Human sacrifice and religion are responsible for all forms of inequality, according to research published online Monday in the journal Nature.
“Religion has traditionally been seen as a key driver of morality and cooperation, but our study finds religious rituals also had a more sinister role in the evolution of modern societies,” Joseph Watts, the study’s lead author, said in a press statement. “By using human sacrifice to punish taboo violations, demoralise the underclass and instil [sic] fear of social elites, power elites were able to maintain and build social control.”
The study’s abstract claims that “human sacrifice legitimizes political authority and social class systems, functioning to stabilize such social stratification.”
The research found that of the most unequal cultures surveyed, 67 percent had practiced human sacrifice. The study also noted that the victims sacrificed were typically of low social status, such as slaves. Meanwhile, the people doing the human sacrificing were usually of high social status, such as priests and chiefs.
The research team used computational methods derived from evolutionary biology to analyze historical data from 93 “Austronesian” cultures, who lived in the area that is now Australia, Madagascar, New Zealand and Indonesia. The study found that 40 out of 93 cultures included in the study practiced some form of ritualistic human sacrifice, usually for religious reasons.
The research was conducted by New Zealand’s University of Auckland’s School of Psychology, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany and Australia’s Victoria University.
Send tips to andrew@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.