The Birth Of The Gods Summary

The Birth of the Gods by Guy E. Swanson is used as a reference in our textbook Human Societies An Introduction to Macrosociology, by Patrick Nolan and Guy Swanson who was a professor of sociology at The University of Michigan, has co-authored three books and has written a lot of articles in the field of sociology. He is referenced for his method of classifying religious beliefs, specifically the third chapter of his book. I chose chapter three on monotheism because it was noted in our textbooks and I wanted to go into more detail over religion in pre-industrial times. The text goes into more detail on how a more advanced society is more likely to be monotheistic.
The Birth of the Gods is two hundred and sixty pages long and contains 10 chapters, each chapter reviewing a different religious idea. The book uses research previously found to support its findings. The Faculty Research Fund of The University of Michigan presented Swanson with the money to conduct and complete his research. The book was copyrighted and …show more content…
Other high gods seem to reward and punish their people, taking a very active role in their day to day lives. One might predict that a sovereign group may possess a more active attitude in human affairs. Since the god is all-mighty and powerful, his role should be viewed as a controlling one. The data shows that communal groups are 80% more likely to view the nature of their god as an active one compared to a nonsovereign group with a 0% active god. This data runs against many anthropologist believe that monotheism is more likely in simple and isolated societies. We can also conclude that through our own conversations in class, we know that as history processed the belief of having one god is more and more common throughout societies. It has been shown throughout the textbook that simpler societies, such as hunter and gathers, tend to have more gods to explain the world they live