A Lasting Impression

What institutions have endured for millenia and left a lasting impression on human thought and practice?

I'm interested only in the secular endurance of institutions here, with no comment or judgment about their premises.

I'll jump to the answer before even properly defining what I mean by "institution". There is only one category: the monotheistic, Abrahamic religions.

Please keep in mind, I'm not considering theologies, only organizational structures, the essence of an institution. So, why am I asking about the endurance of organizational structures over recorded history?

The answer is, I'm interested in the future, the very long term future, a future possibly stretching out as far ahead as history stretches out behind. The Long Now puts that at about 10,000 years. One example of the Abrahamic religions, The Holy Roman Catholic Church has lasted about 1,700 years, if its organizational beginning (apart from its theological claim) is dated back to the time of Emperor Constantine. Say two millenia if you like, I won't quibble. Will it last ten millenia hence?

Again, and I'll be repeating this later, theology is not my focus here. The importance of the central belief system in my analysis is its function in assuring perpetuation of the institution. 

Time for some heresy: I think the significance of core beliefs to a religion's longevity has been indirect at best, and possibly irrelevant. The success of the Abrahamic religions has depended more on biology than on theology.

It is all about marriage. Within devout populations, the marriage ceremony is conducted by their religious institutions. The family unit thus becomes the caretaker for belief and the crucible for organizational recruitment. A religious institution rides on the back of the biological imperative through its dominance of marriage rites.

Much emphasis on religious expansion is placed on proselytizing. Not so long ago, conversion by conquest played a major role. I have no research to cite that will back up my supposition, but I strongly suspect that procreation alone will do the job of sustaining and growing the believer base. Proselytizing and conquest are just a way to burn off the steam of youthful restlessness, which can be very dangerous when it has nothing to do.

Again, it bears saying that despite relegating the longevity of the monotheistic Abrahamic desert religions to an association with biological urges, I give them credit for containing that urge within a theological construct. This construct is pretty much the same between the religions, and it has evolved to mostly shun polygamy and sanctify monogamy, apace with the development of a secular commercial economy.

People have to make their way in the modern world, and religions have been mostly wise about accommodating this reality, else they lose young people who would justifiably feel their religion is irrelevant to their needs. Thus, perhaps much of what we now perceive as rigidity in religious belief will change. The bottom line for a religion is to keep the family structure as an adjunct to the institution, and I think religion will either adapt to make this so, or fade away for lack of adherents.

Yet, my purpose in raising the question of institutional endurance is not to make a case about religion, per se, but about the importance of biology. I'm interested in how an institution that is essentially new, perhaps not even yet formed or perhaps a fresh adaptation of what is very old, could reasonably hope to endure for the next ten thousand years in order to serve as a caretaker for the Earth. 

Its perpetuation would likely need the same procreation component as religion. Nothing else but procreation would pass the torch, forge links in the chain, keep the fire alive. Accordingly, this institution would have to incorporate marriage rites and family support, even if it accommodates new concepts of family. 

Can the institution of Science do the job? I wonder. Science is habitually skeptical and iconoclastic and contentious. Good science questions everything. A love for science is often inherited from family experience. There is no affiliation with marriage rites in science, however

I'm coming to the conclusion that this Earth Caretaker institution might even have to BE a religion if it is to endure as long as religions have. But unlike the religions we know today, it would have to always be looking forward, not back. It would have to cherish the Earth, not long to leave it. It would have to celebrate inquiry as the proper engagement with life, not shut down questions with dogma. 

And it would have to perform marriage rites.