ORGANISED RELIGION, ANTHROPOPHAGITES, STRATIFICATION AND THE MISUSE OF POWER

 

On why we are drawn to Organised Religion and why the structures of Organised Religion need REFORM, IF NOT REVOLUTION!

The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, believed that we have a basic need to belong, to be connected to each other. Abraham Maslow, in his psychology of the hierarchy of needs, speaks of belongingness as a natural social interest that describes a need to enter the fullest participation with others as a social being. Both Maslow (hierarchy of needs) and Eric Erickson (stages of psychosocial development) believed that belonging is not only a basic need, it also provides us with the identity we need to function as individuals. Erickson further believed that our personal development presupposed identity with a community of people.This Blog is a speculation on some aspects of dysfunction in some denominations of the Christian Church, but it could easily have similarities with other hierarchical institutions.

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (French: Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse), (1915) published by French sociologist Émile Durkheim, analyses religion as a social phenomenon. Durkheim attributes the development of religion to the emotional security attained through communal living. According to him, early humans associated such feelings not only with one another, but as well with objects in their environment. This, Durkheim believed, led to the ascription of human sentiments and superhuman powers to these objects, in turn leading to totemism, and later to powerful deities and the rise of organised religions.  The essence of religion, Durkheim finds, is the concept of the sacred, that being the only phenomenon which unites all religions. "A religion," writes Durkheim, "is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” So, if he is correct, Religion brings comfort, moulds meaning, supplies surety in a chaotic world, channels our human propensity for experiencing the numinous.

 

 But, coming from an anthropologist’s perspective and a lifetime experience of Christianity, I have been fascinated by the co-dependent relationship that Religion engenders in its adherents. Max Weber explored “The….  religious origins of the Western world, the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalisation and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as the offspring of leadership, the "disenchantment" of the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism.”  Joachim Radkau, Max Weber: A Biography, 2005[142]

 

 

 

Speculation about the importance of religion as a force to bind communities and therefore provide an evolutionary advantage is one of the areas that Dominic Johnson, Alistair Buchan Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, is proffering on The Spirit of Things ABC April 6. He received a D.Phil. from Oxford in evolutionary biology, and a Ph.D. from Geneva University in political science. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in how new research on evolution and human biology is challenging theories of international relations, conflict, and cooperation. For the 2012-2013 academic year, he is co-leading a project on evolution and human nature at the Center (sic.) of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. His book, God is Watching You, covers the themes: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human, Proposes a new theory of the origins and evolution of not only religion, but also human cooperation and society, Explores how fear of supernatural punishment exists within and outside of religious contexts, Uses an interdisciplinary approach that draws on new research from anthropology, evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, and neuroscience. I recommend this a great read.

 

Another interesting speculative article about the evolution of Religion in human societies concerns the place and importance of Human Sacrifice in cementing the power structures. Human sacrifice may have helped build and sustain social class systems. It comes from ABC Science By Dani Cooper.. April 5 2016.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-05/human-sacrifice-may-have-helped-build-social-class-structures/7297460

 

“Fear of vengeful gods may have helped human societies expand

 

Elaborate ritual killings such as being crushed under a newly built canoe and decapitation after being rolled off a house laid the foundations of class-based structures in modern societies, a new study of Austronesian cultures suggests.

 

Key points

 

Evidence of human sacrifice found in 40 out of 93 Austronesian cultures

 

Victims were usually low status, instigators were elites such as priests and chiefs

 

Study suggests religious rituals played a darker role in the evolution of complex societies 12,000 years ago

 

The New Zealand-based study, published today in Nature, tracks the evolution of human sacrifice alongside the development of class-based societies across 93 cultures.

 

 

 

Co-author Joseph Watts, a doctoral student at the University of Auckland, said until 12,000 years ago humans mainly lived in egalitarian groups of hunter-gatherers. However, around that time hierarchical societies began to develop with the earliest examples of a class-based system with wealth and power centred on a ruling elite. Unpalatable as it might be, our results suggest that ritual killing helped humans transition from the small egalitarian groups of our ancestors to the large stratified societies we live in today.

 

Joseph Watts and colleagues

 

"Our study shows in these early stages that human sacrifice might have helped to build and sustain the social class systems," he said. Mr Watts said human sacrifice — the ritual and deliberate killing of an individual to appease a supernatural power — did this in two ways. First, it was used to punish taboo violations, demoralise the underclasses, mark class boundaries, and instil fear of social elites.

 

Further, it minimised the "potential risk of retaliation by eliminating the victim" and allowed those responsible to shift the blame to the supernatural gods in whose name the sacrifice was made.

 

Geographic and socially diverse cultures studied

 

The team, which also included researchers from Australia, New Zealand and Germany, analysed 93 cultures from Madagascar in the west, to Rapa Nui in the east, and south to New Zealand — a region covering more than half the world's longitude and one-third of its latitude.

 

The social structures ranged from small egalitarian, kin-based societies to large, complex chiefdoms based in environments from tiny atolls to island continents.

 

For each of the cultures, they recorded the presence or absence of human sacrifice and the level of social stratification.

 

They then developed models to determine whether human sacrifice and social hierarchies co-evolved.

 

Evidence of human sacrifice was found in 40 of the 93 cultures sampled (43 per cent). It was practised in five of the 20 egalitarian societies (25 per cent), 17 of the 46 moderately stratified societies (37 per cent), and 18 of the 27 highly stratified societies (67 per cent) sampled.

 

Common occasions for human sacrifice in these societies included breaking of a custom or taboo, the funeral of a chief, and the consecration of a newly built house or boat.

 

 

 

Dark role of religious rituals

 

Mr Watts and the team found the victims were of typically  low social status, such as slaves, and the instigators were of high social status, such as priests and chiefs.

 

Mr Watts said the method of sacrifice varied significantly. “They didn't have the same kind of societies as the Aztecs and Mayans with temple structures, but had other elaborate rituals," he said. These included burning, drowning, strangulation, bludgeoning, burial, being crushed under a newly built canoe, being cut to pieces, as well as being rolled off the roof of a house and then decapitated. Mr Watts said the modelling showed human sacrifice "substantially increased the chances of high social stratification arising and prevented the loss of social stratification once it had arisen".

 

This suggested religious rituals played a "darker role" in the evolution of modern, complex societies, his team concluded, whereby "ritualised human sacrifice may have been co-opted by elites as a divinely sanctioned means of social control". "Unpalatable as it might be, our results suggest that ritual killing helped humans transition from the small egalitarian groups of our ancestors, to the large stratified societies we live in today," the researchers said.”

 

 

 

I wonder if the stratified institutions whose actions and inactions have come under increasing scrutiny, do not still practise a modified form of human sacrifice? I give as my evidence the treatment of Bishop William Morris, the silencing of so many innovative theologians, the psychological veiled threat of “consequences” for those who buck the system, the shameful treatment of whistle-blowers, the opacity of decision-making, the hypocritical treatment of employees as “children”.  

 

 

 

I leave this Post with a short piece from National Catholic Reporter October 1, 2004 | Taylor, Richard K. Why I Am Still Catholic: Troubled Times in the Church Prompt a Convert to Speak of What Sustains Him

 

 “…Faithful Catholics say it is very hard, even heart-wrenching, to be Catholic these days. Everywhere they turn, there are painful realities that undercut their commitment to the church: sex abuse scandals. Bishop cover-ups. Retrogressive changes in the liturgy. The fading hope that women's leadership gifts can ever be expressed in ordination. The lowly status of the laity, whose talents, intelligence and experience are largely disdained by the hierarchy. The church, these long-time Catholics say, treats them like children”

 

 

 

Amen and Shalom