Part IV: Human, Cultural and Religious Evolution
Belief Systems, Monotheism and White Supremacy
By Heather Gray
Introduction
This is part IV of what I began a few months ago: "Part I: History and Violence of Christianity", "Part II: The Roots of White Supremacy" and "Part III: About the Advent of Agriculture and Hierarchy".
In
the previous article I addressed issues surrounding the advent of
agriculture. The primary theses are that with agriculture we witnessed
the beginning of hierarchical societies and the desire by the elite and
others to have a "surplus" of food readily available. The question was,
as always, how to ensure the surplus? What tools are needed for that
purpose? Religion was one of those critical devices.
Scholar
Jared Diamond notes that the roles of religion are the following - and
which have ebbed and flowed over time: (1) explanation of the world
around us which he notes was the original function; (2) diffuse
anxiety; (3) provide comfort; (4) organization and obedience; (5) codes
of behavior towards strangers; (6) justifying war; (7) badges of commitment (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). I will touch upon some but not all of these and primarily "organization and obedience".
Changing our Belief Systems
The
complexity of creation stories and other vast components of the world's
spiritual elements in hunter-gatherer societies that tend to venture
into all aspects of our lives and environment, had likely been too
complex and time consuming for the humans living on the huge plains of
Central Asia, North Africa and elsewhere as the domestication of plants
evolved. In fact, North Africans, followed by Europeans, due largely to
the advent of agriculture, began to develop a more toned down and/or
refined and simplified version of the spirit or religious world - as in
ultimately with the monotheistic creation of Judaism, as the progenitor,
followed by Christianity and Islam. In many instances, what might have
been profound about these faiths has, historically, often been twisted
for the service of the elite.
With
Christians there was one God, one savior, and a heaven (along with
prescribed ways to get there) which was a radically reduced, refined or
less complex belief system then was the case with hunter-gatherer
societies. Further, the monotheistic religions radically changed our
concepts of and relationship to nature. They essentially took the belief
of the "divine" out of our understanding of the natural world. Regarding
a substantive inclusion of nature in the faith, it is interesting to
compare this with the Hindu faith that precedes Christianity by some
2,000 years:
Western
religious thought based upon Biblical traditions regards nature as
something created by God. If nature is sacred, it is so as God's
creation. This is the basis of the approach to ecology in western
religious traditions. They ask us to protect nature as God's creation,
but do not afford nature any sanctity of its own. However, they are
generally suspicious of nature Gods and regard worshiping the Earth
itself as a form of idolatry. That is why they have historically
rejected nature based or pagan religions as unholy, including Hinduism.
The
Hindu view of nature is based upon the Vedas, Upanishads and Vedanta
and their philosophical views, as well as Hindu devotional and
ritualistic practices. According to Hindu thought, there is no
separation between the Divine and the world of nature. They are the two
aspects of the same reality. The cosmic reality is one like the ocean.
Nature or the manifest world is like the waves on the surface of the
sea. Brahman or the unmanifest Absolute is like the depths of the sea.
But it is all water, all the same single ocean (Hindu View of Nature).
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Hindu
texts and scriptures are full of references to the worship of the divine
in nature. And they continue to be relevant today. Millions of Hindus
recite Sanskrit mantras daily that revere their rivers, mountains, trees
and animals. Many also follow, for religious reasons, a vegetarian diet
and oppose the institutionalized killing of animals for human
consumption. The Earth, depicted as a Goddess or "Devi", is worshipped
in many Hindu rituals. (GLOBAL IDEAS)
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As
with agriculture, monotheism also radically altered the status of
women in society and had males dominating in the belief system - a male
God, male savior and prophets etc. which then effected the social
relationships and attitudes toward women and more often maligned them or
lowered their status considerably. Monotheistic religions are often
referred to, appropriately, as patriarchal. Before males predominated
in the now contemporary major religious faiths, there were both female
and male goddesses and gods in most of our religions, in fact:
In the agricultural society, having a more simplified religious system helped to control the masses - everyone was seemingly to be on one accord with the elite having a higher status within the religious infrastructure. As mentioned, the powers that be wanted to ensure surplus food availability for non-farmers and the workers/farmers were required to fulfill that demand (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). For that purpose, religion (Christianity or not) was used as a vehicle for making sure people fulfilled those demands and acted appropriately. In other words, from the outset there was a system of slave-like conditions.
Prior
to the exclusivism of the Monotheists, there were hundreds of gods and
goddesses alive and worshipped in cultures throughout the world. There
is evidence that the early Jews worshipped Asherah, a goddess, along
with Yahweh, their male deity, and the Jewish mystical tradition
acknowledges Shekinah as the feminine principle of life....
When
gods are both male and female, there is some parity between men and
women. Both have their proper roles, and both are Divine....
When
a solo male God became the source of life and salvation, feminine
characteristics got transferred to masculine. When God, and men, are
responsible for fertility, nature, creation and destruction, the
feminine gets shoved aside, destroyed, or buried in the rubble (Goodman).
In the agricultural society, having a more simplified religious system helped to control the masses - everyone was seemingly to be on one accord with the elite having a higher status within the religious infrastructure. As mentioned, the powers that be wanted to ensure surplus food availability for non-farmers and the workers/farmers were required to fulfill that demand (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). For that purpose, religion (Christianity or not) was used as a vehicle for making sure people fulfilled those demands and acted appropriately. In other words, from the outset there was a system of slave-like conditions.
As Diamond has said, one of the functions of religion was "organization and obedience". (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). Below he explains the process:
...how
does the chief or king get the peasants to tolerate what is basically
the theft of their food by classes of social parasites?....The solution
devised by every well-understood chiefdom and early state society - from
ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, through Polynesia, Hawaii, to the Inca
Empire - was to proclaim an organized religion with the following
tenets: the chief or king is related to the gods, or even is a god; and
he or she can intercede with the gods on behalf of the peasants, e.g.,
to send rain or to ensure a good harvest (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday").
To repeat, the agricultural society, with its its attendant
monotheistic faith, was overall about hierarchy and wealth
accumulation.
Karl Marl, who wisely noted that religion was an "opiate" of the masses, would appreciate Diamond's historical account. Yet, Marx's "opiate" strategy had been created centuries before his assessment in the 19th century. Also, as the Dalai Lama has stated, "Marx was not actually against religion or religious philosophy per se, but 'against religious institutions that were allied, during Marx's time, with the European ruling class'" (Smithers).
Karl Marl, who wisely noted that religion was an "opiate" of the masses, would appreciate Diamond's historical account. Yet, Marx's "opiate" strategy had been created centuries before his assessment in the 19th century. Also, as the Dalai Lama has stated, "Marx was not actually against religion or religious philosophy per se, but 'against religious institutions that were allied, during Marx's time, with the European ruling class'" (Smithers).
Monotheism in Europe
The
control of the people continued as monotheism became engrained in the
subsequent European culture. Further, with Christianity, Europeans
ultimately decided they had all the answers regarding the creation story
and everything else religious, which included the correct way to
worship with all the attendant ceremonies that developed over time. As
they proclaimed they had all the answers, anyone who might challenge
Christianity in Europe and most certainly those outside of Europe, was
suspect. Further, historically, as Christianity became more powerful
throughout much of the early church history, anyone who challenged the
church in Europe was often vulnerable to losing his or her livelihood or
life.
In
addition to a food supply through exploitation and desire for wealth,
the diverse agricultural society began to build structures, buildings,
vehicles for travel (sea and land), and weapons systems to eventually
control more land and people of the world. Europeans thought of
themselves superior compared to others, under the circumstances, or
compared to those without these structures, weapons and Christianity.
For
centuries, the Catholic Church was ultimately the largest and most
powerful Christian entity in Europe. Ultimately, the formidable
aristocracy and the governments aligned themselves with the church as
well, of course - it was too dangerous not to do so. And through the
excessive violence of the Crusades (starting in 1096) and other
intimidating practices, the Catholic Church made sure it had an obedient
populace throughout its geographic area in Europe. But regardless of
whether it was the Catholic or ultimately the addition of the Protestant
church in Europe, the fundamentals of the faith were much the same.
Virtually all had belief in the selfsame God, Jesus, the gospels etc.,
in varying degrees, and they all seemingly agreed (outwardly at least)
that this was the ultimate truth. With their certainty of the truth,
Europeans then colonized most of the world along with their missionaries
as the shock troops.
A
different spirituality or religion other than Christianity was,
therefore, an excuse to exploit other cultures throughout the world.
This was, then, coupled with "people of color", other than those with
white skin, as another excuse to exploit. It was a deadly mixture -
Christianity plus racism. I define racism as follows: "Almost
everyone or every group discriminates in some way, however "racism"
is having the power to enforce your discriminatory attitudes or
beliefs". Europeans ultimately had the "power" to enforce their discriminatory beliefs and we still suffer from this.
Europeans in their arrogance even decided, as another excuse to exploit, that people other than themselves were not human or perhaps did not have souls.
Europeans in their arrogance even decided, as another excuse to exploit, that people other than themselves were not human or perhaps did not have souls.
British historian Michael Wood says it best. He
"asserts that the indigenous peoples were not considered to be human
beings and that the colonizers were shaped by 'centuries of
Ethnocentrism, and Christian monotheism, which espoused one truth, one
time and version of reality''" (Wikipedia).
This
"superior" attitude predominated as Europeans began to colonize and it
was around this time that racial differences became yet another tool for
exploitation to take other lands and control its people. In a review
of of Robert Sussman's "Myth of Race" (2014) the following is noted about the beginnings racial hierarchies:
These
hierarchies of racial inequality were created around the same time as
European exploration and colonisation was beginning. In the ensuing
five centuries, there has been a more sophisticated development of
notions of race that incorporate science, politics, religion and social
organisation to promote ruling regimes at the expense of the powerless
(Moses).
Concerning
ideas about those outside of Europe, it is best expressed by the Pope
himself. The first wave of European colonialism and empire building, in
fact, started in the early 15th century with the Portuguese conquest
of Cueta in 1415 and has been on-going ever since in varying degrees. Here's information about the Pope's comments in 1455:
Religious
zeal played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities.
While the Pope himself was a political power to be heeded (as evidenced
by his authority to decree whole continents open to colonization by
particular kings), the Church also sent missionaries to convert to the
Catholic faith the indigenous of other continents. Thus, the 1455 Papal
Bull Romanus Pontifex granted the Portuguese all lands behind Cape
Bojador and allowed them to reduce pagans and other enemies of Christ to
perpetual slavery (Wikipedia).
The above was the "Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V) on January 8, 1455. Here is some background:
The
kingdoms of Portugal and Castile had been jockeying for position and
possession of colonial territories along the African coast for more than
a century prior to Columbus' "discovery" of lands in the western seas.
On the theory that the Pope was an arbitrator between nations, each
kingdom had sought and obtained Papal bulls at various times to bolster
its claims, on the grounds that its activities served to spread
Christianity.
The bull Romanus Pontifex is an important example of the Papacy's claim to spiritual lordship of the whole world and of its role in regulating relations among Christian princes and between Christians and "unbelievers" ("heathens" and "infidels"). This bull became the basis for Portugal's later claim to lands in the "new world," a claim which was countered by Castile and the bull Inter caetera in 1493 (Native Web).
Essentially,
the Pope in 1455 gave his followers the message that anyone in the
world who didn't believe in Christ (the pagans) could be enslaved
forever. In fact, finally, it was in the 1990's that Pope John Paul II
apologized for much the Catholic Church had done for centuries including
its involvement in the African slave trade - see below a partial list
of the Pope's apologies in the 1990's.
Pope Paul II's apologies in 1990s and 2000s
Pope
Paul II officially made public apologies for over 100 of wrongdoings by
the Catholic Church, including (the dates are when he made the
apology). Below are some of these apologies:
*
The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo
Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).
* Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).
*
The Church's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that
followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).
*
The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's
rights and for the historical denigration of women (29 May 1995, in a
"letter to women").
* The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (16 March 1998)
*
For the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (18 December 1999 in Prague).
When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this
matter "to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus
among the Church's reformers, and acknowledged that "independently of
the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity
in his personal life and commitment to the nation's moral education."
It was another step in building a bridge between Catholics and
Protestants.
*
For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating "the
rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for
their cultures and religious traditions". (12 March 2000, during a
public Mass of Pardons).
*
For the actions of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204. To
the Patriarch of Constantinople he said "Some memories are especially
painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in
the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the
disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople, which was for so
long the bastion of Christianity in the East. It is tragic that the
assailants, who had set out to secure free access for Christians to the
Holy Land, turned against their own brothers in the faith. The fact
that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret. How
can we fail to see here the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the human
heart? ".
On
20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II
sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the
Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in
Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic missionaries in
colonial times.
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
-Pope John Paul II (Wikipedia)
Conclusion
As
the monotheistic concept spread to various parts of the world, the
west encountered hunter-gatherer societies that had, of course,
maintained their religious traditions as they had done for thousands
of years. The hunter-gatherers, then, were ultimately to come up
against aggressive and often arrogant Christians, who served the
interests of the colonizers, who undermined these traditional
societies, tried to control and, in many cases, destroy them
altogether. After all, the European elite sought land, natural resources
and labor for their own benefit.
It
was this background out of which white supremacist attitudes grew and
prevailed. Europeans thought they were superior because of the things
they made and the beliefs they decided were true compared to everyone
else. The Catholic church, among others, helped to mold this attitude.
The apologies from the Pope are certainly helpful and welcome, but we still suffer from the consequences of these church policies and attitudes that have in many instances become engrained in the western psyche.
The apologies from the Pope are certainly helpful and welcome, but we still suffer from the consequences of these church policies and attitudes that have in many instances become engrained in the western psyche.
Agriculture
and monotheism also radically changed our social relationships from
egalitarianism within our group, as hunter-gatherers, as well as between
women and men. It importantly, in the European model, led toward racial inequality and slavery and moved us further away from nature.
In
summary, the advent of agriculture was not about need or nutrition as
some might say, it was ultimately about wealth for the few. Regarding
the partnership between agriculture and monotheism, monotheism and/or
religion was used as a tool to control the masses and perhaps to offer
some comfort to those being exploited. Marx was right.
References
Armstrong, Karen A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, A Ballantine Book, (Random House) (1993)
Beckert, Sven Empire of Cotton: A Global History Borzoi Book (Alfred A Knopf) (2014)
Diamond, Jared
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies W.W. Norton & Company (2006)
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies? Viking (Penguin) (2012)\
Goodman, Lion "The Divine Masculine" Women Waking the Woirld (October 25, 2014)
Gray, Peter "How hunter-gatherers maintained their egalitarian ways" (Nov 2 2011)
Lorenz, David, The Role of the Christian Missionaries in Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart Seminar Paper, University of Stuttgart (May 2005)
Johnson, Theodore "Africans Have Apologized for Slavery, So Why Won't the US?" The Root
(June 2014)
Luthuli, Albert Let My People Go: The Autobiography of Albert Luthuli Tafleberg Publishers and Mafube Publishing (2006)
Manning, Richard Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization, North Print Press (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux) (2004)
Smithers, Stuart "The Spiritual Crisis of Capitalism: What would the Buddha do?" Adbusters (29 June 2012)
Sussman, Robert Wald The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea
President and Fellows of Harvard College (2014)
Wells, Spencer The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey Penguin, UK; Princeton University Press and Random House, US (2002)
White, Matthew Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History W.W. Norton & Company (2011)
Heather
Gray is a writer and radio producer in Atlanta, Georgia and has also
lived in Canada, Australia, Singapore, briefly in the Philippines and
has traveled in southern Africa. She served as the director of the
Non-Violent Program for Coretta Scott King in the mid-1980's in Atlanta;
and for 24 years worked with the Federation of Southern
Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund focusing on Black farmer issues and
cooperative economic development. She holds degrees in anthropology and
sociology.
