavad-gita 88, 90, 92 Big Gods (Norenzayan) 201–4 Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Norenzayan) 201, 249 n.1 Biology of Religious Behavior, The: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion (Feierman) 249 n.1 Bloom, Paul 155 bodhisattvas 8, 93, 94, 95, 96, 102, 104 Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief (Barrett) 249 n.2 Bottero, Jean 45 Botticini, Maristella 253 n.11 Bowlby, John 122, 124, 219 Boyce, Mary 57 Boyd, Robert 165, 166, 168–70, 261 n.6 Boyer, Pascal 25, 112, 117, 118, 124, 126–30, 133–36, 149, 159, 184, 186, 218, 219, 255 n.4, 256 n.6, 258 n.7 Bradshaw, Matt 257 n.7 Brahma (god) 88, 89 Brahman (transcendent principle) 89, 101 Brahmanism. See religion, Vedic Brahmans (priestly caste) 86 Brandon, S. G. F. 252 n.10 Buddha, the 1, 2, 8, 12, 23, 51, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 102, 123, 133, 191, 255 n.4 Buddhas 8, 93, 94, 95, 96, 104 Buddhism 1, 7, 8, 12, 17, 19, 49, 53, 54, 59, 80, 86, 91–6, 102, 103, 112, 122, 184, 191–5, 197, 198, 209, 215, 254 n.17, 256 n.4

Mahayana 92–6, 209 Theravada 17, 93, 95 Bulbulia, Joseph 4, 25, 143, 155, 258 n.6 Buss, David M. 147 Campbell, Donald J. 163–5, 201 Canaanites 61, 62, 63, 251 n.3 capitalism, modern 173 Carneiro, Robert L. 170–2, 175, 176 causation proximate 120, 264 n.3 ultimate 120 Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. 165 celestial Buddhas. See Buddhas Chandler, Tertius 206–8 chiefdoms 36, 116, 171, 202, 203, 223 China 1, 39, 51–3, 79, 82, 84–5, 95, 103, 191, 193, 194, 197–8, 205–8, 210–11, 213, 216, 217 Han 197 Qin 197, 211 Chinese traditional religion. See folk religion (Chinese) Christ 60, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81, 85, 94, 104, 191, 252 Christ movement 72, 73. See also Jesus movement Christianity 1, 14, 17, 23, 27, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 59, 60, 66, 68, 70–81, 85, 88, 90, 94, 99, 103, 115, 116, 124, 126, 161, 173, 184, 192, 193, 194, 198, 207, 209, 210, 213, 215, 220, 225, 226, 230, 252 n.8, 252 n.10, 253 n.11, 253 n.12, 254 n.20, 264 n.3 appeal of 79–80 converts to 76–8 development and spread of 76–8 Jewish 72, 252 n.8,10 origins of 70–4 triumph of 79–81 Clark, Gillian 79 Clarke, Steve 256 n.7 class stratification 180 cognitive theories, of religion. See evolutionary theories Cohn, Norman 59, 60, 67, 212 collective effervescence (Durkheim) 114 Collins, Randall 18, 195

Index comparative method 113, 249–50 n.1, 262 n.8 compensation hypothesis (Kirkpatrick) 123, 126 compensators. See religious compensators Confucianism 2, 17, 49, 54, 80, 82–5, 95, 96, 100, 102, 192, 195, 198 Confucius 2, 51, 52, 82, 83, 84, 102, 191, 213 Constantine 78, 198 converts, conversion 17, 77–81, 123, 186, 192, 198, 220, 253 n.12 correlation (coefficient of) 152, 180, 216, 227, 228, 231, 262 n.9,10, 263 n.10,11 Cosmides, Leda 166 cosmogonies 10, 44, 224, 258 n.8, 259 n.8 cosmologies 10, 52, 125, 224 costly signaling theory 141, 142, 167 counterintuitive 9, 94, 127, 128, 130–4, 143, 255–6 n.4, 256 n.5, 259 n.2 counterintuitiveness 9, 127, 128, 130, 132–4, 143, 255 n.4, 256 n.5 Creation: A Novel (Vidal) 192 credibility enhancing displays (CREDs) 166 cult institutions 26–7 communal 26 ecclesiastical 26 individualistic 26 shamanic 26 cults 119, 123, 154, 233, 264 n.3 cultural diffusion 31, 40, 100, 145, 168, 186, 192–4 cultural macroevolution 167, 168 cultural microevolution 167 cultural transmission 134, 135, 164–6, 168, 259 n.1,2,3 cultural variation 164–7, 169, 201, 259 n.3 culture 17, 52, 54, 60, 61, 68, 99, 144, 164–7, 253 n.14 Cybele cult, in ancient Rome 40, 48, 49, 252 n.9 d’Aquili, Eugene 144 Daoism 1, 12, 17, 19, 49, 82, 84–6, 91, 95, 96, 102, 193, 194, 195, 254 n.17

291

Darwinian conflict theory (DCT) 261–2 n.7 Darwinian fitness 3 Dawkins, Richard 228, 232, 265 n.5,6 death, fear of 8, 121, 125, 127 demography 172, 173, 176, 186, 189, 219, 231, 264 n.4 demons 2, 17, 49, 58, 89, 102, 130, 226 Dennett, Daniel C. 232, 233 diffusion. See cultural diffusion Divine Accommodation 224–5 Division of Labor in Society, The (Durkheim) 203 Donald, Merlin 54 dual inheritance theory 166 Durkheim, Emile 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 111–15, 117, 120, 142, 203, 222, 255 n.1, 260 n.3 Eckhardt, William 215, 216 Eckstein, Zvi 253 n.11 ecology 135, 136, 149, 162, 168, 172, 173 economic division of labor 203 economic surplus 182, 189, 206, 207, 213, 214, 219 economy political 173 subsistence 14, 149, 171–7, 180, 182, 187–90, 206, 263 n.11 Ehrman, Bart D. 71, 73, 74, 75, 76 Eisenstadt, S. N. 51 Eliade, Mircea 187, 188 Ellison, C. G. 257 n.2 empires 53, 65, 100, 172, 176, 195–9, 202, 205, 207, 211, 212, 214–17 Achaemenid 57, 59 Akkadian 44, 195 Assyrian 54, 63, 65, 68, 172, 211, 212 Babylonian 33, 37, 44, 45, 46, 51, 54, 56, 65, 66, 68, 100, 195 Egyptian 40, 61, 62, 63, 65, 68, 195, 197 Mauryan 197 Persian 52, 59, 60, 65, 100, 191, 197, 198, 213 Roman 78, 94, 198, 208, 250 n.2, 252 n.9 Sassanian 59 Xiongnu 197, 198

292

Index

Encyclopedia of World Cultures (O’Leary and Levinson) 179, 237 environmental depletion 172, 173 eschatological doctrines 58, 60, 67, 68, 97, 193 Essenes (Dead Sea Sect) 70 ethnic conflict 209, 210, 215, 233 Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock) 14, 178 ethnographic present 250 n.2 ethnographic record 167, 172, 179, 237, 249–50 n.1, 250 n.2, 262 n.8 Europe 79, 119, 154, 155, 173, 215, 227, 231, 253 n.11 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 114 evil supernatural agents 2, 10, 12, 17, 31–33, 36, 119, 124, 126, 132, 145, 219, 258 n.8 evoked culture 166, 222 evolution biological 3, 81, 120, 126, 129, 130, 135–8, 141, 142, 146, 147, 150, 153, 163, 165, 202, 259 n.3, 264 n.2 convergent 169, 260 n.4 cultural 163–70, 202, 203, 225, 260 n.5 parallel 169, 176, 194, 260 n.4 religious. See religious evolution sociocultural 3, 5, 163, 164, 169–77, 180, 191, 224, 249 n.1, 260–1 n.3, 261 n.6, 261–2 n.7 Evolution of Religion, The: Studies, Theories, and Critiques (Bulbulia et al.) 249 n.1 evolutionary adaptationist theories 36–9, 141, 143–6 evolutionary attachment theory 104, 122–6, 136, 143, 206, 208–10, 212, 215, 219 evolutionary biology 141, 148, 164, 174, 197, 204, 234, 260 n.5, 264 n.2 evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) 264 n.2 Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life, The (Durkheim) 111 evolutionary materialism 125, 173–7, 189, 219 evolutionary psychology 126, 148, 166, 261–2 n.7. See also evolutionary theories, evolutionary psychological

evolutionary theories cognitive by-product 3, 4, 136–9, 143, 144, 146–8, 156, 161, 230, 257 n.9, 258 n.8 cognitive psychological 1, 3, 4, 122, 126–28, 130–36, 143, 161, 199, 201, 249 n.3, 254 n.20, 255 n.1,4, 256 n.6, 257 n.8 cultural Darwinian 163–8, 170, 259–60 n.3, 260 n.4,5, 261 n.6 evolutionary psychological 3, 4, 166 historical 163, 164, 168–77 sociocultural 3, 5, 163–77, 224 exaltation view (of Jesus’s divinity) 75 exaptations biological 197, 215, 264 n.2 sociocultural 197 exchange theory. See rational choice/ exchange theory existential anxiety 121, 122, 159, 219. See also ontological (in)security Faces in The Clouds: A New Theory of Religion (Guthrie) 249 n.1 Faith Instinct, The: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures (Wade) 249 n.2 Falcioni, Ryan C. 234 Feldman, Marcus 165 fertility 231, 264–5 n.4. See also religiosity, fertility and below replacement 231 replacement level 231 Finkelstein, Israel 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 212 Fiske, Alan 156, 159 Flood, Gavin 89, 90, 102 floods 144 folk religion (Chinese) 19, 82, 84, 95 Frazer, Sir James 154, 255 n.1 Freke, Timothy 252 n.9 Freud, Sigmund 255 n.1 functionalist explanations 114, 259–60 n.3 Gandy, Peter 252 n.9 Gangestad, Steven W. 147 Geertz, Clifford 255 n.1 genetic fitness 166 Gentiles 73, 77, 253 n.11

Index ghosts 2, 9, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 31, 88, 226 ghouls 130 Giddens, Anthony 4, 125, 126, 143, 144, 208, 209 Gillen, F. J. 111, 112 Glock, Charles Y. 117 Gnoli, Gherardo 56, 57 Gnuse, Robert 251 n.4 God Delusion, The (Dawkins) 232 God, Judaeo-Christian 61–81, 97, 100, 101, 103, 126, 127, 253 n.12, 255–6 n.4, 265 n.6 gods 9, 10–17, 19–21, 27–9, 36–49, 53, 57–9, 61, 64, 66, 75, 78, 85, 86, 88–90, 92, 94, 95–102, 104, 113, 116, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128–32, 144, 154, 161, 187–9, 195, 199, 203, 222–4, 226, 251 n.3, 254 n.19 active 11, 14, 15, 178, 202 anthropomorphic 11, 12, 36, 37, 41, 43, 45, 49, 53, 64, 66, 89, 98, 101, 104, 179, 188, 223, 254 n.19, 254 n.20, 255 n.4 creator 15–17, 21, 35, 41, 43, 45, 57–9, 72, 82, 88, 101, 113, 131, 193, 222, 223 high 11–15, 28, 128, 177, 178, 202, 203 inactive 11, 14, 15, 131, 178 loving 65, 93, 98, 103, 209, 215, 225, 235 moralizing 11, 14, 59, 86, 88, 103, 178, 201–5, 212 omnipotent 41, 57, 100, 127, 128, 132, 178, 195, 215 omnipresent 97, 100, 127, 133, 178, 215 omniscient 12, 41, 57, 100, 127–9, 132, 133, 143, 178, 201, 215 pagan 2, 12, 13, 36, 37, 45, 48, 57, 58, 59, 65, 78, 101, 102, 189, 202, 223 personal 2, 87, 88, 97, 257 n.4 power of 53, 96, 101, 102, 187, 188, 195, 201, 209, 223, 226, 253 n.12, 254 n.19, 255 n.4 scope of 96, 102, 104, 120, 187, 223 transcendent 1, 5, 11, 53, 57, 59, 66, 89, 97, 101, 102, 104, 203, 215, 254 n.20, 255 n.4 Goffman, Erving 18 Goldenweiser, Alexander 112

293

Goody, Jack 184, 186 Gospels 74, 75, 252 Gould, Stephen Jay 148, 197, 234, 235 Granqvist, Pehr 122 Greco-Roman cities 210 Greek philosophers 51, 55, 56, 98, 99, 102, 191, 201 Greeks 53, 55, 56, 68, 70, 211 Griffiths, R. R. 250 n.1 Habermas, Jürgen 192 Handy, E. S. Craighill 43 Harris, Erica 145 Harris, Marvin 171–5 Harris, Sam 232 Harvey, John 227, 228 Haslam, Nick 159 heaven 10, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 58, 60, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 83, 85, 87, 93, 94, 97, 99, 116, 193, 201, 252 n.9 Henning, Walter 56, 57 henotheism 66 Henrich, Joseph 166, 259 n.2, 260–1 n.5 Hinduism 1, 12, 17, 19, 49, 53, 54, 80, 86–92, 95, 96, 97, 100, 102, 155, 157, 161, 193, 194, 195, 197, 209, 226, 253 n.14, 254 n.17 Hitchens, Christopher 232, 265 n.6 Hittites 195, 206 Hobsbawm, Eric 259 n.3 Hopkins, Keith 72, 74, 251 n.7, 253 n.11 horticultural societies 14, 22, 28, 33, 34, 128, 159, 161, 171, 182, 187, 209, 224 How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion (Pyysiäinen) 249 n.1 Human Relations Area Files 179, 237 hunter-gatherer societies 2, 14, 16, 22, 28, 31, 34, 111, 113, 128, 145, 149, 161, 168, 171, 172, 182, 187, 188, 209, 224, 226 Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD) 128. See also agency detection Hyperactive Teleofunctional Reasoning (HTR) 130. See also teleology Hyperactive Understanding of Intentionality (HUI) 130

294

Index

icons 38, 64, 89, 90, 97, 124, 194 imperial states. See empires In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Atran) 249 n.1 incarnation view (of Jesus’s divinity) 75 India 1, 19, 35, 39, 51–3, 60, 86, 92–6, 124, 191, 193, 194, 197, 198, 206, 207, 216, 217, 251 n.1, 253 n.14 industrialism, modern 14, 151, 159, 171, 173–5, 226, 231, 233, 250 n.2 Inglehart, Ronald 4, 122, 227 inner religious evolutionary dynamic (Weber) 198–201 intelligence (IQ) 228, 233, 256 n.6 intensification of economic production (Harris) 172, 173 intensive agricultural societies 14, 15, 36, 128, 182, 188, 189, 209. See also agrarian societies Iran 23, 38, 51–3, 56, 57, 59, 60, 86, 194, 251 n.1 iron tools 206, 213, 219 iron weapons 206, 211, 213, 214, 219 Irons, William 141 Isis cult, in ancient Rome 40, 48, 49, 252 n.9 Islam 15, 20, 49, 58, 59, 79, 81, 154, 161, 184, 192, 204, 221, 226, 231, 253 n.12, 254 n.17,20 Israel. See also Judah (kingdom of) greater 67–72, 199 kingdom of 54, 65, 212 religion in ancient 38, 61, 63–6 Israelites 61–9, 212, 251 n.3 Jacobsen, Thorkild 39 Jainism 19, 92, 191, 251 n.1 James, William 255 n.1 Jaspers, Karl 51, 53 Jehovah’s Witnesses 79, 230 Jesse, R. 250 n.1 Jesus 23, 51, 60, 70–6, 80, 81, 95, 97, 124, 196, 198, 251 n.5,6,7,9,10 crucifixion of 71, 72, 252 n.7 resurrection of 71, 72, 73, 75, 81, 252 n.7,9 Jesus movement 72. See also Christ movement

Jewish Law 66, 67, 70, 72, 80, 103 Johnson, Paul 73, 99, 100 Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion (journal) 249 n.3 Journal of Cognition and Culture (journal) 249 n.3 Judah (kingdom of) 54, 59, 65, 68, 212, 213 Judaism 1, 14, 49, 52, 53, 55, 58, 59, 60–72, 71, 74, 80, 81, 101, 103, 104, 115, 154, 161, 184, 193, 199, 207, 225, 226, 252 n.9, 253 n.12, 254 n.18, 264 n.3 karma 87, 91, 200, 253 n.15 Kaufmann, Eric 155, 231–2 Kaufmann, Yehezkel 36, 37, 61, 101–3 Keller, Albert Galloway 259 n.1, 259–60 n.3 King Ashoka 93, 198 King Nebuchadnezzar 65, 212 Kingsley, Peter 56 Kinnard, Jacob N. 96 kinship 26, 125, 179, 201 Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 4, 104, 122–4, 126, 136–8, 143, 148, 149, 208–9, 219, 255 n.2 Koenig, Harold C. 152 Kundt, Radek 261 n.6 Lakatos, Imre 261–2 n.7 Laland, Kevin N. 167 Laozi 12, 51, 84, 85, 102, 253 n.13 Larson, David B. 152 legitimation 52, 117, 118, 195, 197, 199, 215 Lenski, Gerhard E. 171, 172, 174, 175 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 255 n.1 Lewens, Tim 260 n.4 Lewontin, Richard C. 148 life-cycle rituals 21, 34, 35, 159 Life History Theory (LHT) 204–6 Lutheran Church 119, 230 Lynn, Richard 227–8, 264 n.2 McCann, U. 250 n.1 McCauley, Robert N. 134, 135, 232 McClenon, James 4, 145, 151 McCorkle, William W. Jr. 255 n.1

Index MacCulloch, Diarmaid 71, 73 McCullough, Michael E. 152 McNamara, Patrick 145 McNeill, William H. 96, 103, 209, 212 macroevolution, cultural. See cultural macroevolution magic 19, 22, 31, 45, 46, 58, 84, 121, 131, 145 Malinowski, Bronislaw 4, 121, 122, 255 n.1 Martin, Henri-Jean 186 Marx, Gary T. 117 Marx, Karl 4, 115–17 Maryanski, Alexandra 259–60 n.3 Maspero, Henri 84, 85 material conditions 173, 189, 192, 195, 197, 219 Matthews, Dan 147 Maya 40, 124, 203 meaning, quest for 11, 121, 125, 144, 159, 175, 199, 200, 221, 224, 258 n.8 meditation 87–9, 93, 94, 97, 123, 161 Mesoudi, Alex 166, 167, 170, 260–1 n.6 messiahs 10, 66, 70, 71, 73, 75, 252 n.7, 254 n.20 Meyer, Eduard 61 Mickey Mouse 132, 259 n.2 microevolution, cultural. See cultural microevolution Mikulincer, Mario 122 Modelski, George 192, 193, 207, 208, 216 modes of religiosity (Whitehouse) 18–19 imagistic 18, 114 doctrinal 18–19, 114 monastic communities 11, 83, 93, 192 monolatry. See henotheism monotheism 11, 22, 37–8, 48, 49, 56, 59, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 85, 90, 96, 98, 99, 100, 104, 113, 127, 173, 178, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201, 222, 223, 226, 251 n.4, 254 n.17,18,20 exclusive 254 n.17 mystical 254 n.17 monarchic 254 n.17 Trinitarian 254 n.17 Morgan, Lewis Henry 170 Mormonism 23, 79, 153, 204, 230 Moses 38, 61, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 103 Mother Theresa 130, 255 n.3

295

Muhammad 23, 161, 254 n.20 Murdock, George Peter 14, 178 mutations biological 164, 264 n.2 cultural 164, 165, 167, 202 mystery cults 252 n.9 myth 16, 37, 52, 62, 93, 144, 159, 170, 252 n.9 natural selection 144, 146, 151, 163–6, 170, 259–60 n.3, 264 n.1 natural theism, children’s 143, 155, 156 Near East 1, 4, 52, 53, 79, 82, 96, 100, 193, 207, 210, 211, 216, 217, 253 n.11 necessary causes 5, 163, 177–90, 213 neurophysiology 149 New Atheism 5, 232–4, 265 n.6 New Testament 88, 265 n.6 Newberg, Andrew 144 nirvana 87, 92–4 Noble Eightfold Path 92 Noble Truths 92 non-imperial states 196. See also empires Norenzayan, Ara 135, 147, 159, 201–3, 205 Norris, Pippa 4, 122, 227 Noth, Martin 62 Nyborg, Helmuth 227–8 obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) 156, 158–60, 258 n.7 Old Testament 68, 103, 225, 265 n.6 One True God 1, 38, 53, 100, 101, 104, 178, 223, 226, 254 n.20, 255 n.4 Ong, Walter J. 184 ontological (in)security 4, 5, 121, 125, 126, 143, 144, 159, 160, 208, 209, 212, 215, 219, 225, 227, 228. See also existential anxiety otherworldly essences 11, 53 otherworldly needs 86 otherworldly rewards 4, 82, 120 Overmyer, Daniel L. 82 pagan religions 2, 4, 27, 28, 36–40, 45–9, 57, 59, 61, 63–6, 78, 86, 100–2, 113, 114, 116, 120, 161, 179, 182, 184, 186–8, 190, 195–98, 202, 219, 222–5, 253 n.11

296

Index

Palmer, Craig T. 7, 250 n.2 Parrinder, Geoffrey 251 n.3 Parsons, Talcott 174, 192 pastoral societies 14, 15, 36, 38, 128, 159, 182, 224, 263 n.11 Paul (Saul of Tarsus) 23, 70–5, 77, 80, 252 n.9 Pharisees 60, 70, 74 Phoenicians 62, 63 Piaget, Jean 195 Pinker, Steven 137, 138, 260–1 n.5 polluting substances 10, 44 polytheism 11, 22, 23, 27, 28, 36, 37, 39, 40, 59, 75, 90, 98, 100, 172, 199, 200, 225, 251 n.4, 254 n.7 population density of 168, 173, 208 growth of 168, 172, 173, 182, 213, 219 pressure of 171, 172 size of 173, 177, 180, 182, 186, 187, 190, 207, 208 Powell, Russell 256 n.7 power, political 45, 65, 70, 118, 171, 176, 188, 189, 195, 197, 203, 215 prayer 10, 11, 20, 32, 36, 58, 72, 81, 89, 93, 104, 123, 124, 131, 142, 156, 161, 184 preconditions/prerequisites. See necessary causes priests 10, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42–8, 57, 59, 70, 83, 84, 86, 89, 116, 124, 151, 161, 172, 179, 182, 184, 186, 189, 194, 222 progress evolutionary 164, 170, 174–6, 200, 224 religious 5, 200, 221, 224–6 prophets 10, 22, 23, 24, 55, 56, 60, 68, 81, 114, 117, 215 Jewish 23, 33, 51, 54, 71, 191, 251 n.1 Protestantism 70, 154, 155 in Latin America 79, 119, 120, 161, 223, 230 Prothero, Stephen 49 psilocybin 250 n.1 puberty rituals 34, 123, 159 Pyysiäinen, Ilkka 12, 48, 94, 101, 127, 128, 130, 136, 138, 199, 200, 253 n.15, 255 n.4, 256 n.4, 257 n.8

Quality of Human Conditions Index (QHC) 227–8, 264 n.2 Quest of the Historical Jesus, The (Schweitzer) 251 n.6 Rafael, Simcha Paull 69 Rainey, Lee Dian 82 Rappaport, Roy A. 18 rational choice/exchange theory 4, 118–21, 123, 126, 143, 255 n.22, 264 n.3 Reat, Noble Ross 92 rebirths 82, 87, 91, 92, 98, 150, 253 n.15. See also reincarnation eternal cycle of 86, 91, 97, 194 reciprocity/reciprocal altruism 104, 201, 203 regression analysis 180, 187, 188, 215, 216, 227, 262–3 n.10, 263 n.11 reincarnation 11, 82, 87, 91, 97, 194. See also rebirths release from suffering 82, 96, 100, 103, 121, 127, 199, 209, 211, 219. See also salvation Religion, Brain, and Behavior (journal) 249 n.3 Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (Boyer) 249 n.1 religion(s) among aboriginal Hawaiians 4, 37, 40, 43–4, 172 among Amhara 20 among ancient Greeks 12, 40, 46–7, 53, 99 among ancient Romans 12, 37, 40, 46–9, 154, 161, 188, 189, 198, 203, 206, 252 n.9 among Aranda 16, 111–13 among Aztecs 4, 39, 40–3, 124, 203 archaic (Bellah) 27–9, 36, 52 among Bororo 20 brain module for 3, 159, 161, 230 among Canaanites 37, 62–4 communal (Wallace) 26–7, 28, 34–6, 39, 113, 179, 182, 184, 187, 188, 189, 222, 223 definitions of 7–11

Index East Asian 4, 13, 27, 79, 82, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 193, 194, 211, 225 among Egyptians 37, 38, 51, 154, 223, 252 n.9 elite 8, 38, 39, 47, 51, 55, 76, 84, 87, 90, 91, 93, 94, 98, 99, 120, 132, 189, 251 n.1 evolution of. See religious evolution among Fon 20 future of 5, 221, 230–32 among Hidatsa 16 historic (Bellah) 27–8, 30 among Hutterites 142 among Inca 21, 39, 40, 172, 203 among Inuit 22 among Karaja 21–2 among Khmer 17, 21 among Kurds 20–1 among Maori 22–3, 44 mass 23, 76, 82, 84–7, 93, 94, 97, 99, 120, 189, 200, 206, 215, 221 among Mbundu 15 among Mesopotamians 4, 37, 39, 40, 44–6, 197, 223 among Micmac 17 monotheistic. See monotheism monotheistic (Wallace) 14, 27, 28, 48 Near Eastern 12, 13, 52, 53, 55, 56, 79, 82, 85, 87, 90, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 178, 193, 194, 217, 221, 225, 254 n.17 Olympian (Wallace) 27, 28 pagan. See pagan religions among Pawnee 17, 35–6 polytheistic. See polytheism primitive (Bellah) 27–9 proselytizing 80, 81, 192 salvation. See world salvation religions among Semang 16 shamanic (Wallace) 26, 28, 31–4, 182, 184, 187 among Shilluk 15 South Asian 4, 13, 82, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 193, 194, 211, 225 among Thonga 15, 19 transcendent. See world transcendent religions among Trobriand Islanders 121

297

Vedic 52, 86, 89, 90 among Vietnamese 17 widespread importance of 160–1 among Yoruba 12, 49 religious abstractification 221–6 religious compensators 119, 120, 123, 144, 264 n.3 religious doctrines 11, 19, 25, 49, 58, 60, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 78, 83, 86, 89, 91, 94, 97, 119, 122, 132, 151, 186, 189, 193, 199, 200, 211, 215, 225, 253 n.15 religious economy 119 religious elites. See religion, elite; religious intellectuals; religious literati; religious virtuosi religious evolution 1, 4, 5, 25–49, 163–220, 221, 224, 225, 260–1 n.7, 261 n.8 religious intellectuals 51, 54, 55, 84, 86–8, 93, 94, 97, 99, 121, 199, 200, 201 religious literati 55, 84, 87, 199, 200, 215 religious rationalization 199, 223 religious rituals 2, 4, 7, 9–11, 18–22, 26–8, 31–6, 38, 39, 42, 47, 48, 58, 64, 66, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88–90, 96, 98, 111–14, 119, 121, 130, 132, 138, 141–3, 145, 149, 150, 154, 156–61, 175, 179, 182, 184, 187, 189, 249–50 n.1, 252 n.9, 258–9 n.8. See also life-cycle rituals; puberty rituals among Bamiléké 34–5 among Lakher 35 among Mbuti 34 among Sherpa 156 among Tiwi 35 among Turkana 157 religious specialists 10, 22–4, 26, 28, 33, 35, 119, 172, 184, 186, 253 n.14 religious virtuosi 55, 200, 215 religiosity 18, 87, 114, 118, 122, 137, 145, 151–5, 220, 228, 230, 231, 256 n.6, 257 n.2, 264 n.3, 264–5 n.4 fertility and 37, 78, 151, 153–5, 231, 232, 264–5 n.4 genetic basis of 145, 220, 229–30, 256 n.6, 257 n.2

298

Index

mental health and 8, 123, 143, 145, 151–3, 175 physical health and 8, 19, 138, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149, 151–3, 175, 210, 227 renunciation, of material world 11, 87, 91, 99, 193, 197 reproductive success 136–8, 141, 146, 147, 151, 153–5, 174, 175, 204–6, 220, 224, 258–9 n.8 resurrections 58, 60, 69, 70, 144, 193 revitalization movements 23–4, 78 Reynolds, Vernon 152 Richards, W. A. 250 n.1 Richerson, Peter J. 165, 166, 168–70, 261 n.6 Riesebrodt, Martin 254 n.21 Rig Veda 86 rituals. See religious rituals Roberts, Wesley W. 178, 262 n.8 Roman Catholic Church 18, 79, 119, 230 Roman Empire. See empires, Roman Roman rule 70–4, 196, 213, 252 n.10 Romans 4, 12, 40, 47, 68, 76, 98, 172, 195, 210 Rome (city) 47, 77, 208 ruling elites 116–18, 189, 197, 199, 215 Runciman, W. G. 79, 99, 100, 251 n.1, 259–60 n.3 sacred, the 7–10, 21, 86, 90, 112, 113, 184, 195, 251 n.7 sacrifice 10, 11, 15, 19, 21, 28, 35, 36, 38, 42–4, 46, 48, 58, 59, 64, 66, 88, 90, 100, 104, 124, 135, 158 Sadducees 70, 71, 73, 74 Saler, Benson 228–30 salvation 1, 2, 5, 25, 59, 69, 70, 73, 76, 82–5, 87, 88, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104, 127, 199, 200, 203, 210, 215, 223, 225, 235, 254–5 n.21. See also salvation doctrines; world salvation religions salvation doctrines in Buddhism 94, 97, 194 in Christianity 97, 225 in Daoism 84 in Hinduism 87, 88, 97, 194 in Judaism 69, 97, 225 in Zoroastrianism 57–60

Sanderson, Stephen K. 137, 169, 170, 173–5, 178, 260–1 n.5, 261 n.6, 261 n.7 Santa Claus 131–2 Saoshyans 58, 59, 254 n.20 saviors 49, 58, 59, 68, 73, 80, 85, 92–4, 193, 200, 209, 252 n.9, 254 n.20 Schweitzer, Albert 251 n.6 sects 77, 96, 119, 123, 155, 161, 223, 230, 264 n.3 secularization 122, 160–1 selection cultural 164–6, 260–1 n.5 group 174, 202, 260–1 n.5 individual 174, 175 natural. See natural selection sexual 146, 147 Shabazi, A. Shapur 56 Shaked, Shaul 57 shamanic rituals 27, 28, 34, 145 shamanic trances 20, 23, 26, 31, 32, 151 shamans 2, 10, 22, 26–35, 38, 49, 81, 113, 114, 145, 149–51, 161, 172, 179, 222 among !Kung 32 among Ingalik 35 among Mapuche 33 among Ojibwa 32–3 among Sakha (Yakut) 31–2, 49 Shanahan, Timothy 146 Sharot, Stephen 89, 102 Shaver, Phillip 122 Shiva 53, 88–90, 96, 101, 102, 104 shrines 19, 21, 39, 44, 66, 82, 189, 222 Siddhartha Gautama. See Buddha, the Silberman, Neil Asher 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 212 Silk Road 95, 193 SLC6A4 (gene) 229–30 Smart, Ninian 83, 90, 91, 93 Smith, Mark S. 63–4, 67, 101 Sober, Elliott 260–1 n.5 social cooperation 129, 142, 201–3, 205 social hierarchies 21, 113, 173, 222 societal size 180, 182, 186, 187, 189 socioecological context 3, 91, 135, 200, 201, 215, 219–22, 226, 261–2 n.7, 264 n.3

Index Sosis, Richard 4, 8, 10, 139, 141–3, 161, 258 n.6 souls 10, 12, 13, 15–17, 19–23, 28, 31, 32, 58, 69, 71, 81, 86, 91, 103, 130, 145, 150, 193 sovereign groups 177, 190 special design 137, 147, 149 Spencer, Herbert 39, 40, 170, 171, 260 n.3 Spencer, Sir Baldwin 111, 112 spirits 9, 10, 12, 13, 15–17, 19–23, 28, 31–5, 37, 39, 49, 57, 81, 82, 88, 90, 103, 113, 124, 126, 128, 132, 145, 154, 219, 222, 226, 258 n.8. See also evil supernatural agents Stage of Religious Evolution 178, 237 Standard Cross-cultural Sample (SCCS) 178–80, 186, 237 standardized beta coefficient (in regression analysis) 262–3 n.10 Stark, Rodney 4, 10, 46, 64, 73, 76, 77, 83, 87, 90, 104, 117, 118–21, 123, 143, 144, 192, 203, 210, 213, 224, 225, 251 n.5, 252 n.9, 253 n.11, 255 n.22, 255 n.4, 264 n.3 states 36, 39, 41, 44, 48, 65, 83, 116, 171–3, 176, 190, 194–6, 202, 203, 222, 223. See also empires, nonimperial states status 39, 118, 159, 172, 175, 188, 261 n.6 Steadman, Lyle B. 7, 250 n.2 stratified societies 39, 55, 113, 173, 176, 188, 222 substitute attachment figures 123, 198, 209, 212, 255 n.2 Sumerians 37, 44, 45, 195, 203 Sumner, William Graham 259 n.1, 259–60 n.3 supernatural agents/beings/powers/ forces 3, 4, 7–10, 12–14, 16, 17, 21, 26, 32, 34, 82, 88, 90, 92, 103, 112, 113, 122, 124, 126–33, 136, 143, 149, 156, 179, 199, 218, 222, 223, 232, 258–9 n.8, 259 n.2 as counterintuitive 9, 94, 131, 255–6 n.4. See also counterintuitive; counterintuitiveness Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas (Pyysiäinen) 249 n.1, 257 n.8

299

supernatural beliefs 3, 4, 7–10, 15–18, 19–21, 23, 26, 46, 61, 72, 75, 82, 83, 89, 90, 91, 94, 98, 111, 113, 117, 118, 121, 122, 127–9, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138, 141–3, 145, 147, 149, 154–6, 159, 161–3, 172, 175, 178, 179, 184, 189, 193, 199, 218, 220, 232–4, 250 n.1, 253 n.12, 258 n.8, 265 n.5 cognitively cheap 131, 132, 255 n.4 cognitively expensive 131, 132, 199, 255 n.4 supernatural punishment 34, 59, 60, 67, 69, 103, 116, 126, 204 Swanson, Guy E. 13–14, 177, 178, 180, 202 Szechtman, Henry 160 taboos 10 Talmud 69 Tanakh 68 Tanner, Ralph 152 technological specialization 180 technology military 53, 173, 177, 207, 211, 212, 260–1 n.5 subsistence 14, 149, 171–7, 180, 182, 187–90, 206, 263 n.11 teleology/teleological 9, 130, 155, 156, 176 Temple, in Jerusalem 53, 65, 66, 68, 70, 74, 104, 191, 213 theocracy 44, 116 Tillich, Paul 131, 254 n.17,20 Toltecs 124 Tooby, John 166 Torah 68, 69, 72, 80 totemism 16, 111, 113 trances. See shamanic trances transmigration, of souls 86, 91 Trends in Cognitive Sciences (journal) 249 n.3 tribes 4, 8, 12, 33, 40, 61, 65, 81, 134, 159, 171, 201, 219 Trinity, doctrine of 74, 76, 132 Turner, Jonathan H. 171, 259–60 n.3 Tylor, Edward Burnett 170, 255 n.1 unilinear theories 170, 175, 176 Upanishads 51, 86, 88, 90, 101 urbanization 205–8, 210, 214–17, 219

300

Index

van Tuerenhout, Dirk R. 251 n.3 Vanhanen, Tatu 264 n.2 variables dependent 177, 178, 262–3 n.9,10 independent 177, 178, 180–2, 227, 262 n.9, 262–3 n.10 Vidal, Gore 192 virgin births 11, 59, 71, 95, 124, 133, 144, 252 n.9 Vishnu 53, 88–90, 96, 102 von Lasaulx, Peter Ernst 191 von Strauss, Viktor 191 Vrba, Elizabeth 197 Vygotsky, Lev 195 Wallace, Anthony F. C. 4, 25–8, 48, 100, 172, 178, 179 war casualties 211, 212, 214, 215 warfare 35, 40, 125, 171, 205, 211–13, 215, 218, 219 wealth 35, 39, 82, 96, 118, 175, 188, 211, 261 n.6 Weber, Max 33, 36, 40, 67, 68, 69, 82, 87, 93, 94, 96, 103, 104, 123, 198–201, 212, 221, 223, 224, 255 n.1 Weil, Eric 51, 53, 55 Weinfeld, Moshe 67, 68 Weippert, Manfred 62 Wellhausen, Julius 61 White, Douglas R. 178 White, Leslie A. 171 Whitehouse, Harvey 18, 114 Whiten, Andrew 167 Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (Barrett) 249 n.1 Wilkinson, David 193 Wilson, Barrie 71, 72, 73, 252 n.9 Wilson, David Sloan 120, 260–1 n.5 Wilson, Edward O. 260 n.5 Winkelman, Michael 4, 28, 145, 149–51, 258 n.8

witches

2, 9, 11, 13, 31, 133, 151, 219, 258 n.8 Witham, Larry 228 Wittrock, Bjorn 52, 53 Woody, Erik 160 Woolley, C. Leonard 45, 46 world salvation religions 3, 27, 48, 69, 84, 101, 103, 104, 117, 126, 179, 199, 200. See also world transcendent religions world trade networks 193, 207, 214 world transcendent religions 38, 45, 82, 98, 101, 102, 109, 114, 121, 172, 178, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 190, 192, 194–8, 200, 201, 206, 209, 211, 212, 215, 216, 219, 221, 223, 225. See also world salvation religions worldly needs 86, 87, 188 worldly rewards 82, 88, 118–20 writing and records 180, 182, 184, 186–91, 255–6 n.4 Xenophanes 98, 99, 191, 201 Xygalatas, Dimitris 132–3, 255 n.1 Yahweh 38, 61–8, 101, 188, 212, 259 n.2 Yahweh-alone movement 66, 212 Yao, Xinzhong 83 Zaehner, R. C. 57, 59, 60 Zahavi, Amotz 141 Zahavi, Avishag 141 Zealots 70, 71, 252 n.10 Zeitlin, Irving M. 55, 61, 62 Ziegler, Charles A. 228–30 Zoroaster (Zarathustra) 23, 51, 53, 55–60, 191 Zoroastrianism 1, 38, 49, 55–61, 67, 69, 193, 194, 207, 225, 254 n.20