The Later Evolution of Religion

92:2.1Re­li­gion is the most rigid and un­yield­ing of all hu­man in­sti­tu­tions, but it does tardily ad­just to chang­ing so­ci­ety. Even­tu­ally, evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion does re­flect the chang­ing mores, which, in turn, may have been af­fected by re­vealed re­li­gion. Slowly, surely, but grudg­ingly, does re­li­gion (wor­ship) fol­low in the wake of wis­dom—knowl­edge di­rected by ex­pe­ri­en­tial rea­son and il­lu­mi­nated by di­vine rev­e­la­tion.

92:2.2Re­li­gion clings to the mores; that which was is an­cient and sup­pos­edly sa­cred. For this rea­son and no other, stone im­ple­ments per­sisted long into the age of bronze and iron. This state­ment is of rec­ord: “And if you will make me an al­tar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for, if you use your tools in mak­ing it, you have pol­luted it.” Even to­day, the Hin­dus kin­dle their al­tar fires by us­ing a prim­i­tive fire drill. In the course of evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion, nov­elty has al­ways been re­garded as sac­ri­lege. The sacra­ment must con­sist, not of new and man­u­fac­tured food, but of the most prim­i­tive of viands: “The flesh roasted with fire and un­leav­ened bread served with bit­ter herbs.” All types of so­cial us­age and even le­gal pro­ce­dures cling to the old forms.

92:2.3When mod­ern man won­ders at the pre­sen­ta­tion of so much in the scrip­tures of dif­fer­ent re­li­gions that may be re­garded as ob­scene, he should pause to con­sider that pass­ing gen­er­a­tions have feared to elim­i­nate what their an­ces­tors deemed to be holy and sa­cred. A great deal that one gen­er­a­tion might look upon as ob­scene, pre­ced­ing gen­er­a­tions have con­sid­ered a part of their ac­cepted mores, even as ap­proved re­li­gious rit­u­als. A con­sid­er­able amount of re­li­gious con­tro­versy has been oc­ca­sioned by the never-end­ing at­tempts to rec­on­cile olden but rep­re­hen­si­ble prac­tices with newly ad­vanced rea­son, to find plau­si­ble the­o­ries in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of creedal per­pet­u­a­tion of an­cient and out­worn cus­toms.

92:2.4But it is only fool­ish to at­tempt the too sud­den ac­cel­er­a­tion of re­li­gious growth. A race or na­tion can only as­sim­i­late from any ad­vanced re­li­gion that which is rea­son­ably con­sis­tent and com­pat­i­ble with its cur­rent evo­lu­tion­ary sta­tus, plus its ge­nius for adap­ta­tion. So­cial, cli­matic, po­lit­i­cal, and eco­nomic con­di­tions are all in­flu­en­tial in de­ter­min­ing the course and prog­ress of re­li­gious evo­lu­tion. So­cial moral­ity is not de­ter­mined by re­li­gion, that is, by evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion; rather are the forms of re­li­gion dic­tated by the racial moral­ity.

92:2.5Races of men only su­per­fi­cially ac­cept a strange and new re­li­gion; they ac­tu­ally ad­just it to their mores and old ways of be­liev­ing. This is well il­lus­trated by the ex­am­ple of a cer­tain New Zealand tribe whose priests, af­ter nom­i­nally ac­cept­ing Chris­tian­ity, pro­fessed to have re­ceived di­rect rev­e­la­tions from Ga­briel to the ef­fect that this self­same tribe had be­come the cho­sen peo­ple of God and di­rect­ing that they be per­mit­ted freely to in­dulge in loose sex re­la­tions and nu­mer­ous other of their olden and rep­re­hen­si­ble cus­toms. And im­me­di­ately all of the new-made Chris­tians went over to this new and less ex­act­ing ver­sion of Chris­tian­ity.

92:2.6Re­li­gion has at one time or an­other sanc­tioned all sorts of con­trary and in­con­sis­tent be­hav­ior, has at some time ap­proved of prac­ti­cally all that is now re­garded as im­moral or sin­ful. Con­science, un­taught by ex­pe­ri­ence and un­aided by rea­son, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide to hu­man con­duct. Con­science is not a di­vine voice speak­ing to the hu­man soul. It is merely the sum to­tal of the moral and eth­i­cal con­tent of the mores of any cur­rent stage of ex­is­tence; it sim­ply rep­re­sents the hu­manly con­ceived ideal of re­ac­tion in any given set of cir­cum­stances.