War and the Origin of Religion

Nowadays there is certainly a connection between war and religion. Some religions have an antipathy toward war, especially, SGI Buddhism. Buddhism in general was a revolution against war. SGI Buddhism has carried the torch, with SGI President Ikeda taking a strong stand against war and against nuclear weapons. The two earlier presidents of SGI Buddhism were imprisoned by the Japanese government during the world war of the 1940’s, largely for their opposition to war. The first one died there.

Other religions have opposed war. One newer religion, the Quakers, take a strong stand against it. This was possibly one of the reasons they were persecuted, and came to settle in America. Other smaller religions have opposed war, and usually suffered for those beliefs. Buddhism became almost extinct in its home country because it opposed Hindu traditions, including the division of society into classes such as the Vashtriya, the warrior class.

Most other religions do the bidding of the ruling powers and support war. This is by far the majority approach. Earlier history has religion being the cause of war, for example, the Crusades, and the Islamic push to conquer the world for Islam, when battles extended from Spain through North Africa and South Asia to Indonesia. In particular, it was those religions that promised heaven that have amassed the most soldiers and spent them in battles. Hindu, the mother of all religions, stressed over all things dharma, the duty that one’s position dictates to an individual. The warriors’ caste had the dharma to defend their own nation and occasionally attack other nations. As an exception, the Mongols, who founded the continguous largest empire in history, were religiously tolerant. Genghis Khan had advisors from many different religious groups. But their warlike abilities may have originated from something other than the heaven-promise, or dharma, simply culture. Culture is another way of saying that they had an implicit dharma, or alternatively, that their cultural idols were all brave warriors.

Exceptions aside, the question here is “Did the demand for warriors lead to the foundation of religions?” Of course, any massive institution of society does not arise from a single reason, but rather the confluence of many forces leading to its origin and sharing its evolution. War and religion, two of the most massive institutions in the history of world religion, certainly had many connections. But what came first, and gave rise, perhaps only partially, to the other?

This question is a bit ill-framed. Exactly what is a religion, and how do you know one when you stumble over it? Anyone accepted as an influential person in a tribe or early society had some explanation of why the sun rose and why rain washed away crops this year. The reason could be anything, of course, as these things can hardly be affected. Teaching people a fallible way to encourage it, i.e., some invented god to propitiate, with sacrifices or ceremonies, would tend to keep such an influential person in power. If the desired event fails to materialize, the ceremony itself can be blamed. Or the indifference of the god can be tagged as the cause. This seems to be a feedback loop whereby the influential person can demand more sacrifices or whatever to try again.
On top of this interaction with natural forces comes the interaction with other tribes. Stealing is one way of gaining resources, and maybe more efficient in some situations than hunting or agriculture. Armed robbery, which is what early military adventures were, is an advanced method of stealing. So, as raiding became established, warriors were needed, and some influential person somewhere came up with the idea of an afterlife. Maybe it was built on an invention for the consolation of grieving relatives when someone passed away. By claiming they were simply transferred to some other place or body (heaven or reincarnation), the relatives wouldn’t grieve so long. The big invention in social con-games was the inclusion of a promise of an improved afterlife (better position in heaven or a better social standing next time around).

This is, of course, all speculation, and like much intellectual speculation, it sounds like it might be true. It is going to take a lot of more investigation to figure out if there is any merit in it.