You keep forgetting that morals doesn’t mean right.
Let me bring up some morally right things - that were 100% acceptable by the ruling class - so religion included:
Owning humans.
Raping your wife - because that’s not rape.
Chemically castrate gay men.
Killing accused women without any evidence of witchcraft.
Segregation based on skin, belifs or origin.
Killing and pillaging.
Having a ruler chosen by god.
Ethnic cleansing.
Killing the old / mentally ill / poor.
Taking money for made up reasons.
No those are morals. Religion helped to use those rules against “others”. ‘You should not rape your friends wife, but you can do anything with yours.’ look at the Bible and those marriage rules.
‘You should not do business outside the tribe’ - several current religions still have this rule, a bit more softened.
And so on.
Those are morals set by ruling class = religion or god kings (example: pharaohs). They are the foundation of society.And that’s what I keep saying. Morals and society has the foundation in religion.
Evidence is human history. All early civilizations had god kings. They were religious leaders. First part is that they were god given second part they were ruling class. And ruling class always sets the morals/laws of the people it rules.
It would probably be difficult to find evidence of which predates which but if you say religion is the foundation for society and morals then every society must have a religion right? As far as researchers understand, the Pirahã tribe in the Amazon have no religion. If there is a present day society with no religion then there likely were in the past as well. That makes it difficult for me to believe religion is the foundation of society if there are societies with no religion.
Certainly not your point. Religion must not be fundamental to society if there are societies with no religion. You claim religion came before society and societies are built on religion, that can’t be true if there are societies without it.
If I were to say fire requires 4 things: oxygen, fuel, heat, and marshmallows but there are instances where marshmallows are not present yet there is a fire, then marshmallows must not be fundamental to a fire. Any loss of the other 3 would not result in a fire so those 3 are the foundation. If there are societies without religion, why are you so adamant that societies require religion? Why must a fire have marshmallows if there are fires with no marshmallows?
Okay don’t take mg argument:
Donald E. Brown in Human Universals (1991) identifies religion (in some form) as a human universal—present in all documented cultures.
George P. Murdock’s cross-cultural work (Ethnographic Atlas) found no society lacking religious beliefs or practices among those sufficiently described.
Archeologcal evidence:
Even before written history, material evidence shows symbolic and ritual behavior:
Burials with grave goods (suggesting afterlife beliefs), e.g.
Skhul Cave (~100,000 years ago)
Ritual or symbolic structures like
Göbekli Tepe (~9600 BCE).
Absence of counterexamples:
No clearly documented pre-modern society (hunter-gatherer, tribal, early agrarian, or early state) has been shown to lack:
supernatural beliefs and ritual practices and symbolic meaning systems tied to them.
Even cases once proposed as “non-religious” (e.g., some interpretations of certain groups) were later found to include:
animism - animal spirits / power / speaking animals
ancestor reverence - respecting dead people - believing in afterlife
ritualized cosmology - cave drawings, sun gods, spirit of rain.
These may not look like organized religion (no temples, no priesthood), but it is the same.
You keep forgetting that morals doesn’t mean right.
Let me bring up some morally right things - that were 100% acceptable by the ruling class - so religion included:
Owning humans.
Raping your wife - because that’s not rape.
Chemically castrate gay men.
Killing accused women without any evidence of witchcraft.
Segregation based on skin, belifs or origin.
Killing and pillaging.
Having a ruler chosen by god.
Ethnic cleansing.
Killing the old / mentally ill / poor.
Taking money for made up reasons.
That is morality.
Well now I’m a little more confused. Are you saying those things are all morals taught by religion?
No those are morals. Religion helped to use those rules against “others”. ‘You should not rape your friends wife, but you can do anything with yours.’ look at the Bible and those marriage rules.
‘You should not do business outside the tribe’ - several current religions still have this rule, a bit more softened.
And so on.
Those are morals set by ruling class = religion or god kings (example: pharaohs). They are the foundation of society.And that’s what I keep saying. Morals and society has the foundation in religion.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree about this. I simply don’t believe that religion came before society and morals unless I see some evidence.
Evidence is human history. All early civilizations had god kings. They were religious leaders. First part is that they were god given second part they were ruling class. And ruling class always sets the morals/laws of the people it rules.
It would probably be difficult to find evidence of which predates which but if you say religion is the foundation for society and morals then every society must have a religion right? As far as researchers understand, the Pirahã tribe in the Amazon have no religion. If there is a present day society with no religion then there likely were in the past as well. That makes it difficult for me to believe religion is the foundation of society if there are societies with no religion.
If there is a dozen societies that dont have religion and thousands that has … Which ponnt stands?
Certainly not your point. Religion must not be fundamental to society if there are societies with no religion. You claim religion came before society and societies are built on religion, that can’t be true if there are societies without it.
If I were to say fire requires 4 things: oxygen, fuel, heat, and marshmallows but there are instances where marshmallows are not present yet there is a fire, then marshmallows must not be fundamental to a fire. Any loss of the other 3 would not result in a fire so those 3 are the foundation. If there are societies without religion, why are you so adamant that societies require religion? Why must a fire have marshmallows if there are fires with no marshmallows?
Okay don’t take mg argument:
Donald E. Brown in Human Universals (1991) identifies religion (in some form) as a human universal—present in all documented cultures.
George P. Murdock’s cross-cultural work (Ethnographic Atlas) found no society lacking religious beliefs or practices among those sufficiently described.
Archeologcal evidence:
Even before written history, material evidence shows symbolic and ritual behavior:
Burials with grave goods (suggesting afterlife beliefs), e.g.
Skhul Cave (~100,000 years ago) Ritual or symbolic structures like Göbekli Tepe (~9600 BCE).
Absence of counterexamples:
No clearly documented pre-modern society (hunter-gatherer, tribal, early agrarian, or early state) has been shown to lack:
supernatural beliefs and ritual practices and symbolic meaning systems tied to them.
Even cases once proposed as “non-religious” (e.g., some interpretations of certain groups) were later found to include:
animism - animal spirits / power / speaking animals ancestor reverence - respecting dead people - believing in afterlife ritualized cosmology - cave drawings, sun gods, spirit of rain.
These may not look like organized religion (no temples, no priesthood), but it is the same.