HIST000

Sapiens: From Animals to Gods

IDEAS & DISCOVERY / General Reading

Lesson 12: The Law of Religion: From Animism to Humanism

Lesson 12

EvoClass AI

2026-09-17

READ / QUESTION / CONNECT

Start Reading with Curiosity

Explain how religion provides superhuman legitimacy for fragile social orders, and distinguish between universal/missionary religions and local/exclusive religions.
Trace the major shifts from animism to polytheism, monotheism, and dualism, and explain how each system views gods, morality, and the place of humans.
Use Buddhism as an example to explain how a natural-law religion accounts for suffering and liberation without placing a god at the center.
Compare how liberal humanism, socialist humanism, and evolutionary humanism define "human nature," and assess the ethical and scientific problems of Nazi racial theory.

EvoClass · General Reading