The author poses the question, "are ideas generated by particular political, social, and economic conditions, or are they the product of creative human imagination independent of the material environment?"  I tend to lean to the former, as it seems to me that people turned to some form of belief system in higher beings, religion, or codified moral behaviorism to bring order to a disorderly society, and to find comfort and guidance in a unifying belief system.  Maybe the saying that, necessity is the mother of invention, carries some validity in that peoples all over the world were looking for some sort of comforting belief system to stem the tide of chaos and disunity.  Born from this upheaval are several traditions, beliefs, and religions that are still relevant in modern society, such as, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, and Christianity.