Religion; the precursor to science?

[Angrboda]

This is one of a competing set of explanations of religion, that religion originally satisfied a "need" for explanations (and the concomittant existential comfort provided by them), in an age prior to the use of philosophy, math, and science to provide such comforts.


As such, it's certainly not without merit or its proponents, but it's important to bear in mind that it is only one of multiple (not necessarily mutually exclusive) explanations of religion, and to not prematurely put all one's eggs in the same basket.

More than that, I listed some of the others recently, but I don't recall the thread. With respect to this specific hypothesis, I'm not familiar with the examples off the top of my head, but if memory serves, anthropological study of religions as well as philosophical examples point up paradoxical or problematic issues lurking under the rather stately exterior of this hypothesis.