The Later Evolution of Religion

92:3.1The study of hu­man re­li­gion is the ex­am­i­na­tion of the fos­sil-bear­ing so­cial strata of past ages. The mores of the an­thro­po­mor­phic gods are a truth­ful re­flec­tion of the morals of the men who first con­ceived such de­i­ties. An­cient re­li­gions and mythol­ogy faith­fully por­tray the be­liefs and tra­di­tions of peo­ples long since lost in ob­scu­rity. These olden cult prac­tices per­sist along­side newer eco­nomic cus­toms and so­cial evo­lu­tions and, of course, ap­pear grossly in­con­sis­tent. The rem­nants of the cult pre­sent a true pic­ture of the racial re­li­gions of the past. Al­ways re­mem­ber, the cults are formed, not to dis­cover truth, but rather to pro­mul­gate their creeds.

92:3.2Re­li­gion has al­ways been largely a mat­ter of rites, rit­u­als, ob­ser­vances, cer­e­monies, and dog­mas. It has usu­ally be­come tainted with that per­sis­tently mis­chief-mak­ing er­ror, the cho­sen-peo­ple delu­sion. The car­di­nal re­li­gious ideas of in­can­ta­tion, in­spi­ra­tion, rev­e­la­tion, pro­pi­ti­a­tion, re­pen­tance, atone­ment, in­ter­ces­sion, sac­ri­fice, prayer, con­fes­sion, wor­ship, sur­vival af­ter death, sacra­ment, rit­ual, ran­som, sal­va­tion, re­demp­tion, covenant, un­clean­ness, pu­rifi­ca­tion, prophecy, orig­i­nal sin—they all go back to the early times of pri­mor­dial ghost fear.

92:3.3Prim­i­tive re­li­gion is noth­ing more nor less than the strug­gle for ma­te­rial ex­is­tence ex­tended to em­brace ex­is­tence be­yond the grave. The ob­ser­vances of such a creed rep­re­sented the ex­ten­sion of the self-main­te­nance strug­gle into the do­main of an imag­ined ghost-spirit world. But when tempted to crit­i­cize evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion, be care­ful. Re­mem­ber, that is what hap­pened; it is a his­tor­i­cal fact. And fur­ther re­call that the power of any idea lies, not in its cer­tainty or truth, but rather in the vivid­ness of its hu­man ap­peal.

92:3.4Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion makes no pro­vi­sion for change or re­vi­sion; un­like sci­ence, it does not pro­vide for its own pro­gres­sive cor­rec­tion. Evolved re­li­gion com­mands re­spect be­cause its fol­low­ers be­lieve it is The Truth; “the faith once de­liv­ered to the saints” must, in the­ory, be both fi­nal and in­fal­li­ble. The cult re­sists de­vel­op­ment be­cause real prog­ress is cer­tain to mod­ify or de­stroy the cult it­self; there­fore must re­vi­sion al­ways be forced upon it.

92:3.5Only two in­flu­ences can mod­ify and up­lift the dog­mas of nat­u­ral re­li­gion: the pres­sure of the slowly ad­vanc­ing mores and the pe­ri­odic il­lu­mi­na­tion of ep­ochal rev­e­la­tion. And it is not strange that prog­ress was slow; in an­cient days, to be pro­gres­sive or in­ven­tive meant to be killed as a sor­cerer. The cult ad­vances slowly in gen­er­a­tion epochs and age­long cy­cles. But it does move for­ward. Evo­lu­tion­ary be­lief in ghosts laid the foun­da­tion for a phi­los­o­phy of re­vealed re­li­gion which will even­tu­ally de­stroy the su­per­sti­tion of its ori­gin.

92:3.6Re­li­gion has hand­i­capped so­cial de­vel­op­ment in many ways, but with­out re­li­gion there would have been no en­dur­ing moral­ity nor ethics, no worth-while civ­i­liza­tion. Re­li­gion en­moth­ered much non­re­li­gious cul­ture: Sculp­ture orig­i­nated in idol mak­ing, ar­chi­tec­ture in tem­ple build­ing, po­etry in in­can­ta­tions, mu­sic in wor­ship chants, drama in the act­ing for spirit guid­ance, and danc­ing in the sea­sonal wor­ship fes­ti­vals.

92:3.7But while call­ing at­ten­tion to the fact that re­li­gion was es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment and preser­va­tion of civ­i­liza­tion, it should be re­corded that nat­u­ral re­li­gion has also done much to crip­ple and hand­i­cap the very civ­i­liza­tion which it oth­er­wise fos­tered and main­tained. Re­li­gion has ham­pered in­dus­trial ac­tiv­i­ties and eco­nomic de­vel­op­ment; it has been waste­ful of la­bor and has squan­dered cap­i­tal; it has not al­ways been help­ful to the fam­ily; it has not ad­e­quately fos­tered peace and good will; it has some­times ne­glected ed­u­ca­tion and re­tarded sci­ence; it has un­duly im­pov­er­ished life for the pre­tended en­rich­ment of death. Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion, hu­man re­li­gion, has in­deed been guilty of all these and many more mis­takes, er­rors, and blun­ders; nev­er­the­less, it did main­tain cul­tural ethics, civ­i­lized moral­ity, and so­cial co­her­ence, and made it pos­si­ble for later re­vealed re­li­gion to com­pen­sate for these many evo­lu­tion­ary short­com­ings.

92:3.8Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion has been man’s most ex­pen­sive but in­com­pa­ra­bly ef­fec­tive in­sti­tu­tion. Hu­man re­li­gion can be jus­ti­fied only in the light of evo­lu­tion­ary civ­i­liza­tion. If man were not the as­cen­dant prod­uct of an­i­mal evo­lu­tion, then would such a course of re­li­gious de­vel­op­ment stand with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

92:3.9Re­li­gion fa­cil­i­tated the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal; it fos­tered work of cer­tain kinds; the leisure of the priests pro­moted art and knowl­edge; the race, in the end, gained much as a re­sult of all these early er­rors in eth­i­cal tech­nique. The shamans, hon­est and dis­hon­est, were ter­ri­bly ex­pen­sive, but they were worth all they cost. The learned pro­fes­sions and sci­ence it­self emerged from the par­a­sit­i­cal priest­hoods. Re­li­gion fos­tered civ­i­liza­tion and pro­vided so­ci­etal con­ti­nu­ity; it has been the moral po­lice force of all time. Re­li­gion pro­vided that hu­man dis­ci­pline and self-con­trol which made wis­dom pos­si­ble. Re­li­gion is the ef­fi­cient scourge of evo­lu­tion which ruth­lessly drives in­do­lent and suf­fer­ing hu­man­ity from its nat­u­ral state of in­tel­lec­tual in­er­tia for­ward and up­ward to the higher lev­els of rea­son and wis­dom.

92:3.10And this sa­cred her­itage of an­i­mal as­cent, evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion, must ever con­tinue to be re­fined and en­no­bled by the con­tin­u­ous cen­sor­ship of re­vealed re­li­gion and by the fiery fur­nace of gen­uine sci­ence.