What is the importance of religion? (part-5)

Savage's category of moral gods includes not only gods of religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but also the concept of "karma" in Hinduism and Buddhism (in the author's karmic tradition). The author categorizes both Moralizing High Gods (MHG) as the Abrahamic Gods and Broad Supernatural Punishment (BSP) as the Karmic Traditions. The common view among these ideas is that if you have harmed another human being, you will have to pay the price in this life or the next. The definition of "harm" may also include unreasonable restrictions such as restricting sexual behavior (such as not masturbating). However, it has long been thought that the fear of punishment for theft or violence can help build a large society where it is not possible to maintain personal contact with everyone, or one of whom does not know everyone.

The study is published in the journal Nature. Savage used data from the Seshat Global History Databank in this study to independently assess how the level of social complexity in different societies has increased over time. Increasing levels of complexity in a society are characterized by features such as a growing population, hierarchy, formal legal provisions, and transport infrastructure. That is, the more the issues like population, social stratification, formal provisions, infrastructure increase in the society, the more the level of complexity of the society will increase.

This level of complexity in different societies is then compared with reports and documents on religious beliefs in 30 different regions. The study found that in all the societies of these 30 regions, religious beliefs were associated with the satisfaction of the supernatural being through religious observances. In 10 of these regions, there is no evidence of a moral God before the advent of colonial power. Belief in a moral God may have originated locally in the other 20 regions, but it appeared in those regions an average of 400 years after the advent of the writing system. If a moral God had appeared before the invention of the writing system, such a moral-based view of God would have been recorded in the first ancient documents of those societies. The earliest example of the concept of a moral God is found in Egypt in 2600 BC. But long before that, Egyptian civilization had begun. The author mentions in the research paper that after Egypt in 2600 BC, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, China, India, Persia gradually saw the emergence of moral gods, but large societies and civilizations were formed in these places long before the emergence of such concepts of God. The number of circles here shows how many thousands of years ago the concept of a moral God appeared in different regions. Pink refers to Zoroastrianism, Orange refers to Abrahamic religion, Yellow refers to other Moralizing High God-based religions, Blue refers to Buddhism, Purple refers to other broad supernatural punishment religions, Gray refers to the lack of concept of a moral God. This study is graphed (shown below). Here, with the increasing complexity of the society, the issue of religious behavior of the people or the two conditions of religion has come up. It has been observed that doctrinal rituals or formal religious rites are born when the social complexity was less after the formation of the society. These can be described by scriptures or in different provisions. These religious rites were routinely observed, and the people followed these religious rites and rules. It cannot be said that such a doctrinal ritual has resulted in the formation of a large society. Rather, it is the complexity of this society that has determined the emergence of such doctrinal ritual-based religions in society. This study indicates that these doctrinal rituals were the reason for the establishment of large religious identities among the people. This doctrinal ritual-based religion existed for an average of 1,100 years in all societies before the advent of the concept of moral God.