Religion as a System of Control
As humans made the transition from a mobile hunting and gathering life way to a more sedentary and permanent agriculturalist one, the life of the average human was allowed to become more complex. In this complexity came the early understanding of life and death. To deal with this mystery and the other mysteries inherent in a more complex life, humans created religion. From the earliest burial sites, religion progressed to contain multiple deities, in innumerous forms all over the world. There are a few common characteristics among them that have helped researchers to understand this abstract and evolving system of beliefs. In this understanding it can become evident that this system of beliefs did not simply function as fun things to do on the weekend, but rather that the beliefs, precedence and rituals functioned as strong social and political controlling devices, often used by the people with the most religious influence to non-religious ends. To understand how religion could function as a social controller it is necessary to look at the most basic components of most major religions. One fundamental aspect of religion is the belief in spirits. A spirit is defined as a conscious, anth
Utilized in most religions are symbols. This helped to set a precedence of social behavior, and a personal connection to the deities, making the average person more involved in religion and thus more susceptible to its influence. The ancient Egyptian, through the influence of different creation myths, thought of the world as a flat disk with the plains of Egypt at the center and the mountainous areas surrounding to support the disk (Ancient). Leadership was not determined by skill or proficiency, but rather by whom one's parents were. Unification and Justification of effort are perhaps the two most important rewards of religious participation. Participation in many of the rituals was considered to be a great honor, and thus the proctor of such rituals would be highly regarded in that society. The religious systems that were present in the more numerous and earlier smaller kingdoms, were eventually combined and as they were combined the aspects of one of the religions would change the aspects of another religion, and so a common religion was born from many polytheistic tribes. This development was a mixed blessing, for with the control of religion came the control of a great number of people, by no more than heritage. These symbols are references that are used to speak of the abstract ideas of a religion in the common terms of the people. Logically, the Egyptian people employed rituals and symbols to keep Osiris happy, and thus keep food plentiful. Through the establishment of a central ruling figure, usually associated, if not descended from, gods, the population is given a person to rally behind. However, it is also said that some of the most important deities were found in small, remote cities that had little political influence. This person stands for the religion as well as the state.
Common topics in this essay:
System Control,
Unification Justification,
Egypt Worlds,
Stone Age,
Religion Groupthink,
Logically Egyptian,
Ancient Egypt,
Ra Osiris,
Gadalla Despite,
ancient egypt,
religion ancient,
religion ancient egypt,
aspect religion,
influence religion,
political system,
sense community,
religion common,
ideas religion,
system beliefs,
cycles life,
|
Acceptance Essays
