Why do so many people believe in God(s) when there is no proof that God(s) exist?

[B-Fly]

As I continue working my way through "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, and his wide-ranging analysis of how and why human societies formed and developed the way they did, I hit another good section on religion that I thought was worth sharing. In discussing the rise of more complex levels of social organization from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to modern states, he gets at the dilemma that begins once societies hit the "chiefdom" level of the introduction of significant nonegalitarianism, where the "chief" or "chiefs" need to gain and maintain popular support while still maintaining a far more comfortable living than the commoners they rule (which he describes as kleptocracy, since the labor is heaviest at the commoner level, particularly with regard to food production). Religion is one major tool in the chief's toolbox.

"The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs, just as do modern established religions. But the supernatural beliefs of bands and tribes did not serve to justify central authority, justify transfer of wealth, or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions and became institutionalized, they were thereby transformed into what we term a religion. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods. The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual forumlas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing.

Chiefdoms characteristically have an ideology, precursor to an institutionalized religion, that buttresses the chief's authority. The chief may either combine the offices of political leader and priest in a single person, or may support a separate group of kleptocrats (that is, priests) whose function it is to provide ideological justification for the chiefs. That is why chiefdoms devote so much collected tribute to constructing temples and other public works, which serve as centers of the official religion and visible signs of the chief's power.

Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized socieites. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other -- by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others. At the cost of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes much more effective at conquering other societites or resisting attacks."

So back to the thread question of "Why do so many people believe in god(s)?", a big part of the answer is that it serves the interests of empowered elites (and in some ways the collective interests of societies) to raise/train/convince/brainwash us into holding such beliefs.

[Gregg]

As I continue working my way through "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, and his wide-ranging analysis of how and why human societies formed and developed the way they did, I hit another good section on religion that I thought was worth sharing. In discussing the rise of more complex levels of social organization from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to modern states, he gets at the dilemma that begins once societies hit the "chiefdom" level of the introduction of significant nonegalitarianism, where the "chief" or "chiefs" need to gain and maintain popular support while still maintaining a far more comfortable living than the commoners they rule (which he describes as kleptocracy, since the labor is heaviest at the commoner level, particularly with regard to food production). Religion is one major tool in the chief's toolbox.

"The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs, just as do modern established religions. But the supernatural beliefs of bands and tribes did not serve to justify central authority, justify transfer of wealth, or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions and became institutionalized, they were thereby transformed into what we term a religion. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods. The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual forumlas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing.

Chiefdoms characteristically have an ideology, precursor to an institutionalized religion, that buttresses the chief's authority. The chief may either combine the offices of political leader and priest in a single person, or may support a separate group of kleptocrats (that is, priests) whose function it is to provide ideological justification for the chiefs. That is why chiefdoms devote so much collected tribute to constructing temples and other public works, which serve as centers of the official religion and visible signs of the chief's power.

Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized socieites. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other -- by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others. At the cost of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes much more effective at conquering other societites or resisting attacks."

So back to the thread question of "Why do so many people believe in god(s)?", a big part of the answer is that it serves the interests of empowered elites (and in some ways the collective interests of societies) to raise/train/convince/brainwash us into holding such beliefs.

Are you stating that this was an intentional universal plan by the chiefs that evolved all at the same time to control their people. That they did in fact not believe what they were preaching?

Does he give a timeline for this theory?

[B-Fly]

Are you stating that this was an intentional universal plan by the chiefs that evolved all at the same time to control their people. That they did in fact not believe what they were preaching?

Does he give a timeline for this theory?

Yes, he does, but the development of complex societies (including ideologies/religions to help control them) happened at dramatically different times on different parts of the planet, which is largely the point of the book. He goes through the exercise for the migration of homo sapiens, the dramatically different timing in the development of food production (domesticated plants and animals), the dramatically different timing in the development of writing and other advantageous inventions (e.g., printing, metallurgy, gunpowder), and the timing of complex society structures. The timing of when these overlapping and interdependent societal "advancements"/"advantages" happened (the when, as well as the where any the why) is all aimed at explaining why the world today came to be dominated in so many respects by Eurasian peoples, rather than natives of the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia/Polynesia. He's not making judgments. He's acknowledging that this sort of thing is what allowed certain societies to amass more power, wealth and a higher standard of living and to conquer/dominate other societies that developed such things much later.