Humans have an inherent desire to be a part of a group. Belonging to something greater than themselves activates a sense of being of more than just a person. The need to belong is a major source of human motivation. Humans need to participate in a group just as a group needs people to participate. In order to be in a group, the members are required to have the same ideas, interests, beliefs for a successful society. Religions create a common moral understanding for all participants to be able to coexist. Emile Durkheim and Jonathan Haidt theorize how religion operates as a society and the consequence of intergroup conflict. To maintain a unified group, individuals must lose their self reasoning and work only for the benefit of the group which leads to decisions that an individual would not make. Durkheim explains how religious beliefs and practices function to foster societies. Although the idea of a society is solely inside the individual’s mind, there’s a prominent feeling of awesomeness that manifests when a person is in a collective group. “Within a crowd moved by a common passion, we become susceptible to feelings and actions of which we are incapable on our own” (Durkheim 157). When a person is a part of a unified group, all undergoing something together, there’s a feeling of solidarity that overcomes them. In a crowd at a football game, at an EDM concert, or in a church people commonly have this experience that takes them to a higher place. Whether it be chanting the school’s fight song, dancing to the same beat, or singing songs of worship, people can become addicted to this high and want to continue to exist in the group. Religion is based off of these meetings of transcendence. Each person has the ability to transcend oneself at the flip of a switch when they join something larger. Jonathan Haidt created the theory “the hive switch” that can be described as an “adaptation for making groups more cohesive, and therefore, in competition with other groups” (Haidt 259). We’ve evolved to live in groups. Like individual competition, groups need to pass down their practices to keep the religion alive. In Religion is a Team Sport, it is clear that “at no point were genes selected because individuals or groups who were better at “goddling” outcompeted those who failed to produce, fear, or love their gods,” however, groups did adapt philosophies in order to create bonding within the group (Haidt 295). This is known as cultural evolution. “Religions are sets of cultural innovations that spread to the extent that they make groups more cohesive and cooperatives” (Haidt 296). Societies are more likely to get along when they work together. After encountering the high feeling of being in a group, a person will have experienced the sacred. As an individual, one can only experience day-to-day life of the profane; but in a group, one can experience dual-existence and will better be able to believe in a higher power. Since this feeling is very abstract and hard to identify and hold onto, groups use symbols, or in Durkheim’s example, totems to embody the society. In a religion, god is thought as the higher power. “The god of the clan, the totemic principle, must therefore be the clan itself, but transfigured and imagined in the physical form of the plant or animal species that serves as totems” (Durkheim 154). Because the feeling of group transcendence is recognized as god, god
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Intergroup conflicts can be known as gang rivalries, racism, and terrorist groups. When intergroup conflicts become a threat to the society, there needs to be action or adaptation to combat them. These actions don’t always agree with the individual’s interests, but are necessary to defend the group. Group members follow the guidance of their god, or authoritative figure, to manage the conflict. Just as the authority figure instructs the worshipper how to live, and watches over him, there is also some sort of punishment for going against the group. As a worshipper, “sometimes [s]he even feels dominated by a moral power that is larger than [s]he is, for which he is merely the interpreter” (Durkheim 158). Since the person feels subjected by the authoritative figure, they are willing to do anything to receive the god’s approval which can lead to rash moral
Intergroup conflicts can be known as gang rivalries, racism, and terrorist groups. When intergroup conflicts become a threat to the society, there needs to be action or adaptation to combat them. These actions don’t always agree with the individual’s interests, but are necessary to defend the group. Group members follow the guidance of their god, or authoritative figure, to manage the conflict. Just as the authority figure instructs the worshipper how to live, and watches over him, there is also some sort of punishment for going against the group. As a worshipper, “sometimes [s]he even feels dominated by a moral power that is larger than [s]he is, for which he is merely the interpreter” (Durkheim 158). Since the person feels subjected by the authoritative figure, they are willing to do anything to receive the god’s approval which can lead to rash moral