Gods are Not Sovereign, They Depend on Uncertainty

Christianity, and I suppose most all other religions, preaches God or any god is sovereign or independent from all other events and forces. If this were proven not to be true God, or any god, would be dependent on something else (and not sovereign). Growing up in a Christian community it never occurred to me there might be people somewhere who did not believe God was sovereign.

While I don't remember that this issue ever came up in my undergraduate years, I remember clearly when it came up in my first graduate school class. The professor noted that around the world people who live in rural areas and who cannot control the weather are more religious than those who live in cities and make a living doing business. Goodness, I thought, that means God and all other gods are not sovereign but are products of something else. That is, the gods enter human minds only when needed.

I have heard this lack of sovereignty repeated countless times in the many decades of my life. Never have I heard an argument it is not factual. 

While this may have been known long before, the first published account came from the World War I period. A Polish anthropologist was stuck on island in Melanesia in the South Pacific. He had little to do so he began studying natives on the island. He learned native fishermen made no reference to spiritual beings such as gods when they were fishing in quiet shallow waters near their own beaches. When food was scarce, fishermen were required to leave the nearby quiet waters and go out into the ocean. In the ocean is was dangerous because of the wind and the fishing was uncertain because the water was deep. While fishing in the ocean fishermen would constantly call on the supernatural to keep them safe and provide fish. The Polish scholar concluded risk and uncertainty caused the need for gods.

After WWI ended, Germans were treated so poorly by victorious countries it went into a crisis. Other scholars at that time counted the number of new religious publications. They reached the same conclusion. In both cases the popularity of magical and religious thinking increased.

People who have studied this note the human mind's attraction to magical thinking when uncertainty exists is not limited to "primitive" societies. It can exist alongside scientific thinking. Today what we call the "blue collar" world has lost labor unions and reliable manufacturing economies. These are the areas where Trump and his praying preacher friends did well in both 2016 and 2020. Today other Republican competitors are going to these areas talking up God. 

While God in not sovereign he/she does bring in votes.