Evolution of Religion and Belief

[Luke Sanderson]

Hi Hal9000. This is an extremely complicated subject, far more difficult then some might think.
Many of the great philosophers have written on this subject, two well-known philosophers as you might know are Hegel and Marx. To those of you who are un-familiar with the works of these philosophers I recommend reading those 'beginners guide' books. The original works are not easy bedtime reading. At times they are impossible to fathom out. I gave up with Hegel; it's not everyday language he uses. I think Marx must have read Hegel as something to relax to in the evenings. 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'

BTW I need to ask how these individuals benefited. They were persecuted.
Why bring suffering on yourself? I think we need to move away from the Thomas Hobbes view that the only thing that motivates humans is self interest. This is view most people are familiar with. I often hear people arguing selfishness is human nature. Rousseu's 'Man in the state of nature' rarely gets a mention. In short man in the state of nature was not selfish or driven by self interest. Marx would argued that primitive communism existed.

[Luke Sanderson]

I think the problem human beings have is that they find it difficult to comprehend that death is finality. How can you never see your loved ones again? This is the reason spiritualism became hugely popular during the World War II in America and Europe. Harry Houdini as Penn and Teller have recently done, debunked all of them. Houdini was very close to his mother and was devastated when she died. He travelled all over America and Europe searching in vain for a medium who could contact her beyond the grave. However he could see through their tricks. These mediums attempted to bribe him not to give their secrets away.

Sigmund Freud argued that humans being could not help becoming psychotic because they were consciously aware of their finality. The criticism of Freud was that his methods were not scientific. Where is this consciousness? If I look at a brain I can't see it. This is why there has been on an on going battle between the behaviourist school of thought that looks at the physical behaviour of people and considers itself scientific as opposed to other methods of investigation that are considered un-scientific. I haven't read Dawkins view yet but I don't really think we know whether we can class it as a part of evolution. Otherwise why would I be a militant atheist along with others even though I was taught there was a God? But not in a strict sense I should add it wasn't forced. And why do some of my friends still believe even though they had a similar upbringing? Perhaps some humans are evolving not to believe in God. This is as much as I can add at the moment.

If you haven't read Dawkins, how can you comment? Richard quotes many references, not just his own, in his books and tries to build and explain, in very clear terms, how we all (all animals) evolved to be what/who we are now - and why - I suggest that if you are going to comment on Richard's views, you read something of his books in order to frame your views.

Tenshi - sorry I quoted the wrong phrase - was not meant for you - many sorries my friend

Dave

This is why I put my cards on the table and let people know. I just can not afford all the books at the moment. However, I do read articles on wikipedia and other websites that gives an insight to his general views. I wasn't criticising Dawkins as being wrong. Hopefully I will get to borrow the books this week rather than having to rely on secondary sources or simply watching documentaries. My wording was a bit poor in one place. I should have said ' so I'm not in a position to know if it comes down to evolution rather than 'we'.

[NinjaPaul]

If you imagine yourself growing up in a time when science could not explain why life is as it is or why the sky is blue or why the stars are in the sky. Because we are human there is a natural tendancy to explore and to ponder. A cat doesnt look at the stars and think "I wonder where they came from". However the stars in the sky require an explanation to the human mind.

Therefore without any of the evidence we have today it is an almost inevitability that various geographically varying religions would occur when coupled with the human desire for answers.

What puzzles me is that so many refuse to change their minds even today.

[Hal9000]

Hi Hal9000. This is an extremely complicated subject, far more difficult then some might think.
Many of the great philosophers have written on this subject, two well-known philosophers as you might know are Hegel and Marx. To those of you who are un-familiar with the works of these philosophers I recommend reading those 'beginners guide' books. The original works are not easy bedtime reading. At times they are impossible to fathom out. I gave up with Hegel; it's not everyday language he uses. I think Marx must have read Hegel as something to relax to in the evenings. 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'

BTW I need to ask how these individuals benefited. They were persecuted.
Why bring suffering on yourself? I think we need to move away from the Thomas Hobbes view that the only thing that motivates humans is self interest. This is view most people are familiar with. I often hear people arguing selfishness is human nature. Rousseu's 'Man in the state of nature' rarely gets a mention. In short man in the state of nature was not selfish or driven by self interest. Marx would argued that primitive communism existed.

I think your query is aimed at me…

You asked how individuals benefit from religion? Especially when persecution exists, the answer is that they mostly don’t. I am not arguing that choosing religion benefits the individual. It is just that primitive social groups with religion, will tend to out compete social groups without religion.

What’s more, social groups with religions that encourage behaviours that a suitable to the environment in which that group operates will tend to succeed over groups whose religions are not well suited.

The difference with political belief systems is that political or economic systems (like capitalism or socialism) are designed to help humanity. Religions are not designed to help social groups, they are not designed at all. They are meme mutations, but those that happen to benefit the group are more likely to be passed to descendants that religious ideas that are not beneficial. So over time, we would expect social groups to develop religious ideas if those ideas create an advantage.

This is not a matter of choice, more of mutation and natural selection.

[scp]

If atheism is just another meme,
how come the meme of theism seems to be
so dominant over the meme of atheism?

[walkswithpurpose]

Religions seems to me to play an important role in the construction of human social structures. We observe that all primitive societies have something that one can identify as religion. To me, that suggests that a social group with a religion has a competitive advantage over one which does not.

I would assume that advantage relates particularly to the ‘free rider’ problem, that is to say that a social group depends on team work, altruism and reciprocation. In any such system, there exist incentives for individuals to cheat and not reciprocate or to take actions that benefit the individual over the group. Religion reduces this incentive by defining rules and enforcing them in a costless manner.

The advantage also impacts in other ways but I wont go into them here. The basic result is that the religion meme is positively selected for in primitive human societies. Modern societies generally do not require religion in the same way as we have better ways of solving the free rider problem, the basic capitalist economic structure naturally tends to reward those who play the game of life well and we have law enforcement to deal with cheats.

Anyway, this is obviously a pretty reduced summery of my view on this (one could go on about this for ages) but the basic conclusion for me is that religion is a meme that has evolved along with our species.

I have no doubt that the prevalence of religion means that at some point in the past it was beneficial to humanity, but this is no longer the case, and I think it is fair to seek to replace it with better memes

Well take the Jewish race for example.

Their meme is that they are the chosen people of God and He guided them and brought them to their promised land.

Do you think that now they are there they should turn their back on that meme and find a better one and if so what would that be?

[MIND_REBEL]

If atheism is just another meme,
how come the meme of theism seems to be
so dominant over the meme of atheism?

Because religion was able to suppress science. FACT.

[der Rote Baron]

I think Marx must have read Hegel as something to relax to in the evenings

He did!

[Go fish!]

Religion serves no function. It's a meme that is passed on from one generation to another through the indoctornazation of parents to children. It's a fact, that Christan parents have "Christian" children, yet how many Atheists have Christian children. You guessed it, zero. Religion is like the keeper of bad, irrational values that prevents humanity from living in peace and harmony. When humans finally break the spell of religion it will mark a major watershed in the history of humans. Without religion what would humans have to fight about. Almost nothing.

OK, I've loooked at this thread and, while skimming I may have missed something, but it appears that no-one has taken the purely evolutionary viewpoint.

It is a commonly held understanding that reasonably sophisticated animals (read: mammals, birds and highly evolved members of other groups) have a tendancy to attribute "agency" to events. By this I mean: if something happens, the question immediately springs "who or what was responsible?"

This clearly has use is the wild: as justins recently reminded me in another thread, if you are sitting under a tree and a branch falls on you (or snaps above your head), in evolutionary terms, does it make sense to assume there is a predator in that tree above you or not?

[Martha]

Is religion not a natural consequence of human evolution - surely the fact that it exists at all means it is?

Is religion not a natural consequence of human evolution - surely the fact that it exists at all means it is?

That's a very good (intelligent) question, Dave. It reminds me of a heated debate I once had with a very personable guy, at a very enjoyable garden party, who emphatically told me that everything in the universe is natural -including organised religion; including the sexual abuse of children etc etc. I was shocked and horrified at his confident, un-arrogant, assertion. Of course, the sexual abuse of children is an abhorrent thing, just as the religious brainwashing of children is an abhorrent thing. Yet, these things are, indeed, part and parcel of the human history. If they weren't, they wouldn't exist!

The question is: what are we humans going to do about all this normalised violence? Do we just go the way of the dinosaurs? Are we no more intelligent than they? Have we humans stopped evolving, or what?