Confronted with them, he suffered from an intense feeling of
helplessness. He personified and deified these forces and offered
sacrifices and worship to placate them. This was the first stage of
religion, in which man humbly prostrated himself before these gods
in the hope of pacifying them and inducing them to spare him.
Later, he grew somewhat confident and thought that he could
actively interfere in the course of natural events and could devise
methods to bend these forces to his will. The attitude developed a
new phase of religion which was that of magic. Then man tried to
influence the deities by charms, spells, incantations and occult
practices, and thus probably the institution of priesthood arose to
cope with the problem, and the magicians became the first priests.
As human groups increased in size and their structure became
complex, tribal customs could no longer regulate the behaviour of
their members. The need was felt for a central organistaion, and the
institution of Kingship thus made its first appearance. A single man
was invested with absolute power and the entire administration was
placed in his hands. He occupied a position high above the common
people and exercised absolute control over their lives and property.
His word was law, submission to which was considered essential. He
would brook no opposition. The desire for power is insatiable.
However powerful the monarch might be, he wanted still greater
power. With the passage of time, this turned him into an object of
fear, hatred or love according to his treatment of his subjects. The
theory that absolute monarchy was an indispensable condition for
peace and order in society was universally accepted. So, it was bound
to influence religion also. The idea of God was fashioned on the
model of the absolute monarch, and He was conceived as the Being
who ruled over heaven and earth as an arbitrary despot. He was the
King of kings, the Lord of the universe, whose will was
unquestionable and whose ways were mysterious. Man stood before
Him quaking with fear – an abject and helpless creature. Religion,
according to this theory, had now entered the third and the final
stage. God was conceived as a tyrant, and religion became an
instrument of oppression. It served the ruling class by representing
it as appointed by the Divine Master to exercise power in the land
and control over the masses. By means of “spiritual sanctions” it
protected the ruling class against the fury of the oppressed people.
What is Religion 43