Religion is primarily an evolved mechanism of social cohesion. It functions well for this purpose. Religiosity is an inborn trait that allows for a variety of religious beliefs, and the exposure to the society then determines how that religiosity is expressed. It has advantages for the group and also for the individual. It allows for a more uniform cognition among groups. As an inborn mechanism it has the advantage of little investment in its transmission, and can be first acquired easily. It is also plastic, in that if the religion is nonadaptive to the individual, a new religion can be easily acquired.
The primary objection people have (on a "gut" level) to atheism involves the concern that social cohesion (and to a lesser extent social morality) would be threatened by this viewpoint. There is a very relevant example in current events. The driving force behind militant islam seems to be the preoccupation that the atheist construct (or even more chillingly, the allowance of tolerance) in western civilization will destroy social cohesion and morality.
Partially instinctual, partially learned
A mammal is born with a cadre of automatically developing instincts and also the expectation of a period of exposure to parents and group who can transmit a library of adaptive behaviors. Humans, as highly social mammals and with highly adapted cognitive skills have the advantage of nearly constant exposure to systems of social transmission of adaptive behavior but also the unique ability to transmit abstract concepts and mental constructs that provide further adaptation. The mind of a human includes an inborn religious behavior and cognition I call religiosity.
Religiosity includes a series of behaviors and cognitions that are partially instinctual and partially learned. Those with even a superficial understanding of comparative world religion can appreciate the range of learned cognitions and behaviors which depend on environment. Those with deep understanding of comparative religion can explain what cognitions and behaviors are instinctual because they seem to be preserved from religion to religion.
The advantage of inborn rather than learned tendency for religiosity is that there is only so much time and effort which can be invested in teaching the next generation. Ideally, this transmissive investment can be spent on learned cognitions and behaviors which are adaptive to the unique environment not universal to mankind. This saves time and energy and allows humans to experience the joys of religious life.
Some behaviors are inherently religious. Some of these behaviors are social and some ritualistic. These can have the effect of adding 'meaning' to life, for an individual or a group. Regular meeting attendance, celebrations of coming-of-age and funerals come to mind. A strong behavior of ancient religion that seems a strange distraction of resources is the ritual of sacrifice. Sacrifice was deeply symbolic and highly ritual. Take for example the practices of Romans, Jews, and Mayans. Christianity in part is based on the concept of a God-sacrifice. Modern man doesn't practice sacrifice but the religious traditions of modern man discuss it frequently. Mental illness may manifest as stereotypic behaviors with deep religious significance in those suffering obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Some mechanisms of cognition are inherently religious and include certain types of irrational belief. The willingness to accept of a system of dogma must be inborn. Also inborn is the extremely strong resistance to dismissing the previously accepted group dogma. Faith is a mechanism of protecting a dogma from reason even if the dogmatic assertion is both strongly proven false and obviously untrue. Faith in an afterlife or reincarnation, belief in a divinity that watches each human endeavor, belief in a divinity with the power to interfere in positive ways, belief that when negative interference in life occurs it can be attributed to displeasure of the deity or in the acts of malicious deities are other examples. Mental illness can result in dysregulation of religiosity and result in cognitive hyperreligiosity, which is common in schizophrenia and mania.
Religion provides advantages for a group
The advantage of inborn religiosity for a group is that it is a mechanism of thought that can provide improved sustainability for the group. Religion decreases disagreement, encourages cooperation, encourages in-group morality, ritualizes adaptive behaviors, encourages sharing or even pooling of resources within the group. It aids in time of war as a rallying call and allows for much of the altered psychology of war.
Religious thought also encourages the co-inborn tendency of blindly following a leader (authority), which has disadvantage to the individual adherent but advantage to the leader. If the leader's capabilities and sense of responsibility are beneficial to the group, then the investment in the leader will also be a positive adaptation for the group.
In the Egyptian religions each town along the
As civilization evolves, and larger communities become possible and advantageous, then local gods become too divisive and monotheism becomes more stable way to express religiosity. A problem occurs when a sufficiently large group has a belief which cannot be forced from the group. Then perpetual conflict is the result. Theoretically, the belief can be abandoned for atheism, which can never satisfy the majority, as religiosity is an inborn trait. Therefore, slow modification and evolution of each religion may also achieve a stable state. When civilizations change rapidly, the religious consciousness cannot evolve rapidly enough and crisis occurs.
Religion acts toward group coherence in time of war. If the common enemy is perceived as an enemy to a common god, then the enemy becomes easier to kill. The individual morality which would normally check the violence is socially trumped by religion, in addition to mental mechanisms such as deference to authority, mob mentality, prior psychological conditioning of the soldiers, and so on.
Religion provides advantages for the individual
Religion may also function as a relief valve for cognitive dissonance. One individual cannot possibly understand what he observes every day. Truly understanding the mechanical mechanisms underlying even the most mundane phenomenon of every day life (e.g. grass growing) is beyond all but experts in that area. Ancient man can have only three methods of coping with the phenomena: 1) Dismissiveness. There can be a total lack of interest, focusing the mind on other things instead. Europeans observed Australian aborigines taking this cognitive approach to modern marvels. We do this subconsciously each moment of our lives. Proof is in the existence of savants with perfect visual memory. We all see all the details but dismiss the unimportant or unmeaning subconsciously. 2) Ascribing it to deity. Sometimes each phenomenon is attributed to a different deity, which can lead to an essentially polytheistic garden. This is also observed in traditional cultures. 3) Investigating it to the level of technological competency available. Millions of early men may not have any insight into why grass grows. One then notices that it does not grow under a tent, or rock, or leaves. Eventually the concept that sun exposure is necessary for grass to grow is discovered, and can be verified with very simple experiment. Without written language and libraries and sufficient social organization to keep this fact in the social reservoir it is again lost with the death of the discoverer, or within several generations. It is reserved in the culture if the discovery of this fact makes life easier for the culture, which is not likely in a pre-agricultural age. The discovery that light is of the ingredients needed to make grass grow is a leap forward. Water, soil conditions, seeds, temperature are all discoveries that can predate modern science and an understanding of biochemistry. However, each unknown before it is discovered was probable attributed to deity.
Modern man uses this mechanism on a routine basis. When something is unknown about particle physics or early evolution modern man defaults to religious thinking. A bumper sticker I recently read says "God did it. I believe it. Enough said." This is "god in the gaps" thinking. Obviously, the scientific method is to view the gap as an opportunity for research. The religious mind sees the gap as 'sacred' and actually discourages inquiry. This may be true even when the paradigm is Grass grows from light, water, and god. This thinking discourages investigation of soil conditions, seasonal observations, etc. In this way religion alleviates cognitive dissonance but comes into direct conflict with reasoned progress, i.e. science.
Religion addresses human inadequacy and is comforting. It is particularly effective at dealing with loss. Even as an atheist, when I lose my keys and happen to really need them my eyes and mutterings turn reflexively heavenward. Death of a loved one and anxiety about one's own death are both potent stimuli for religious mechanisms of thought. Religious thinking can alleviate the anxiety if the religious dogma includes a concept of restoration of losses and renewal of life, even if in a different 'plane' of existence. The concept of restoration of loss contingent on good deeds in life appeals to the pragmatist especially. A wounded soldier with a hand amputation is likely to have embraced religious thinking as a comfort both during battle (for mental justification of killing and for comfort despite imminent loss of life) and after the loss of the limb, as he feels that it may be restored in the future. There are no atheists in foxholes, as is said.
Aging and slow, constant loss of what is important to the individual is a potent stimulant for religious thinking.
Why it feels like there is a god
We feel there is a god because we have an inborn mechanism to believe in a god. Therefore, god exists in a very real way because the experience of god has been experienced by so many of us. Even in those who no longer accept the existence of god or gods, there is a "god-shaped hole." And if it is empty we might even feel the loss. Religion is natural because it, like every other inborn behavior and tendency, provided an evolutionary advantage to either the group, or the individual, or to both. Whether it is an advantage in our current world is a matter of debate.
Though many advocate that irrreligiosity threatens morality, I propose that morality is unrelated to religion. However, the application of morality to one's own group and willingness to withhold moral behavior from another group is actually encouraged by our religious tendency. This is a serious moral count against religion. For example, almost all children revile at the intentional affliction of pain and suffering. However, the religious mind can be trained to delight at the torture of a nonbeliever, for the only reason of being a nonbeliever. This is well documented in Christian and Muslim history
I am not, however arguing that there is any advantage to the individual or group at all to irreligiosity. I do not maintain that there are social mechanisms in place to protect the nonbeliever from the believers. One may still be killed in
Some maintain that religiosity is a by-product of the way our mind functions. In other words, the cognitive mechanism of understanding things symbolically gave us religion as an unintended side effect. For example, humans naturally tend to view events of nature or behaviors of animals as having intent, such as a human has, even when they do not. This may be a side effect of the mechanism by which we perceive things in the world. The thought, "It rained today because the world needed the water" is not true. It seems that way to a human, but rain doesn't occur because it is 'needed.' This is not so far from thinking that God was pleased with us, so he allowed it to rain.
I am arguing something different than this theory. I am arguing that religiosity is a specific adaptive mechanism. However, the adaptive mechanism may have its limits and become maladaptive as we gain a more interconnected and larger civilization.
The challenges in building a stable world civilization will be enormous, and are relevant to this discussion. Of the challenges will be humanity's adherence to religious traditions, which disallow out-group morality. Although belief systems evolve, some of these beliefs systems have transmitted themselves from person to person for 3000 years with only minor modifications. It is difficult to envision how a stable world civilization can exist with irrational belief systems which are mutually incompatible, but it must be done.
See also the writings of
Pascal Boyer (2003)
Emile Durkheim (1890)
And many others
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