Human
Religion Could Die Out As World Becomes Richer, New Study Reveals
Sam D
First Posted: May 12, 2016 04:40 AM EDT
A team of researchers recently made an investigation into the correlation between the rise of moralizing religions, such as Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, with political complexities, population sizes and economic development. The study was designed to help the team understand if the elite classes' discomfort with exceeding population growth in lower classes had led to the rise of religion.
According to the evolutionary psychologists who authored a study titled "Increased Affluence Explains the Emergence of Ascetic Wisdoms and Moralizing Religions", around 2500 years ago the rich had a slow pace of live full of comfort and most of them had children later in life, that too in controlled numbers. The elite also ate less as they were less aggressive about acquiring food. In an exact opposite scenario, the lower classes lived fast and died young.
When the population of poor began to rise, the upper class realized decided that it had to do something to keep the numbers of the non elite in check. As per the researchers, the elite started promoting the concept of moralizing gods to the aggressive and sexually active lower masses to keep a control on their growing population, so that they wouldn't dethrone the rich. Religion was meant to promote slow life strategies that would offset the evolutionary disadvantages faced by the rich in being less motivated by greed, acquisition and procreation. Religion, for both believers and non believers, seemed to champion the cause of the spiritual rather than the material world, and that it supported selflessness and self discipline which meant a check on sex and food.
An interesting point made in the study was that though religious practice had been prevalent before a clear divide in classes and wealth emerged, it did not focus on morality and spiritual fulfillment, which are the mainstays of the major religions in the world today. The higher classes first embraced and subsequently promoted new religions that championed morality and punishment for anyone who stepped out of line. On the basis of this observation, the study suggests that the spread of affluence can result in the death of religion.
"As more and more people become affluent and adopt a slow strategy, the requirement to morally condemn fast strategies decreases, and with it the advantage of holding religious beliefs that justify doing so," said Dr Nicholas Baumard, one of the authors of the study. "If this is true, and our environment continues to improve, then like the Greco-Roman religions before them, Christianity and other moralizing religions could eventually vanish. The same idea could also explain the gradual decline of moralizing religion in wealthier parts of the world such as Western Europe and the northern parts of North America"
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First Posted: May 12, 2016 04:40 AM EDT
A team of researchers recently made an investigation into the correlation between the rise of moralizing religions, such as Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, with political complexities, population sizes and economic development. The study was designed to help the team understand if the elite classes' discomfort with exceeding population growth in lower classes had led to the rise of religion.
According to the evolutionary psychologists who authored a study titled "Increased Affluence Explains the Emergence of Ascetic Wisdoms and Moralizing Religions", around 2500 years ago the rich had a slow pace of live full of comfort and most of them had children later in life, that too in controlled numbers. The elite also ate less as they were less aggressive about acquiring food. In an exact opposite scenario, the lower classes lived fast and died young.
When the population of poor began to rise, the upper class realized decided that it had to do something to keep the numbers of the non elite in check. As per the researchers, the elite started promoting the concept of moralizing gods to the aggressive and sexually active lower masses to keep a control on their growing population, so that they wouldn't dethrone the rich. Religion was meant to promote slow life strategies that would offset the evolutionary disadvantages faced by the rich in being less motivated by greed, acquisition and procreation. Religion, for both believers and non believers, seemed to champion the cause of the spiritual rather than the material world, and that it supported selflessness and self discipline which meant a check on sex and food.
An interesting point made in the study was that though religious practice had been prevalent before a clear divide in classes and wealth emerged, it did not focus on morality and spiritual fulfillment, which are the mainstays of the major religions in the world today. The higher classes first embraced and subsequently promoted new religions that championed morality and punishment for anyone who stepped out of line. On the basis of this observation, the study suggests that the spread of affluence can result in the death of religion.
"As more and more people become affluent and adopt a slow strategy, the requirement to morally condemn fast strategies decreases, and with it the advantage of holding religious beliefs that justify doing so," said Dr Nicholas Baumard, one of the authors of the study. "If this is true, and our environment continues to improve, then like the Greco-Roman religions before them, Christianity and other moralizing religions could eventually vanish. The same idea could also explain the gradual decline of moralizing religion in wealthier parts of the world such as Western Europe and the northern parts of North America"
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone