If you were ever a theist...

[CapnAwesome]

In college I got a degree in history with a focus on middle eastern history and studied Islam extensively from a secular perspective. I also am casually interested in a lot of science and anthropology and early man and how he lived. Dealing with the world as it is makes it so much more interesting in my opinion. I take a lot more joy in the world and there is so much real stuff to discover, endless knowledge and information that I don't see the need for the supernatural. The natural world is amazing as it is.

So I wonder how from an anthropological perspective you answer questions like why did religion or god belief arise?  Or, what is its purpose?

Just for the record anthropology is only a hobby of mine. My degree is in history. Personally I think it probably arose from an attempt by ancient man to explain the world around him. The limitation of knowledge of ancient man is pretty staggering. I think we don't have a very good perception of how little truly ancient people probably understood about anything. So when people ask basic questions, why do we die, what happens after death, why are there rainbows, why do people get sick, naturally people want to fill in the blanks. Given their limited understanding, they do their best and come up with supernatural explanations. That snowballs into religion. Although it is important to note the idea Theists sometimes say that 'every tribe worships' isn't really true. Most primitive people have supernatural beliefs but not all believe in deities and hardly all worship them.

As to why, some people have thought that religious belief gives some sort of advantage in survival or something like that. I don't really think so, I think the how of it is enough. There is no why, so to speak. They don't give a society any advantage today and didn't give primitive man any advantage either. Social evolution I think is like biological evolution. Not everything in biological evolution is an advantage, like our appendix or the fact we have 5 fingers rather than 6. Religion is like that, the appendix of social evolution.