my opinion on RELIGION and CIVILIZATION

Religion has always been a tremendous influence over people in ways that could not be explained by logical reasoning. People who are deeply devoted to religion would be willing to sacrifice themselves, others, and their freedom for the "truth". Religion, whether it is polytheistic or monotheistic, take on similar characteristics. I will focus on monotheistic religions for now, mainly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three of which trace their root to a common source and all three of which continue to influence the world today at a large scale. What these religions have in common is that they all preach in "truths". They have specific instructions on how to behave oneself, how to think, how to form an opinion of oneself or other people. In Europe, Christianity controls every social behavior and interactions like marriages very strictly. The church even advised on Civilizations formed from these religions were all at first


Most people would agree that religion is possibly the most important attribute of civilization. Ancient Greece, Rome, Aztec empire, etc with distinct religious establishments were highly civilized cultures in terms of their complex social structure and organization. If you compare that with native American tribes of North America and certain tribes in Africa where religion was not regarded more than just part of the unexplained forces of nature, you find less organized cultures. In fact, you wouldn't refer to those tribes as civilizations. In essence, from this you can see how religious establishment and social establishment is directly connected, in fact, some would even argue that religion is society. But how why and how did society and religion form and what came first? To answer this question, a deeper look into the history of society is required. On one side, truly religious people would attribute the creation of society, or even the creation of earth and the universe to "god", the tangible representation of their religious faith. However, a more logical way of answering the question is to look at the history of mankind and understand why people come together.

The greatest accomplishment associated with society is probably its conquest over nature. The first group of people create civilization when they relinquished their nomadic lives of hunting and gathering and settle down around an agricultural land. Indeed, agriculture is the first step of mankind toward civilization and it started a trend of continual effort to convert the sun, wind, water, and other forces of nature into food and energy for people. Although Hobbes and Freud disagreed on whether people consented to live together in society or are under certain external force that compelled them beyond their control, they both seem to agree that society is formed for the benefit of human race, to maximize productivity and find a way top escape from the limitation of the biological regime.

In his chapter "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy", Jared Diamond describes in detail the evolution of the creation of civilization as we know it from nomadic people living in individual family groups, similar to a pack of wolves, to gradually tribes and chiefdom, where multiple families live together. As you can tell from that, people are compelled to settle in larger groups because they realized that they were able to catch larger preys hunting together. After all, finding food to sustain their lives was the most important thing for our ancestors as it is for us. Conflicts was not as prevalent in tribes and chiefdom because people were still settling in relatively small groups with people they hunt with. The discovery of agriculture is perhaps the most important turning point in human history. Small groups nomadic people living in chiefdom gathered and settle down around a common fertile land and the state was formed. However, the gathering of people does not constitute society. Something was missing. Problem arose when people of different tribes began to fight over control over land. The logic was that with more farming land, one can produce more crops for food. These territorial disputes which led to unrest and violence would be regarded by Hobbes and Freud as nature behavior of men. According to them, men are by nature self-serving, violent and irreconcilable. Mutual interpersonal relationships are difficult to establish because of the instinctual nature of men to undermine others through violence and aggression is link to sensual pleasure similar to the feeling from glory and expression of sexuality. Therefore, some form of physical and psychological social control is needed to maintain mutual existence between men. Diamond described that because this form of violence could not be compromised, authority was established to maintain order, setting regulations, and attempt to use physical or psychological means to suppress the violent nature of men which presented challenges to coexistence needed for society to function as well as the safety of every single person.

One form of social control is the police force or military that takes a more physical approach to end the problem. Of course since people could not compromise on whom to blame for particular disputes, they decided to elect a single authority to whose decision everyone must owe respect to. This authority is known as the Kleptocrat. The social economic system is called a Kleptocracy which can vary in form from despotism to bureaucracy. Under this system, the Kleptocrat agrees to gives up his life as a farmer and take on the job of protecting the lives of each men from other men. In return, the people will offer him part of their harvests, better know as the tax, so that he can continue to live and carry on this responsibility. As Hobbes and Freud both argue, men seeks pleasure from power and dominance. Eventually, Diamond explains, the Kleptocrat began to abuse his power for personal gain and people began to challenge his authority. At that moment, the Kleptocrat attempted to find a way to keep the aggression of people under check and also preserves his power - by creating stories and beliefs which will become cultural values.

Many attempts has been made with varying results. One of which makes the Kleptocrat seem as a "divine" superhuman being whose power surpasses that of the nature and whose authority cannot be challenged. Another attempt induce fear in believers that if they do not do as they are told, they will be punished by an eternity of torture. Other attempts urge "love thy neighbor as thyself" to encourage collaboration and mutual respect between people so that their instinctual nature of egoism and violence would not overcome them and bring the end of society in a pool of blood. Usually, these stories were easily molded into the minds of the young so that people would be convinced from that start of their life that what they are hearing is the truth. As more people began to believe in these stories, they became dedicated to these beliefs and are willing to spend their entire life erecting a monument for their "god", the pharaoh, sacrificing their lives for these beliefs, and burning and massacring those who disagree.

This is Religion. Without it, there is no society. Everyone would just kill each other for self-benefits and to satisfy their instinctual pleasure. With it, we have civilization, mutual relationships and collaboration between people who share the same faith, progress, technological advances, and dominance over nature and over those who disagree with our version of the story.