Why Every Society is Religious: A Historical Analysis
Source: Whatifalthist YouTube Video
Date: August 20, 2025
Type: Transcript Analysis & Summary
Core Thesis
The video presents a compelling historical argument that religion serves as the foundational organizing principle for successful civilizations, and that societies which abandon religious frameworks inevitably decline and collapse.
Key Insights & Direct Quotes
The Modern Misunderstanding of Religion
"The greatest flaw of the modern worldview is that we can only see the edges of something while we can't see the why we can't grasp the soul of anything we completely ignore subjective experiences thus with religion which at its core is the study of the Soul modernity is completely incapable of comprehending what that actually means"
The author argues that modern secular education presents religion as merely "quaint ethnic leftover" rather than recognizing its profound civilizational importance:
"I would go through the segments they had on religion which they covered in cursory terms it would always be stuff like look at these quaint holidays the Hindus celebrate with the underlying theme that I could tell even as a child being these third worlders are too uneducated to actually understand science they still have religion we know better"
Historical Pattern Analysis
The video examines four major examples of societies that declined after abandoning religion:
1. 20th Century Europe
"In 1960 Europe was over 40% of the world's economy and now it's beneath 20% now Europe is going through a process which they openly called degrowth in which their governments are attempting forcible de-industrialization without their God the Europeans got so depressed that they tried to commit civilizational suicide whether through Mass immigration or degrowth"
2. Classical Greece and Rome
"As classical civilization got wealthier it also became less religious starting in Athens as skepticism started to become popular in their Golden Age Athens collapsed as a society within a century"
"The irreligious Romans weren't able to maintain their birth rate or fight their enemies so over the centuries their empire fell as a cursory comparison the comparable Confucian religious Chinese Empire at the same time survived"
3. The Abbasid Caliphate
"The Muslim world of the 10th century was actually a pretty agnostic Society... homosexuality and female empowerment were popular in this era as was multiculturalism however the society collapsed into degeneracy"
4. Ancient Israel
"The Old Testament was a record of how the Jews strayed from God a dozen times and it ever worked"
The Social Function of Religion
Psychological Wiring
"What religions do is wire the population's brains towards good settings from the cradle they raise the entire Society to good mindsets that operate subconsciously for their entire lives"
"Religions promote mindfulness or calmness and mental security mindfulness is always good where even in the worst situations it's important to stay calm and secure anxiety and hysteria are never useful"
Pro-Social Behavior Creation
"A large part of religion is the creation of traits which we know are pro-social these include treating other people well bravery family values or delayed gratification"
The Decline Pattern
The author identifies a consistent historical pattern:
"The historical pattern goes something like this a society is religious and from that it has strong values these strong values help the society on every single level people have more children they're more willing to die in war they trust each other more the upper classes oppress the lower classes less their intellectual studies are more honest thus the society thrives"
Short-term Gains, Long-term Destruction
"What happens at this point is that through the removal of the constraints with religion you get short-term gains the Bible says that if you go the way of Satan you will get pleasure and short-term gain while destruction in the longterm"
Religious vs. Secular Violence
Challenging common narratives about religious violence:
"The Crusades killed 2 million people the witch burning is around 50,000 the Spanish Inquisition was like 30,000... now communism killed 80 million people and fascism 40 million over a much much shorter time frame"
"If you look at the top five mass murderers in history only one of them belongs to a axial Age religion... all the worst tyrannies in history whether the nazis Communists or the tyrannies of the Chin Dynasty China and Caligula were all agnostic"
The Urban-Rural Religious Divide
"Every single Society with an urban Elite is agnostic in every single Society with a rural Elite is religious the reason for this is that if you deal with the natural world in a daily basis you will intuitively believe that the world is conscious and Alive"
Religion and Creativity
"Human creativity comes from The Well of the Divine Science was established by monks in the Middle Ages Plato and Socrates both spoke to Spirits who gave them their ideas"
"As our society has removed itself from mysticism and religion we've become less creative and Brilliant this is most obvious in the Arts but technological progress by every single metric has declined over the last 150 years"
The Beauty and Meaning Connection
"All beauty comes either from nature or God try to prove me wrong everything beautiful in this world stems from being a mirror to the soul of the world"
"There is an underlying soul to the universe a beauty a profundity and Truth which awes us with how spectacular it is we've all had moments of wonder in which the incredible nature of the world just shocks us"
Modern Nihilism and Collective Suicide
"The problem is our society doesn't do that at all everything we do is so nihilistic and meaningless everything is a Pastiche on everything else nothing means anything we're just constantly circlejerking ourselves trying to forget why we're alive"
"I once read a book by an orthodox Theologian who said that in life today we desperately try to numb ourselves to the meaninglessness of life and those who realize it go crazy is it any coincidence our societies are committing Collective suicide from nihilism"
The Two Paths of Irreligious Societies
The author identifies two ways societies deal with the absence of religion:
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Tyrannical Path: "To fill the void that's left by not having God politics takes the void but then to deliver they have to have utopian fantasies to motivate the population and thus you get horrifying tyrannies like the Communist Nazis"
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Degeneracy Path: "Through removing the moral standards associated with religion you just have perversion and oppressing your own lower classes and insane partying and the society collapses into degeneracy"
Historical Validation
"This Theory here that I have is supported by Plato iban calun the Old Testament pus confucious will Durant the founding fathers and many many more thinkers it was the normal belief across almost all of human history effectively all of the smartest people in history agreed on this doesn't that mean it's probably true"
Conclusion: The Choice
"The universe either has order and meaning built into it or it doesn't and it's a meaningless machine you can choose to view it either way the point I will make however is it's clearly not a meaningless Place given we need meaning to survive and function as a species"
Key Takeaway: This analysis presents religion not as mere superstition, but as the fundamental organizing principle that enables societies to maintain moral standards, social cohesion, and long-term survival. The historical evidence suggests that societies abandoning religious frameworks consistently experience decline through either tyranny or degeneracy, while those maintaining religious foundations demonstrate greater resilience and flourishing.