The evolution of god by Robert Wright

Author:Robert Wright [Robert Wright]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion
ISBN: 9780316053273
Published: 2009-06-08T10:00:00+00:00

Was Jesus Really Necessary?

The mass appeal of Marcionite Christianity suggests that if the faith we now know as Christianity—Pauline Christianity — had fallen by the wayside in the second or third century, another version of Christianity probably would have prevailed. Specifically: a version featuring the doctrine of interethnic amity, the doctrine that realized the network externalities offered by the open platform of the Roman Empire. But what if there had been no Jesus—then there couldn’t have been any versions of Christianity to sponsor that doctrine, right? Well, there might not have been anything called Christianity. But even if Jesus had never been born, or had died in obscurity, some other vehicle for the meme of transethnic amity might well have surfaced.

There were plenty of vehicles around. Ever hear of Apollonius of Tyana? Like Jesus, he lived in the first century CE. According to stories later told by his devotees, he traveled with his disciples from town to town doing miracles: curing the lame and the blind, casting out demons. These powers emanated from his special access to the divine—he was the son of God, some said —as did his gift of prophecy. He preached that people should worry less about material comforts and more about the fates of their souls, and he espoused an ethic of sharing. He was persecuted by the Romans, and upon death he ascended to heaven. This imparted a nice symmetry to his life, since his birth had been miraculous in the first place; before he was born, his divinity had been proclaimed to his mother by a heavenly figure. 14

Sound familiar?

But, you might protest, Apollonius of Tyana didn’t posit a doctrine of interethnic love! Well, as we’ve seen, Jesus probably didn’t, either. The doctrine was developed by Paul, a religious entrepreneur who used it as the cement in his far-flung enterprise.

And what if Paul had never been born? Well, then Paul wouldn’t have been the Bill Gates of his day, the person who saw an open platform and launched an enterprise that dominated it. But someone probably would have. When a big new platform emerges —whether via the invention of the microcomputer or the founding of the Roman Empire—somebody usually figures out a way to exploit it.

Or, to put the point in more technical language: when the emergence of a new platform creates potential positive network externalities, someone will probably find a way to realize them at the expense of the competition. Some microcomputer operating system would have flourished big-time once microcomputers became affordable, regardless of whether Bill Gates had been born.

The parallels between Apollonius and Jesus may be no coincidence. By the time stories about Apollonius were collected in a book, the Christian gospels had appeared, and his followers—whether by conscious or unconscious embellishment—may have steered his profile toward Jesus’s. But that’s the point: convergence of this sort was natural. Ancient religious proselytizers were working in a competitive environment. They were trying to get people’s attention and hold it, tell a story that could occupy a special place in their spiritual lives.

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