How religion improves civilization through progressive revelation.

I wrote this today as a response to a question on the forum Quora (www.quora.com).  The question was: "Would big societies be able to exist without people believing in religions?"  Some people said "yes" and went on to tell about all the bad things that they find to be associated with religion.  I can see their points, but I still maintain that when a religion has become strongly established in a culture, it becomes polluted by politics, and other human frailties and so loses much of its true worth.  This was my response, for what it's worth:

I read a study a few years ago (and I apologize for not having the reference) that gave evidence that in primitive societies religion was a needed cohesive influence for cooperation and prevention of conflict in groups of more than about 20 to 30 individuals.  Most religions provide:

1) A common commitment to a set of values which prevent the strong and/or greedy from destroying the life of kinder and/or weaker people and regulate how common resources are to be used.

2) Shared rights, celebrations, rituals, symbols etc. which provide a sense of community.

3) A sense that there is a higher power (god or gods) which has authority to make laws and demand sacrifices. (Such laws and sacrifices being for the common good as much as to please the higher power.)

Consider the 10 commandments:

The first 4 (No other gods, No graven images (i.e., objects to worship), Don't take the Lord's name in vain, and Remember the sabbath and keep it holy) have the purpose of establishing loyalty, reverence, and a community activity which leads to the unity and agreement of the religious community.

The other six are laws which are important to establishing cooperation, trust, and justice.  Basically, they are necessary in order to develop  those institutions (like commerce, supportive families, specialized tradespeople, etc.) that we take for granted in our present society.

If you look at experiments in game theory, (like "the prisoners' dilemma") you see that unless there is a consensus that people cooperate, it is often to an individual's advantage to be greedy or self-serving.  However, if there is a consensus to cooperate and follow certain rules of behavior, then every one benefits and most every person in that society has a much better quality of life than even the strongest most ruthless self-server in a non-consensual "society".

The pioneers of new religions, those who sacrifice self-interest in order to follow a higher level of rules for cooperative behavior, despite the fact that the rest of society opposes them, are the ones who eventually bring about that higher level of cooperation and therefore general prosperity for the rest of the population.  Eventually, most of the population is following these rules and agrees that they are "just common sense if you want to live in a decent  civilization."  Whether or not the believe in the deity or the religion, they are following consensual, society-and-individual-strengthening behaviors which were originally brought into common practice by religion.
The problem we see now are partly due to there being such a huge human population on the earth. In the competition for resources, including human resources, the various religious groups, while somewhat internally cohesive, are at odds with each other.  Meanwhile, advances in science have brought us powerful technologies which can be developed and used either for the improvement of life, or for its degradation and destruction.  Unless all the nations, cultures, races and religions can learn to cooperate, the conflicts will continue to the point of a world wide disaster which could make the world wars look like a football match in comparison.
I believe that, once again, the bar for cooperative behavior is being raised by an emerging religion, and that many of its principles (like equality of the sexes and of all races, elimination of prejudice, and universal education) are becoming accepted as the norm by civilized people everywhere.

The Source Of All Good (Words of Wisdom 1}

In the book “Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh” there is a Tablet entitled “Words of Wisdom”. This tablet consists mainly of [what I see as] definitions of certain words that often appear in scripture. I have been studying this tablet, and would like to share some of the ideas that have occurred to me regarding various passages therein. As always, these are only my personal opinions, and you are invited to share your own insights.

The first “definition” reads, “The source of all good is trust in God, submission unto His command, and contentment with His holy will and pleasure.” When I read this to a dear Christian friend of mine, he responded saying, “The source of all good is God!” In the way he said it, it seemed he saw his point as a refutation of the passage from the tablet. Any Bahá’í, indeed most any monotheist, would agree that God is the ultimate source of all good and of all the virtues. So what might this passage be saying?

In the context of this passage, I see that God, in His Bounty and Grace, showers His good (or goodness) upon us all, but we have to be willing to receive it. After all, the veils that shut us out from God are in front of each of our eyes, and we pray (in the Long Obligatory Prayer) “... make of my prayer a fire that will burn away the veils which have shut me out from Thy Beauty...” So, God tells us in this passage what we have to do and how we should be in order to receive His goodness:

We must trust in God. In this earthly life, there are many things that we tend to put our trust in: our parents, our school teachers, our government, our instincts, strategies and responses that have “worked” for us in the past, etc. What God asks of us can be counter to popular advice or what we would otherwise trust. “Love your enemies.” “Read the Divine Verses every morn and eve.” If we trust God, we not only follow His commandments, but we turn to Him for strength, for guidance, and to define the very purpose of our lives.
We must live and act in submission unto His command. God is the source of all good, but we are only good insofar as we follow His command. I believe that we should actively seek to better understand His command, and that we should embrace that command whatever it is, whatever apparent hardships may come from it.
We must find contentment with His holy will and pleasure. Everything that comes to us in our lives, I believe, can serve to teach us. I also am of the opinion that whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, it is God’s will and pleasure that we be in that situation. This point has seen much debate, but my feeling is that if we are sufficiently awake, present, and mindful we will be content that the circumstances we find ourselves in accord with God’s will. Then we can let go of our fear and resentment (or our pleasure and vanity) and follow the promptings of our higher, spiritual nature (see 1 and 2 above). Being content does not imply that we do not feel any impetus to change our circumstances. Rather, it means that we can see our circumstances with sufficient detachment to allow us to effect positive change while trusting in God and being submissive to His command.