Some ideas on the origins of religious belief

[Laurens]

I've been wanting to write a blog post on this subject, and in gathering some thoughts I came up with an idea that may at least partially explain in Darwinian terms our propensity for religious belief. I just wanted to put it out there before I make the blog post because I am fully aware that I may well be talking nonsense, but here goes...

Dawkins argues that the Darwinian explanation of religion may have something to do with the 'do as you're told no matter what' mentality that evolved to protect children from dangerous situations. My thoughts are in some sense an expansion of that. I recall watching an episode of Ray Mears (I've since tried to find it online, but failed) during which he recounts some Aborigine mythology. The interesting thing about the story was that it wasn't just a myth with no use or basis in reality, the myth itself told of certain important locations where one might find a food or water source, and it spoke of the various animals that were hunted. [I will do better to find actual sources if/when I make a blog post]

Obviously this kind of information is important from a survival perspective. In order to ensure that your genes survive into future generations, this kind of knowledge has to be handed down from generation to generation. Thus it is conceivable that our passion for myth and story telling may have root in this. We hand down important information with fantastical stories that aid the memory - the first myths as it were. In turn we develop a passion for story telling (this means of imparting information would be useless if nobody was enthralled by it) and a fantastic imagination to conjure up these memorable tales.

Its also interesting to note that many hunter-gatherer societies pay huge reverence to the animals that they hunt in their religion. This could be another facet of the origin of religion. If one is taught to pay extreme reverence to a particular animal, it is likely that through whatever stories and ceremonies that may surround it, you will gather important survival information, such as where that animal might live, it's habits, the kind of tracks that it makes and so on. Could it be that religions began as a vehicle for imparting important survival information? The psychological propensities that this might leave us with may then have gone on to create more abstract deities and dogmas.

My thoughts on this are somewhat embryonic at the moment, but I shall leave it there for now and see what you guys think, and whether you think these ideas are worth pursuing in depth in a blog post.

 

[Metalgod]

I would expect that Aborigines have used story-telling to help childeren remember where to find food and water. After all, we use stories to help to teach our childeren addition for example. We try to make learning fun.

Also, say our current civilization came to an end. I think it would be dificult for the historians of the next civilization to differentiate our past cultural customs from religion.

 

[Aught3]

Yes this idea seems reasonable other examples that come to mind are Fijian women avoiding certain fish species when pregnant and the religious agricultural system in Bali which ensured crop rotation lowering the pest burden year to year.

 

[Dromond]

I've always believed dreams had much to do with the origins of there being an afterlife. In early Man, a parent or other loved one dies and most likely was dreamed about afterward. Not understanding what dreams were, I can easily see them being taken as a sign of still being alive 'somewhere'.

 

[devilsadvocate]

Have you already watched this, Laurens?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2umUoY00A

It's a lecture by Andy Thomson, where he talks about origin of belief in gods from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.

 

[Laurens]

I've always believed dreams had much to do with the origins of there being an afterlife. In early Man, a parent or other loved one dies and most likely was dreamed about afterward. Not understanding what dreams were, I can easily see them being taken as a sign of still being alive 'somewhere'.

My issue with ideas such as this is that they do not explain religion in an evolutionary manner.

We have to consider that evolution has a tight budget of expenditure. What I mean by this is that organisms would never waste energy on behaviours that serve no purpose when that energy could be directed in more useful ways such as finding food, staying safe and raising young.

In other words there must be an evolutionary benefit to spending time conducting religious rituals and ceremonies, building temples and so on that outweighs the energetic costs, otherwise those individuals who did not waste energy on such things and instead spent it on immediate survival would have prospered.

Though dreams may have become incorporated into religious ideas, I feel that the "religious impulse" in humans must have a more Darwinian explanation.

Have you already watched this, Laurens?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2umUoY00A

It's a lecture by Andy Thomson, where he talks about origin of belief in gods from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.

I have watched this before, but I will re-watch it later tonight in light on this topic. Thanks