Birth and growth of the concept of God and religion

How did it originate; and how did we arrive at our knowledge of God? What brought about the evolution of the idea of a God, and the belief in one? It must be, and possibly still is, a deep-seated and ancestral element in our complex nature. Even though it must have by necessity matured in the mind of primitive man, and developed to its fullest with the progress of civilisation; by what successive steps did we, come to frame for ourselves the conception of a deity?

Why did humans cling to the idea, in spite of the rapid progress in intellect, and advancement of science? These are profound and important questions to which, at best, only provisional answers are possible. The earliest belief of savages, the testimony of historical documents and ancient monuments are the only references we have in seeking an answer.

This article does not concern itself at all with the validity or invalidity of the existence of God. It endeavours to show how inevitable the concept of God was; and how man's relation with the external universe was certain to beget the belief, as of necessity.

Man is not only a tool-making, cooking, clothing and talking animal; but also a believing animal. His belief binds the spiritual nature of man to a supernatural being. His dependence and acquired responsibilities, together with the uncertainties of the flow of life, compels and forces him to lean on and trust in external elements. Man alone of all animals has invented methods of invocating or compelling the help of superhuman beings to avoid the real or imaginary evils that threaten him, and to secure the things he ardently longs for.

These methods, in the earliest stages of evolution of the species, consisted of rituals bordering on magic: supernatural art; sorcery; necromancy; and any of the branches of magic, which invoke the aid of demons or spirits, as witchcraft or diabolism - black magic.

Progress

That to date in Sri Lanka we find many a believers in such practices is sufficient proof of the level of progress, or the lack of it, to which the people have advanced. Most of the ancient cults exist today in their primitive crudity among the lower classes of the population and even the higher classes have not totally given up resorting to the help of the spirits, in times of difficulty.

In ancient India, Greece, and Rome, philosophers saw all religions as equally false; commoners saw them as equally true; and politicians as equally useful. Nothing much has changed to date, even with the passage of three to four millennia.

However, as early man, living in and belonging to the most primitive and ruthless conditions of human life, formed into tribes; social evolution grew. The development or growth - such as biological evolution where all forms of life originated by descent with gradual or abrupt modifications - works an alchemic magic whereby the inherent selfishness of man is transmuted into altruism. Through conquest, tribes form into nations, and nations into empires.

The idea of gods justified tribal loyalties, and therefore conquest. As individual and groups of gods slowly evolved into religion, it acquired a new role as a social adhesive; allowing amicable relations between tribes that now need to interact in an expanding world.

Primitive religion is the beliefs and practices of people who lack writing and have a simple, material culture. Apparently, it has existed since the beginning of mankind. It is the religion of man, trying to make his peace with the terrifying and mysterious powers of nature. Primitive man lays bare the basic character of all men because he is devoid of the material benefits that often mask man's need for God. Probably, most of humans through the ages have adhered to primitive religion through the worship of one or the other forms of gods. It is still widely practised today in its pure form among pre-literate peoples; in addition, many members of major religions partake of primitive thought and practice to varying degrees.

In the West, there is now a great interest in primitive religion. Many people think that modern secular man needs to recover primitive man's participation in the cycles of nature as well as his sense of the sacred. Because primitive religion has developed over every continent among peoples who have no contact with each other, it is amazing how many basic similarities exist among primitive religions.

Thought

On the other hand, if the idea of God is an evolutionarily false idea, then evolution can lead to irrational thought. If so, then nothing, not our science, not our logic, not our reasoning, can decide if anything is true, including the existence of God and science itself. This pulls the rug from under us. It seems unlikely that a false idea would enhance our survival. However, even if it is a false idea, it must be better for our survival than the truth.

Thus, if evolution inevitably leads to the belief in gods, then all cultures have arrived at the same existential solution, namely that there is a God above all. If it happened once or twice within the progress of civilisation, we might call it a coincidence; but, if it happens tens of thousands of times, there is an extremely strong case for the independently derived existence of God. This can only be the case if either God wants us to know He is there, provided we search; or God does not care but has unintentionally left enough fingerprints, or footprints, on creation to find him.

Dispute

Nevertheless, the very idea of creation itself, in a theological sense, is in dispute. Hence, we are back at the beginning. It might take long years of research to unravel the truth, the existence or not of a supreme being.

The evolution of God reveals the progress in human morality. The gods that have been the most successful - those that have attracted the most believers around the world - are the gods that can shed their early, vengeful incarnations and adapt into a more global, more tolerant form as societies mingle and become interdependent. When people find themselves in a kind of interdependent relationship, when they see that they can gain through collaboration or that they do not need to be threatened, then doctrines of tolerance tend to emerge.

So we at least have an idea of how we would need to arrange the world to bring out the best in religion; and to some extent, it seems to happen naturally, and in spite of the various religious order of persons.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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