Complex Societies Evolved Without the Need For An All Powerful Deity

[stromboli]

http://www.nature.com/news/complex-societies-evolved-without-belief-in-all-powerful-deity-1.17040?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20150305

All human societies have been shaped by religion, leading psychologists to wonder how it arose, and whether particular forms of belief have affected other aspects of evolved social structure. According to one recent view, for example, belief in a "big God" â€" an all-powerful, punitive deity who sits in moral judgement on our actions â€" has been instrumental in bringing about social and political complexity in human cultures.

But a new analysis of religious systems in Austronesia â€" the network of small and island states stretching from Madagascar to Easter Island  â€" challenges that theory. In these states, a more general belief in supernatural punishment did tend to precede political complexity, the research finds, but belief in supreme deities emerged after complex cultures have already formed1.

Joseph Watts, a specialist in cultural evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who worked on the study, wanted evidence to examine the idea that "big Gods" drive and sustain the evolution of big societies. Psychologist Ara Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has suggested that belief in moralizing high gods (MHGs) enabled societies to outgrow their limited ability to police moral conduct, by threatening freeloaders with retribution even if no-one else noticed their transgressions2, 3.

The most common examples of religions with MHGs â€" Christianity and Islam, the dominant representatives of so-called Abrahamic religions â€" are relatively recent and obviously postdated the appearance of complex societies. But the question is whether earlier MHGs, for example in Bronze Age civilisations, catalysed sociopolitical complexity or resulted from it.

Rather than searching for statistical associations between social complexity and religious beliefs, researchers need ways to untangle cause and effect, Watts says. “Austronesian cultures offer an ideal sample to test theories about the evolution of religions in pre-modern societies, because they were mostly isolated from modern world religions, and their indigenous supernatural beliefs and practices were well documented," he says.

Wide variety
Watts and his colleagues pruned the 400 or so known Austronesian cultures down to 96 with detailed ethnographic records, excluding any in which contact with Abrahamic religions might have had a distorting outside influence. They range from native Hawaiians, who hold polytheistic beliefs, to the Merina people in Madagascar, who believe in a supreme God.

The team considered two classes of religion: MHGs and a broader belief in systems of supernatural punishment (or 'BSP') for social transgressions, such as those enacted through ancestral spirits or inanimate forces such as karma. Although both schemes see religious or supernatural agents as imposing codes of moral conduct, BSP does not assume a single supreme deity who oversees that process.

Six of the cultures had MHGs, 37 had BSP belief systems and 22 were politically complex, the researchers concluded. They used trees of evolutionary connections between cultures, deduced from earlier studies of linguistic relationships, to explore how the societies were inter-related and exchanged ideas. That in turn allowed them to test different hypotheses about MHGs and BSPs â€" for example, whether belief in MHGs precedes (and presumably then stabilizes) the emergence of political complexity.

“Although beliefs in MHGs do coevolve with political complexity, [the] beliefs follow rather than drive political complexity,” the researchers say. For BSPs, however, the beliefs seem to help political complexity to emerge, although by no means guarantee it.

“I think the ordering of events these authors prefer is what one expects from first principles,” says evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel of the University of Reading, UK. He says that societies became more politically complex as networks of trade and reputation emerged, and that the key to this process was language, not religion.

So what are MHGs for? “They are tools of control used by purveyors of religion to cement their grip on power,” says Pagel. “As soon as you have a large society generating lots of goods and services, this wealth can be put to use by someone who can grab the reins of power. The most immediate way to do this is to align yourself with a supreme deity and then make lists of things people can and cannot do, and these become ‘morals’ when applied to our social behaviour.”

Anthropologist Hervey Peoples at the University of Cambridge, UK, says that there is good evidence that, even if MHGs do not drive political and social complexity, they can affect and stabilize it. “This study is impressive and innovative, but may be hard to generalize,” she adds.

Norenzayan agrees. "In Austronesia, social and political complexity has been limited", he says. "There have been cases of chiefdoms but there has not been a single state-level society. So it's not all that surprising that big moralizing gods don't play a central role." He argues that such gods did co-evolve with the very large, state-level societies typically found in Eurasia. The "big Gods" idea was never supposed to hold true everywhere, he says.

“They are tools of control used by purveyors of religion to cement their grip on power,” says Pagel. “As soon as you have a large society generating lots of goods and services, this wealth can be put to use by someone who can grab the reins of power. The most immediate way to do this is to align yourself with a supreme deity and then make lists of things people can and cannot do, and these become ‘morals’ when applied to our social behaviour.”

That is about as definitive a statement of the political use of religion as one could ask for.

I studied language in college and one conclusion then was that language complexity was both the result of interaction between trading cultures and a driving force as well, separate from any other influence. Language and cultural interchange molds and shapes societies. That religion is not per se a driving force but one used to regulate and control a culture is something I think we can agree with.

I like these types of studies because they confirm what we discuss on here. I don't think any of this is a surprise to anyone here.

[Cocoa Beware]

Very interesting topic.

I've always figured that you dont need theism because moral behavior is more or less instinctual; we had no chance or surviving without mutual trust, and I figure this idea eventually evolved into a prototypical code of laws.

A god or gods was not needed to establish any of our institutions, save religion.

I find it interesting that Monotheism more or less came about at the same time as when our societies became despotic, featuring a single autocratic ruler, many of which were seen as living gods themselves.

Bible/Quran/Torah god seem to have many things in common with the Pharaoh and such, harshly punishing dissent, and very hostile towards those who asked the wrong questions. Insanely insecure.

Either you are god, or you claim to confide in him personally. Its a power trip. Subjugation.

[stromboli]

I thought it was a pretty good study, but its been on here for over a month and you are the first to comment. Hmmmmm....

In the case of Judaism, the PBS Nova documentary "Buried Secrets Of The Bible" does a very good job of explaining not only where the Bible came from but how Judaism went from a pluralistic to a monotheistic culture. And as I stated, Linguistics in college talked about the origin of both culture and language; the formation of language comes from both interaction and from social development over time, and that leads to complexity of thinking in a culture.

I liked the study especially because it essentially verifies what I believe, that religion is not a vital part of culture but an adjunct to it, and that culture/society can exist quite well without it. Like I said, verifies pretty much what we believe.

[Cocoa Beware]

I should visit this section more often. Ive always enjoyed learning about history, especially human origins. I will have to see this documentary, big Nova fan.

It would seem organized religion is not possible without complex societies, which I suppose logically follows because it allows for stuff like cults.

If we lived in stone age clans today, constantly competing with numerous rival clans, then I dont think the idea of a single unifying god is would fit, as any supernatural beliefs had to at least be relevant. In fact, it seems ludicrous. I would guess that we were primarily animistic, as you see evidence of this in many of the places we migrated to.

Personally, I think its still just as ludicrous, but what can you do. For all our inventive ingenuity were pretty damn gullible.

[Mike Cl]

Somehow this entry escaped my notice until today.  You are correct, Strom, none of the regulars here would be surprised.  But it is nice to see confirmation of one's thoughts on this subject.  Religion does not equate to morals.  I think a better set of morals would be in place if religion were not around.  And I think this world would be safer and saner if all religions were polytheistic.  It's that one big dictator in the sky who makes all the problems.

[stromboli]

  And I think this world would be safer and saner if all religions were polytheistic.  It's that one big dictator in the sky who makes all the problems.

Didn't think of that, but upon reflection it sounds like a good idea. The monotheistic religions have been the more aggressive, at least in the modern era.

[Mike Cl]

Didn't think of that, but upon reflection it sounds like a good idea. The monotheistic religions have been the more aggressive, at least in the modern era.

This is a fairly new way of looking at this for myself.  I can't think of an instance in which a polytheistic society was overtaken by a monotheistic one where the society did not become more restrictive and destructive.  I have not looked closely at the Roman Empire to compare this with the before and after of Constantine making Christianity the official religion.  Have to give it a closer look.   

[Gerard]

In these states, a more general belief in supernatural punishment did tend to precede political complexity, the research finds, but belief in supreme deities emerged after complex cultures have already formed1.

Joseph Watts, a specialist in cultural evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who worked on the study, wanted evidence to examine the idea that "big Gods" drive and sustain the evolution of big societies. Psychologist Ara Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has suggested that belief in moralizing high gods (MHGs) enabled societies to outgrow their limited ability to police moral conduct, by threatening freeloaders with retribution even if no-one else noticed their transgressions2, 3.

The most common examples of religions with MHGs â€" Christianity and Islam, the dominant representatives of so-called Abrahamic religions â€" are relatively recent and obviously postdated the appearance of complex societies. But the question is whether earlier MHGs, for example in Bronze Age civilisations, catalysed sociopolitical complexity or resulted from it.

The earliest complex societies we know of had deities, but these were not all powerful omnipotent all-knowing eternal beings, but rather deities that were born out of some vague primordial  order (or disorder) of things. Deities with very human characteristics who were vulnerable, quarrelsome and not necessarily immortal even. That's been known for ages. The idea of a God that just exists and has no biography, birth and is omnipotent and all wise and all knowing is an idea that basically came about with monotheism.

Gerard

[aitm]

Interesting that either I missed this earlier as well, or simply dismissed it as something that I thought would be common knowledge. For me, this is observed and considered in the lineage of human "spiritual" discovery. We have evidence of the evolution of human cognizant thought simply by watching our children, but also in our own history as we see our ancestors as they try to reconcile nature with death. We have seen the evolution of animism and tokenism to the shaman who then uses his position to usurp his own power to enhance his own power, a very enlightened and fantastical step in thought. Make a god more powerful than I, but I get to be the intermediary. Glory be to those who conjured up that idea.