Today’s most popular religions have one thing in common: gods or supernatural laws (such as karma) that dictate moral behavior and punish transgressions. Act morally and these supernatural forces will reward you; break the rules and you’ll be punished.

But moralizing gods seem to be quite rare in human history. Researchers know from ethnographies that the gods of hunter-gatherer societies, for example, don’t much concern themselves with humans, much less their moral behavior. (Many of them focus on nature instead.) A study tests a popular hypothesis about why moralizing gods eventually took over.

To test this idea, a team of researchers used a new historical database called Seshat (named for the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom). Seshat contains information about the sizes, governments, militaries, religions, economies, and more of hundreds of societies spanning the past 10,000 years, making it possible for researchers to quantitatively compare them.

The scientists analyzed 414 societies from 30 regions around the world, from the deep past until the Industrial Revolution. Their results showed that large-scale societies did tend to have moralizing gods, whereas small-scale societies didn’t, the team reports today in Nature. But when the researchers zeroed in on the 12 regions for which they could examine societies before and after the emergence of moralizing gods, they found that moralizing gods consistently appeared after a society had already grown large and complex. (1)

We love our freedom. But we need rules as well.

And the only rules we can follow, are the rules imposed by us from someone else.

That is why we need gods. Punishing gods. To impose rules on our self.

But take a good look.

Whom are you truly listening to?

There is no one else out there.

Just you.

Imposing rules on yourself.

No, you will never listen to anyone else.

You are the only one who can control you.

Free not to be free if you wish.

No, that doesn’t mean that there is no God.

But exactly the opposite.

You are part of Him.

Who else can relieve you from your freedom?

If not yourself?

Seeking societies we always were.

Seeking bondage in a seemingly free cosmos.

Because this bondage is our freedom.

And within them, lie the boundaries of our existence.

Lies the essence of yourself.

Bound to everything.

Free to roam the dark forest.

Watching. Feeling. Being.

Fully enslaved to your potential.

Able to break the world to pieces.

Crying…

Bringing the world back together.

For the only way to truly be free…

Is not to be…