What evolutionary advantage is served by the capacity for spiritual belief?

Question

The state which has at various times been called Divine Inspiration, a Relationship with Jesus, or Nirvana is in fact caused by a release of some dopamine and serotonin ("the opiate of the masses"). It gets you a little high, makes you feel good. I'm wondering why that is. What possible edge for survival led our ancestors to develop this trait? We all know that religion is a tool of those in power; that's why it has stuck around throughout recorded history. But how did it get there in the first place?

[Note: If you think you can answer this with a scriptural quote, then you did not understand the question.]

Okay, a lot of people are answering a slightly different question, that of how religion came about as a cultural phenomenon (the need to explain things, angst about death, etc). These are all valid, but there is also a neurophysiological component to spirituality, something that happens in your brain which makes religion enjoyable. I'm asking about how this phenomenon came about, based on the assumption that all neurophysiological traits offer some advantage to the survival of either the individual or the species. I don't think it is known precisely when "organized" religion started, but spiritual neuroreceptivity need not necessarily be linked to it - maybe this served some other purpose entirely?

Answer 1

I think spiritual belief is more a result of desire to understand our surroundings, rather than an evolutionary trait. Humans have a desire for knowledge. We want to know how and why things are as they are. When early humans saw things they did not understand, they believed that something greater than them was causing it. As we grew as a people, these greater beings became known as gods. We had very little knowledge, so we needed several of these gods... a god of fire, of air, of war. We may not know the answer but this god or that does. As we learned more, we needed less gods. We began to unify them. Zeus was the ruler of the Greek gods. The unifying deity. Once they were unified under one powerful being, we could get rid of the rest and make the one all-powerful.

Now, if we can't answer something, it is all right, as it is all a part of God's plan. We don't need the knowledge, because we know that someone knows it, and this gives us relief. It allows us to feel satisfied.

Prayer is a form of meditation. It helps calm and focus your mind. This might be the cause of the chemical reaction. I honestly don't know much about that. However, I believe that religion is caused by a lack of knowledge, and as we grow smarter, the need for religion lessens. There is no evolutionary connection.

Answer 2

religion may be a tool because people abuse it and use it to abuse people, but the god complex area that is located in the brain doesn't only work by the release of those hormones, many things come into play and for some people it doesn't work at all.
that is the reason some people are religious and some are not, and some are just curious.

it was always there --- in the first animals that crawled out of the sea that evolved into all the different animal species up to humans today.

everything that is in us is also of the sea.
we still have saltwater in our bodies, that is why blood is salty and so are our tears, we still have trace amounts of copper, zinc and other minerals in our bodies, that is from the sea.
everything that is in us came from the sea, so that is how it got there in the first place.

the reason why we have the capacity for spiritual belief and the fact that it has stuck around is because everything evolves, everything is continuing to evolve, and humans are the only animals with the capacity to not only evolve physically, but also spiritually.
once we die, we leave this planet. our bodies are just the shells we leave behind, just like all the shells u find at the beach left behind by some small animal.
our consciousness goes somewhere else though, so
we are supposed to evolve spiritually to help our consciousness find it's way back home.
spirituality is our homing device, so to speak.

Answer 3

Solutions were always required for the complicated questions in life: Where do we come from? Where do we go? What is good? etc. A religious belief taps into all those subjects and gives a peace of mind to people without having to think too much. Studies have shown there is a negative correlation between IQ and Religiosity, and I am not surprised.

In addition, humans tend to go for immediate goals rather than long term goals. This is why people rather take all the money they win in the lottery now than in a period of 20 years. And it was developed because humans lived only about 20-25 years on average, so feeling good now was a survival thing.

You should also read into memetics by Richard Dawkins.

Answer 4

A very good question and I'm afraid I can't offer more than a guess. Maybe as human beings started developing greater intelligence, this phenomenon developed as a way to keep humans grounded. If they started thinking they were without a doubt the smartest and most powerful beings they would start trying to dominate every other being around them and that would be a disaster for the human race. If it makes them think there more to this life than what meets the eye, then maybe they would restrain from doing reckless things because they hope to someday find out what that is.

Answer 5

Pitching in my 2 cents...

I think this is more of a psychology question than the spiritual, so I looked up on dopamine and serotonin to understand what you're getting at. I've come to the conclusion that, because one common characteristic of a religion is congregation, the release of dopamine and serotonin allows members of the congregation to feel a spiritual connection with each other. This may be expressed in a mass emotional sympathy such as we see in a Pentecostal services.

The survival advantage may manifest in the release of neurochemicals especially in the case of dopamine and serotonin allows human beings to deal better with the increased stimulation bombardment of the modern world that stresses our neural systems. Making us more relaxed, less depressed and hopefully, less violence in general. Of course, you can also speculate that because dopamine can have an aphrodisiac characteristics, humans will reproduce more and exacerbate the problem.

The evolutionary advantage... well, with the increased ability to learn about other people's ideas, we can speculate that in this global world, eventually different races of people will intergrate together and contribute their 'good' genetic advantages to the future generations.

Answer 6

Some birds have long beaks, they "evolved" that way cuz they liked to drink from long flowers. Betas "evolved" to breathe air from the surface of the water instead of conventional gills because where they lived was icky and not oxygenated water. Some fish have "evolved" the habit of schooling together for safety in numbers.

So, basically, all "evolution" occurs over a huge period of time because of certain advantages or benefits with food or reproduction or self preservation.

Tell me, what kind of benefit would a species receive from faith? Yes, faith gives people hope and meaning, but a radical faith, like the one necessary for a follower of Jesus Christ...? A faith that says, you will be hated by other people, you will be persecuted, you will be killed. This faith will tell people that they are wrong, and people don't like to be told that they are wrong. Faith splits nations.

Does this not contradict the fundamental "self preservation" law of nature?

Answer 7

What is to be inferred from the intuition of the existence of God which may be said to be the common property of the human mind?
"That God exists; for whence could the human mind derive this intuition if it had no real basis? The inference to be drawn from the fact of this intuition parallels the axiom. 'There is no effect without a cause'."

May not our seemingly intuitive sense of the existence of God be the result of education and of acquired ideas?
"If such were the case, how should this intuitive sense be possessed by your savages?"

NOTE: If the intuition of the existence of a Supreme Being were only the result of education it would not be universal, and would only exist like all other acquired knowledge, in the minds of those who have received the special education to which it would be due.

PERSONAL NOTE:
Because we are incarnated from the Spirit World, into a corporeal body to evolve, we bring with us the idea of God from our spiritual existence. No matter our level of evolution, whether crude or advanced, we have this intuition based in our conscious. Whether we choose to actively believe this intuitive idea, is another question. But it exists in all human beings from this simple fact that we bring the knowledge with us into our corporeal existence.

Answer 8

How could you question there NOT being a divine entity in the distant past. The world is an amazing place, even by today;s standards...but how would early ancestors have explained the simple phenonona of thundr, lightning, volcanos, earthquakes, wind (which cannot be seen), famines, droughts, etc. All amazing to them, there must have been an explanation. Of course! God!

Answer 9

We are probably the first animal in the evolutionary chain that is aware that it will ultimately die. The can be a bummer and depressing, if you think about it too much it will drive you crazy and drive energy from you.

You need energy to survive. I suspect religion developed to give us a reason to go on. (Big brains came with new and unique problems.)

Answer 10

Believing in something makes you feel good. The better you feel, the more you feel like procreating. The more you procreate, the more people looking for happiness by believing in something.
or
People following a belief system helps them to work together towards a higher goal. Those who worked together survived.