The Origin and Development of Religion

1
The Origin and Development of Religion
2
The Origin of Religion

• Question From where do religion and religions
  come?
• Three common explanations
• Evolutionary
• Subjective
• Creationist

3
An Evolutionary Explanation

• Religion originates as a human phenomenon
  generated by an encounter with the external
  world.
• The origin of religion is strictly human and
  material. It is all in the brain.
• Survival strategy response to material
  challenges.
• Progressive

4
An Evolutionary Explanation

• Ninian Smart (19272001)
• The Religious Experience of Mankind (1992)
• Neither can we know how man first experienced the
  holy. It may have been that men, in becoming
  aware of themselves through the power of speech
  and in discovering their capacity to change the
  worldalso felt a sense of rupture from the
  natural world about them. (1992, 20)

5
An Evolutionary Explanation

• Assumptions
• Materialism
• The evolutionary view of life and culture which
  progresses to higher more complex forms over
  time, and
• So called primitive cultures represent of the
  religion of mankind in its infancy.

6
An Evolutionary Explanation

• The Progression
• Mana/Fetishism
• The world is filled with a vague, potent,
  terrifying, inscrutable force or power.
• Animism/Spiritism
• The power is alive in the form of multiple
  spirits.
• Spiritual forces became visualized in terms of
  personal spirits as ancestor spirits and nature
  spirits.
• Personal spirits that may inhabit trees, rocks,
  mountains.

7
An Evolutionary Explanation

• The Progression (cont.)
• Polytheism
• A transition is made from venerating spirits of
  limited power and influence to worshiping gods.
• Monarchianism
• One deity is elevated over others in a heavenly
  hierarchy.

8
An Evolutionary Explanation

• The Progression (cont.)
• Henotheism
• Many different gods were recognized, but only one
  is worshiped.
• Monotheism and Pantheism
• Only one God or force exists.
• Atheism?
• The final acknowledgement that there is really no
  God, and no need of God.

9
An Evolutionary Explanation

• Problems with the evolutionary explanation
• No progression is observable.
• Monotheism is the earliest religion the high
  god of the hunting societies and of primitive
  tribes.
• A Supreme Being coexisted with the early forms of
  religion, making it unlikely that He is derived
  from them.
• The continued strong presence of religion of all
  varieties at all levels in modern societies.

10
The Subjective Explanation

• Religion originates from the human psyche rather,
  not from an encounter with an external reality.
• Its origin lies within us, deep in our
  subconscious.
• It emerges in symbols and attitudes that are
  outwardly expressed in specific beliefs and
  practices.

11
The Subjective Explanation

• Some proponents
• Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
• Religion begins in our subconscious as a feeling
  of absolute dependence
• Absolute dependence needs something absolute on
  which to depend - God

12
The Subjective Explanation

• Ludwig Feuerbach (1854)
• Religion begins with certain human traits (love,
  power, knowledge, etc).
• These traits are idealized in an idealized
  perfect being God. People have knowledge and
  power, God has infinite knowledge and power.

13
The Subjective Explanation

• Sigmund Freud (1928)
• Religion begins with the basic need for a father
  image.
• Human fathers are imperfect, so humans substitute
  an idealized father image God.
• Psychological immaturity.

14
The Subjective Explanation

• Rudolph Otto (1950)
• Religion begins with a consciousness of holiness.
  An overwhelming feeling of Gods greatness.
• Two components lead to the projection of God
• Mysterium tremendum
• Mysterium fascinosum

15
The Subjective Explanation

• Joseph Campbell (1988)
• Religion begins with primal longings in the human
  psyche.
• These archetypes are psychic echoes of our
  evolutionary past that surface as metaphors which
  we interpret literally.
• Evolutionary leftovers.

16
The Subjective Explanation

• Problems with the subjective approach
• Half truth
• Ineffective as an argument against a religious
  reality. Instead a psychological pattern in all
  of humanity suggests the opposite.
• It sets aside the historical question of the
  origin of religion.
• A psychological cause of religion, may in fact be
  the effect of a religious reality and/or activity.

17
The Creationist Explanation

• Religions have devolved from the human rejection
  of original monotheism in which worship of the
  one true God was replaced by a distorted view or
  other gods.
• (Romans 120-25)

18
The Creationist Explanation

• Wilhelm Schmidt (18681954 )
• The Origin and Growth of Religion (1930)
• Countered the evolutionary explanation of the
  rise of religion with evidence positive evidence
  for the his original monotheism, and pointed out
  the lack of evidence for the evolutionary
  explanation.
• Employed historical research among primitive
  peoples
• Finds evidence of a single Most High Gods having
  attributes identical to characteristics of God as
  described in the Bible.
• Met with silence by the scholarly community
• Respected and still in print today

19
The Creationist Explanation

• Creationist Explanation
• Pre-deluvian
• Pure, original monotheism
• Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.
  (Gen 426)
• Decadent monotheism
• No evidence of idolatry or polytheism
• Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was
  great on the earth, and that every intent of the
  thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
  (Genesis 65)

20
The Creationist Explanation

• Post-deluvian
• Restored monotheism
• Henotheism
• Forms of Polytheism and Polyidolatry
• Deification of the sky
• Deification of the sun
• Deification of animals
• Deification of plants

21
The Creationist Explanation

• More Degenerate Forms
• Animism
• Spiritism
• Totemism
• The belief that particular animals or sometimes
  plants or other objects have a special
  relationship with the tribal group and act as its
  guardians

22
The Creationist Explanation

• More Degenerate Forms
• Fetishism
• The belief that certain objects or images are
  superstitiously invested with divine or demonic
  power

23
The Creationist Explanation

• Reform Movements
• Buddhism
• Siddhartha Guatamas response to Hindu idolatry,
  debates, elitism
• Islam
• Mohameds response to the polytheism and moral
  decadence of the Arabian Peninsula
• Protestant Reformation
• Luther and others responses to the abuses of the
  RC church