Now for a little science, since we can't have all politics all the time!
As an atheist, it is often confounding that religion seems to be pervasive in all cultures and across huge spans of our species history. Given the vast number of religions we as a species have had and do have, the question becomes is there something in us that selected this trait of belief or is the belief in deities and the supernatural the by-product of another set of traits that were advantageous to our survival and have persisted in the form of religion ever since? There is a new paper published by Dr’s Ilkka Pyysiainen (talk about a hard to pronounce name!) and Marc Huaser looks at the arguments for each of these points.
You can find the paper here:
The authors look at a large body of literature to come to the conclusion that it is more likely that religion is a result of the by-product of existing processes than it is religion was so effective in extending that life of humans it was a target of natural selection. From the abstract of the paper:
Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation.
Anyone interested in this subject should read the whole paper, but let me briefly give you the arguments. First off Religion as survival trait adaptation; the idea here is that religious beliefs led to costly signals of commitments to the group. This helps the group with religion by preventing those who are not as committed to the group (free-riders) from being easily able to fake the commitment. This cost could be monetary or in terms of duties or even physical. If your group has a manhood ritual where you are extensively tattooed or branded, then it is very hard for someone to fake.
Since any evolved trait has to be beneficial to be selected the premise about religion is that it is beneficial by promoting cooperation among humans when there is no genetic bond. The idea that there is a all seeing god or ancestral ghosts who are constantly watching over individuals spread over large geographic areas, helps to prevent defections from the group. In addition to being watched, there is a fear of supernatural punishment, which would be selected for as it keeps the levels of cooperation as high as possible, thus helping to assure survival of the entire group.
Now for the other argument, that religion is a by product of other processes. In this argument there are also two main points. First is that the trait which allows us to think about what others might be thinking is a recursive one. We can put an intentional state (what we think the intent of another person is) inside another and another. This allows us the facility of empathy. It also allows us to estimate how others will react. This is an important factor in cooperation. This ability functions not only for people who are not present, it also works for those who have died or fictional characters (have you ever overheard two Trekkers arguing over what Spock might do in a certain situation? It is an outgrowth of this facility).
This makes for a much simpler mechanism in the development of religion as it is also possible to imagine what a god might be thinking or wanting. Unlike the religion as an evolved adaptation argument it does not require any extra or purpose specific traits to be evolved.
The second is that there are a series of traits that allow us to cooperate and form groups outside of religion. In fact, they are the same set of traits that reinforce religious belief, but do not require a supernatural component. Sports teams, political parties and even departments in companies all benefit from these traits without any deity. This tends to indicate that the traits were co-opted by religion rather than evolved for the expression of religion.
For those who strongly believe there is always the question of morality. I have been told many times by believers (some kindly, some not so much) that since I have no religion and no god I can not be truly moral. The authors of this paper also look at this argument. They find:
Arguably, these tendencies make religious beliefs ‘contagious’ in the sense that they are easy to spread and propagate because they functionally resonate with many of the basic operations of the mind Consequently, they are also easy to use in moral reasoning. This does not mean, however, that there is a necessary link between morality and religion. There is evidence that at least some religious concepts and beliefs need certain cultural input in order to become adopted and to persist. The Vezo of Madagascar, for instance, seem to have two conceptions of death. Guided by their everyday experience, they construe death in biological terms as the breakdown of all vital functions, but see it as the beginning of a different form of existence in a ritual context. These two conceptions of death are activated in different contexts, and thus the Vezo do not feel that there is a tension between them ,
Thus, although it seems undebatable that ‘religiously’ colored intuitions can affect moral reasoning, and that religious primes can affect prosocial behavior, these observations do not license the conclusion that the mechanisms are specific to religion, nor that religion provides the central explanatory factor. Even when the intuitive content is interpreted as religious, the mechanisms that support reasoning are more general in scope.
There is evidence that children who have not been instructed in religion have a very similar set of morals, where intentional actions which cause harm are judged more strongly than actions that accidentally cause the same level of harm. This combined with the pervasiveness of religion world wide point to a survival mechanism rather than a need for an external set of rules which constitute morality.
In fact the very diverseness of religion and the very commonality of morality across time and cultures supports this contention as well. Then there is the fact when a huge group of people ranging from conservative to liberal, devote believers to atheists and ranging in age from grade school children to post graduate adults were given a set of moral questions atheists did not score any better or any worse than those with a religion.
More specifically, in dozens of dilemmas, and with thousands of subjects, the pattern of moral judgments delivered by subjects with a religious background do not differ from those who are atheists, and even in cases where we find statistically significant differences, the effect sizes are trivial.
All of this leads the authors to the conclusion that religion is most likely a by-product of existing cognitive functions. This is not to say that religion, once developed did not play a role in the longevity of groups. It is pretty clear that groups which had a religion as an organizing principal did better than those which did not. This indicates an secondary selection for willingness to join and stay in a religion, rather than an early evolved trait.
The authors conclude:
To the extent that explicit religiosity cannot penetrate moral intuitions underlying the ability to cooperate, religion cannot be the ultimate source of intra-group cooperation. Cooperation is made possible by a suite of mental mechanisms that are not specific to religion. Moral judgments depend on these mechanisms and appear to operate independently of one's religious background. However, although religion did not originally emerge as a biological adaptation, it can play a role in both facilitating and stabilizing cooperation within groups, and as such, could be the target of cultural selection. Religious groups seem to last longer than non-religious groups, for example.
In the future, more experimental research is needed to probe the actual relationship between folk moral intuitions and intuitive beliefs about afterlife, gods and ancestors. It seems that in many cultures religious concepts and beliefs have become the standard way of conceptualizing moral intuitions. Although, as we have discussed, this link is not a necessary one, many people have become so accustomed to using it, that criticism targeted at religion is experienced as a fundamental threat to our moral existence.
To me this is really fascinating stuff! Like all science it will need to be tested and confirmed multiple times before it can be considered a fact. Still this explanation of the development of religion has the benefit of being simple, jibing with other data and being testable. Those are all factors in good science.
The floor is yours.