Religion: A new era (Part I)

Before starting my post I would like put a brief disclaimer quoting Paul Graham. Paul Graham once said (not in exact quote) we all can talk about religion hours after hours but we barely talk few minutes about something technical. Does it mean religion is simpler than technological things or we all have profound knowledge about religion? I guess the answer is neither. I think we all have a view of religion and we know for sure that can neither be refuted nor proved. This is an idea I have in my mind and I just put it here for myself or random wanderers like early cavemen did painting. The second and most important reason is opening myself to the age of science.

Merriam-Webster defines religion as "a cause, principle, or system of belief held to with ardor and faith." So all a region requires is "a cause," "principle," "a system of belief," and "faith." Anything with all aforementioned criteria may be called religion. If so is the definition, there exist a whole lot of things that can be defined as religion including science. I have been thinking about the very idea of religion for couple of weeks. It struck into my head when Asif asked whether western people come up with any religion.

Let’s have a closer look on modern religion. Three modern religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) have monotheism: means single God, a written book and a set of customs. It is important to note that not all religions are based on monotheism; monotheism is a trait of modern religions. Another important distinction between modern religions and their ancestors is interaction between God(s) and human being. In early religions, God(s) have intertwined with human being in many occasions but modern religions are based on very lose coupling between God and human being. How about take a detour about birth of religion :).

At some point in human evolution human beings learn to ask question. They learn to seek knowledge. Asking question is solely human behavior unlike to any other living species on earth. Asking question is one of those most important qualities that makes human civilization moves further. What is so important about question? Asking question is the only way of requesting specific piece of information from second party. So asking facilitated collecting small pieces and connects them together for knowledge. Question is a single most important thing that pushed us beyond animal instinct.

It is a well established idea that human being did not start their early days on the top of the food chain; but human being did an amazing job that no other species have done before: shift the balance of power from one species to another (an event that never happen except the case of human: no other species start as a prey and eventually established themselves as a predator). The transfer of power happens because of enormous brain power of human being. The brain power not only puts them to the top of the food chain but also give them enough leisure time to think about themselves. At some point we (human beings) learn to ask question and begin questioning our existence; may our ancestors were trying to connect themselves to the nature or trying to explain their existence incoherence of numerous natural events. Whatever the reason is, the every religion tries to explain existence of human being and established our position in our nature. So it is convincing that ‘existence’ is the question that gives birth of religion.

We modern human being still cannot answer the question of existence; so we can imagine how helpless our ancestors were when they were thinking about their existence. The question was no match for their mental capability. But somehow they came with the idea of superior being. Modern psychology has proved how comfortable we are when we are just obeying the order of a superior command. If this same for our ancestors then the idea of God can be traced easily. So God came into existence.

God is the reason of our existence, God is the principle of our life, God is in the center of every rituals. God helps our ancestors by carry the enormous load of countless questions. However, perhaps Gods were very personal in the early stage of their existence. At some point those personal Gods became communal and a set of rituals were introduced in the transition phase. Rituals were necessary to bring the imaginary Gods into the real world; otherwise Gods are too imaginary to prevail.

Although our ancestors were intelligent enough to create Gods, it was difficult for them to characterize their God with supernatural properties so they characterize their God with earthly behavior. The ancient Gods were almost complete except there were too many of them. ‘Too many Gods’ gives birth of another problem: conflict of interest which eventually originates the idea of monotheism. Another interesting distinctive feature of monotheism is separation of God from earth.

In earlier religions Gods were in haven but they intervened in human activities time to time. It is indeed very difficult to imagine a God without any real existence without any intervention in earthly matter. Perhaps our cognitive processes were not ready for entirely imaginary God. That’s why ancient Gods often intertwined with human on earthly matters. As we progress the necessity of real existence of God in earthly matter become diminished over time and gives birth of modern religions.