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Discussion/QuestionHas There Ever Been a Non-Religious Civilization? (self.history)

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[–]heateanapple[S] [スコア非表示]  (6子コメント)

Exactly, that's what I have been thinking as well. I think if we view humanity as a form of development, including the extension of societal development (I'm not using progression), then religion undoubtedly was a unifying factor, of which I think was necessary in the formulation of any civilizations. I asked this identical question on /r/askhistorians before it was removed and one person commented that before the introduction of Buddhism, China was non-religious, except for Confucius; however Confucianism was never institutionalized. As it stands, that is the only civilization I have been presented with that was non-religious, in the beginning.

[–]RickRickers [スコア非表示]  (4子コメント)

That is not true, China had a rich religious tradition prior to Buddhism. I don't know who said that to you but they were very wrong, I would be happy to point you to some scholarship which can confirm this. Confucianism WAS institutional, but it was NOT a religion until the rise of tripartite chinese buddhism in the 11th century. While all of these people are going to claim they have found a point in time in which a country lacked religious guidance or power, no civilization lacks or rejects religion. Some people, forces, groups and eventually even the whole society might, but in its origin and at it's core, none have.

[–]randomcoincidences [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

You're also making the same false assumption as everyone else in this thread saying no civilization has existed without religion.

While technically true, that doesn't mean no great civilizations existed prior to their major religions being founded - if you tried to make that statement, you'd just be an ass. The very fact that a religion could even be institutionalized on a national scale would require pre-existing civil structure

[–]RickRickers [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

The fact that it is technically true means I am not making a false assumption. And this isn't something I am pulling out of my ass, religion isn't organized religion, it is religious impulse, I believe that is older than society, and is in fact the basis for society. I never said anything about 'major religions' and the fact that you default to that leads me to believe you haven't done much research on the history of religions. Find me an ancient culture which began atheistic, there are none, they may have lacked their tell-tale modern organized religions, but in the tribes they built, where their societies emerged from, religious practice was the institution. (I see what you're saying, but it presupposes your definition of Religion, that isn't the way religion was. All cultures can find the remnants of pre-modern religious practices in their past, and it is often these practices which form the basis of the culture itself. I have never seen, in ten years of undergrad and graduate-doctoral work in the field of comparative religion and philosophy, a culture which at its inception was not devoutly religious. )

[–]randomcoincidences [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

No my point was more that if you're going be strictly technical - as in, what came first, your point isn't going to stand. Your point is only true in the sense that in every great civilization, religion was also there at its height. But if you're just going for "technically true" as to which came first

Well, civilization did. Every single time.

We developed civilization before we started caring about burials which is the first evidence we have of 'religion' developing anywhere; this is your chosen field of work so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Food and duty outranked worrying about abstract thoughts like religion.

If you want to make the argument that most of the greater ancient civilizations would not have progressed nearly so far without religion than I'd be more inclined to agree.

The idea that we started developing abstract ideas about Gods before things like hunting/gathering/shelter and shelter is ridiculous. We're naturally inclined to shape the world to our liking; it's in our nature to create things to make life easier and solve our most basic problems. We wouldn't have developed our first primitive tool without this basic drive. Civilization does not require religion in any way; it requires only that on average everyone will be better off.

[–]RickRickers [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Again you're making a lot of arbitrary assumptions about ancient peoples, the first being that they were capable of doing one thing at a time. When you go to work, I am assuming you work, do you focus on nothing mentally but your work? Of course not.

Ancient peoples were peoples, it's silly to try and stagger development like you are doing 'Oh well it makes sense that-' to who? You? Hunting, gathering and shelter-shelter are clearly the beginnings of society, they are also inseparable from early religious myth, myth and society emerge simultaneously, what is a King? An arbitrary ruler, filling in for what? I am confused by your whole comment, which came 'first.' First of all, neither, second of all if one did, you would not be the person to provide me the archeological evidence to confirm this, you understand that right?

Incidentally, burial is one of the first things we did, hunter gatherers preformed burials as long as we have our tenuous records for them, you're trying to create a timeline out of thin air and separate two concepts that at the time, were identical.

[–]QuouarQuite the arrogant one. [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

A religion doesn't have to be institutionalised to be a system of faith. While there's heavy, heavy debate about how to define religion, no scholar will tell you that it must have a clergy and temples and institutions and so on. That's simply not part of what all religions are.

Beyond that, China definitely had belief structures prior to Confucianism. There is a long, long history of Chinese traditional beliefs that are probably as old as Chinese identity itself.