Why did evolution make us religious?

[VociMike]

This question is addressed, of course, at those who assume that it was evolution that made us religious (and I hope we can at least acknowledge that the human race is religious).

If we are religous, and if evolution made us so, then why? Religion (that is, believing in things that don’t exist) has great costs associated with it. So what are the even greater benefits?

And, the most important question of all, why couldn’t evolution produce those benefits in us without the great costs of believing in something that doesn’t exist?

Can we apply Occam’s Razor to the “being religious gives us benefits” view and ask “why can’t we have gotten the benefits without the religion?”

 

[edwest2]

There is no evidence that evolution made man religious. I think this is part of a science fiction story designed to eliminate God. One could say that the Christian God has no scientific proof behind it but any scientist could examine the tilma (cloak) with the supernatural image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Or follow the recent miracles associated with Pope John Paul II.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Sideline]

Here’s the one sentence answer:

Because human beings know that we are going to die.

Here’s the more detailed answer:

Human beings, being rather well-adapted, seek to avoid pain, death, and (because we are social creatures) group disapprobval. Although avoiding these things is somewhat in our control, eventually we will have to face all of these at some point in our lives.

We also have the ability to build associations and imagine things being different than they are. We remember past events, and are able to form predictions about what will happen in the future. Sometimes the connections are really connected: People seem to get sick when after they drink from a particular stream, so we shouldn’t drink from that stream. And sometimes there are no connections: Yesterday and today have been good fishing days, and I skipped rocks on the lake both of those days. Maybe I should throw stones in the water before I go fishing. Maybe the lake demands rocks in exchange for the fish.

If you combine our desire to avoid bad things, like death, with our inability to avoid death, and our tendency to try and change things through our actions… well religion seems kind of inevitable.

How else can we avoid death, except through religion?

 

[edwest2]

Uh, what? Various pagan beliefs had men sacrificing to idols for rain, good crops, healthy children, but to avoid death? And referring to the Christian religion in particular, the goal is not just to avoid physical death.

Peace,
Ed

 

[VociMike]

There is no evidence that evolution made man religious. I think this is part of a science fiction story designed to eliminate God. One could say that the Christian God has no scientific proof behind it but any scientist could examine the tilma (cloak) with the supernatural image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Or follow the recent miracles associated with Pope John Paul II.

I don’t know if there is evidence or not, but it must be a doctrine of all thinking atheists that such is the case. For we know that mankind is religious, and atheists believe that evolution accounts for the traits of mankind, so evolution must account for mankind being religious.

So, based on those premises, I’d like to understand why evolution chose such a wasteful and destructive path (religion) to impart whatever benefits religion imparts. Why didn’t evolution impart the benefits without the waste and destruction?

 

[VociMike]

Here’s the one sentence answer:

Because human beings know that we are going to die.

But you know you’re going to die, and you manage to cope, right? So why didn’t evolution simply build into mankind your coping skills, and the coping skills of all the other atheists throughout history? Surely that would have been less wasteul and destructive than making us all religious, right?

We know that atheists (some, at least) can cope with the reality of the world without religion. So why didn’t evolution make us all into that kind of atheist?

 

[Sideline]

Uh, what? Various pagan beliefs had men sacrificing to idols for rain, good crops, healthy children, but to avoid death? And referring to the Christian religion in particular, the goal is not just to avoid physical death.

Sure Ed, tell yourself that people aren’t afraid of death, and that there is no connection between that fear and religion. That’s why all of your examples are intimately connected with people’s survival. As if getting food and avoiding death aren’t linked at all.

I think it’s really interesting that you couldn’t bring yourself to say, "Christianity isn’t about avoiding death. You had to throw in, “just to avoid physical death”. So… you obviously agree that one of the goals of Christianity is to avoid death.

Why bother arguing a position that even you don’t believe in?

 

[Sideline]

But you know you’re going to die, and you manage to cope, right? So why didn’t evolution simply build into mankind your coping skills, and the coping skills of all the other atheists throughout history? Surely that would have been less wasteul and destructive than making us all religious, right?

Evolution isn’t a designer. It doesn’t pre-program people with certain traits. Evolution only works on what already exists. People had the ability to form religion, and it helped them deal with some of their major fears as well as increasing group cohesion. Evolution doesn’t think things out in advance. It doesn’t decide whether an adaptive trait will be non-adaptive several centuries after it develops.

Evolution didn’t plan out the growth of civilizations and overlapping cultural groups with strikingly different ideologies. It just happened that way.

I accept death, as an atheist, because I have to, no because evolution endowed me with the ability. I am an atheist because going against the group isn’t as dangerous to my personal or reproductive success as it would have been at one time. I’m not going to be killed for my beliefs or tossed out of society. I

I accept the way the world is because understand the way the world works far more than my primitive ancestors. I know why lightening strikes. I know how disease is spread. I know that I could sacrifice goats all day everyday and it won’t add a single day to my life, or affect the rainfall in anyway.

 

[mlchance]

If we are religous, and if evolution made us so, then why?

Because God wanted it to.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Shredderbeam]

I like Dawkin’s idea of religion being a by-product of something (a child’s tendency to believe every word that comes from their parent’s mouths, perhaps?).

 

[edwest2]

Sure Ed, tell yourself that people aren’t afraid of death, and that there is no connection between that fear and religion. That’s why all of your examples are intimately connected with people’s survival. As if getting food and avoiding death aren’t linked at all.

I think it’s really interesting that you couldn’t bring yourself to say, "Christianity isn’t about avoiding death. You had to throw in, “just to avoid physical death”. So… you obviously agree that one of the goals of Christianity is to avoid death.

Why bother arguing a position that even you don’t believe in?

You are only making an assumption about me. Just like Christopher Hitchens said that if he saw a miracle he’d be inclined to doubt the evidence of his own eyes. So the answer is, even if I saw evidence right in front of me I will avert my eyes.

My peace is with God, the living God. I encourage you to make your peace with God.

Peace,
Ed

 

[VociMike]

Evolution isn’t a designer. It doesn’t pre-program people with certain traits. Evolution only works on what already exists. People had the ability to form religion, and it helped them deal with some of their major fears as well as increasing group cohesion. Evolution doesn’t think things out in advance. It doesn’t decide whether an adaptive trait will be non-adaptive several centuries after it develops.

Now wait a bit. We know our distant ancestors didn’t have religion. So that means that evolution selected for religion in humans. But why? Why tack on all that extra baggage, all that wasted effort and food and time and disputation? Whatever advantages were being selected for, why weren’t they just selected directly? For example, I am afraid of heights instinctively, I don’t need to believe in nonexistent gods to be afraid of heights. Evolution just formed my DNA so that I would be afraid of heights, without having to make up elaborate stories and rituals and sacrifices and priesthoods to explain why I should be afraid of heights.

I accept death, as an atheist, because I have to, no because evolution endowed me with the ability. I am an atheist because going against the group isn’t as dangerous to my personal or reproductive success as it would have been at one time. I’m not going to be killed for my beliefs or tossed out of society. I

But there was a time when not believing in a make-believe gods was not going against the group. That is my whole point. In fact, there was a time when believing in make-believe gods was going against the group. But not only did those first few god-believing humans survive, they won the gene-race and forced the original non-believers into the fringes. So explain that to me, always keeping Occam’s Razor in mind.

And as to your reasons for accepting death, the point is that you (atheists) manage to live and reproduce anyway. For atheists today, not believing in make-believe gods doesn’t seem to have any evolutionary disadvantage. So why didn’t evolution just select for smart, caring atheists like you? Why did it saddle the human race with the enormous baggage of believing in make-believe gods instead?

I accept the way the world is because understand the way the world works far more than my primitive ancestors. I know why lightening strikes. I know how disease is spread. I know that I could sacrifice goats all day everyday and it won’t add a single day to my life, or affect the rainfall in anyway.

 

[Shredderbeam]

Now wait a bit. We know our distant ancestors didn’t have religion. So that means that evolution selected for religion in humans. But why? Why tack on all that extra baggage, all that wasted effort and food and time and disputation? Whatever advantages were being selected for, why weren’t they just selected directly? For example, I am afraid of heights instinctively, I don’t need to believe in nonexistent gods to be afraid of heights. Evolution just formed my DNA so that I would be afraid of heights, without having to make up elaborate stories and rituals and sacrifices and priesthoods to explain why I should be afraid of heights.

But there was a time when not believing in a make-believe gods was not going against the group. That is my whole point. In fact, there was a time when believing in make-believe gods was going against the group. But not only did those first few god-believing humans survive, they won the gene-race and forced the original non-believers into the fringes. So explain that to me, always keeping Occam’s Razor in mind.

And as to your reasons for accepting death, the point is that you (atheists) manage to live and reproduce anyway. For atheists today, not believing in make-believe gods doesn’t seem to have any evolutionary disadvantage. So why didn’t evolution just select for smart, caring atheists like you? Why did it saddle the human race with the enormous baggage of believing in make-believe gods instead?

Evolution did not necessarily select for humans that were religious. Religion could be a by-product of something more fundamental that was selected for.

 

[VociMike]

Evolution did not necessarily select for humans that were religious. Religion could be a by-product of something more fundamental that was selected for.

So why didn’t evolution just select for the more fundamental advantages without the by-product of wasting all that time, energy and resources on things that don’t exist?

Atheists are universally agreed that religion provides nothing concretely beneficial to the human condition that non-believers cannot also provide, so why didn’t evolution just cut to the chase and not saddle the race with so much useless (and even destructive) baggage?

 

[VociMike]

Here is what I assume an atheist believes. They believe that there is nothing that society needs that cannot be had in an atheistic society. They believe that atheistic society is in no way inferior to religious society, and in fact is superior. But in that case they seem to be in disagreement with science, in particular with the science of evolution. Because evolution has selected for religious human beings. To the atheist there can be no other explanation for the existence of religious human beings.

 

[Shredderbeam]

So why didn’t evolution just select for the more fundamental advantages without the by-product of wasting all that time, energy and resources on things that don’t exist?

Atheists are universally agreed that religion provides nothing concretely beneficial to the human condition that non-believers cannot also provide, so why didn’t evolution just cut to the chase and not saddle the race with so much useless (and even destructive) baggage?

It depends on what the fundamental trait is. If it were something like “children tend to believe whatever their parents tell them, without question”, then religion would be unavoidable.

Evolution cannot “cut to the chase”. It’s quite simply survival of the fittest. If the fundamental trait mentioned above produces some wasted effort/deaths, and yet it’s not being weeded out, then there must be more benefit from it than loss.

Here is what I assume an atheist believes. They believe that there is nothing that society needs that cannot be had in an atheistic society. They believe that atheistic society is in no way inferior to religious society, and in fact is superior. But in that case they seem to be in disagreement with science, in particular with the science of evolution. Because evolution has selected for religious human beings. To the atheist there can be no other explanation for the existence of religious human beings.

Evolution has indirectly selected for religiosity.

 

[VociMike]

It depends on what the fundamental trait is. If it were something like “children tend to believe whatever their parents tell them, without question”, then religion would be unavoidable.

Can you prove that? Because I sure don’t see it. Furthermore, all the adults I know are fairly clear that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist (I could go on, but you get the idea). So why do so many of them believe in God(s)? No, I don’t think your theory holds water at all.

Evolution cannot “cut to the chase”. It’s quite simply survival of the fittest. If the fundamental trait mentioned above produces some wasted effort/deaths, and yet it’s not being weeded out, then there must be more benefit from it than loss.

So how are those who are saddled with the extensive, resource-wasting and unproductive (not to mention destructive) baggage of religion “the fittest”?

Evolution has indirectly selected for religiosity.

Is this just an axiom, something that an atheist must believe?

 

[Sideline]

Now wait a bit. We know our distant ancestors didn’t have religion. So that means that evolution selected for religion in humans.

Where did you get that idea? I have a degree in anthropology, and I know for a fact that you have no evidence to back up the claim that our immediate ancestors had no religion. It is true that those species that lacked the mental capacity for it would have lacked it, but there is no way of knowing when it first developed.

But why? Why tack on all that extra baggage, all that wasted effort and food and time and disputation?

Listen closely… evolution doesn’t decide what is going to happen. It selects for adaptive traits.

Whatever advantages were being selected for, why weren’t they just selected directly? For example, I am afraid of heights instinctively, I don’t need to believe in nonexistent gods to be afraid of heights. Evolution just formed my DNA so that I would be afraid of heights, without having to make up elaborate stories and rituals and sacrifices and priesthoods to explain why I should be afraid of heights.

Evolution didn’t form anything. It selects the most adaptive of randomly mutated traits. There is no evidence that we could have developed an imagination without religion being a byproduct.

Evolution didn’t make up God, humans made up God.

But there was a time when not believing in a make-believe gods was not going against the group.

Prove it.

And as to your reasons for accepting death, the point is that you (atheists) manage to live and reproduce anyway. For atheists today, not believing in make-believe gods doesn’t seem to have any evolutionary disadvantage. So why didn’t evolution just select for smart, caring atheists like you? Why did it saddle the human race with the enormous baggage of believing in make-believe gods instead?

You seem to be confusing evolution with your concept of God.

 

[Shredderbeam]

Can you prove that? Because I sure don’t see it. Furthermore, all the adults I know are fairly clear that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist (I could go on, but you get the idea). So why do so many of them believe in God(s)? No, I don’t think your theory holds water at all.

So how are those who are saddled with the extensive, resource-wasting and unproductive (not to mention destructive) baggage of religion “the fittest”?

Is this just an axiom, something that an atheist must believe?

Humans don’t believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy because they are told later by their parents and all of society that they don’t exist. They’re also able to learn that they were intentionally mislead. I think that it’s not the same with God for a variety of reasons - most of society believes in some sort of deity, God’s existence can’t be empirically disproved, religious experiences/a sense of wonder, and so on.

The benefits of having trusting, believing children outweighs the negatives of religion. If all children were skeptical and didn’t accept advice such as “Don’t go out alone”, “Don’t eat this type of food”, etc., then they would have to go and make those mistakes themselves - and 200,000 years ago, making those mistakes could have been fatal.

 

[Sideline]

Here is what I assume an atheist believes. They believe that there is nothing that society needs that cannot be had in an atheistic society. They believe that atheistic society is in no way inferior to religious society, and in fact is superior. But in that case they seem to be in disagreement with science, in particular with the science of evolution. Because evolution has selected for religious human beings. To the atheist there can be no other explanation for the existence of religious human beings.

Perhaps you should have just made it clear that you were going hammer away at a straw man argument rather than suggesting in your opening post that you were asking a serious question. You would have saved me responding to your thread. But then again, I should have learned by now that almost no one posts on this forum in order to learn anything.