Plagues, floods and famines often play a central role in religious stories. Research suggests they may have also helped start the belief in some gods in the first place.
A study of 583 religious societies says that humans are more likely to believe in powerful and judgemental gods during times of hardship and extremes of weather, and it could help to shed light on how religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam first emerged.
It suggests that believing in a high god, where followers are required to live by certain moral rules, helped to unite communities in harsh environments and when food was scarce.
North Carolina State University biologist Carlos Botero, who led the work, said the harsher the conditions, the more likely was belief in a powerful deity.
“Environmental duress and environmental uncertainty can make life very difficult and there is pretty good evidence that these conditions tend to promote sociality in non-human animals, because group living can help individuals thrive when conditions are good and survive when they suddenly turn bad,” Botero said. “We believe that similar reasons may explain the links between this particular aspect of religious beliefs and resource scarcity or environmental uncertainty. Among humans, there is also good evidence that religious beliefs may help shape social behavior by, for example, promoting cooperation, fairness and honesty.”
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used historical, social and ecological data from 1900 to 1960 for 583 traditional societies with religious beliefs, including common religions like Christianity and Islam, along with rarer religions such as Zahv, the belief system of the Akha people in Southeast Asia.
The researchers used detailed climate, rainfall and plant growth data for each area to build up a picture of how religious belief compared with the ecological conditions each society was living in. Overall, they found that belief structures were driven by a complex combination of social, ecological and historical factors.
The emergence of religion has long been explained as a result of either culture or environmental factors, but not both. However, the researchers found that food scarcity and climate instability were particularly strongly associated with belief in high gods that enforced a moral code. This might help to explain why religions such as Christianity and Islam emerged in parts of the world that have suffered extreme climatic changes and where famine was rife.
Some academics have claimed that dramatic changes in the climate in about 535 AD have been linked to the rise of Islam and its expansion around the world.
The researchers behind the latest study warn against oversimplifying the spread of religions and said they hope to investigate how trade, conquest and spread of language also played a role.
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