Religions, Morals and Civilization Essay -- religious beliefs

Religions, Morals and Civilization   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  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.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  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 Hebrews 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   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Greeks were a peaceful civilization. They believed in the idea of democracy and they strongly believed in philos... ...nce 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 decline 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 Luthernism 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 peoples morals change, it changes their whole life. That is why there have been so many different religions in the past.