Evolutionary Theories of Religion

[Aoi Magi]

How do you know animals don't have religions? How do you know when your dog keeps barking at nothing, it isn't saying it's daily prayers? Monkeys who push down each other in the rivers might just be trying to baptize themselves?


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. So how do you show your divine wisdom when you have none? you make up random bs of course. I can't blame them much though, cause, well think of your 3yo who really looks up to you, asking you with glimmering eyes, "Mommy, why can't there be 30 days in February?"

[robvalue]

It would be interesting to know if any other animals do have any concept of "God" or "spirits" or any other kind of woo. It wouldn't be that surprising to me if they did.

[Clueless Morgan]

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.

[Aoi Magi]

It would be interesting to know if any other animals do have any concept of "God" or "spirits" or any other kind of woo. It wouldn't be that surprising to me if they did.

Children look up to parents and elders.
Sane adults with mental capacities worse than children look up to gods.
General populace looks up to kings and leaders.
Animals look up to their leaders, and if domesticated, then us.

Seems like a common pattern to me...

[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!

[Whateverist]

The most popular theories for why humans have religion are:
1. To answer the existential mysteries--Why do we die? What is our purpose in life? How did the zebra get its stripes, etc...
2. To increase social cohesion in tribes/groups

My question is, at least for #2, there are 1,000s of animals species that live in social groups and have perfectly adequate social cohesion mechanisms such as territoriality, dominance hierarchy, grooming, etc. Why would humans need religion to improve their social relationships when there are already abundant mechanisms and successful social species? For those of you who might be familiar with some of the theory of religion writers--Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, Dennett, Matt Rossano, and others--I haven't seen anybody ask this question. Is this a valid question? Is this a valid question for #1? 

This way of putting it is a lot like speculating why a species has evolved the way it has.  In both cases no intention was involved.  Religion can be understood as having served certain functions just as the giraffe's neck serves some.  But the human no more chose to believe in gods any more than the giraffe chose to elongate its neck.  God belief may have arisen as a result of #1, the need to understand the intentions of others and therefore oneself.  God belief exists as a cultural artifact which has been handed down for longer than any written form of language.  To understand human behavior you must examen culture as well as what is needed for survival.  Just as the giraffe is stuck with some biologically inefficient anatomy, so we seem to be stuck with god belief long after any direct need for it can be demonstrated.  C'est la vie.

[Clueless Morgan]

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!

I'm not saying that paleolithic tribes of humans didn't have leaders, I'm making the point that the evolution of human civilization/politics and the structuring of the pantheons of gods over time seem to mirror each other.

Yes, some paleolithic groups had shamans, but those groups did not (usually) worship that shaman as the god. Nor did they seem to worship their leader as a god.  Worshiping rulers or leaders as gods or creating gods that acted as cosmic rulers seems to have arisen along with the hierarchic structure of ruler/ruled had developed among human populations.

[downbeatplumb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uPmeWiFTIw

The most popular theories for why humans have religion are:
1. To answer the existential mysteries--Why do we die? What is our purpose in life? How did the zebra get its stripes, etc...
2. To increase social cohesion in tribes/groups

My question is, at least for #2, there are 1,000s of animals species that live in social groups and have perfectly adequate social cohesion mechanisms such as territoriality, dominance hierarchy, grooming, etc. Why would humans need religion to improve their social relationships when there are already abundant mechanisms and successful social species? For those of you who might be familiar with some of the theory of religion writers--Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, Dennett, Matt Rossano, and others--I haven't seen anybody ask this question. Is this a valid question? Is this a valid question for #1? 

You have missed out simple superstition.
You can totally make superstitious animals.

[drfuzzy]

Mark Twain supposedly said "Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool."

I think all of the above arguments have some truth. Humans became intelligent enough to ask "why are we here", "why do we die", "who made us" -- and "who got mad and dried up the water and made the animals go away"?  I'm sure there were many, many
explanations given in many tribal groups.

And then a rather bright but probably scrawny NOT-Alpha male, who had been pushed into the shadows, said to himself - "what if 
I could make the spirits listen to ME, and they would send the rain?" -- and he got lucky.  It rained. Suddenly the whole tribe, including the Alphas, know that the witch doctor is the ONLY one that can talk to spirits.  And we were all screwed. Because if the witch doctor prayed and danced, and the rain came, it was because the witch doctor was special.  If the rain did not come, the people were somehow bad, and the spirits were angry.

That may not be the way I would posit an academic argument, but I'm pretty sure the shamans are partially to blame!  

[rainmac]

This way of putting it is a lot like speculating why a species has evolved the way it has.  In both cases no intention was involved.  Religion can be understood as having served certain functions just as the giraffe's neck serves some.  But the human no more chose to believe in gods any more than the giraffe chose to elongate its neck. 

 
Absolutely! I didn't mean humans intentionally chose these behaviors, which is what most of the other posters here suggest. Most responded to the existential mysteries part of this but few deal with the social cohesion part, perhaps because they don't buy the #2 answer. Maybe the consensus here is that social cohesion is not a reason for the advent of religion. I was hoping a few might have some thoughts on why the existing adaptations for social cohesion in other species are seemingly insufficient for humans that religious (ritual) behaviors evolved to increase fitness. What it suggests to me is that, for those who support the social cohesion function of religion, there is something more rudimentary or basic to explain the evolution of human religion, and social cohesion is a secondary effect.

Just as the giraffe is stuck with some biologically inefficient anatomy, so we seem to be stuck with god belief long after any direct need for it can be demonstrated.

I will say that for those of us imbued in evolutionary theory, it is not within our purview to claim that the giraffe neck is biologically inefficient any more than god belief is not necessary. While I'm not a believer, I can't second guess evolution, who is the final arbiter. Sorry for the anthropomorphism, but I don't know how to talk about evolution otherwise.