HOW RELIGION INFLUENCED HISTORY

The Edelweiss

I begin this paper by offering a definition of religion. A religion is "a system of beliefs and practices resting on the assumption that events within the world are subject to some supernatural power or powers such that human needs can be satisfied by men entering into relations with such powers." The fundamental belief characteristic of all religions is, that belief in a higher power can control everyday events and the fundamental practice of all religions is the attempt to influence this power through ritual and obedience. Some religions are basically an interpersonal relationship entered into through prayer. This paper will mention the three best examples of strongly personal religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In these three the same God, who is thought of as a person, thinks, wills, watches, evaluates and gives out commandments, rewards, punishments, and mercy. Islam, meaning surrender, is the perfect example of the basic idea of total submission to God's (Allah) will, while Protestant Christianity best fits the modern Western notion of religion as something codifed and private. Judaism embraced a special bond with the one true God (Yahweh), and a status as chosen people and chosen nation in return.

Religion is universal and has exerted a perceptible force in every known society in history. Every nation and ethnic group has had either a prevalent religion or some background which is religious in nature dating back to prehistoric times. Some level of human consciousness sought the concept of a special force which is responsible for whatever cannot be explained or causes awe and anxiety. Religion permeated all aspects of life. Two great examples still standing today are the Great Pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge, both erected signifying religious rituals, ceremonies and burial practices.

In our hunter-gatherer past we accepted and celebrated the fact that human life depended on the destruction of other creatures. Therefore hunting, raiding and battling became ritualized into some kind of spiritual experience and perceived as sacred activities for survival. Later agrarian societies introduced another type of aggression: a fight where resources and power are unequally distributed in the hands of the few. It is then possible for a small group to dominate the rest of the population. Social historians argue that without this arrangement human beings would never have advanced beyond subsistence because it created a nobility with the leisure to develop the civilized arts and sciences in more modern times. Approximately all pre-medieval civilizations and up to the 17th century adopted this system. Because religion permeated all human activities including building states and governments, politics and religion became inseparable. No state could survive without soldiers to maintain control of its peasants, defend its land, conquer more land and subdue insubordination. "So necessary to the rise of states and empires was military force that historians regard militarism as a mark of civilization."

As pre-modern societies engaged in politics, they thought in religious terms and their faith permeated the struggle to make sense of the world. From earliest times of the three Abrahamic religions faith influenced how one was to behave and what one valued. There was a recognition of the dilemma of necessary violence and thus included in religious tenets were exhortations to counter aggression and channel it toward more compassionate ends. In religious history the struggle for peace has been (almost) as important as the holy war. However, history tells us that even faiths professing peace and brotherhood very often were used to settle problems and divisions with violence and bitterness. Once people believed that "God" was on their side compromise was impossible. A noble cause creates resolve and often War.

Over all centuries armed conflict has been used for power, land and revenge often in the name of religion. The Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries are known particularly for their horrific brutality and inhumanity. Other examples include The 100 Years War between England and France lasting from 1337-1453, the French Wars of Religion in the mid-1500s and the 30 Years War (1618-1648) fought between Catholics and Protestants. Out of curiosity using a world history timeline and counting only wars with a historical name, I counted 148 wars in the 1500s and 158 in the 1600s. The names of some of these wars were interesting: Amicable Grant Revolt, the Little War, the Pilgrimage of Grace, Prayer Book Rebellion and the British E. India Co. Child's War. It is soon clear that rulers and kings used religion and religion used rulers to justify their quest for power. If we can define the sacred as something for which one is prepared to die, the nation/state had certainly become the embodiment of the divine.

The middle ages were a time of contrasts when formal religion existed alongside unspeakable violence and amazing works of art. The Roman Empire and Christianity along with Islam in the Arabic world exerted strong influence on culture and society in enduring art and architecture. Great resources were devoted to declare the glory of God. Even the brutal Crusades produced a rich cultural and technological exchange. Highly treasured manuscripts were interpreted by Islamic, Christian and Jewish men from priestly, privileged hierarchy. Everywhere religion inspired artistic excellence still seen today in beautiful gilded icons, mosaics and works of art. The Byzantine Christian Hagia Sophia was built in 537 in Constantinople. It was the largest building in the world and an engineering marvel of its time. It would relatively soon become a mosque. In 850 a system of establishing harmony for church music would lead to the development of major and minor scales. It is also during this early period that the great cathedrals of western Europe were built to remind people of the glory of God: Notre Dame, Chartres, Reims, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury, Wells , Lincoln and Salisbury.

In 1299 the Ottoman Empire was founded and the influence of Islam would move out of Arabia and last for 600 years into the 20th century. Meanwhile the struggle in western civilization between nation states and the papacy continued for centuries with multiple wars to secure a dominating position. When the Black Death reached Europe from Asia, peaking in the mid-14th century, it created religious and social upheaval. The Bible was translated into English by John Wycliffe and the great exploration of the world began in earnest. Things were changing fast in a world dominated by religious fervor.

In 1517 an obscure priest in Germany nailed a document to the door of the cathedral and listed what he saw as the faults of the Catholic Church. Seized upon by European rulers and nobles eager to increase their own political power at the expense of the absolute authority of the Catholic church, Martin Luther's teachings eventually led to a new branch of Christianity, Protestantism. One of the focal points of this Reformation was the sale of indulgences which Martin Luther particularly objected. These indulgences were part of the Vatican's program to raise funds to build a new basilica in Rome now the renowned St. Peters. The chief architect would be Raphael. The Reformation (1400-1600) split Europe into opposing camps. Protestants were persecuted in Catholic lands, Catholics in a growing numbers of Protestant lands. The Catholic counter-Reformation included reviving the medieval church court known as the Inquisition. Many followers of both faiths endured torture and death rather than give up their beliefs. The Catholic church enlisted leading artists and architects to produce spectacular works of art that proclaimed the glory of the Catholic faith: Raphael, Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel, Pieta), Leonardo da Vinci (Mona Lisa, Last supper), Botticelli (the birth of Venus) and many more. Composers were summoned to write and direct music at the great cathedrals in Rome to restore the purity of sacred music and rid it of anything that might hinder understanding the words. Protestants who found it difficult living in Europe enthusiastically embraced the chance to move to the New World and create religious communities where they would not be persecuted. The 1600s marked the transition from the middle ages to modernity.

Humans attempt to understand the world without resorting to religion and superstition reached a high point in the mid 18th century. Before 1700 there was no concept of religion as separate from society or politics, but now a generation of intellectuals encouraged reason based on observation, experimentation and deduction. This Enlightenment or Age of Reason inspired revolution in the Americas and France. In 1763 the Founders of our nation decided not to have an established church with the separation of church and state becoming one of the core foundational elements of the Constitution. Modern notions of religious pluralism had found a voice. By 1800 thousands of African slaves had been forcibly transported to North America. None of this seemed to bother the Founders of the new nation who had asserted that "all men are created equal". But those who did object did so not by Enlightenment principles but by Christian morals. To the dismay of both Northerners and Southerners, the clergy could find no common ground and the issue was decided by the Civil War. These armies have been described as the most religiously motivated in American history. The national motto "In God We Trust" still appears on U.S. coins and currency largely as a result of increased religious sentiment during the Civil War. And soon the First World War in the early 1900s, would see the entire world caught up in an almost festival atmosphere activated by a new faith of the secular age, Nationalism.

We in this room have our own views and beliefs of how religion has influenced us personally and influenced modern history in our lifetime. As we all know though followers of Judaism had suffered persecution over the centuries it was to reach a new level of evil during the Second World War. After the war the appeal of religion seemed to decline, but in more recent times we have witnessed how religion and terror caused by religion has become ever more linked with the politics of our world. Churches became a socially transformative force in our civil rights movement. Social issues with religious overtones such as women's rights, birth control, abortion vs. pro life, prayer in public schools, Christian symbols in public buildings, sexual harassment, LBGT rights and global warming have emerged.

Religion tends to flourish when daily life becomes perilous and painful with the appeal to a God being a reflection of the feeling of personal helplessness. Following acts of gratuitous violence the message of "the victims are in our hearts and prayers" and the formation of alter-like areas of flowers and burning candles placed in the streets calls on religion for strength and inspiration. In the world as a whole religion remains powerful. Islam and Evangelical Christianity claim more adherents than a century earlier. Religions that refuse to make a truce with secular trends and assert their belief in the importance of the next life tend to be most vigorous.

As science and technology advances, knowledge is becoming a new rational god. Centuries ago human knowledge increased slowly. Today our knowledge is increasing at breakneck speed and theoretically we should understand the world better but the very opposite is happening. It sometimes appears that the attempt to accumulate more knowledge only leads to faster and greater upheavals and we are back to trying to make sense of the present and forecast the future. Think of the religious implications of IT, personal computing and social media. What does this mean in terms of consciousness, how we develop and exchange ideas, how we socialize and even how we learn and remember? We got where we are today because of free application of science and reason which began in the 18th century movement we called the Enlightenment. So where are we going in this new 21st century and the rest of the third millennium? In his interesting and very disturbing book, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari states, "traditional religions are still important players in the world." But, he asks the question, "what was the most influential discovery, invention or creation of traditional religion in the 20th century? Where will the big changes of the 21st century emerge; from Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any world religion, or will it be from technology?" Religious writings like the Bible or Koran do not say anything about genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, biology or computer science. Medieval crusaders believed God and heaven provided life with meaning. Today, modern liberals believe that individual free choices provide meaning in life. But as time moves forward there will be an immense advance in computer intelligence and computers may soon out perform humans in most tasks. It also doesn't appear computers will gain consciousness and start experiencing emotions and sensations. Harari writes about Dataism, which he calls "deification of technology and data flows." Can humans cope with the immense flows of new data, distill the data into knowledge let alone wisdom? From a Dataist perspective will we interpret the entire human experience as a single-data processing system with individual humans serving as its micro chips? As I think of IT and social implications, I am awed and anxious like our ancient forbearers. It is my hope that a sense of personal value, moral convictions and responsibility at the center of our human core or consciousness will continue to inform our actions and guide mankind through these rapid, revolutionary, changing norms.