If your view of anything related to any life form can’t be traced back to evolutionary processes... your view is very likely motivated by personal psychological needs rather than by reason.
How do you explain your concept of “religion”... in evolutionary terms?
To help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption would be something of a higher level of cognitive understanding to do these sorts of concepts.
Homo sapian has taken intelligence leaps to understand these sorts of social concepts that are not widely or readily seen in the lesser evolved or lesser mentally developed animal or creature groups.
Richard Dawkins has a book on this. I am reading it and will let you know one argument I came across is that kids who believed what adults around them told them survived more than the inquisitive critical thinking evil little genius. Religion just tagged along with other useful beliefs
Thanks. May be some truth to that. Does he explain specifically what he thinks “religion” is? If not yet, let us know when you come across it.
Religious belief hangs onto creationist ideology and dreams of immortality. Apply cognitive dissonance and or false attribution toward theories of evolution and there’s no reasonable explanation to contribute.
Would like to see it debated from a theistic point. For the sake of comedy.
Religion was originally used by primitive people to explain things they didn't understand. Once it became an institution though it was only a method for control.
What are you basing that on? Is that just a personal belief, or do you have specific historical or scientific references?
@redhog
Could you help me out with some specifics... like the name of a historian or a history book or academic website, or anthropologist, etc.?
I know this is a popular idea but when I go looking for verification, I don’t find much other than opinion.
Of course religions tend to include some explanations for things people don’t understand, but whether that is the central function of religion has not found a consensus among scholars as far as I can discern. I just wonder why popular opinion in this is so confident, when scholars are so uncertain.
And the control thing is wildly popular among atheists, but again, I don’t find anthropologists saying that. And control of what, for what purpose, and to whose benefit, such that in 40,000 years there has been no successful rebellion?
I have just heard an interpretation of Christmas that may interest you. Go to 120 minutes into the Podcast Joe Rogan with Jesse Singal.[open.spotify.com]
Good program! Thanks for that. Yes, I had heard a bit about that. Their following discussion was interesting too. Communion!
That’s definitely a part of the picture, and has been from the very beginning I’m sure.
I think religion was started as a need to explain the world around them. Then some con artists and power hungry men took advantage of the silliness.
...and successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of every human society, in every location on the globe, in every timeframe for the last forty thousand years without a break? I know that's a popular belief, but it just doesn't sound plausible to me, especially considering all the scientific data on the side of an evolutionary cause, including pre-religious behavior in other species like chimpanzees, etc.
I think it all starts out with your loving mother whether she continued being a loving mother or not. The newborn does not see well and will be cooed, coddled, held by this "loving mom." This sets the stage for future thoughts and events and is almost godlike to a newborn. Next comes indoctrination as the child gets older and everybody has some version of god belief. Is this a psychological need? I would think so. We are set up for it from birth. God is the need we have for the mother, and we get reassurances and nice fuzzy feelings.
I think all of that is mostly true, but the psychological need I'm talking about is not that of the infant but of the adult who is assessing the relative value of religion. There are other options besides psychological needs of course. It may be a simple lack of familiarity with the relevant data. But in a way that kicks it back to psychological need. We have a natural psychological need to feel we understand the world we live in, so having an answer is more important to our psychology than having an accurate answer.
Secondly, I would add that the infant doesn't come in as a blank slate. I think that has been adequately demonstrated now. Both the infant and the mother have bonding instincts which may very well, as you point out, morph easily into religious tendencies in adulthood. But that has mostly to do with the biology of god-belief per se, and maybe less to do with the socio-cultural phenomenon we call religion.
My question is... why do the overwhelming majority of mothers in all parts of the world, in every known society, and in all time periods of human existence that we know of, indoctrinate their children into religious practices, if not for bio-cultural evolutionary pressures to do so?
I just started reading "Schrodinger What is Life?" a collection of his writings. The densest thing I have read in quite a while. It may have something to say about the topic being discussed. Just thought I would throw in a word and a mention for the book.
Then all this abiogenesis stuff I've been studying is a personal psychological need since before abiogenesis there was no evolutionary process.
You know there's another thing that's caused by personal psychological need and that's broad generalizations that aren't nuanced or qualified.
Abiogenesis itself is considered an evolutionary process. Anything that occurred before life existed is outside the relevant range of my comment and question, but even non-life-related processes are starting to be understood more in terms of evolution these days.
I’m not in any way denigrating psychological need, everyone has it, but there is a useful distinction to be made between it and reason. To suggest that broad generalizations have no place in rational discourse sounds like a broad generalization that’s not only not nuanced or qualified, but just plain ol’ not true.
Broad generalizations are a perfectly fine place to start a rational conversation. The test of its rationality is where it goes; not where it starts. If there’s an objection to the statement, there is always opportunity to address it with substantive rebuttal. Nuance is not only allowed but invited. Let’s fill in the details with mutually respectful, constructive dialogue.
Generalness in itself is not a problem. What’s a problem is inaccuracy, whether general or specific. What in particular do you think is inaccurate about my generalization?
@skado No abiogenesis itself is NOT considered an evolutionary process anymore than any other kind of chemistry is. Evolution requires mutation and the passing of genetic traits.... jeez.
@Willow_Wisp
Help me out here. I'm having a hard time understanding what abiogenesis has to do with my post, which starts out designating its scope as "anything related to any life form". So if abiogenesis is to be considered a pre-life phenomenon, then it falls outside the scope of this thread, it seems to me. How does the origin of life bear on the question of whether religion is adaptive?
If you'd like to talk about whether abiogenesis should be, or currently is considered by scientists to be a part of the family of evolutionary processes, you could start that thread, and I would happily join you there. But I haven't seen yet how it relates to this thread.
Nice profile photo BTW.
I don't have a concept of religion anymore. Evolution does it's thing on it's timetable.
Yep, sometimes slowly, and sometimes even observable by humans. Some wrens, normally migratory, have stayed under road bridges in Texas and their wings have already changed for quick take offs and not long trips. They are due to die because of global warming now.
@Beowulfsfriend Here in Phoenix I have noticed birds live here all year long.
@Beowulfsfriend We had some dimwitted person bring cane toads to Australia. Set them loose in the cane fields of Queensland and now all of Australia is having to start the battle against them. They are here in the NT heading into NSW and making a stab at WA. The interesting thing is the legs on the toads, are growing longer enabling them to travel longer distances.
@Budgie You guys have been nailed with some bad invasive species - rabbits and mice have been nasty "down" there. I suppose everyone now has invasive species. The Mississippi River is filled with asian carp, and of course Florida and other Southern states have new birds and lots of reptiles.
Herd animals benefit from trending toward a colony organization (like ants, bees, termines). That develops the behavior of allegiance. Within humans that have the capacity for abstract thought, allegiance mixes with superstitious behavior, and voila, religion. Religion may provide some survival advantage as the colony organization is reinforced with religious ritual and beliefs.
I like your point and it shows how a religion can grow out of this allegiance.
Also those same rituals and beliefs makes sure people tow the line or else. ie Shunning, being cast out of the herd, dunking stools, witch finders, pressing stones, fiery stakes etc. It means you follow out of fear but you follow to make sure those who judge do not turn their eye towards you.
To survive you have to conform which stifles a society and makes it stagnate becoming more in danger not less. There are religious groups where people can only marry someone within that religious group. Where I lived there were only about 4 families following the religion (my brother worked with one of the daughters of a family) There were only two males and two females of similar ages so the sisters married the brothers. There is no genetic diversity in that. The offspring of the two sets are closer than cousins and almost siblings. If they interbreed then the chances of a bad mutation rise up.
Allegiances work and help the colony but only if there is a big enough genetic pool, and we don't get sucked into superstitious behaviours.
I seem to vaguley recall something from High School about humans and group work along the lines of Communism is great for humans unfortunately humans are not good with communism.
So an allegiance and working for the good of the community is a wonderful notion but humans can not handle it and wreck it with their own sense of importance.
I think I have drifted off topic now I tend to do that it is called rabbit chasing.
It can provide cultural markers of importance in development or seasonal harvest that became endemic to societies. That's a bit different than evolution but with an equal effect.
@Budgie In keeping with your proposed problem of inbreeding among close-knit groups, I suspect that women's decision-making in mate selection is influenced so they look far-afield when allowed. In other words, where inbreeding is a risk, women seek to breed outwardly. This behavior/decision-making kicks in at an instinctual level below their conscious awareness. (just my pet theory)
The other problem is that communal living over generations where alpha males dominate also have the negative effect of breeding in submissiveness. Those who offer competition are murdered and thus removed from the gene pool. The effect in our society is that a sizable portion of the population have degenerated into ultra-loyal drones that are almost incapable of abstract independent thought. Their whole existence revolves around showing fealty to the alphas, which is pretty gross.