Jacobi !

Jake Jacobi

Professor

History

19 June 2019

Examination of Religions in Historical Societies

The metrics by which we can compare societies against each other are numerous,

including technology, education, life expectancy, and overall happiness. It usually depends on

context which is more relevant, but overall, religion seems to affect all other aspects of life in

ways that the others do not. Religion can serve as a lens that people view the world through, and

that people use to filter their experiences through; thus it is very powerful. Whether or not the

supernatural or historical truth claims of these religions hold any water is irrelevant to the

positivity of some religious messages and the effects they had on those who shaped history.

Ramses I of Egypt, Constantine of Rome, and prophet Muhammad of Islam have all used

religious changes to help improve the conditions in their respective regions.

Ramses I was the first ruler of Egypt after Akhenaten before him had invented a

monotheistic religion and thrust it upon Egypt decades earlier. He and the other Ramses-era

pharaohs were able to reestablish the traditional faith based the ancient Egyptian pantheon of

gods (History.com), leading to a much more productive era of refining the building and

constructing of beautiful monuments. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who also used religion

to great effect for his people. Christians were originally persecuted in Rome (Berger) for being

“atheists”, meaning persons who didn’t believe in the Roman gods. The story of Jesus even

depicts a religious leader being killed for heresy against the Roman tradition. So when
 Jacobi !2

Constantine began allowing the practice of Christianity, with himself eventually converting

(Green), he immediately made his subjects freer in their beliefs and safer from persecution, while

also laying the groundwork for the Byzantine Empire to flourish. His decision to allow free

belief over 2000 years ago has completely changed the state of the world today. Christianity

flourished since Constantine adopted it; whereas, almost any other historical leader would have

seen it as dissonance and crushed Christianity in its infancy. Third of all, the prophet Muhammad

came at a time when the Middle East was divided and tribal. He was not a political leader unlike

the other two, but his life and legacy led to the unification of the geographic region under one

religion: Islam. This bringing together of a divided region set the stage for the Islamic Golden

Age, a period of history where science, medicine, and technology flourished. These historical

world leaders all used their religions to make the world a better place.

As a budding historian of the ancient world, I’ve learned from my research that leaders

from the past have used shifts in religion that shaped every aspect of society from art to

education. This shift to more positive ethical systems was beneficial, but since there isn’t a

causal tie to anything supernatural, we can conclude only the value of improving moral codes,

not the dogma attached to it. These and many other important historical figures have positively

used the messages taught by their spiritualities to improve their societies. However, the religions

their societies followed have only be demonstrated to be unfounded vehicles for such values as

their truth claims have yet to be proven to a scientific standard of evidence. We are able to

discern moral questions for ourselves objectively once we agree that human happiness and

wellbeing are good things, since we can say for certain which actions will result in calculable

improvement of either statistic. Since such morality questions can be answered through secular
 Jacobi !3

means without the baggage of things like tradition and common-yet-baseless negative moral

pronouncements on things like homosexuality, it seems keen to abandon the bureaucratic

frameworks that religion provides and keep the varying beneficial parts. We should continue to

strive for a world where we compile the good values from wherever they come instead of basing

our existences around ancient traditions.


 Jacobi !4

Works Cited

Berger, Eugene, et al. World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500.

Green, Thomas. CrashCourse. “Christianity from Judaism to Constantine: Crash Course World

History #11.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Apr. 2012,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG55ErfdaeY.

History.com. “Ancient Egypt.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Oct. 2009,

www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/ancient-egypt.