Reply #9: A Couple Of Small Points, Sir

[The Magistrate]

As humans do seem to share a common and fairly restricted ancestry, argument from claims of independent origin must be made with great care. Often what may seem to be systems independently arising could with better profit be viewed as elaborations in differing directions from the common heritage of the founding stem. Though it is dizzying to think of it, there must be a sort of handing on from succeeding generations tracing back at least to the origin of effective symbolic communication, running like a skien through all human societies, however far-flung and disparate they may now be.

The earliest purpose of religion was the influencing of natural events: the promotion of fertility, of abundance in local foods, of health among the people. This made religion an essential element of governance, as the claim to be able to control or at least to influence such matters was both the surest path to, and most sturdy prop for, authority and influence over others. Since these claims were invariably baseless, there was necessarily introduced an element of practiced deceit and special pleadings to cast the blame for failures off the self-proclaimed influencers of natural events onto some other cause than their own lack of real ability to actually exercise such influence, and a further diligence against quite natural questions arising from such failures that might, if pressed, overthrow the entire mental construct.