Couple of people recently introduced me to Rene Girard, called both the Einstein and Darwin of the human sciences
He described the role of imitation in human life in a book called The Scapegoat (1982), about how it leads to status rivalry.
This argues that conflict is avoided or stopped by creating these circuit-breaking roles that unite the crowd.
He thought Christ was divine intervention, becoming the ultimate scapegoat, to make the mechanism visible to humans.
That led to centuries of social progress, led by Christian institutions.
Girard's ideas gave me an understanding of why C.S. Lewis moved from being an atheist to adopting faith through his conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien, and came to call Christianity the myth that became fact.
Religion is a good mechanism for managing anxiety, but the scapegoat is only part of the process as those ancient institutions play a broader social role.
Actually, maybe I need a caveat to recognise that churches have shown they have a way to go in recognising individual rights -- particularly for women and children.
