Religions evolve over time, with no genuinely new elements that are not adopted from previous or secular innovations. We see how folk-lore can gradually change into a religious story, how the movement of stories from one place to another can create seemingly new religious ideas, and how all the elements of world religions pre-dated the religions they are now part of. The implication of so much re-use and human involvement in the propagation of religious memes is that there is no supernatural or divine component to the origin of religion. Religious histories have unfolded as if there are no gods or spirits, but only Human nature, to guide them.
- Nothing Is New
- The Evolution of Folk-lore Into Religion: The Epic of Gilgamesh Became a Flood
- Christianity: The New Testament was Rehashed Paganism
- The New Age: Old Beliefs, New Packaging
- The Causes of Religion
1. Nothing Is New
1.1. Common Sense: New Religions Develop from Old Ones
Nearly every aspect of every world religion was inherited from the culture and beliefs that pre-dated it. Exceptions generally pre-date known religious history, so that we can't see where they came from. Nearly all beliefs have histories older then the religions that now proclaim them. For example, Chinese and Japanese new religions are often colorful and appear to be unpredictable in their character, but, scholars note that in China (representing over a sixth of mankind) such new religions are, after all, adaptations of previous religions:
“New religious groups with clear organizational identities and agendas form in all literate cultures, and China is no exception. Chinese culture has historically been a fecund source of religious creativity. [...] New religions have formed in all periods of Chinese history, a period extending back at least to the Shang Dynasty in the 2nd millennium BCE. [..] They may [...] see themselves as truly unique and 'new'. The claimed newness is almost always adaptation, however.”
Edward Irons in "Encyclopedia of New Religions" (2004)1
“[Japanese new religions] have drawn extensively on the existing and established religious traditions for inspiration in terms of teachings, figures of worship, ritual structures and practices. [...] Most, if not all, new religions also draw extensively from the folk religious traditions of Japan, particularly in terms of their use of spiritual healing and [spiritualism of the dead].”
Prof. Ian Reader in "Encyclopedia of New Religions" (2004)2
So if all this is true, why do so many new religious movements appear to be new? I look at some reasons below.
1.2. The Exposure to Fresh Audiences
Dr J. Gordon Melton (2004)3
Religions, beliefs and practices often appear new because fans have taken them from one part of the world to another3 where they are unfamiliar. Once they blossom in a new location, they are re-interpreted according to the new cultural hosts' preconceptions and philosophical histories4. This interplay results in religious concepts in an area sometimes becoming subservient to new-sounding religions:
“Each of the world's major religions had its roots in a local primal religion, usually connected with a particular tribe or clan and a specific geographical location. Each tradition became more cosmopolitan as it diffused, encountering and incorporating other cultural forms along the way. [...] These roots did not disappear as the tradition changed over time but established the form that influenced each religion's later shape. [...] The major religious traditions often adapt to new settings through syncretism or co-optation: Chinese folk Gods became Buddhas and local African deities became Christian saints.”"Gods in the Global Village" by Prof. L. Kurtz (2007)5
Sometimes the impact of one culture can cause entire religions in another. Arthur C Clarke famous wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". He had in mind hyperintelligent beings with seemingly impossibly advanced technology, but equivalent examples can be found in the present era. On remote islands, primitive tribes have formed religious practices that anthropologists classify as "cargo cults". They do ritual dances to try and control planes and ships that they see on the horizon, to try and acquire exotic items. This new form of religion is merely an expression of the human instinct to control our environment, just like ancient animists danced to control the spirits that inhabited everything, but its expression has altered in accordance with contact with another culture. It is the same old instincts and ideas, only, expressed now in an age of technology. All religions go through similar processes, sometimes spawning a combination of elements that becomes to be considered a new religion, even though its individual elements are adaptations and translations of previous beliefs and events.
1.3. The Psychology and Sociology of Exaggeration
Sometimes the stories and even cores of religions were not intended to become so. Stories have a habit of becoming bloated and exaggerated, and some theorize that this is the basis of religion in general.
“A series of recent studies provides support for these ideas. In one set of experiments, a group of "first generation" subjects watched a videotape of a "target" person describing two events from his or her past. The subjects then rated the target person on a variety of trait dimensions, and provided a tape-recorded account of what they had seen. Subsequently, a group of "second generation" subjects listened to these secondhand accounts and then made more extreme ratings of the target than did their first generation counterparts.”
"How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life" by Thomas Gilovich (1991)6
The effects of subconscious exaggeration are scientifically measurable after only one generation. Gilovich tells us in the same chapter that cognitive psychologists have discovered that the very way we remember and recall stories means that we end up exaggerating the weird, shocking, entertaining and interesting elements. It is clear to see how such a cycle can result in an entire nation of socialites coming to share rather improbable stories. Thankfully in today's scientific world we are not as easily misled, but, we seldom apply our intelligence to what happened in the past. Adherents often assume that the early proponents of their religion were not story-telling. Given the amount of rumours, wives' tales, myths and confusions that persist throughout most of the population of developed countries, it is highly likely that our religions have their basis in the same psychological gullibility. Religious histories, stories of saints, etc, become wildly exaggerated when told by word of mouth (or nowadays, on forums and social networking websites). Whole communities can become victim to self-perpetuating stories of increasing ridiculousness, and because everyone else seems to be believing the same stories, no-one really thinks to ask what really happened...!
The humorous cynic Ambrose Bierce echoes the same understanding when he gives his definition of the word mythology in his Devil's Dictionary (1967): "n., the body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later".
2. The Evolution of Folk-lore Into Religion: The Epic of Gilgamesh Became a Flood
“Every religious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from natural antecedents.”William James
"The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902)8
Elements of folk-lore, or often real events themselves, can become exaggerated through time until they achieve a mythical status at the heart of a major religion. Gottsch (2001)7 provides examples in his technical discussion of the evolution of religious ideas, and proclaims that the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first large-scale story worth examining.
“The earliest theistic memes to pass from generation to generation over a large territorial area are those found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Tigay (1982) found the origins of the story in third millennium Sumeria; it was propagated to the old Babylonian empire (2000 bce), the Hittite and Hurrian empires in the Middle Babylonian period (1400 bce), and the Assyrian empire (700 bce). This epic in its basic form, passed as a written document on clay tablets, was most probably read to the illiterates of the population, who then passed on the story in some oral tradition. Because the story was committed to a written form and was copied faithfully by learned scribes, the epic has been preserved for thousands of years. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a remarkable collection of theistic memes vertically transmitted over the centuries as a story of human fear of death and how humans should cope with death anxiety.”Gottsch (2001)7
Concentrating on just the flood element, the Epic describes a local flood that probably occurred around the third millennium CE. Variations of the story exist. Whilst in the original Epic, "Ea appears to the Utnapishtim telling him to abandon his possessions and to build a ship with certain specifications and take into it every seed of life. (Tablet XI:19-31)" before a catastrophic flood occurred, a thousand years later when the Jewish Scriptures were written, the book of Genesis has it that it was Noah who was saved. Many details are still the same including the idea of animals being saved aboard the ship, the sending off of a dove from the vessel to test for land, and the final landing upon a mountain. Later on still, the Arabs codified yet another version of the Flood which became canonized into the Koran.
3. Christianity: The New Testament was Rehashed Paganism
Christianity was a combination Judaism and Pagan Roman religions such as Mithraism; with a few name-changes and Roman misunderstandings of Jewish ideas, a new religion was born full to the brim with old ideas:
“Elements that were common in previous Pagan mystery religions include much of the religious content of Christianity. All elements of Jesus' life such as the events around his birth, death and ministry were already parts of the myths surrounding other god-men of the time. Peripheral elements such as there being twelve disciples were similarly present in other more ancient religions and sometimes with an astonishing amount of duplication. First century critics of Christianity voiced accusations that Christianity was nothing but another copy of common religions.All the actual sayings and teachings of Jesus were also not new, and much of the time speeches attributed to Jesus are more like collections of Jewish and Pagan sayings. Even distinctive texts like the Sermon on the Mount are not unique. If we remove all the content that Jesus could not have heard and repeated himself, there is nothing else left. If we remove the supernatural elements of Christianity that are copies of already existing thought and religion, there is nothing left which is unique! Even much of the sayings of subsequent Christians are not unique; Jesus appears to not have taught anyone anything that was not already present in the common culture of the time. This shows us that not only did Christianity follow on, as expected, from previous thought in history but that we do not even need to believe in God or supernatural events in order to account for the history of Christianity. Stephen Hodge very usefully lists many of the similarities found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the teachings and organisation of Jewish Christianity. He also concludes that these Jewish documents make the teachings and appearance of Jewish Christianity less revolutionary.”
4. The New Age: Old Beliefs, New Packaging
Michael York (2004)9
The New Age as a whole is largely the repackaging of old and familiar religious beliefs. Frequently, it is simply the case of a change of name: Practices that are commonplace amongst the ancient religious practices of the Hindus in India are simply called 'new age' when they happen to practiced in the West. The New Age was the result of Westerners bringing back elements of Indian religion: As they became more popular and ceased being the preserve of the intellectual elite, Indian beliefs became diluted and formed the backbone of the New Age.
“The situation we find ourselves in [...] is that upper-class Indians visiting the Theosophical Society, middle-class Indians visiting Sai Baba's, or Indian hippies sitting on the rocks of Mahabalipvram, are best not thought of as 'New Age'. But Westerners, New Age in California, surely continue to be New Age when they visit the same sites. Again, Bhagwan, catering for Indians during the earlier 1970s, is best regarded as just another Indian Guru. But Bhagwan in Oregan [...] is clearly best regarded as New Age”
"The New Age Movement: Religion, Culture and Society in the Age of Postmodernity" by Paul Heelas (1996)10
5. The Causes of Religion
Given the documented facts that all present-era religions have evolved from previous religions and beliefs, we are left with a further question: What causes the whole cycle? What causes this human dispensation to believe in stuff in this way? How do the religious stories and myths get going in the first place? My "What Causes Religion and Superstitions?" by Vexen Crabtree (2007) looks at this, and rather than try to summarize it here, browse its menu:
- Religion as a Psychological Byproduct
- Myths, Dogma and Ritual: Leftovers from a Pre-Literate Humanity
- Religion as a Biological Neuronal Dysfunction
- Experiencing God
- Subconscious Childhood Fantasies
- The Fear of Death
- The Relation of Desperate Times to New Religious Experiments Including Conversion, Superstitions and Lucky Charms
- The Institutionalisation of Irrationality
