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The origin of religion

I read a very provocative theory the other day on the origin of religion. The book claimed that hunters and gatherers lived in sophisticated tribal nations during the transition to civilization and basically created Yahweh and other gods to manipulate resources out of early settled communities. Anyone else hear about this?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lightnin' Lives on July 7, 2012 at 10:48pm

Haven't heard of this particular hypothesis and I don't think there's much if any empirical evidence to support it. It sounds like a plausible explanation but is really one of many plausible explanations.

I think that one of the consensus hypotheses out there is that religions were the byproduct of early human's attempts to deal with the death of loved ones. That's where the whole "bury the dead" thing came from and likely some of the most primitive "religions" if you can even call them that.

Permalink Reply by Annie Thomas on July 7, 2012 at 11:06pm

I don't know anything about this subject, but it intrigues me. So I am commenting to be notified of others who comment. ;-) What was the name of the book you read? I would be interested in reading it too. I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, but I do understand how organized religion used belief to benefit from others. Bill Bryson touches on this in his book "At Home: A Short History of Private Life".

Permalink Reply by david stossel on July 8, 2012 at 2:46pm

The book was "On the Origin of Religion" and I just finished it actually. I have to say this is one of the most interesting manuscripts on this subject I have ever read. The evidence that the author compiled was quite sophisticated this was no haphazard hypothesis.

Permalink Reply by Lightnin' Lives on July 8, 2012 at 3:19pm

Is it this book? http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Religion-ebook/dp/B008F8R25K/ref=sr_1_...

If so, it sounds like some serious woo-woo.

Permalink Reply by Toni Daugherty on July 7, 2012 at 11:54pm

Intriguing. Would like to hear more on this. I always thought ancient religions we're born out of a necessity to thank the earth/air etc for the seasonal crop & it grew from there. Hmmm

Permalink Reply by Zain on July 8, 2012 at 8:28am

But Yahweh was worshipped by people who already lived in civilized nations, it seems that gods were created when a certain community becomes much sophisticated than Hunters-gatherers community.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on July 8, 2012 at 6:46pm

That goes against what I've previously read on the subject. Archeological findings have shown that Yahweh was the war god of the Ugarit pantheon. The prevailing thought on the subject is that Yahweh was adopted by the marauding Jews who slaughtered their way through the area and picked up a lot of the culture of those they conquered.

I want a lot of supporting evidence before I accept this book as anything more than blather, similar to the un-scholarly crap that Acharya S spews all over the religious debate.

Permalink Reply by michele ricketts on September 16, 2012 at 4:45pm

What do you mean by civilized? I am taking it to mean a leader over a greater number of people and the building of towns etc.... In the context of the Neolithics 10 000 years ago when grain became money and how much monopoly someone had was greater influence and power. And the birth of greed thereof. It is also the power to set consensus.I propose religion was a political invention started back then as it has has a political aspect and all kinds of rules to control the masses. Rather than plain old worship under-lying consensus than consensus being so important to sustaining religion.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on July 8, 2012 at 8:56am

This doesn't seem plausible to me. The most likely explanation, to me, was to to make sense of the world. To answer questions like where does lightning come from?

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on July 8, 2012 at 9:25am

Pretty much, yeah. This books seems, from this brief description, that it's very simplistic. It's kind of like Zeitgeist.

Certainly, people grabbed onto religion and used it to elevate themselves in society, particularly as the priest class, but its creation was likely a far more organic evolution from spirit and ancestor worship. That doesn't mean they created it from scratch for that purpose, though.

Permalink Reply by Stuart Jeremy Oxley on July 8, 2012 at 9:28am

As I understand it, neanderthals may have had some sort of superstitous structure in their tribes. It seems they placed flowers in the graves of their loved ones showing the presense of basic rituals. Whether they had named deities or believed in life after death, I don't know if they have made any new discoveries. Maybe they got the idea from us, I can't remember the age of the site?

Permalink Reply by Rudy V Kiist on July 8, 2012 at 10:56am

Yes I heard it. A book I read..believe it was called "The Dawn of Sex"? explores that too. Apparently, even today of the VERY few that exist, the very small tribal communities (under 200 peoples), don't/didn't have organized religion (not I wrote "organized". Does not include sporadic superstitions and such). It apparently came about and strengthened with civilization and greater population growth. Makes sense to me, as I see religion as more of a way to control a large population by a select few.