What Is A Christian Deist?

 

A deist is a person who believes that God designed and created the world and governs it through natural laws that are inherent in everything. These natural laws can be discovered through observation, experience, and reasoning.

Deism is a religion based primarily on nature and reasoning, in contrast to other religions that are based on alleged "revelations" that come through some "supernatural" means. Deists believe that human beings have "free will" and have responsibility for choosing how they live in relation to natural laws that govern the world.

It is sometimes said that deists believe that God created the world, set it in operation, and then took no further interest in it. But this idea comes from a misunderstanding of an old analogy that compared God to a "watchmaker" and the world to a "watch." This old analogy was only intended to say that from the complex and purposeful "design" of a watch, it is logical to infer the existence of an intentional "designer" or watchmaker. Likewise, from the "designs" that are seen in our world and in ourselves, deists infer the existence of an intentional "Designer" or creator called "God."

Christian Deists believe that God does take an ongoing interest in the world and humanity but God does not control the world or humanity. Human beings are "free agents in a free world." A "free agent" is someone who has authority and ability to choose his/her actions and who may make mistakes. A "free world" is one which ordinarily operates as it is designed to operate but failures and accidents may occur.

Christian deism is opposed to the doctrine of predestination in which everything that happens is thought to be "the will of God." John Calvin was a proponent of the theory of predestination in which God allegedly determines everything that happens, whether good or bad. For example, this theory is heard when a person is killed in an automobile accident and someone says, "God must have a purpose in this." Christian Deists reject this kind of belief.

Christian Deists believe that it is never "God's will" for anything "bad" to happen. Anything that is destructive to human life is "bad." These bad things may be caused by accident or by human action. For example, an illness may be caused by an accidental infection or may be caused by a person choosing to smoke cigarettes. God does not make a person sick or well. Our health is partly within our own control and sometimes beyond our control. God gives our bodies and minds certain natural powers to heal many illnesses but God does not directly intervene to heal by some "supernatural" action.

If God directly intervened in human events, we would no longer be "free agents in a free world." We would be like puppets controlled by God. Such control by God would cost us the very thing that makes us individual human beings -- our freedom to think and act for ourselves.

God can indirectly intervene in the world through human beings. For example, God can heal through the efforts of physicians and nurses. God can care for the poor through charitable persons and through programs designed by compassionate leaders and legislators. According to Jesus, our mission is to create the "kingdom of God on earth." God can work through each of us if we will follow God's law of love for each other. We are God's representatives on earth if we do God's will. Each of us can contribute in some way toward the development of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Christian Deists believe that Jesus was a deist. Jesus taught that there are two basic laws of God governing humankind. The first law is that life comes from God and we are to use it as God intends, as illustrated in Jesus' parable of the talents (money). The second law is that God intends for human beings to live by love for each other, as illustrated in Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan. (Note: The parable of the talents is explained in the essay "How Can You Love God? The parable of the good Samaritan is explained in the essay "Love Your Neighbor.")

Jesus summarized these two basic "commandments" (or laws) of God as "love for God and love for neighbor." These two commandments were known to Jesus from the Hebrew scriptures but Jesus expanded the definition of "neighbor" to include everyone. "Love for God" means having appreciation for God as the creator of the world and the source of human life. "Love for neighbor" means having appreciation for the value of every human life. In his "parable of the sower," Jesus taught that the "word of God," or God's commandment to love our "neighbor" is known naturally because it is sown "in the heart" of everyone. Christian Deists believe that we show our love for God by loving our "neighbor" as we love our own life (Matthew 22:37-40).

Even the apostle Paul, who was a Jew, recognized that God's laws are known naturally by everyone. Paul wrote, "When Gentiles (non-Jews) who do not have the (Mosaic) law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the (Mosaic) law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts" (Romans 2:14-15).

In his teachings, Jesus used examples from the natural world and from human nature to explain basic truths about life. In his parables, Jesus spoke of mustard seeds, wheat, weeds, fishing nets, pearls, vineyards, fig trees, salt, candle light and sheep to illustrate his points. Jesus also used illustrations from human nature to teach basic concepts such as repentance, forgiveness, justice, and love.

Jesus believed that it is God's will for people to love (appreciate) God and to love (appreciate) each other. God should be loved (appreciated) as creator of the the world and as the source of human life. We should show our love (appreciation) for each other because happiness comes to us as we live in harmony, or unity, with each other. Christian deism is based on appreciation for all creation and on appreciation for every human life.

Christian Deists do not worship Jesus as God and do not believe in the theory of atonement that claims that Jesus had to die as a sacrifice to pay the "death penalty" for humankind and save them from the "wrath" of God. Christian Deists do not view God as a whimsical tyrant who sends plagues and pestilence to punish people on earth and who plans to torture people in "hell" in the future. Christian Deists reject these superstitious ideas as products of human hatred and a failure to recognize God's natural laws of love for others.

Christian Deists consider themselves to be disciples (students) of Jesus because Jesus taught the natural laws of God. But Christian Deists recognize that Jesus was only human. Jesus had to struggle with his own times of disappointment, sorrow, anger, prejudice, impatience, and despair, just as other human beings struggle with these experiences. Jesus never claimed to be perfect but he was committed to following God's natural laws of love.

Jesus called for people to follow God's laws (commandments) so the "kingdom of God" could come "on earth as it is in heaven." As Jesus preached the "gospel" (good news) that the "kingdom of God is at hand," the Romans viewed Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary seeking to liberate the Jews from Roman rule. Jesus refused to stop preaching his "gospel" even though he knew that he was risking crucifixion, the usual Roman penalty for revolutionaries. Jesus called for his followers to take this same risk, "If a man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" (Mark 8:34-35).

After his crucifixion, Jesus' cross became a symbol of commitment to establishing the "kingdom of God" (obedience of God's laws) on earth. Christian Deists are committed to following God's natural laws, as summarized in the two "commandments" to love God and love our neighbor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reason, Intuition and More

Galileo said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended for us to forego their use." I strongly agree, but I must add that this same God endowed us with imagination, intuition and inspiration. I think we should celebrate all these gifts. In my opinion it is the combination of all these attributes that makes us distinctly human.

I believe our ability to reason is our most important human characteristic. Reason and intellect distinguish us from mere animals. David Pyle said, "Without faith, reason is cold... but without reason faith is blind." Reason alone can be cold. Spock, of Star Trek fame, is the personification of reason, but he is also human. So even though this half-human suppresses his emotions, we can warm to him, because he does not lack imagination, intuition or inspiration.

Our passions can make us all too human when they exceed reasoning's ability to keep them under control. But I would not suggest that we suppress passion too much. At a healthy level it provides drive and energy to push us forward when we encounter obstacles. We know what happens when passion is at its worst. And while you can be too passionate, I don't know that you can be too reasonable, not unless you suppress your other human characteristics.

My notion of God must make sense to me. And life simply makes more sense to me with God than without. My faith is a faith based on reason, but not on reason alone. My intuition tells me it is sensible to bridge the gap between knowing and believing. Nature inspires me to believe that there is a reason that we exist, even if our intellect cannot yet identify that reason. Is it imagination that attributes this mystery to God? Is God simply the name we give to this mystery? I am not so arrogant that I claim to know. I am suspicious of anyone who makes such claims. I claim only to believe, and I don't expect anyone else to believe except on their own terms.

So how can any religion or philosophy ever be true if it treats us as though we are all the same when clearly we are not? If a belief system does not celebrate individuality, I recommend that we proceed with caution. We can benefit from the experience of others, but we must think for ourselves. What works for one may not work for another. We are all born with potential, but we do not have the same beginnings; we should not expect to achieve the same ends through the same means. We are reasoning beings. It doesn't make sense to me that we should ever abandon reason, no matter what. I believe our reason and our intellect should guide us, and I think we should take advantage of all the gifts we are given to reach our full potential. Sense, reason, intellect, imagination, intuition and inspiration are positive qualities I think we all should nurture. Be wary of those who suggest that you should hide or suppress any of these traits. Question whether such people are looking out for your best interests, and consider the possibility that someone else is doing their thinking for them.

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Ethan Allen * (1738-1789)

"[I demand Fort Ticonderoga] In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress." --Ethan Allen in A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity * in 1779

Excerpts from Reason: The Only Oracle of Man * * (1784)

I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter...

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The idea of a revengeful God... is offensive to reason and common sense, and subversive of moral rectitude in general.

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Those who invalidate reason, ought seriously to consider, 'whether they argue against reason, with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle, that they are laboring to dethrone;' but if they argue without reason, (which, in order to be consistent with themselves, they must do,) they are out of the reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.

We are told that the knowledge of the depravity of reason, was first communicated to mankind by the immediate inspiration of God. But inasmuch as reason is supposed to be depraved, what principle could there be in the human irrational soul, which could receive or understand the inspiration, or on which it could operate so as to represent to those whom it may be supposed were inspired, the knowledge of the depravity of (their own and mankind's) reason (in general:) for a rational inspiration must consist of rational ideas, which pre-supposes that the minds of those who were inspired, were rational previous to such inspiration, which would be a downright contradiction to the inspiration itself; the import of which was to teach the knowledge of the depravity of human reason, which without reason could not be understood, and with reason it would be understood, that the inspiration was false.

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THERE is not anything which has contributed so much to delude mankind in religious matters, as mistaken apprehensions concerning supernatural inspiration or revelation; not considering that all true religion originates from reason, and can not otherwise be understood but by the exercise and improvement of it; therefore they are apt to confuse their minds with such inconsistencies. In the subsequent reasonings on this subject, we shall argue against supernatural revelation in general...

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In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.

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... while we are under the power and tyranny of priests, since as it ever has, it ever will be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.

"General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day." --Rev. Ezra Stiles in his diary on 13 February 1789 * *

"Arrived at Onion-river falls [Winooski] & passed by Ethan Allyn's grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men yet ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror." --Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont * on 25 May 1789

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Evolutionary origin of religions

Nonhuman religious behavior

Humanity’s closest living relatives are common chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a common ancestor with humans who lived between four and six million years ago. It is for this reason that chimpanzees and bonobos are viewed as the best available surrogate for this common ancestor. Barbara King argues that while non-human primates are not religious, they do exhibit some traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of religion. These traits include high intelligence, a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self" and a concept of continuity. There is inconclusive evidence that Homo neanderthalensis may have buried their dead which is evidence of the use of ritual. The use of burial rituals is evidence of religious activity, but there is no other evidence that religion existed in human culture before humans reached behavioral modernity.

Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argues that many species grieve death and loss.

Setting the stage for human religion

Increased brain size

In this set of theories, the religious mind is one consequence of a brain that is large enough to formulate religious and philosophical ideas. During human evolution, the hominid brain tripled in size, peaking 500,000 years ago. Much of the brain's expansion took place in the neocortex. This part of the brain is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are connected with human religiosity. The neocortex is associated with self-consciousness, language and emotion[citation needed]. According to Dunbar's theory, the relative neocortex size of any species correlates with the level of social complexity of the particular species. The neocortex size correlates with a number of social variables that include social group size and complexity of mating behaviors. In chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain.

Robin Dunbar argues that the critical event in the evolution of the neocortex took place at the speciation of archaic homo sapiens about 500,000 years ago. His study indicates that only after the speciation event is the neocortex large enough to process complex social phenomena such as language and religion. The study is based on a regression analysis of neocortex size plotted against a number of social behaviors of living and extinct hominids.

Stephen Jay Gould suggests that religion may have grown out of evolutionary changes which favored larger brains as a means of cementing group coherence among savannah hunters, after that larger brain enabled reflection on the inevitability of personal mortality.

Tool use

Lewis Wolpert argues that causal beliefs that emerged from tool use played a major role in the evolution of belief. The manufacture of complex tools requires creating a mental image of an object which does not exist naturally before actually making the artifact. Furthermore, one must understand how the tool would be used, that requires an understanding of causality. Accordingly, the level of sophistication of stone tools is a useful indicator of causal beliefs. Wolpert contends use of tools composed of more than one component, such as hand axes, represents an ability to understand cause and effect. However, recent studies of other primates indicate that causality may not be a uniquely human trait. For example, chimpanzees have been known to escape from pens closed with multiple latches, which was previously thought could only have been figured out by humans who understood causality. Chimpanzees are also known to mourn the dead, and notice things that have only aesthetic value, like sunsets, both of which may be considered to be components of religion or spirituality. The difference between the comprehension of causality by humans and chimpanzees is one of degree. The degree of comprehension in an animal depends upon the size of the prefrontal cortex: the greater the size of the prefrontal cortex the deeper the comprehension.

Development of language

Religion requires a system of symbolic communication, such as language, to be transmitted from one individual to another. Philip Lieberman states "human religious thought and moral sense clearly rest on a cognitive-linguistic base". From this premise science writer Nicholas Wade states:

"Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 50,000 years ago. Although religious rituals usually involve dance and music, they are also very verbal, since the sacred truths have to be stated. If so, religion, at least in its modern form, cannot pre-date the emergence of language. It has been argued earlier that language attained its modern state shortly before the exodus from Africa. If religion had to await the evolution of modern, articulate language, then it too would have emerged shortly before 50,000 years ago."

 

Another view distinguishes individual religious belief from collective religious belief. While the former does not require prior development of language, the latter does. The individual human brain has to explain a phenomenon in order to comprehend and relate to it. This activity predates by far the emergence of language and may have caused it. The theory is, belief in the supernatural emerges from hypotheses arbitrarily assumed by individuals to explain natural phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise. The resulting need to share individual hypotheses with others leads eventually to collective religious belief. A socially accepted hypothesis becomes dogmatic backed by social sanction.

Morality and group living

Frans de Waal and Barbara King both view human morality as having grown out of primate sociality. Though morality awareness may be a unique human trait, many social animals, such as primates, dolphins and whales, have been known to exhibit pre-moral sentiments. According to Michael Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:

"attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group".

 

De Waal contends that all social animals have had to restrain or alter their behavior for group living to be worthwhile. Pre-moral sentiments evolved in primate societies as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. For any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group should outweigh the benefits of individualism. For example, lack of group cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Being part of a group may also improve the chances of finding food. This is evident among animals that hunt in packs to take down large or dangerous prey.

All social animals have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment. However, higher order primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. Chimpanzees remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. For example, chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have previously groomed them.

Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion groups that average 50 individuals. It is likely that early ancestors of humans lived in groups of similar size. Based on the size of extant hunter-gatherer societies, recent Paleolithic hominids lived in bands of a few hundred individuals. As community size increased over the course of human evolution, greater enforcement to achieve group cohesion would have been required. Morality may have evolved in these bands of 100 to 200 people as a means of social control, conflict resolution and group solidarity. According to Dr. de Waal, human morality has two extra levels of sophistication that are not found in primate societies. Humans enforce their society’s moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. Humans also apply a degree of judgment and reason not otherwise seen in the animal kingdom.

Psychologist Matt J. Rossano argues that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by expanding the social scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural agents. By including ever-watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival. Rossano is referring here to collective religious belief and the social sanction that institutionalized morality. According to Rossano's teaching, individual religious belief is thus initially epistemological, not ethical, in nature.

Evolutionary psychology of religion

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. The two main schools of thought hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, believed that religion was an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words that religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.

Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm (agent detection), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (etiology), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (theory of mind). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life, etc. The emergence of collective religious belief identified the agents as deities that standardized the explanation.

Some scholars have suggested that religion is genetically "hardwired" into the human condition. One controversial hypothesis, the God gene hypothesis, states that some variants of a specific gene, the VMAT2 gene, predispose to spirituality.

Another view is based on the concept of the triune brain: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex, proposed by Paul D. MacLean. Collective religious belief draws upon the emotions of love, fear, and gregariousness and is deeply embedded in the limbic system through sociobiological conditioning and social sanction. Individual religious belief utilizes reason based in the neocortex and often varies from collective religion. The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the neocortex and is, therefore, stronger than it much in the same way as the reptilian is stronger than both the limbic system and the neocortex. Reason is pre-empted by emotional drives. The religious feeling in a congregation is emotionally different from individual spirituality even though the congregation is composed of individuals. Belonging to a collective religion is culturally more important than individual spirituality though the two often go hand in hand. This is one of the reasons why religious debates are likely to be inconclusive.

Yet another view is that the behavior of people who participate in a religion makes them feel better and this improves their fitness, so that there is a genetic selection in favor of people who are willing to believe in religion. Specifically, rituals, beliefs, and the social contact typical of religious groups may serve to calm the mind (for example by reducing ambiguity and the uncertainty due to complexity) and allow it to function better when under stress. This would allow religion to be used as a powerful survival mechanism, particularly in facilitating the evolution of hierarchies of warriors, which if true, may be why many modern religions tend to promote fertility and kinship.

Still another view is that human religion was a product of an increase in dopaminergic functions in the human brain and a general intellectual expansion beginning around 80 kya. Dopamine promotes an emphasis on distant space and time, which is critical for the establishment of religious experience. While the earliest shamanic cave paintings date back around 40 kya, the use of ochre for rock art predates this and there is clear evidence for abstract thinking along the coast of South Africa by 80 kya.

Prehistoric evidence of religion

When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era (300–500 thousand years ago)[citation needed] and possibly earlier.

Paleolithic burials

 The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species. Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."

The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in Spain. At this location the bones of 30 individuals believed to be Homo heidelbergensis have been found in a pit.Neanderthals are also contenders for the first hominids to intentionally bury the dead. They may have placed corpses into shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. The presence of these grave goods may indicate an emotional connection with the deceased and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Neanderthal burial sites include Shanidar in Iraq and Krapina in Croatia and Kebara Cave in Israel.

The earliest known burial of modern humans is from a cave in Israel located at Qafzeh. Human remains have been dated to 100,000 years ago. Human skeletons were found stained with red ochre. A variety of grave goods were found at the burial site. The mandible of a wild boar was found placed in the arms of one of the skeletons. Philip Lieberman states:

"Burial rituals incorporating grave goods may have been invented by the anatomically modern hominids who emigrated from Africa to the Middle East roughly 100,000 years ago".

Matt Rossano suggests that the period in between 80,000–60,000 years after humans retreated from the Levant to Africa was a crucial period in the evolution of religion.

The use of symbolism

The use of symbolism in religion is a universal established phenomenon. Archeologist Steven Mithen contends that it is common for religious practices to involve the creation of images and symbols to represent supernatural beings and ideas. Because supernatural beings violate the principles of the natural world, there will always be difficulty in communicating and sharing supernatural concepts with others. This problem can be overcome by anchoring these supernatural beings in material form through representational art. When translated into material form, supernatural concepts become easier to communicate and understand. Due to the association of art and religion, evidence of symbolism in the fossil record is indicative of a mind capable of religious thoughts. Art and symbolism demonstrates a capacity for abstract thought and imagination necessary to construct religious ideas. Wentzel van Huyssteen states that the translation of the non-visible through symbolism enabled early human ancestors to hold beliefs in abstract terms.

Some of the earliest evidence of symbolic behavior is associated with Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. From at least 100,000 years ago, there is evidence of the use of pigments such as red ochre. Pigments are of little practical use to hunter gatherers, thus evidence of their use is interpreted as symbolic or for ritual purposes. Among extant hunter gatherer populations around the world, red ochre is still used extensively for ritual purposes. It has been argued that it is universal among human cultures for the color red to represent blood, sex, life and death.[39]

The use of red ochre as a proxy for symbolism is often criticized as being too indirect. Some scientists, such as Richard Klein and Steven Mithen, only recognize unambiguous forms of art as representative of abstract ideas. Upper Paleolithic cave art provides some of the most unambiguous evidence of religious thought from the Paleolithic. Cave paintings at Chauvet depict creatures that are half human and half animal.

Origins of organized religion

 

Social evolution of humans
Period years ago	Society type	Number of individuals
100,000–10,000	Bands	10s–100s
10,000–5,000	Tribes	100s–1,000s
5,000–3,000	Chiefdoms	1,000s–10,000s
3,000–1,000	States	10,000s–100,000s
2,000*–present	Empires	100,000–1,000,000s

Organized religion traces its roots to the Neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East but may have occurred independently in several other locations around the world. The invention of agriculture transformed many human societies from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle. The consequences of the Neolithic revolution included a population explosion and an acceleration in the pace of technological development. The transition from foraging bands to states and empires precipitated more specialized and developed forms of religion that reflected the new social and political environment. While bands and small tribes possess supernatural beliefs, these beliefs do not serve to justify a central authority, justify transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability through the following ways:

Justifying the central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services.

Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However, states and nations are composed of many thousands of unrelated individuals. Jared Diamond argues that organized religion served to provide a bond between unrelated individuals who would otherwise be more prone to enmity. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel he argues that the leading cause of death among hunter-gatherer societies is murder.

Religions that revolved around moralizing gods may have facilitated the rise of large, cooperative groups of unrelated individuals.

The states born out of the Neolithic revolution, such as those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were theocracies with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders. Anthropologists have found that virtually all state societies and chiefdoms from around the world have been found to justify political power through divine authority. This suggests that political authority co-opts collective religious belief to bolster itself.

Invention of writing

Following the neolithic revolution, the pace of technological development (cultural evolution) intensified due to the invention of writing 5000 years ago. Symbols that became words later on made effective communication of ideas possible. Printing invented only over a thousand years ago increased the speed of communication exponentially and became the main spring of cultural evolution. Writing is thought to have been first invented in either Sumeria or Ancient Egypt and was initially used for accounting. Soon after, writing was used to record myth. The first religious texts mark the beginning of religious history. The Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world, dating to between 2400–2300 BCE. Writing played a major role in sustaining and spreading organized religion. In pre-literate societies, religious ideas were based on an oral tradition, the contents of which were articulated by shamans and remained limited to the collective memories of the society's inhabitants. With the advent of writing, information that was not easy to remember could easily be stored in sacred texts that were maintained by a select group (clergy). Humans could store and process large amounts of information with writing that otherwise would have been forgotten. Writing therefore enabled religions to develop coherent and comprehensive doctrinal systems that remained independent of time and place. Writing also brought a measure of objectivity to human knowledge. Formulation of thoughts in words and the requirement for validation made mutual exchange of ideas and the sifting of generally acceptable from not acceptable ideas possible. The generally acceptable ideas became objective knowledge reflecting the continuously evolving framework of human awareness of reality that Karl Popper calls 'verisimilitude' – a stage on the human journey to truth.

 

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The 7 Traits of a Free Thinker

We all have a certain degree of admiration for those forward-thinkers who were ahead of their time or for those free-spirited individuals who had the courage, the will and the foresight to speak out their minds despite risking being labelled as non-conformists and cast to the outer fringes of society.

Well, truth be told, that is never a real threat for free thinkers. Actually, that is where they belong and makes them what they are. Free-thinkers breathe and thrive at the margins of society where structure and chaos cross at the borderline. If you want to be a free thinker, embrace chaos, novelty, disruptive change and non-conformity. Free-thinkers live on the brink of social breakdown. They live on the edge, away from the anesthesia of normalcy and institutionalized control.

They are not held captive by the rigid walls of the dominating worldview. They do not fear change, poverty or conspiracy. If you want to free your thinking and become an agent of change and novelty, there are a few things you need to recognize and understand.

1) Creativity is your natural birth right

We stereotype creative thinkers as artists or bohemians who are different than the rest of us. Well that is plainly false. We are all endowed with the gift of creativity. Education, or rather schooling, has successfully stripped us from that natural disposition. It has molded us into mechanistic and reductionistic images of humanity – into cogs in the wheel. The schooling system is designed to make people think within the same parameters – those laid down by the dominating view of society and culture.

Students are discouraged to deviate and think freely outside of those parameters. They just have to follow curricula which channels them to examinations, higher institutions and eventually become part of the workforce. Yet creative thinking is your natural birthright. They only taught you how to unlearn it without even noticing.

2) Beware Group thinking & Herd Morality

Group thinking is the silent enemy of free-thinking when we unconsciously follow the rhythm of the crowd. When the crowd shouts, we feel compelled to shout. When the crowd panics, we panic. Emotions, sentiments and ideas can be very contagious. So is thinking. It’s quite easy to follow the line of thought of your peers and those in authority. Yet as we become sedated with group thinking, we lose the power to claim the authenticity of our own mind.

Besides thinking, we judge people and events as being right or wrong following the morality of the herd. We succumb to morally feel what the rest of the herd feels about an issue. Morality is a highly debatable philosophical idea but the short end of it is that herd morality limits our potential to be free-minded, responsible individuals.

Remember, if you’re in a small, focused group of like minded individuals, your thoughts become focused. Group thinking CAN be a good thing; it is only when it is unconscious and misguided that it causes problems.

3) Perspective is key

The free-thinker knows the power of perspective. Perspective changes everything. What we feel or think about something can dissolve or flip the other way round just by changing perspective. Even the strongest of views and beliefs can change when a newer perspective is reached. What seems like loss can be seen as opportunity just by changing your perspective. Adversity can turn into a learning opportunity; problems can turn into a solution; what is failure from one perspective can be seen as a launching pad for success from another.

When you think freely you know that there is always more than one perspective on a given situation. You just need to view things from another angle. I like to use the internal courtyard analogy. We are all windows in a circular building overlooking an internal courtyard. The perspective from my window is different than the others. Hence, if I want to have a better picture of the courtyard of life I need to look at it from other windows.

4) Knowledge is provisional

Conservative, authoritarian, religious or institutional structures resist change forcefully because their worldview rests on the premise that their knowledge or beliefs are absolute. Even Science can and did fall in this trap at times. Yet the free-thinker is sure of only one thing – that knowledge is provisional. What we think we know today will be debunked or dramatically changed by what we know tomorrow. Free-thinkers run away from individuals or organizations who claim to know something, or worse, know everything. They are fully aware that we haven’t got the faintest clue yet, despite big leaps forward, about the world, life and the Universe at large.

5) Popping the time bubble

Free-thinkers, especially visionaries and forward-thinkers have burst the time bubble. That means that they recognized that we view the world through the narrative of our time. That narrative changes over decades and centuries yet we are closed in a time bubble so to speak that limits us to see the world only within the narrative of our own time. The greatest innovators, futurists, visionaries and thinkers saw beyond that narrative. They burst the time bubble open and saw ahead of their time.

6) Defying institutional pressures

Society had two major forces at play. One is a top-down control transmitted hierarchically through the institutions. The other is a force of change, novelty and innovation which is built bottom-up from individuals and slowly accepted and adopted by larger social structures. One crazy innovative idea from a free-thinker on the fringes of society can be taken up by some influencers and spread virally through the mass media until it becomes a norm. OK this is a simplistic overview but it’s enough to show the basic mechanics of social change.

Free thinkers are those individuals on the fringes of society cooking up shockingly new ideas. They refuse to succumb to institutional pressures of uniformity and control. The institutional top-down forces are there mainly to preserve their status-quo, the stability of the social system and its identity hence they resist novelty and change. The power of the free-thinker on the other hand, lies in constantly defying these institutional pressures to abide to the rules and accepted norms of society.

7) Perception is to be altered not accepted

Another powerful tool in the free-thinker’s toolbox is perception, or rather its bending and shifting. Philosophers have debated the nature of perception for ages. There are some who hold that perception gives us a reliable view of how our outer reality is and some other argue that perception is greatly influenced and fixed by our beliefs and knowledge. A classic example is color perception. Color is only a conventional label. What may seem plainly white to you is only one of a large variety of hues for the Inuit Eskimo who practically lives in a white world. They can differentiate between a wide range of ‘whites’ and they even have words to describe them. The perception is different and so is their reality.
 

Free-thinking individuals understand how perception is fixed and limited by our consensual view of the world. Yet in reality, perception need not be fixed; It can be altered and changed. It comes to no surprise then that many free-thinkers turn to ancient traditions who had studied and tinkered with perception for millennia either by disciplined practices or entheogens.  

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