The evolution of religion

Originally posted by snowinscotland
For example the suppression of the Cathars? I always thought this was a product of some rather barbaric middle ages power struggle, but was it the wiping out of a rival to the church?

The Cathars called themselves les Bonshommes, the Good Men. They were most prolific in the Occitan regions (modern Languedoc). Their religion departed from that of the Roman Catholic Church in many ways. Enjoying a great deal of popular support, they soon came to be considered a threat. Efforts at persuading them to abandon their ways failed, so a crusade was proclaimed and they were eventually wiped out after protracted wars. They often showed exemplary courage in battle: at the siege of Montsegur, the Cathar Masada if you like, some of the besieging French were so impressed that they changed sides to die along with them--or so the story goes. They can be seen as both Gnostics and proto-Protestants--one of their achievements was translating the Bible into Occitan, which soon led them to start making those invidious comparisons between the RCC and Babylon later taken up by the Protestants of the Reformation. Another interesting fact is that the Inquisition was founded in the wake of the Cathar wars, in order to root out any lingering heresy.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Again:

Originally posted by Wulebgr
[b]Take a look at The Sacred Canopy by Peter L. Burger and In the Spirit of the Earth by Calvin Luther Martin. Both show the relationship between the emergence of Monotheism and the quest for social and political power during the Neolithic Revolution.

The key issue here is that monotheism gr ...[text shortened]... antage evolutionary simply obscures that we are all one people from an evolutionary perspective.[/b]

Thank you - I have noted these books and while I could not find them in my local bookshop I will peruse further.

I appreciate the analogy to evolution is not good, ideas as opposed to biology, but I like the survival of the best concept in there, which is where I was intending to go.....

'lethan pathogens ' ??? is this in these books? [edit OK got it 'lethal' ......]

Originally posted by twhitehead
Mostly due to political and cultural reasons. If China had colonized most of the world then more of the world would be Buddhist. I suspect that Judaism has not spread as much as Christianity and Islam mostly because of the lack of evangelism to non-Jewish people.

I suspect that having a large old mystic book is much more significant in terms of the ability for a religion to spread than monotheism is.

If we look at Judaism it shows the understanding of the 'provable' line of genes from the mother, in the days before DNA (and even now how many children are DNA tested?). Belonging to the Jewish faith must have offered an advantage, or been associated with an advantage, for many centuries; perhaps it was the culture that respected learning the most?

Edit:
I still cannot help thinking that having a belief that enable one to look 'outside' of one's immediate environment must confer an advantage to the individual, and if the focus is outside of the material world and the will is strong the advantage must be fairly noticable... (I know I'm not expressing this properly)

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Cathars called themselves les Bonshommes, the Good Men. They were most prolific in the Occitan regions (modern Languedoc). Their religion departed from that of the Roman Catholic Church in many ways. Enjoying a great deal of popular support, they soon came to be considered a threat. Efforts at persuading them to abandon their ways failed, so a crus ...[text shortened]... quisition was founded in the wake of the Cathar wars, in order to root out any lingering heresy.

The inquisition was set up to root out heresy, in effect anyone who disagreed with the pervasive theology of the time? So survival of the fittest wiped out the cathars, despite popular support. Not a sound survival policy.

Originally posted by snowinscotland

'lethan pathogens ' ??? is this in these books? [edit OK got it 'lethal' ......]

I don't recall that Berger says anythingf regarding disease, nor should he given his arguments. Calvin Martin, on the other hand, may. His previous work was focused upon American Indians and their history, so the effects of disease is never far from his mind.

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel devotes a considerable degree of attention not only to the effects of disease, but the underlying question of why Europeans were carriers of so many lethal diseases, while many of the peoples they colonized had few, if any. He traces these diseases to domesticated animals from which the diseases spread to humans.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel devotes a considerable degree of attention not only to the effects of disease, but the underlying question of why Europeans were carriers of so many lethal diseases, while many of the peoples they colonized had few, if any. He traces these diseases to domesticated animals from which the diseases spread to humans.

Indeedy. Of course, I imagine we could formulate a tangible link between the aptness of plant species in an area to be domesticated and the animals who eat them.

I don't remember reading anything about this potential point in G,G&S; perhaps it wasn't in there?

Originally posted by snowinscotland
If we look at Judaism it shows the understanding of the 'provable' line of genes from the mother, in the days before DNA (and even now how many children are DNA tested?). Belonging to the Jewish faith must have offered an advantage, or been associated with an advantage, for many centuries; perhaps it was the culture that respected learning the most?

Why do you say that it must have been an advantage? Are you implying that Jewish descendants outnumber the descendants of most other peoples living at the time? I doubt that you could prove that. I believe that currently India and China constitute about half the worlds population. Is this an indication that their religions are beneficial?
Also it is possible that Judaism spreads because it is a fairly strict religion. A child who has one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent may be more likely to be Jewish than not. This is however not an indication that the religion is beneficial but only that it spreads. (think disease here).

Keep in mind that in the modern world, financial success is correlated to lower birth rates implying that the most 'successful' in terms of population are usually the poorer and less successful financially.

Edit:
I still cannot help thinking that having a belief that enable one to look 'outside' of one's immediate environment must confer an advantage to the individual, and if the focus is outside of the material world and the will is strong the advantage must be fairly noticable... (I know I'm not expressing this properly)
Are you implying that some religions 'open' your mind and others don't? Surely then something like Buddhism which I believe encourages a lot of thought would be more successful than modern Christianity which often seems to encourage blind unquestioning faith.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Why do you say that it must have been an advantage? Are you implying that Jewish descendants outnumber the descendants of most other peoples living at the time? I doubt that you could prove that. I believe that currently India and China constitute about half the worlds population. Is this an indication that their religions are beneficial?
Also it is poss ...[text shortened]... sful than modern Christianity which often seems to encourage blind unquestioning faith.

What I am saying is that there was a recognition in Judaism that before DNA testing the provable line of anscestry was the maternal one; advantage? I am not sure.... What are the inheritance laws?
As you say, having a large population is not necessarily an indication of advantage, just an indication of robustness (to some degree anyway). Having a population spread throughout the world, in the elite of each part of the world, now that would be an advantage. I am not sure this would apply to any religious class though....

No it's not about open minds; probably more about, to some degree anyway, a closed mind. You have a fixed set of beliefs, which you have a closed mind on, and are open to any outside that set that present to you. You have an advantage because you don't do drugs, smoking, alcohol, don't fornicate (stress/strife), take regular time out to meditate, take a day a week out to relax (probably with your family) and meditate / pray etc. You are probably honest; now tell me is that not an advantage?

Originally posted by snowinscotland
No it's not about open minds; probably more about, to some degree anyway, a closed mind. You have a fixed set of beliefs, which you have a closed mind on, and are open to any outside that set that present to you. You have an advantage because you don't do drugs, smoking, alcohol, don't fornicate (stress/strife), take regular time out to meditate, take ...[text shortened]... mily) and meditate / pray etc. You are probably honest; now tell me is that not an advantage?

It does sound like an advantage. However, I am not aware of any evidence that monotheists are any more likely to have the mentioned behavior than any other belief systems. I know muslims are very strict about alcohol but Christians often are not so it is not an attribute of monotheism.
I personally am an atheist and I fit that profile much better than many of the Christians I know.

When looking at the evolution of religion we must look at it from the point of view of the ideas themselves and not from the point of view of the hosts (people). The idea is infectious and very much like a disease. A successful disease is not always one that is good for the host. The success of an idea is not an indication that it is a beneficial idea.
There are several factors that are involved in the evolutionary success of diseases.
1. It should not kill the host too quickly. (suicide cults don't last too long).
2. It should be infectious. (evangelism, attractive idea, political spread by force or otherwise, and passed on to children).
3. It should not be easily cured by the body. (encouraging of blind faith, attempts at justification via stories etc)

Originally posted by twhitehead
It does sound like an advantage. However, I am not aware of any evidence that monotheists are any more likely to have the mentioned behavior than any other belief systems. I know muslims are very strict about alcohol but Christians often are not so it is not an attribute of monotheism.
I personally am an atheist and I fit that profile much better than ma ...[text shortened]... sily cured by the body. (encouraging of blind faith, attempts at justification via stories etc)

You know we might be onto something here (except it has probably been discussed for eons past).

I would imagine the balance has to be correct, and quite finely tuned, for the advantage to be lasting. Muslims can be strict about alcohol, but the evidence is that moderate amounts can be beneficial (Jesus accepted wine), so that is possibly an overreaction to some incident(s) early on in the development of Islam?

The 'disease' analogy breaks down very quickly - the 'host' is key in this relationship. However I would not dispute that strongly influencing children would lay down the 'best' start - the Jesuits recognised this and sought early control of education.

There have been several weird cults, but like evolution, there are zillions of 'dead' ends, if we look at Waco for example, the cult leader has several children surviving today I believe, if that is so then he was 'successful', unlike many of his followers.

Originally posted by snowinscotland
You know we might be onto something here (except it has probably been discussed for eons past).

I would imagine the balance has to be correct, and quite finely tuned, for the advantage to be lasting. Muslims can be strict about alcohol, but the evidence is that moderate amounts can be beneficial (Jesus accepted wine), so that is possibly an overrea ...[text shortened]... today I believe, if that is so then he was 'successful', unlike many of his followers.

The "disease" idea of religion is referred to as the concept of "memes" I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Originally posted by snowinscotland
You know we might be onto something here (except it has probably been discussed for eons past).

I would imagine the balance has to be correct, and quite finely tuned, for the advantage to be lasting. Muslims can be strict about alcohol, but the evidence is that moderate amounts can be beneficial (Jesus accepted wine), so that is possibly an overreaction to some incident(s) early on in the development of Islam?

My understanding from talking to Muslims is that alcohol in small quantities may not be bad but since there are almost no examples in the world of communities which consume alcohol without abuse taking place, it is better to ban it altogether. In other words they believe that the problems associated with alcohol outweigh the benefits. IMHO they are probably right.

The 'disease' analogy breaks down very quickly - the 'host' is key in this relationship.
The disease analogy is a very good one. Diseases are capable of transferring from host to host just like ideas. This does not generally apply to genes, so using human genes would not be as good an analogy as the dynamics are very different.
As I said, the success of a religion is not a direct indication of the success of the individuals involved. In fact many religions in which the believers are persecuted still manage to spread.

However I would not dispute that strongly influencing children would lay down the 'best' start - the Jesuits recognised this and sought early control of education.
It is not about laying down a start. It is about passing the religion on from parent to child. It is an indisputable fact that the chance of a child taking on the religion of a parent is significantly high. My point was that some religions encourage this more than others. Some people will disavow their children if they take up another religion. Some societies would even kill dissenters. Keep in mind that this is often as much cultural as religious. But the two are intertwined. Religions spread with cultures.

There have been several weird cults, but like evolution, there are zillions of 'dead' ends, if we look at Waco for example, the cult leader has several children surviving today I believe, if that is so then he was 'successful', unlike many of his followers.
Again you wrongly confusing the success of a religion with the success of genes. The question is not whether a cults members have children but simply the total number of cult followers remaining whether or not they are descended from the original members.
Just a note here: Not all Jews are theists.