Origins of religions

PSYCHOANALYSIS OF RELIGION:

This has to do with that thing in the human mind or brain that influences our religious thinking and belief. (Atkinson, 1990). Psychoanalysis openly exposes those things in the human mind, heart and brain that makes us either religious, consciously immoral from a subconscious mentality ratio.

The following are factors that influence our religious zeal:

• 
  Age: Age plays an important role or factor in one’s religious life, since it has been scientifically proven that as one grows old, his zeal or desire to worship or to be religious depreciates; but his fears of the unknown (i.e. his destination at death) still fuels that religiosity. All these which are psycho-biological. (Jackson Smith; 1962).
  
• 
  Physical Accidents: Accidents also play a vital role in one’s religious life and spiritual activities particularly if one gets involved in an accident, that accident can affect some vital or important areas of the human brain which may either make him more religious or even reduce his religiosity.
  
• 
  One’s Experience in Life: Our individual experiences in life can make us to be zealous in religion and unconsciously religious. This can happen when we see or face challenges in life. We may end up concluding that God does not care or have our good at heart. This can make us loose our religious drive.
  

PSYCHOLOGISTS WHO WORKED ON THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF RELIGION

1. 
   William James: An American psychologist born in 1842 in New York city, USA. He served as the president of the American Psychological Association and he wrote one of the first textbooks on the principles or basis of modern psychology.
   

James worked on institutional and personal religion.

Institutional Religion: This is a kind of religion in which systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established. This type of religion is typically characterized by an official doctrine.

Personal Religion: This is a kind of religion in which an individual has mystical experience and this can be experienced regardless of one’s culture or origin. (See Rudolf Otho, on the idea of the Holy).

In studying personal religion, James made a distinction between healthy-minded individual and sick-souled individuals. He found out that the healthy individual tend to ignore the evil that is going on in the world.

The sick individuals were unable to ignore evil and suffering, thus they needed a unifying experience, be it religion or otherwise, to reconcile good and evil, and for spiritual and emotional psychological supports.

What William James intended was that human problem draw people to God. However, when individuals live in affluence and healthiness, they often care less about religion.

2. 
   Kenneth Pargament:: (born November 1950 in Washington DC) he is a psychologist who studied various relationships between religion, psychological well-being and stress, including other closely related subjects.
   

One of Pargament’s best known areas of research (which he used in analyzing the topic “Psychoanalysis of Religion) is called the “RCOPE” which involves drawing on religious beliefs and practices to understand and deal with life stressors.

He also came up with three methods of coping that are known as:

1. 
   Deferring Style
   
2. 
   Self-Directing Style
   
3. 
   Collaborative Style
   

• 
  The deferring style involves delegating all problems- solving to God.
  
• 
  The self-directing style is implemented when the individual chooses to utilize the problem-solving power God has given him.
  
• 
  The collaborative style is implemented when the individual treats God as a team-mate in the problem solving process. The collaborative style turned out to be the most effective because it correlates with the increased self-esteem lower levels of depression.
  

3. 
   Alfred Adler (1870): An Australian psychiatrist and psychologist. He emphasized that man has this inferiority complex which makes him (man) feel that he needs perfection to go close to God. So our ideas about God are imports of how we view the world and religion at large.
   
4. 
   Erich Fromm: (born March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt Germany). He modified the Freudian theory and produced a more complex account of religion. Insecurities and lack of protection draw people to religion. Since they feel that only religion can provide answers to life. Hence, what is the essence of life? Is there any hope for those who have died?
   
5. 
   Erik Erikson: (born in 1920). He is best known for his theory of psychological development which has its roots in the psychoanalytic import in personality. His bio graphics of Ghandi and Martin Lather King, revealed Erikson’s positive view of religion.
   
6. 
   Sigmund Freud: (born in 1856). He gave explanations of the genesis of religion in his various writings on totems and taboos. Freud views the idea of God as being a version of the father, then the religion as the infant.
   
7. 
   Carl Jung: (born in the year 1875). Jung adopted a very different posture, one that was more sympathetic to religion and more concerned with a positive appreciation of religion. What Carl is trying to say is that the question about the existence of God should be directed to religious leaders not psychologists.
   

WRITERS ON AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION

(i.e. Is African Traditional Religion One or Many) (cited Traditional African Religion Writers: NET, 2015)

1. 
   JOHN MBITI (1990:1-3): Mbiti believes that it should be religions. He argues that ATR does not have one origin or one historic event that the benefit among the different communities differs greatly.
   
2. 
   ELIJAH IDOWU (1975: 103-104):Idowu argues the singular use because of the common racial origin of Africans, and the similarities of the culture and religious beliefs, since the real cohesive factor in religion in Africa, is the living God.
   
3. 
   J.O AWOLALU (1975): He speaks of religion in singular terms. We are unconscious of the fact that Africa is a large continent with multitudes of nations who have a complex culture, but in spite of their differences, have a basic similarity in their religious systems everywhere there is a concept of God.
   
4. 
   R.S. RATTRAY (1927): Fetishes may form part of an emblem of gods and are so regarded by the Ashanti (in Ghana). The most important spirit came directly or indirectly from Nyame, the supreme God.
   
5. 
   E.G. PARRINDER (1954): In West Africa “men believe in great pantheons of gods which are so diverse as the gods of the Hindus”.
   
6. 
   FATHER SCHMIDT (1973, p 38): The belief in, and worship of one supreme deity is universal among all primitive peoples. The high God is found among them all, not indeed everywhere in the same form or with the same vigor, but still everywhere prominent enough to make his position dominant. Inevitably, it is by no means a late development traceable to Christian missionary influences.
   
7. 
   CHRISTOPHER .I. AJIZU: He compounded the emergent key issues in the study of African Traditional Religion. He began with brief references in travelogues of early explorers, pioneer, Arab travelers and traders to the continent like Ibn Battuda.
   
8. 
   NINA SMARTS: He says that African Traditional Religion “has never been a single system based on the fact that Africa has a diverse culture and traditions, and in spite all these, they have different names they call God”.
   
9. 
   M.Y NABOFA (Symbolism in African Traditional Religion) (1996): that different liturgical objects in African cultic worship symbolize multiplicity of spiritual forces.
   
10. 
    LAURENTI MAGESA (1997: 16 & 17): The varieties in African Religions must not be taken to mean a diversity of fundamental beliefs. The varieties among those of expressions and basic beliefs, imply they might be referred to by different names.
    
11. 
    H. SHORTER (1975): Shorter believes that we speak of African Religion in singular because of the basic unity of African Religious system exemplified in cultural diversities, in a separate and self contained system. They interact with one another and influence each other to different degrees.
    
12. 
    NNAJI OGUNDU (2015 African Ontonomics): That Africans do not argue the existence of God and gods, rather it is a foregone conclusion in African belief system that God and gods exist within different local African pantheons, whose primary functions borders on their natures, structures, efficacies, functions and hierarchies (Ogugua P, Editor, 2015) Nnamdi Azikiwe Journal of Philosophy, pp 24-29etc
    

	African Traditional Religion in Different Countries in Africa	Names of the Lesser gods	Description/Rule Over
	The Lugbara of Zaire and Uganda	Adroa	“God in the sky”, “God on Earth”.
	The Tukana of Kenya	Akuji	Rules over divinations
	The Ibo of Nigeria	Ala, Ale, Ane	Extremely popular goddess and earth mother
	The Temme	Anayaroli	River demon
	Akamba of Kenya	Asa	Rules over mercy, help, solving the impossible
	The Ashanti of West Africa	Asase	Goddess of creation of humans and receiver of them at death.
	South central Africa among the bushmen	Cagn	Receiver at death
	Mulengi, Mwenco, Wamtakuya, Tumbaka	Chiula	Creator of God, Rain God
	Masai	En-kai	Sky god
	Guinea	Famian	Protection, health, fertility
	The fon of West Africa	Gu	Rules over war, smith

(NET, 2015)
DEATH OF GOD PHILOSOPHERS

1. 
   NIETZSCHE (1844-1900): The son of a Lutheran pastor was the first philosopher to come up with the idea that God is dead. Unlike Sartre who tried to prove the non-existence of God, Nietzsche does not try to prove that God does not exist, he simply tells us that God is dead (i.e. the Christological death) and he speaks about the death of God in dramatic and historical events in his “Thus spoke Zarathustra”.
   

This death of God philosophy seemed to point at the death of God (i.e. morality in people’s minds, hence, if God dies, man will be free from moral laws and free to plunge into developmental and scientific enterprise with no moral inhibitors.

The death of God according to Nietzsche, means man’s liberation from God who was an obstacle to man’s progress, but now that he is dead, man is liberated.

Now, however, thus God has died! You higher men, this God was your greatest danger. Only since he lay in the grave have you again arisen.

Men should therefore rejoice and take heart, for God the enemy of human development is dead. When the mad man who was looking for God heard that God had died he threw his lantern on the ground and broke it in pieces. Then he went to different churches.

In Nietzsche’s mind, the consequences of the death of God are two fold: there are the positive as well as the negative consequences. On the positive side, the death of God is a good thing because man’s progress was impeded by imposed slave morality (i.e. Christian morality) on man, to prevent man from developing. The slave morality was the means with which God, obstructed man’s development and instincts. His death is therefore good news for mankind for it meant man’s liberation, who is now free from the slave morality. He can now develop into a superman. The slave morality can now be rejected and replaced with the master morality. On the negative side, however, the death of God is tragedy to mankind because it has left a vacuum in man’s being.

2. 
   A.T. ROBINSON): Following Rudolf Bultmann’s program of demythologization of Christianity, he set out in his famous book, “Honest to God” to deny and theologize the concept of God by divesting it of anthropomorphism.
   

The traditional idea of “God up there” he says, is now outdated. God is not up there in the sky, nor is He here in the world. God is not external to man, for He is the way and depth of our being.

Demythologization or Substance theory in Religion: To demythologize means to remove all cleverly invented (Sophis) Stories 2 Peter 1:16) in a belief system, in order to present real and verifiable historical facts in such a system. The following are substance theorists.

3. 
   HARVEY COX: Another prominent secularization theologian used the term, “God is outdated”, for it is part of the mystical metaphysical language of the past, and since God is dead, there is no need for a new term to replace it.
   

Thus, the death of God theology was only a step forward from the position of the theology of secularization from the middle ages when God dominated the lives of men.

But we are now in a secular city having outgrown the religious age, the contemporary society is a secular city, and in it is God is no longer alive in the heart of men, nor does he control their lives anymore.

4. 
   ALTIZER THOMAS: (In his book radical theology) this theological movement under various names radical theologians, Christian Atheists, death of God theologians Atheistic theology, etc, is the fact that Christianity without God was more unintelligibly theistic. Prominent among these theologians were Thomas Altizer, William Hamilton, Van Buren, Leslie Dewart and Dorothy Solle. The most systematic and consistent of them was Thomas Altizer who maintained that the essential message of the Gospel was that God became man, Altizer says he (God) ceased to be a transcendent deity. Rather he became immanent in the world, in the person of Jesus Christ, and finally died on the cross. Thus, God who once lived as a transcendent being, eventually emerged from his transcendence, came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and died on the cross and remains dead.
   
5. 
   WILLIAMS HAMILTON: Hamilton agrees that Europeans of 1700s upwards no longer accepted the reality of God, or the meaningfulness of language about him. Non-theistic explanations have replaced theistic ones. According to him, he said God’s death must be affirmed and the secular world embraced as normative, intellectually and ethically good. Indeed, Hamilton was optimistic about what humanity and the world could do in solving its own problems.
   
6. 
   JOHN D CAPUTO (Born 1940 in Philadelphia): Caputo is a hybrid philosopher/ theologian who intended on producing circulatory studies between philosophy and theology. His main interest was Hermeneutics, ethics, mysticism and theology. Caputo had his influence from Nietzsche and Heidegger and an atheist believe in the theory of “death of God”. He was also the founder of the “weak theology”.
   
7. 
   GABRIEL VAHANIAN: Vahanian was named one of the best known theologians of the movement who argued that it was “no longer possible to think about, or believe in a transcendent God who acts in human history” and that Christianity will have to survive if at all, without him”. Gabriel Vahanian (24^th January, 1927) believed that man has declared God not responsible, and not relevant to human self-knowing. Hence, God has become useless to man’s predicaments and solutions to human problems.
   
8. 
   PAUL VAN BUREN: (Died at 74) Buren was a professor at Temple University. He was one of the three principal American Christian theologian identified with the “death of God” movement of the 1960s. Buren had it that the death of God movement was misquoted by journalists. He said that the Christian message can still make sense in today’s world. Buren’s work include, “The secular meaning of the Gospel; based on an analysis of its language. He concluded that sense could be made of it.
   
9. 
   DEITRICH BONHEOFFER: Bonheoffer on “The death of God Theology” was the climax of the theory of secularization which without denying the existence of God, maintained that God wants man to live without him that is to live as if he did not exist.
   

THEORIES ON ORIGINS OF RELIGIONS

INVESTIGATING ORIGINS SUBSTANCE, AND FUNCTIONS OF RELIGIONS

Religion is traditionally attributed to the Latin word “Religere” which means to attach yourself to something you cannot do without. Invariably, religion also means habit or addiction.

Religion is a species-specific human universal phenomenon, complex, full of paradoxes, and found in all cultures. Social scientists and anthropologists (since the late 19^th century) have attempted to rationally answer questions about religion. While we cannot evaluate the veracity of religious claims, we can attempt to understand its functions.

Ogundu Nnaji (2011) in his book “Scientific Philosophy of Religion” sees religion like an addiction or to be possessed by something that you believe works for you, i.e. Hebrew “Qaraeli” (calling the gods) or Hereli (i.e. paganism) Hebrew Old Testament, 2005.

Religions are established sets of beliefs, feelings, dogmas, systems of worship, law and related practices that defines the relationship between human beings and the sacred or divinity.
THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION CAN GENERALLY BE TRACED TO THE ANCIENT NEAR-EAST (Isaiah 2:6-magic) and classified in four (4) basic categories which are:

1. 
   Consulting magic and the occult (or witchcraft; called “Zophion” or Asaphim (Numbers 23:14 in Hebrew) or Pytho in Greek (Acts 16:16-fortune telling). See Polytheism and pantheism (i.e. multiplicity of spirits and gods in nature or the Anima) (Wilson 1962, Nnaji, 2014).
   
2. 
   The Monotheistic: Atheism is a modern belief that resulted from the enlightenment period of the 18^th century. In the early years of our present century, sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists greatly widened their horizons for wider investigations into the true origins of religions.
   
3. 
   The Polytheistic: i.e. predecessor believe in spirit intermediaries, irrespective of the gods and divinities before the believe in one God. Personal attitudes, of men who encountered the ineluctable fact that no account of human behavior and social change, is adequate which ignores the singular role and value of religious ideas and motives, dogmas and beliefs , faith and superstitions in human behavior.
   

INVESTIGATORS OF RELIGION

The primary interest of the early pioneers in the field of social- anthropology, and psychological research, was to discover the origins of religious ideas in man, rather than to describe them.

• 
  KARL MARX (1818-1883): The social philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) held a strictly materialist world view on Religion and saw economies including class distinctions, as the determining factor of society. He saw the human mind and human consciousness as part of matter. According to Marx, the dynamics of society were fueled by economics according to the Hegelian concept or theses and syntheses. False consciousness is a term used by Marx collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) not by Marx himself. He saw religion originating from alienation and aiding the persistence of alienation. He saw religion as superstition and as the status quo, in correspondence with his famous saying that religion is the opium of the people. This view is however contradicted by the existence of certain religious groups, such as those who follow liberation theology. Marx saw religion as a source of happiness though illusory and temporary, or at least a source of comfort. He deemed it an unnecessary part of human cultures. These claims were limited, however to his analysis of the historical relationship between European cultures, political institutions, and their Christian religious traditions.
  
• 
  EDWARD BURNETT TYLOR (1832-1917): The anthropologist Edward Burnett Taylor defines religion as belief in supernatural beings and stated that this belief originated as explanations to the world. Belief in supernatural beings grew from attempts to explain life and death. Primitive people used human dreams in which spirits seemed to appear as an indication that human mind could exists independently of a body. This theory assumed that the psyche of all peoples of all times are more or less the same and that explains the culture and religions which tends to grow more sophisticated through monotheistic, religions like Christianity and eventually science. Taylor saw backward practices and beliefs in modern societies, but he did not explain why they survived.
  
• 
  EMILE DURKHEIM AND FUNCTIONALISM (1858-1917): Functionalism may be seen as a general approach to functionalist theistics which explains the existence of social institutions such as religions in terms of needs in society. The main component of this theory saw the concept of the sacred as defining characteristics of religion, not faith in the supernatural. He saw religion as the reflection of the concept of the society. He based his view on recent research regarding Totemism. He asserted that Moralism cannot be separated from religion. Durkheim held the view that the function of religion is group cohesion, often performed by collectively attended burials. Durkheim’s purpose (method) for progress and refinement is first to carefully study religion in its simplest forms in one contemporary society, study the same in another society, compared to other regions then between societies that are the same. Durkheim’s approach gave rise to functionalist schools in sociology and anthropology. Durkheim’s view has been severally criticized when more detailed studies of the Australian aboriginals surfaced.
  
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