Different Religions

Since the dawn of man, people have had their own forms of religion. Be it simple ceremonial burial or complex blessing rituals, each person had their own way to explain the wonders of nature like, how did we come here and what our purpose here was. Another thing that each individual person had was their own morals. Morals are what define a civilization. Labels like peaceful or barbaric are put on different civilizations because of their morals. The morality of each civilization defined their religious beliefs.

The lives of people who lived in the early ancient history time period were tough. They had to roam the land always looking for new game to hunt and plants and berries to gather. The people weren’t united because of all this traveling, and therefore contact with other people was minimal. Morals are hard to develop without much contact with other people and so the religion of these early people was minimal. Then came the development of farming into this time period. Farming brought the people together. Small cities began to develop because the people didn’t have to move around as much. With all this closeness, the people developed moral views on what to think about thieves or murderers.

If certain civilizations didn’t mind violence and killing, then they developed into a Brutal civilization. Consequently, the religions of these civilizations were evolved around sacrificial rituals and allegiance to brutal gods. The Assyrian civilization worked around this principle. They used scare tactics to overcome their enemies and treated their captives badly. They also believed in powerful gods who they feared. If certain civilizations became peaceful, then their religion reflected their peaceful nature and didn’t have things like sacrifices. The people in peaceful civilizations believed in their religion because they wanted to not because they were afraid to. A good example of this is the Hebrews. The Hebrew were a peaceful people who disliked violence.

Because of this peaceful nature, their religion taught values like brotherhood, charity, human dignity, and universal peace. Violent cultures cause violent religions and peaceful cultures create peaceful religion

The Greeks were a peaceful civilization. They believed in the idea of democracy and they strongly believed in philosophy. This gave them plenty of time to contemplate about things like morality and religion. Their morals were always related to individual freedom, because they stressed a person’s right to criticize, be curious, and be different. Thus, their religion of many gods supported their way of life. Each god would represent a different aspect of life. Kind of like each person is different and represents good and bad in different degrees. The Greeks believed in people being different and their religion involves many different gods.

The Romans were very much like the Greeks. They were ruled by a senate for most of their reign, but towards the end were ruled by dictatorship. They were composed of many different cultures and were very tolerant of the different customs and beliefs. This acceptance of many different cultures explains their religious beliefs. First the Romans had a religion with a few main gods like Janus and Jupiter and thousands of little gods like the god of fever and the god of gold coins. Then, as the Roman power expanded, Greek influence grew. So the Romans stole many of the Greek myths and legends and applied them to the Roman gods. This pleased the people for a little while, but they began to become dissatisfied by the old religion. Finally, Christianity began to get converts.

Because of the accepted diversity of the Roman Empire, the religious beliefs changed with the changing morality of its people.

The middle Ages provide the best support for the thesis. It shows how the church adapted to changing morals. During the middle Ages, there was a decline in intelligence as a chief moral. This era is even sometimes referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’. People became more superstitious. The control of land and money became a big part of everybody’s life. This was reflected in the changes that occurred in the Catholic Church. The church evolved to become the learning center for the people. The church also started collecting taxes and serving as a hospital for the sick. These changes in the church were brought about by a change in morals.

The word Renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance period in Europe was a rebirth of ideas. Europe mainly had customs and institutions before the Renaissance, but after the Renaissance period got started, it sparked a revolution. This revolution also created a change in religious beliefs. The morals of many people had started to change. Many people started to feel that the church wasn’t for them. These people broke off from the church and formed their own religions. One such person is Martin Luther. Luther openly stated ninety-five reasons why he didn’t like the church. He went off and formed Lutheranism. During the Renaissance, because of the changing morals, religion had to change.

The morality of each civilization created their religious beliefs. It is obvious with all of these civilizations that this holds true. The people from the Ancient Historical time period formed many little colonies. The religion of these colonies changed with the views of the people in them. If the people liked violence, then their gods became powerful to scare them into believing. If the people like peace, then their gods became peaceful and used good ideas to get them to follow. The morals of the Greeks were believing in independence and being different. It isn’t a coincidence that their religion contains many different gods each with its own personality and skills, like humans. The Roman culture dealt with so many different cultures, that its morals were frequently changing. The Romans changed their religion three times.

During the middle Ages, there was a decline of intelligence, cleanliness, and overall morals. The church became the tax collection agency, the hospital, and the school, which is a direct correlation between the declines in morals. So the increase in power of the church in the middle Ages was because of a change in morals. The Renaissance was a rebirth of ideas and morality. These changes had the greatest effect on the church, which had grown strong in the middle Ages.

The peoples changing morals forced them to adopt new religions like Lutheranism and Protestantism. Morals are what define a human being. They become present in every part of life, especially religion. Because civilization is moving so fast forward, peoples morals are changing rapidly too. When people’s morals change, it changes their whole life. That is why there have been so many different religions in the past.