Did Religion Start One of Humanity’s Worst Revolutions? | Reza Aslan

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One of the single-most transformative events in human history was the agricultural revolution. Why did we stop hunting and gathering, and start planting and harvesting? It's a mystery, but scholars have speculated that perhaps it was because of a changing climate, or a drop in animal numbers in certain regions. A third option, which author and religious scholar Reza Aslan supports, is the hypothesis that institutionalized religion spurred early human agriculture in southeastern Turkey about 12,000 to 14,000 years ago—and he believes it has been a disaster for our species. "Human beings actually ended up consuming fewer calories—and certainly fewer proteins—during the agricultural revolution than they did when we were hunter-gatherers," he says. "... We’ve discovered that the process of farming actually created a whole range of new and, at that time, absolutely novel diseases and problems with human beings." In this view, organized religion is also responsible for the inequality that dominates the world today. Surplus food stocks and the advent of ownership in newly settled communities led to wealth accumulation and, ultimately, the stratification of society. The agricultural revolution may have been a net negative for humanity, says Aslan. What's more difficult to say, however, is where we'd be right now without it. Reza Aslan's latest book is God: A Human History.

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REZA ASLAN

Reza Aslan is an internationally renowned writer, commentator, professor, producer, and scholar of religions. His books, including his #1 New York Times Bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, have been translated into dozens of languages around the world. He is also a recipient of the prestigious James Joyce Award. His newest book God: A Human History (2017) is out now.

Aslan’s first book, International Bestseller No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, has been translated into seventeen languages, and was named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade by Blackwell Publishers. He is also the author of Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age (originally titled How to Win a Cosmic War), as well as editor of two volumes: Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, and Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalties, Contentions, and Complexities.

In 2006, Aslan co-founded BoomGen Studios—the premiere entertainment brand for creative content from and about the Middle East—which has provided an array of targeted services ranging from strategic messaging to grassroots marketing to publicity and social media outreach, to producers, studios, and filmmakers—including Jon Stewart’s Rosewater, Netflix’s The Square, Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Weinstein Company’s Miral, Discovery and TLC’s All American Muslim, and National Geographic’s Amreeka.

Aslan’s degrees include a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Santa Clara University (Major focus: New Testament; Minor: Greek), a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University (Major focus: History of Religions), a PhD in the Sociology of Religions from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction.

Aslan is a tenured Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside and serves on the board of trustees for the Chicago Theological Seminary and The Yale Humanist Community, which supports atheists, agnostics, and humanists at home and abroad.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Reza Aslan: I am by no means the first person to point out that the agricultural revolution was a disaster for human beings. Lots of scholars before me have made the similar point. And this is very important because the agricultural revolution takes place at the same time as the Neolithic revolution, right?

It’s seen as this massive jump in human evolution where we stopped hunting and gathering and we began planting and harvesting instead.

And the common sense theory is that this was a good thing for humanity. That it increased our food supply. That it allowed us to actually settle and create villages. It essentially was the first step to creating what we know as civilization.

Unfortunately the data does not back that up. On the contrary we now know due t...

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