Lots of good points here. I had to slowly learn these myself the hard way, because I grew up thinking religion was irrational and would fade away, just like a lot of people assumed who grew up with science-oriented worldviews in the 1990s and earlier. I had to learn the ideas you described during years of reading and thinking and attending meetings and symposia in the early 2000s. You have done a service by laying out these ideas in an easy-to-understand format.
As you explain, religion consists of powerful ideas that have undergone cultural evolution over millennia to solve myriad problems of group living. You focus on cooperation, the most salient one, but religions frequently bundle together many wisdoms and strategies and life-hacks to promote successful living. Examples are: don't eat pork in a hot climate; don't drink alcohol; bathe regularly; give to the poor; respect your elders, etc. Europeans really needed that salted pork as a food resource during winter. I stand in awe of the humanitarian benefit of Islam's prohibitions against alcohol.
In the last paragraph, you mention that elites do use religion for oppressive purposes. I've tried to explain this to myself in the following way. Given that religions provide such a powerful set of ideas, it is inevitable that free-riders will want to co-opt this sytem for personal gain; that is what so-called elites have done historically. Some people co-opted the system to climb to its top and rule as divine kings and twisted religious ideas to support themselves. Why -- nothing inherent about religion per se, simply, humans inherently seek to co-opt powerful systems that solve problems, and try to seize those principles and twist them to support their own group. Politicians have done this separately from religion. It seems that once humns invent powerful ideologies, religious or not, a subset of humans will try to co-opt them. What do you think? Perhaps a meta-level of life hacks can involve including prohibitions about co-opting cultural institutions for personal gain.
In a recent essay, I argued that some religious traditions in some societies will be reduced in importance if secular devices are developed in those societies that solve the problems previously handled by religion. This is here for any interested readers:
But my essay isn't anti-religion. More, I argue why religion has been so useful and powerful. I acknowledge that humans are flexible in developing ideologies that solve the problems of group living. Although I didn't develop this point in my essay, it is possible that no other ideology will be as powerful as religion at solving some cooperation problems, because the feeling of sacredness and awe are so powerful for humans. [This is the contrast between the power of secular rules and religious rules that you mentioned in your example of cooperative housing, which Richard Sosis documented in his study of religious and secular planned communities.]. On the other hand, social norms are powerful if developed from an early age. Many people learn not to steal due to social norms in childhood.
Good points about the life hacks embedded in a lot of religions. Joe Henrich writes about that sort of thing a lot, as you know. Of course, religions also embed bad or outdated life hacks sometimes too, like female genital cutting. But a complex-systems view predicts that, over time and on average, the more adaptive teachings/traditions will be selected for and the bad ones will be weeded out.
I definitely agree about the propensity for people to corrupt any kind of institution. We see plenty of that with secular governments. Religion isn't immune, but it's not the cause of oppression, either.
The sociological data seem pretty clear that religion loses importance as it becomes less needed for solving social problems. But Christian Smith argues that part of the *reason* religion lost influence for solving social problems in Western countries was that newer secular institutions actively waged an influence campaign against it — the so-called "secular revolution." So I'm not sure that the story of transition from religion to secular institutions is really one of organic natural development as much as it is one of explicit, planned-out conflict between two different regimes, which religion lost for a number of reasons, not necessarily because it was objectively inferior. E.g., mental health epidemiology seems to suggest that living in a little village anchored by a 1000-year-old parish church that was the center of community life was a *way* better, and much more efficient, means of stabilizing people's psychological well-being than the bureaucratized, thousand-tentacled, ad-hoc system of therapy and biomedicine we use now.
Agree: 'Religion isn't immune, but it's not the cause of oppression, either." But many people think religion *is* the cause of oppression. People focus on one part of a complex dynamical system.
On this point: " But Christian Smith argues that part of the *reason* religion lost influence for solving social problems in Western countries was that newer secular institutions actively waged an influence campaign against it". Hm. That makes sense. Those secular institutions in many cases were fought by people who thought they were helping humanity by combatting superstition, along the lines of Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. (In other cases, it was probably just battle for power.) But by villifying religion, humanity has lost access to some of the benefits of religion.
From reading this account of the benefits of religion, one could be forgiven for thinking that the history of Christendom had been an unblemished utopia of sociological bliss unparalleled in the secular world. Perhaps it's worth reminding ourselves of Jonathan Swift's observation: "We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." The dominant theme throughout the ages seems to have been internecine warfare rather than cooperation.
Lots of good points here. I had to slowly learn these myself the hard way, because I grew up thinking religion was irrational and would fade away, just like a lot of people assumed who grew up with science-oriented worldviews in the 1990s and earlier. I had to learn the ideas you described during years of reading and thinking and attending meetings and symposia in the early 2000s. You have done a service by laying out these ideas in an easy-to-understand format.
As you explain, religion consists of powerful ideas that have undergone cultural evolution over millennia to solve myriad problems of group living. You focus on cooperation, the most salient one, but religions frequently bundle together many wisdoms and strategies and life-hacks to promote successful living. Examples are: don't eat pork in a hot climate; don't drink alcohol; bathe regularly; give to the poor; respect your elders, etc. Europeans really needed that salted pork as a food resource during winter. I stand in awe of the humanitarian benefit of Islam's prohibitions against alcohol.
In the last paragraph, you mention that elites do use religion for oppressive purposes. I've tried to explain this to myself in the following way. Given that religions provide such a powerful set of ideas, it is inevitable that free-riders will want to co-opt this sytem for personal gain; that is what so-called elites have done historically. Some people co-opted the system to climb to its top and rule as divine kings and twisted religious ideas to support themselves. Why -- nothing inherent about religion per se, simply, humans inherently seek to co-opt powerful systems that solve problems, and try to seize those principles and twist them to support their own group. Politicians have done this separately from religion. It seems that once humns invent powerful ideologies, religious or not, a subset of humans will try to co-opt them. What do you think? Perhaps a meta-level of life hacks can involve including prohibitions about co-opting cultural institutions for personal gain.
In a recent essay, I argued that some religious traditions in some societies will be reduced in importance if secular devices are developed in those societies that solve the problems previously handled by religion. This is here for any interested readers:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine-Caldwell-Harris/publication/371041508_Religion_Is_of_Reduced_Importance_When_Not_Needed_to_Solve_the_Problems_of_Social_Living/links/64702efe59d5ad5f9c75059f/Religion-Is-of-Reduced-Importance-When-Not-Needed-to-Solve-the-Problems-of-Social-Living.pdf
But my essay isn't anti-religion. More, I argue why religion has been so useful and powerful. I acknowledge that humans are flexible in developing ideologies that solve the problems of group living. Although I didn't develop this point in my essay, it is possible that no other ideology will be as powerful as religion at solving some cooperation problems, because the feeling of sacredness and awe are so powerful for humans. [This is the contrast between the power of secular rules and religious rules that you mentioned in your example of cooperative housing, which Richard Sosis documented in his study of religious and secular planned communities.]. On the other hand, social norms are powerful if developed from an early age. Many people learn not to steal due to social norms in childhood.
Good points about the life hacks embedded in a lot of religions. Joe Henrich writes about that sort of thing a lot, as you know. Of course, religions also embed bad or outdated life hacks sometimes too, like female genital cutting. But a complex-systems view predicts that, over time and on average, the more adaptive teachings/traditions will be selected for and the bad ones will be weeded out.
I definitely agree about the propensity for people to corrupt any kind of institution. We see plenty of that with secular governments. Religion isn't immune, but it's not the cause of oppression, either.
The sociological data seem pretty clear that religion loses importance as it becomes less needed for solving social problems. But Christian Smith argues that part of the *reason* religion lost influence for solving social problems in Western countries was that newer secular institutions actively waged an influence campaign against it — the so-called "secular revolution." So I'm not sure that the story of transition from religion to secular institutions is really one of organic natural development as much as it is one of explicit, planned-out conflict between two different regimes, which religion lost for a number of reasons, not necessarily because it was objectively inferior. E.g., mental health epidemiology seems to suggest that living in a little village anchored by a 1000-year-old parish church that was the center of community life was a *way* better, and much more efficient, means of stabilizing people's psychological well-being than the bureaucratized, thousand-tentacled, ad-hoc system of therapy and biomedicine we use now.
Agree: 'Religion isn't immune, but it's not the cause of oppression, either." But many people think religion *is* the cause of oppression. People focus on one part of a complex dynamical system.
On this point: " But Christian Smith argues that part of the *reason* religion lost influence for solving social problems in Western countries was that newer secular institutions actively waged an influence campaign against it". Hm. That makes sense. Those secular institutions in many cases were fought by people who thought they were helping humanity by combatting superstition, along the lines of Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. (In other cases, it was probably just battle for power.) But by villifying religion, humanity has lost access to some of the benefits of religion.
Great article. It reminded me of some of the writings of Ross Douthat. These three articles in particular dovetail with your thoughts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/opinion/religion-christianity-belief.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/opinion/church-nones.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/opinion/liberal-catholic.html
These articles are on point. Even if the median NYTimes reader ignores them!
From reading this account of the benefits of religion, one could be forgiven for thinking that the history of Christendom had been an unblemished utopia of sociological bliss unparalleled in the secular world. Perhaps it's worth reminding ourselves of Jonathan Swift's observation: "We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." The dominant theme throughout the ages seems to have been internecine warfare rather than cooperation.