What is the difference between Religion and religion?

Greetings, and welcome back to another adventure in Dr. Pearl's brain (Hmmm, I think I will change my blog title...).

As always, religion is one of my favorite topics. Last week we covered religion in my Anthropology 210 course (Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology) and student questions prompted me to reflect on a few of the concepts that I usually teach each semester. In the following essay I expand a little on my thoughts.

I am somewhat of an old fashioned cultural ecologist. I look at humans as organisms part of a world ecosystem; complete with competitors, multiple habits, resources, etc. Culture I see as an adaptive tool, helping members of our species adapt the multitude of situations they find themselves in around the world. Every cultural aspect in our world has some sort of functional purpose (functionalism), yet the most important 'function', if you will, is reproduction. If some aspect of culture hurts your chance of reproduction, chances are that you wont believe much in that part of your culture, and it may in fact disappear over time, depending on whether it affects other people the same way. But, realistically, we can say that reproduction is made possible by so many other things, such as food security, partnerships, economic success, and the success of the social institutions in the societies in which we live.

When I look at the numbers surrounding religion, my first assessment is that religion must be immensely valuable to the human species. The vast majority of people on this planet, now pushing 6 billion, have a religious belief system of some kind, and the large majority of them are also members of a formally organized religion of some sort. Ten thousand yeas ago this probably wasn't the case: though I have no doubt that virtually everyone then had "religion", formally organized religion may not yet have been invented. We don't really know, but its an excellent topic for archaeological inquiry. Yet its only in the last 1000 years that its become a global phenomenon. The numbers alone tell me that this isn't something to be taken lightly. There is something incredibly adaptive about religion, but what is it?

What is Religion?

Defining "religion" might be a topic of philosophical discussion to some, but for anthropologists its a key part of their work. Problematically, Anthropologists have offered up hundreds of definitions of religion in their books, lectures, and papers. Indeed, I could offer one of my own right here. However, I don't see how that will help the situation. Rather, I'd prefer to focus on meaning. Definitions don't determine meaning; rather, that are attempts to capture meaning in a concise statement.
Unfortunately, in English, the term religion means a number of different, albeit related concepts. First, there is religion:

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

 This is what we think of as religious belief, or religious ideology. When using religion in this context the term reflects the personal belief systems of one or more people. But then consider religion:

a social institution, the premise of which is a fundamental set of beliefs and practices, but that also includes mechanisms for social and political organization.

This second concept can be thought of as a religion, or organized religion. Of course, the term religion is also sometimes used memetaphorically to refer to something that someone is extremely dedicated to (like archaeology, Apple computers, or Star Trek), but let me come back to that.

Though they are related, the two concepts above are quite different. The first is an aspect of the individual, whereas the second is an aspect of society.

Religious belief is such a ubiquitous phenomenon that it is commonly accepted by anthropologists as a "cultural universal", something that exists in all cultures. Previous generations of anthropologists sometimes referred to the belief aspect of religion as "Magical Thinking" to differentiate it from organized religion. Regardless of whether you call it religion, magical thinking, superstition, or just a belief in the unknown, virtually every person on earth expresses some level of this phenomenon. Contrary to popular opinion, the level of belief in religion or magic has nothing to do with education or technical ability, rather, its almost entirely correlated anxiety and uncertainty of outcomes (See Homans 1941 or Gmelch 1971).

Where do Atheists fit in? Atheists are literally those without a belief in gods. The term is generally understood as those without any religious beliefs, or conversely, to refer to people who believe that religious beliefs are false, or nonsensical. I will, for the sake of the argument, stipulate that they do not have religious beliefs (even though many probably do). By one estimate, self-proclaimed atheists make up slightly less than 2.5% of the world's population. There are no atheist societies, unless you want to define culture liberally as any shared set of beliefs (The American Society of Atheists). Principally, we are talking about atheist individuals; that is, people without religion in the first sense. Even members of the ASA are also members of a larger society that, no doubt, has many religious institutions (religion in the second sense). Consequently, atheism has no bearing on our discussion at all, other than to say in any given place there may be some individuals who profess atheism. Atheism, by definition, is not a religious belief system, but is it possible that groups like the ASA are religious institutions? Unfortunately no; that would be a complete misunderstanding of other religious insitutions, and also of atheists themselves.

Religious institutions provide many social functions: leadership, organization, social welfare, education, solidarity and support systems, etc. They provide a social infrastructure for the perpetuation of these other social institutions and there is good historical reason to believe that organized religion has been a major factor in the growth and evolution of society in general. However, religion does not have a monopoly on any of these facets. Secular social institutions can accomplish most of these functions well enough. By and large, historically speaking, in the last 1000 years religious social institutions have dominated similar secular systems in popularity and success.

Why is this the case? Our human capacity for religion is a powerful adaptation. It doesn't take much effort to see that ideology is a powerful motivator and a major component for cultural solidarity. Unlike strictly political institutions, religious belief systems transcend national boundaries. And whereas religious institutions compete with secular institutions to provide the same social functions, as secular institutions grow in scale they seem to have difficulty maintaining social momentum, possibly due to a lack of ideological fervor. The success of organized religion in promulgating around the world, til upwards of 85% of its population claims to be part of an organized religion is unprecedented (especially considering that 10,000 years ago possibly 0% of the worlds population was involved in organized religion). It adequateness as a social and political instrument is undeniable.

I dont have an answer for the questions I've raised here. However, I do believe that the distinction between religion (with a small 'r') and Religion (with a big 'R') is critical to achieving the answer. The former has probably been around for at least 30,000 as a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon, whereas the latter is a recent human invention. Forget the wheel and fire;  Religion has turned out to perhaps be the most significant invention in human history.

The mythology of Roman religion

Even though one of my favorite shows of the last few years is Spartacus, I don't mistake it for historical fiction. The Romans of pop-culture, whether it's Spartacus or some other pop-manifestation are nearly always characterized an an oversexed population where the main form of social organization is structured authoritarianism, and the main vehicle of leadership is fear and coercion. Family values (as we think of them) are virtually unknown, and religion plays almost no role other than to provide epithets.

It's going to take a book or two for me to address these issues, so let me get straight to whats on my mind today: misbelief about Roman religion. Here are some major myths about Roman religion:

• It was a religion without dogma;
• It was without teachers and teachings;
• It was uncreative or unoriginal, or that the Romans were uncreative or unoriginal in adopting Greek gods;
• Romans were dispassionate about religion;
• Romans were not particularly dedicated to their beliefs, as evidenced by their adopting of Greek gods and later conversion to Christianity.

These myths are untrue, absolutely. They have been perpetuated in our culture through books, theatre, movies, traditions, etc., which is no doubt the result of western civilization having strong Judeo-Christian roots. Modern pop culture has taken it a step further and portrayed Roman civic life as highly immoral, especially where it comes to human sexuality and respect for the dignity of others.

Religion permeated all aspects of Roman life, from civic to private. Each household had gods, and there was an official organized state religion. Even in the Republican and Imperial periods, where there was a strict belief in the separation of church and state, senators considered augury and divination, both central to Roman religion, were crucial elements of the republic. The belief in gods was a ubiquitous phenomena that even the most stoic philosophers took for granted.

However, the mythologies of the gods -- their fantastic stories, loves, rages, jealousies, and sometimes pettiness, were broadly considered by the well-educated civic populations to be artistic creations of the poets (Virgil, Ovid, and Homer for example), and lead to "superstitious" beliefs and practices.

The Roman elite, including the Roman religious officials, considered superstition to be a dangerous force. They would apply this rationale equally to someone blaming Zeus for throwing a lightning bolt at their house as someone claiming to be a god or demigod, which was the case when the Christians arrived on the scene (or in this case, they knew someone who knew someone who was the son of God).

To call the Romans "unimaginative" because they adopted the Greek mythologies as their own is to misunderstand how religions evolve over time, and the role that mythologies play in religion. All religions have mythologies that reinforce the principles of the religion and the world view or the culture. Roman belief systems were a synchretic blend of Hellenistic beliefs and other pre-existing belief systems on the Italian peninsula. A careful examination of Roman mythologies reveals it is extraordinarily different from Greek mythology. Indeed, one can argue that if it weren't for the fact that the early Italian civilizations found parallels to their indigenous gods in the Hellenistic ones that Greek stories may never have become associated with the later Roman empire.

The Romans had no doubt that the gods existed, but they argued widely about the nature of the gods. Some argued that the gods were manifestations of virtues, others that they were ethereal beings without interest in earthly affairs. Others even that they were human creations overlaying a cosmic reality of some divine power.

In any case, it was considered a major civic and individual obligation to show respect for the divine.  It was widely believed that to neglect religious obligations could result in the collapse of society. It's not a coincidence that Roman archaeological collections are literally filled with artwork commemorating the divine, and that public temples are one of the most enduring of the empire's archaeological survivors. It is not a coincidence that the highest ranking citizens in Roman life were leaders of the church (the emperor himself was considered the highest ranking religious official, much like how in the United States the president is considered the highest ranking military official.).

Perhaps the most important of all rituals was the maintenance of the eternal flame in Rome. This was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins. Tradition had it that this was, in fact, the ritual of all rituals -- that if the flame was not maintained and annually renewed, that Rome would cease to exist as they knew it.

Extinguishing that flame, and keeping it out, was one of the most important acts of the Christian emperors.

Suggested Reading: Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods (De Natura Deorum), published in 43 BC. He outlines the major religious schools of thought, but doesn't go into the ritual aspects of religious belief.