Evolutionary Theories of Religion

[Aoi Magi]

I think religions evolved from the need of people to appear superior to others. In most ancient religions, the gods were actually the rulers and warlords. In order to control their subjects, they had to maintain their superiority, make a show of superior knowledge and miracles.

It seems to me that over time ruler-gods emerged from the animist spirits paleolithic humans thought inhabited everything (I'm obviously generalizing) in a sort of mirror image of how human civilization was evolving.  Humans went from individualist hunter-gatherer tribes and slowly coalesced into larger and larger societies in which singular leaders began to emerge and then build a hierarchy of rulers with a single ruler at the pinnacle, and the whittling down of animist gods into tribal gods, into pantheisms of gods, to a monotheistic god does seem to correlate strongly with evolving Western politics.

Not saying the one caused the other, but the correlation is very suspicious.

Paleolithic humans too had leaders, something like shamans who invented the said spirits because having a powerful entity at your back with whom only you could communicate would put you at a superior pedestal compared to the rest of the "normal" folk in your...group!