The Gods are here to stay!
“Alright, that’s it. I’m out. I’m gonna go into the wilderness and I’m gonna make a new life for myself among the tree people! It can’t be worse than this.”
“Sure, Okay Morty! Just be back before sundown or the tree people will eat you!”
“That’s a myth. Why are you trying to start a myth?”
“It is a prehistoric planet, Morty. Someone has to bring a little culture…”
- Morty, Rick, Rick and Morty — S02 E06, 2015.
Morty and his grandpa Rick, engage in the above conversation when they are struck in Teenyverse, a world where life is still in the stone age. This twenty-second conversation appearing in Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland’s sci-fi sitcom Rick and Morty, explains the significance of the role played by cultural beliefs in the development of humankind. It took thousands of years for Homo Sapiens just to realise and appreciate the perks of hunting together and helping each other out. It took them another cycle to make the transition from individuals to clans, and clans to communities. Every such formed community had its own sets of beliefs and rituals, based upon which religions were subsequently invented.
Philosophers such as Aristotle did not go easy on most of these rituals and superstitions. Aristotle believed that the imposition of beliefs upon a person prevented him from exploring and identifying his purpose. Nevertheless, he stated that it was the right of the individual himself to decide whether to follow a religion or to denounce it. Even to today’s standards, this statement is visionary. If religion indeed stalled the growth of scientific and philosophical thinking, why was it invented in the first place?
During the Palaeolithic age, when human beings had just started to live in groups, a few wise men in the group realised the need for certain dogmas to keep the social structure intact. A strong social structure was indispensable to avoid conflicts and to ensure the survival of the clan. To achieve this, these dogmas had to be issued under the watch of a powerful entity, preferably someone revered by the members of the clan. This authority was mostly the spirit of a late leader of the clan or a totem. Robert Dunbar claims this form of Shamanism to be the earliest development of religious thoughts in humans.
The concept of God/Gods as we know today did not exist in the Palaeolithic age. Approximately around 10,000 years back, at the beginning of the Neolithic age, human beings started practising agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, a region where the twin rivers, Euphrates and Tigris flowed. Human settlements in various parts of the world followed suit. The transition to agriculture meant a comparatively relaxed lifestyle and more time to observe the universe. Slowly but steadily, this led to the development of science, reason and faith.
Things which could neither be scientifically proved nor adequately reasoned, such as eclipses, thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions kept ridiculing humans. Eventually, they started considering natural phenomena like wind, rain etc. and the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars as the movements of certain personal agents. These agents were believed to possess extraordinary powers. Failing to please them would make them angry who in turn would bring upon mass destruction. These ever-watchful Gods also served as a solution to prevent the members of the group, who had now grown tremendously in number, from acting against the interests of the community.
Till this point, the intention of religion was never to stall scientific developments or to prevent people from pursuing their meaning. Over the next few millenniums, as civilizations thrived, sophisticated languages were born and writing was invented. With the help of writing, universal doctrines for each faction of belief could be easily published and preserved, paving way for the birth of modern theological religions. As written doctrines were easy to reproduce, the rate of spread of religions picked pace. As a greater number of people joined different faiths, these religious institutions transformed into centres of power and influence.
Persecution in the name of religion became common in ancient Greece as early as 5th Century BCE. Humans fought numerous wars and committed even genocides in the name of religion in the subsequent centuries that led up to the modern era. Although religions and religious sentiments spread like wildfire throughout this period, it never hampered scientific development except for a few instances.
Today, in the 21st Century, science has evolved so much and has made lives much simpler. From splitting atoms to colonising planets, the technological advancements humans have managed to achieve in a short span is astonishing. Human being’s belief system is tied inversely to his/her scientific knowledge, social security and wealth. The current generation has got all three in abundance. As Tyler Durden from the film Fight Club puts it, “We are the middle children of history. We have no Great War. No Great Depression.” Today’s human has got little to no reasons to believe in the existence of a supernatural being. Yet somehow more than 90% of the population believe in the existence of some kind of higher power. The reason to this is mainly because of human being’s desire to avoid suffering and his/her inability to digest the fact that upon death, one ceases to exist, both in the material and spiritual form. After all, there are no atheists in the death-bed!
If it were not for the beliefs that united humans in groups during the Palaeolithic age, Sapiens might have even gone extinct just like his counterparts of the Homo genus. Pascal Boyer, the American anthropologist argues that the kind of mental processes that lead to religious thoughts are the outcomes of the same cognitive processes that allow for technological progress and social organisation. This argument doesn’t fail to make sense as after all, science and faith were born out of human being’s curiosity to understand the universe. Both are bound to thrive as long as humans are in the race for survival and supremacy.
-Ajai Kannan K,
Mech, 2016–2020.
(Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s opinion and does not reflect SJC’s political stance nor opinion.)
