Evolutionary Theories of Religion

[rainmac]

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? 

[robvalue]

Interesting!

I think it has a lot to do with our ability to think very abstractly, and to be able to ask ourselves questions which simply may never occur to other animals. Once we've asked them, there's a drive to try and answer them. When we can't, we become frustrated and make up answers. Over time, these made up answers get mistaken for real answers.

[rainmac]

That reasonably deals with #1 but #2? A lot of people ride the social cohesion bandwagon.

[robvalue]

I don't know if religion is actually needed, I think it represents a shortcut. It's a way of stopping everyone from wondering about all those big uncomfortable questions, and all agreeing on one set of answers in a group. Then the group can feel good having this agreement, and all reaffirm each other.

I wonder if it's also just opportunistic, at least originally. People want to take control of others, and people can be scared in ways other animals can't because of our ability to imagine crazy things like afterlives and gods. That's a lot quicker and easier than appealing to reason.

I think at one point religion may have been needed for cohesion simply to stop people's brains constantly whirring and being unhappy with having so many questions that can't be answered. This is a problem other animals presumably wouldn't have. At this point it has become redundant in my opinion, at least in more enlightened places. But it continues as a tradition through indoctrination. If critical thought was taught instead, I feel religion would be mostly gone and not missed.

[Dystopia]

I think both are true. Religion may be wrong, but it is appealing otherwise no one would be religious at all - An idea only prevails if it provides some sort of positive feeling for its participants. I think that explaining mysteries and coping with death are the biggest reasons - When people accept that when they die that's it, there's little reason to believe in god - This is true if you consider that the strongest argument for an afterlife is that "It is so horrible to think it doesn't exist that we should just believe it does"

[Alex K]

Dennett also mentions that religion might help reaching decisions to take action in absence of sufficient real data - not necessarily the best ones, but often no decision and consequently inaction is worse than a suboptimal one.

[robvalue]

I suppose we're the only animal who consciously considers their mortality outside of dangerous situations. Is that safe to say?

It seems again that some people just don't want to accept death is almost certainly the end, so have to buy into some fantasy story or other to put their mind at ease. If it stops them being paralysed with fear, and like you say unable to act, I suppose it has its use in that way.

It does seem that those who were never raised in religion, surrounded by promises of eternal life, tend to handle the subject better though. So maybe it's a parenting shortcut when a child approaches the age of thinking about death, to sugar coat it and pretend it doesn't really happen. This then screws up the child's ability to properly process the reality.

[vorlon13]

Religious proselytizing would transcend (presumably) tribal ie, genetic bonds.

[Clueless Morgan]

I'm surprised that a #3 isn't included that mentions phenomena like pareidolia, apophenia and agency-detection coupled with the human capacity for abstract thinking. To me, that seems the most convincing reasons humans might have evolved a tendency for superstitious/religious thought. From this fairly reasonable starting point (to me at least), you can get to #2, and then to #1.

I don't see #1 being a stand-alone explanation for why humans evolved religiosity without some kind of agency-detection system already being in place, and an agency-detection system would be the thing that builds the religious framework that is then used to explain the existential questions being asked, and, as the OP states, #2 can be achieved by so many other successful methods that religiosity doesn't seem wholly sufficient as an explanation.

[Iroscato]

Oddly enough, I personally think it was a result of emerging intelligence, or at least intelligence doing weird stuff with our lizard brains. Obviously we kept evolving and have finally begun outgrowing religion altogether, but I do think it acted as an excellent catalyst for bringing together groups of people. It most likely started when primitive humans began perceiving patterns in their environment. One of the brain's most powerful abilities is its capacity for pattern-spotting - it's why we see faces and shapes in clouds, it's why we have concept's such as Sod's Law, and it helped with quickly identifying a fuckmothering sabre-toothed tiger coming in hot for what is almost certainly not a hug. However, when these simplistic, basic functions are overlaid with an elevated intelligence, things start getting weird.
Why does the massive, bright yellow thing keep rising every morning, for example? The heat feels good and it lets me see. WHAT IF IT NEVER RISES AGAIN? THAT WOULD BE BAD. OGG NO WANT COLD. And so, driven by fear that was perhaps exacerbated by a particularly stormy day (or a sequence of stormy days that gradually reinforced the pattern over years, decades or generations), the proto-theists perhaps began to associate certain behaviours with making the sun rise every day, or making the rains come every season, and so on.
The social element of it would come in when you get more than one Ogg sharing the same or similar ideals. As a by-product of extended interactions combined with the increased intelligence, more sophisticated communication would be natural. That would lead to deeper and more complex theories put forward by individuals, driven on by their compulsion to spot patterns, and unintentionally using confirmation bias to 'confirm' these patterns to themselves. Over centuries and millenia, you get a gradually emerging framework of ideas.

It was also probably a form of entertainment for them as well, at the time. When you think about it, all there was going was farming, fucking and sleeping. More curious individuals would be inclined to think about the heavier stuff. Ironic perhaps that what may have been the smartest people around at the time ended up starting the dumbest fucking thing ever inflicted on our society...