The Role of Religion in Shaping Civilization

From the start of civilization, religion has played a crucial role in the development of most societies. The proof of its influence is evident in the way daily life was carried out. Religion had the power to affect everything from social status to common law, thus dominating a large portion of the culture. In ancient Egyptian, Islamic, and Indian society, religion had the capacity to establish how the average person would conduct their daily life.

The Maya were also a farming society like the Aztecs. They too, worshiped many gods, whom they felt were responsible for their survival. Gods of rain, wind, and sun were among the ones most worshiped. Mayan leaders went to war to try and capture the ruler of another city. If they did they would sacrifice the prisoner, again much like the Aztecs (Mexico).

In the past, many great civilizations were heavily influenced by religion. Their religious beliefs inspired and shaped their art, culture, architecture, and technology, and helped drive their progress forward.

The Mayan way of life revolved their religion. They had a polytheistic religion praising many gods. Each god had a certain thing that they would rule over or take care of. Chac was the god of rain, Kinich Ahau was the sun god, and Yum Cimil was the god of the underworld. There were many gods and goddess for almost every reason one could think of, there is even a goddess of suicide. They would perform human sacrifices, bleeding rituals, and dances to praise and to

Through history, religion has shaped civilizations in several aspects. In ancient Indian and Egyptian civilizations it was very strong shaping force in political structures, but both the religious beliefs and the resulting political system were different, just like pharaohs were different from rajas.

Religion has been a major factor for the growth and development of societies since the establishment of even the very first ancient civilizations. Though each of the ancient societies—the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Indians, and the Mesopotamians—had different spiritual beliefs, they each shared the common belief that the presence of religion within a civilization would have positive results upon the entire civilization.

The Mayan religion was characterized by the worship of nature gods. Main practices in the Maya included astronomy, divination, human sacrifice, elaborate burial for royalty and worshipping in stone pyramid temples (http://www.religionfacts.com/big_religion_chart.htm). Much of what is believed relating to the beliefs and practices of the Maya result from what archaeologists have uncovered and studied along with historians. In a book written by a Franciscan Priest named Diego de Landa, he described in some detail the

From the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations to the Muslim world, antiquity has always been filled with religions of all sorts. These religions helped guide how ancient peoples lived life and came about doing even the most common tasks that people like us do today. Religion impacted the civilizations of the ancient world by greatly influencing how peoples of ancient civilizations acted, how they thought about the world around them, how civilizations were organized and maintained, and how they interacted with civilizations of another religion.

The accomplishments and success of civilizations are closely linked to their religious outlook and the role of religion in their governments and society. Throughout history rulers have used the influence of religions to control their populations and provide the justification for their power. A society with a greater degree of separation between religion and government promotes a superior level of liberty and creativity amongst its people. By the time of the decline of the Roman Empire in the west, however, the world had come full circle to a return to theocratic dictatorship.

Almost every aspect of Maya life was centered on religion. These ancient Mesoamerican peoples worshipped many gods and goddesses; this was part of their daily lives, despite class differences in their sophisticated society. Religion served as a basis for the government and social life. Priests and shamans played an important role in their government, conducted religious ceremonies, and made sacrifices to the gods. The Maya believed in the supernatural, and used this belief to explain life and their universe. Every object, whether it is part of nature or man made, was considered sacred and worshipped.

In a national sense, religious belief and identity can separate whole nations from one another, like in the case of Ireland and England, one of the defining differences is our belief in a different branch of Christianity. This can have disastrous effects on the world as a whole. Religion can be held accountable for the majority of warfare and bloodshed in the world today as nations attack each over their differing beliefs and ideals. Many nations will use religion and beliefs to try to justify the awful atrocities they commit on one another. In this sense, religion

Religion can invade, conquer, and rule masses of people far more effectively and efficiently than any empire or conqueror. This is not to spark a heated discussion about religions. Its purpose is, to say that, even though it is highly debatable whether religions are false or true, most of them serve a very basic purpose of establishing morals and values. Early religions were used as a source of power and economic growth. Even if one doesn’t believe in or agree with the teachings of any religion, history shows proof that it creates a sense of order. There are many religions in the past that have brought order and civilized conduct to large numbers of people, not through military conquest, but through the promise of reward or the fear of punishment. Religion is the glue that binds local communities into nationhood and creates common understandings and shared values that are essential to the growth of a civilization. No religion is fully formed at its start, so why did some religion play such a big role in growth of the Ancient Civilizations.

The Mayans were organized by city states and ran government the same way. The religion was based on polytheism, or multiple Gods of nature and earth. One reason for their rise to a complex civilization was that The Mayans were very advanced people in the area of education. They were well ahead of their time in areas of math, astronomy, and even medicine and other sciences. Society, along with much of the world today, is still influenced by their ways and methods in these areas. The Mayas

Religion has been a powerful force in human history. Mankind has longed and searched for the answers to its purpose, the reason for being and the possibility of life after physical death. They reasoned that an afterlife would be a place of accounting and reckoning for the life they lived on earth. Religious belief systems seemed to give the answers as to how to prepare for the afterlife. Religion became the means of giving answers to those basic yet deep-seated questions of both life and death. Religion provided a format of rules and laws for conduct and treatment toward others based on the desires and wishes of a god or gods that people envisioned, imagined or invented. Religious belief systems have been a powerful force for good and bad...good in the sense that it provided a measure of individual behavior and order in society for the wellbeing of the whole, but bad in the sense that men of ambition who craved power and control over others would often use religion as a tool of manipulation and fear. A casual glance of history tells us that complete civilizations have been built, grown and maintained around elaborate religious systems, ancient Egypt being a prime example.

They became the cornerstone of many earlier and later civilizations. Even today many countries, especially those in the Middle East, have religious leaders who work with the government to enact laws and “guide” the spiritual aspect of the lives of their citizens. Unfortunately, with such strong beliefs and convictions can come conflict. This conflict can be on a small scale, such as discrimination against those who don’t share the same beliefs to full-scale war which was the case in the first Crusades. In more recent times we have seen mass genocides of people based in part on religious beliefs such as the annihilation of the Jews during the Second World War. Today we see it played out in acts of terrorism, jihads. Religion is a powerful tool that can be used both to help and enrich the lives of people or used as justification for intolerance against others.