The Evolution of God by Robert Wright

This book sees how religion evolved alongside humans, from hunter gatherer tribes to civilizations. More emphasis on the monotheist Abrahamic religions.

The Birth and Growth of Gods

Primordial Faith

• Animinism is the attribution of life to the inanimate, which is thought to be inhabited by a soul or spirit. This was primordial religion, where the soul hypothesis handidly answered difficult questions, such as why we dream
• Animism is though to have evolved into polytheism, as if one believes that a tree has a soul, trees were to be collectively governed by a forest god

  Shamans

• Shamans developed as religious experts in hunter gatherer tribes. Credibility was gained through sheer luck or predictable outcomes (i.e saving the sun from an eclipse), and when their interventions failed they would lose support
  • Similar to how a series of bad bets by a stock market analyst leads to the conclusion that the analyst is out of touch, not that he was lucky in the first place
• Shamans were likely to be among the first politicians, serving as counsel on matters of inter-tribal conflict. If something was going wrong within the tribe, the shaman would blame a shaman from a neighbouring tribe, much like a modern politician blames the other party
• While more egalitarian than modern society, power imbalances could form where a shaman could amass gifts by instilling irrational fear in others. A common tactic would be to convince women that the way to please gods was to have sex with the shaman.

  Religion in Ancient Chiefdoms

• Religion in chiefdoms introduced a moral component, discouraging anti-social behaviour. With increasing population came less familiarity with your neighbours and more opportunity for exploitation.
• Religion, serving as a means to maintain social cohesion, also made commoners prone to exploiatation by rulers. If rulers abused their power too much, they risked being overthrown internally (i.e a coupe) or from a neighbouring chiefdom due to weakened social moral
• There exist early hisorical records of Polynesian specialists predicting wind patterns from star observations due to seasonal paatterns associated with astrological positions. This is an early example of science, where a correlation was found and a causal mechanism was attributed to the gods above

  Gods of Ancient States

• As chiefdoms grew into states, states that adopted religions gained a comptetive edge over others due to improved social cohesion. Religion provided citizens with a moral compass (i.e Egyptian gods would punish you for urinating in a public well)
• Early conquerors were theologically flexible, absorbing the gods of the conquered into their theology to avoid needless squabbles within empires
• The earliest hint of monotheism came in roughly 2000BCE in Bablyonia, where the supreme god Marduk essentially engulfed all other gods (i.e the old god of rain became Marduk’s hand). This was a simpler approach and improved theological flexibility

  The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism

  Polytheism, the Religion of Ancient Israel

• In the first millenium BCE, the biblical god Yahweh was not yet omniscient. He planted the garden of Eden and walked around as Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit
• Prior to monotheism, Israel went through a phase of granting existence to other gods, but condemning their worship
• The book of Joshua recounts a swift defeat of Canaanites and a subsequent widespread adoption of Yahweh. However, archeological evidence shows that there was likely a slow transition from Canaanite to Israelite encouraged by a nomadic to agricultural transition
• Different parts of the Bible reference god as El (the Canaanite god), and others as Yahweh, suggesting that there was likely a theological merger to keep both sides (Canaanites and Israelites) happy
• The demythologization from mid century BCE bible editors was less to remove mythic tales and more to remove possibility of evidence of polytheism. Later translators removed the mythic narratives, likely because mythic tales fell out of fashion and epic tales were more believable

  From Polytheism to Monolatry

• The shift from embracing multiple gods to one god seems to be encouraged by foreign policy; Israel once participated in international trade with the powers around it (Egypt and Assyria) with the notion that immersion would make Israel richer. Hosea had a more xenophobic opinion that it was making Israel poorer, and they were being exploited, which encouraged embracing monolatry (worship of one god without denial of existence of others)
• Class imbalances likely also fuelled the isolationist perspective, as multiple prophets objected the wealthy and their trade. “All who dress themselves in foreign attire” will be punished by Yahweh. International trade primarily benefited the mega rich, as their goods were the only goods that made long distance trade worthwhile
• Domestic policy also encouraged monolatry. Israel has hundreds of prophets, thus supernatural pluralism. To consolidate political power, the Kings had to consolidate supernatural power. By weeding out the domestic pantheon, the king had a chance to expand his domestic power
• “Rally round the flag” effect: when a nation faces a crisis, support for a nations leader grows. At the time Yahweh was the Israel’s god of foreign affairs. Israel, a small nation surrounded by great powers, often had to choose between war or peace that many Israelites found humiliating. The resultant hostility towards foreign powers made fertile grounds to reject other gods. Domestically, other indigenous Israelite gods were killed off, and a central area for prayer was established in Jerusalem so that king Josiah could keep a close watch on things
• King Josiah used hyper nationalism to fuel the Yahweh only ideology and justify the slaughtering of nearby nations by suggesting that their victims suffered from theological confusion

  From Monolatry to Monotheism

• The momentous defeat of Israel by the Babylonian conquest, and the depth of the ensuing psychological trauma (being exiled and living in a place where the conquerors gods are worshipped) led to two options: either accept your god has lost or that your god allowed it at his will (which would make him even stronger than realized)
  • “Israel stands at the bottom of its political power, and it exalts its deity inversely as ruler of the whole universe.”
• First Babylonia conquered Israel (7th century BCE), then Persia conquered Babylonia and thus Israel (6-4th century BCE), then the Greeks conquered Persia and thus Israel (mid 3rd century BCE)
• The Israelites suffered for their infidelity to Yahweh, and now they try to keep the worlds other people from repeating their mistake. Yet, their methods for preventing other from making those mistakes are gruesome and vengeful, at least for the closer regions that once crossed them (bloodshed, slaughtering, etc. in the name of God)
• One way humans cope with extended stress is to anticipate a better time ahead, the more intense the stress and more hopeless the situation, the more fabulous the coming times that are anticipated. The extreme form of this is apocalypticism: revelations of a day of salvation
• Fast forwarding slightly, the final book of the New Testament, Revelation, is apocalyptic and looks toward a coming day of salvation. On that day the antichrist is vanquished, bearing the emblem of 666, which cryptically translates to Nero, a Roman emperor who spectacularly persecuted Christians. At this low point, Christians dreamed of vengeance and enshrined that dream in theology

  Philo Story

• During Philo’s time (~1st century BCE) in Alexandria (Egypt), he was a Jewish minority that lived in a Roman ruled city. In his scriptures, there is a theme of tolerance of other gods Had he been intolerant, the Emperor would have him killed
• In the book of Jonah, God forgives the Ninevens (likely because they were too powerful at the time) and pities them for not knowing good from evil (i.e worshipping the wrong god). However, in other scriptures God encouraged and supported the slaughtering of Assyria and that they got what they deserved
• The Priestly source has texts that encourage multi-nationalism and affirmation of other nations’ gods. This is likely due to the writers at this time living during the rule of the Persian empire, so to survive and have your texts see the light of day one had to follow the empiric narrative
• However, that acceptance falls short when it comes to Egypt, who was an enemy to Persia at the time. Thus, the Priestly source recounts how Yahweh turned Egypt’s water supply into blood, had the frogs from the water swarm the Egyptians, then swarmed them with bugs (lice, gnats, mosquitos), then he inflicts festering boils on the skin of all humans and animals in Egypt. Then he kills every firstborn human and animal in Egypt. Then the Priestly source prescribes the Passover feast so that Israelites forever commemorate that night. The voice of the Persian empire conveniently had a way to ensure hostility towards Egypt by engraining it in the ritual calendar of Judaism

  Logos: the Divine Algorithm

• Philo interpreted god in terms of a “logos”, which essentially means god had a divine algorithm laid out for life on earth. He believed that the Torah, the Jewish law given to Moses, gave Jews a head start, as some of the rules laid out in the Torah were part of the logos (like dharma in Buddhism; it is the truth about how the universe works and the way we should live our lives)
• Proverbs (and other Jewish wisdom books) were part of a large wisdom tradition in the ancient Middle East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia, initially for upper class boys as they approach manhood
  • Taking the moral advice on faith was a time-saver, advice such as “the rich man’s sleeplessness wastes away his flesh, and his anxiety drives away sleep” and “jealousy and anger shorten life, and worry ages a man prematurely” (these hold up in terms of todays scientific knowledge)
• In the Gospel of John (New Testament), the English version (among other European versions) mistranslated “Logos” to “Word”. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” And Logos (peak wisdom, enlightenment) had assumed the form of Jesus Christ

  The Invention of Christianity

  What did Jesus do?

• The bible’s gospel about Jesus’ life and words - the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - were written in 65-100 CE, roughly 35-75 years after his death. As the decades go by, the stories of Jesus get less constrained by historical memory and more impressive and fantastical
  • In the book of mark (earliest book) Jesus’ last words are “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, as though it was a terrible surprise. But, in the book of Luke he expresses no signs of doubt or surprise (as he knows god’s plan all along)
  • In the book of Mark, when some Pharisees ask for a sign from heaven from Jesus, he gets in a boat and huffs away, saying “Why does this generation ask for a sing? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” In later books, he gives more elaborate answer (i.e predicting his death and subsequent resurrection)
  • The latest book of John has Jesus performing spectacular miracles such as resurrecting Lazarus, whereas in the earlier books he was more reserved with them
• Jesus’ small town of Nazareth (300 people) rejected him. The bible offers justifications for this of course. This would have been a town where most would have known Jesus personally, peculiar for them to reject him
• “Love thy neighbour as yourself” likely referred to fellow Israelites, close neighbours. It is a recipe for Israelite social cohesion, not for interests in bonding. In the book of Mark, a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to exorcise her daughter, he responds with “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. The woman acknowledges her inferior status and only then Jesus performs the service
• The Good Samaritan story is in the later book Luke, but in the book of Matthew, Jesus has this to say about Samaritans: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no tower of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. (Samaria has once been part of northern Israel, but successive imperial conquests caused Judaism to fail to take root)

  The Apostle of Love

• Apostle Paul was responsible for injecting Christianity with the notion of interethnic brotherly love - he was not one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. Quite the opposite, as he used to persecute followers of Jesus until he had a revelation (i.e a change of heart)
• There was a lot of uprooted people in the Roman Empire around the 1st century, and a lot of people without kin gravitated towards social organizations that could substitute for the lack of family. This brought in many different people, and encouraged the notion of brotherly love to accrue more followers
• The Roman Empire brought with it interconnected cities, and Paul harnessed the opportunity to ride the commercial currents that had been generated. Encouraging brotherly love helped the word spread, and encouraged the upper class to open their homes, enabling preachers to travel as they had a sort of hotel to stay at (with their “brothers”) while they moved around
• As Paul traveled to spread the word of god, the churches broke into factionalism around different apostles. Paul wanted to dissuade this. As well, there were individuals who believed they were near spiritual perfection and would disrupt sermons by showing off their gifts (e.g. speaking in tongues) and Paul wanted to mitigate these as it was selfish, disruptive, and intimidated the common follower

  How Jesus Became Saviour

• The idea of followers following Jesus up to heaven after death came around 50 years after his death. In Mark, Jesus references a “kingdom of god”, where angel come down to earth and weed out bad people. Later in Matthew, this changes to “kingdom of heaven”, in which the souls of the good people ascend to heaven. For Jesus, judgement day was about the living, not the dead
• The idea of eternal life after death likely came about to compete with other religions at the time (i.e the Egyptian god Osiris would hand out divine judgement after death). The “kingdom of god promise” on earth lost its magic, as Christians began to see loved ones dying. Christianity needed to provide a plausible explanation of how followers’ faiths would benefit them; what better way than to promise eternal bliss after death if you follow the rules
• Some of these moral contingencies were about personal sins, like overindulgence. As society moved from hunter gather to civilization, they moved from outside of the natural habitat that natural selection optimized them for. Food was abundant, and humans are designed to consume calories; so, people would engage in self harming behaviour and religion helped to curve that behaviour

  The Triumph of Islam

  The Koran

• Mecca’s famous shrine, the Kaba, was in pre-Islamic times surrounded by idols of gods of various clans as to lubricate commerce. Apparently, a Christian had been allowed to paint Jesus and Mary on an inner wall in the Kaba. Before Muhammad came along, Christian Arabs made pilgrimage to the Kaba, honouring Allah as their god and saviour

  Mecca

• Mecca was a trade city, and thus multiethnic, supporting multiple gods of different trade partners. When Muhammad started preaching against polytheism, he was a threat to the Meccan elite and therefore had to lay low
• Mohammed was a typical apocalyptic preacher, preaching against the rich (he had come up as a poor orphan) so that he could amass a decent following. It wasn’t until he moved to Medina and amassed a larger following where he could really preach about the punishment of the nonbelievers

  Medina

• As Mohammed gained a following in Medina, he was eventually able to overpower Mecca and convert the Kaba into a monotheist shrine for the Abrahamic god. This also attempted to persuade Christians and Jews as it remained an Abrahamic shrine
• “Break the Jews” story: Jews resisted Muhammad’s messages, noting contradictions between their bible and his teachings. Muhammad gave up on Jewish conversion, leading him to direct Muslims to pray towards the Mecca instead of Jerusalem. One by one he expelled Jewish tribes from Medina with a final bloody execution

  Jihad

• “Jihad” means strive/struggle, “Islam/Muslim” means surrender (i.e surrender to god)
• The commonly referred to Koran verse by western conservatives “kill the infidels wherever you find them” is mistranslated, infidels is supposed to refer to those who join other gods with God (polytheists) . Still horrible, but not as a target to Jews and Christians. In the next (commonly omitted) verse however, polytheists are offered a chance to seek asylum, hear the word of god, and reach a place of safety
• The Islamic empire would use religious intolerance to conquer other states, and once conquered would tolerate those of different religions to ensure peace within the empire. Those other than Muslims were to pay taxes and likely had a harder time making it up the social ladder. Over time as Christians converted to Islam to avoid taxation and incur the social benefit, and Christian numbers dwindled, the reduced threat of Christians allowed the Islamic state to be less tolerant of them

  The Moral Imagination

• Antipathy towards Muslims from the west is not in the interest of westerners, painting a broad offensive brush to all Muslims may tilt some moderate supporters to radical. Hatred blocks compassion, making it difficult to understand others well enough to keep them from joining the radical ranks
• Moral imagination was designed by natural selection. We are better able to empathize with allies, as we both have something to gain through doing so. Empathizing with enemies, however, is designed to be difficult, as there could be a zero-sum relationship where resources/status are lost
• Religions that have failed to align individual salvation with social salvation have not fared well. Any religion that doesn’t conduce to the salvation of the whole world, due to globalization, is a religion whose time has (hopefully) passed
• Today, the negative-sum side (nukes, scale of regions) of the world’s non-zero-sumness is too large to be compatible with social salvation, hence religion as a means to conquer is no longer feasible
• Buddhism under the influence of Indian emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE) insisted on respecting other religions in the empire and never demanded conversion. He renounced conquest (after witnessing what one of his had done). The most import conquest was the moral conquest, to find the path of moral truth (Dharma)
• While scientific inquiry has brought material and scientific progress, religion has served to provide a moral inquiry that has brought moral progress. While atheists would counter the fact that a God is needed to sustain moral progress, there could be some people who require a higher order moral being - needing to feel that if they behave poorly they’ll be disappointing someone and if they behave well they’ll be pleasing someone
• Perhaps God lies in the moral guides that evolved alongside human and cultural evolution, the pursuit to do the right thing for the group (in order to survive), the Logos. The feeling of letting others down and making others feel good could be in a sense God - in the form of the law of natural selection