Is there an evolutionary advantage to religious belief?

Answer 1

there certainly used to be...nonreligious were killed by the religious...stoned in the town square...

anymore, the advantage seems to be social acceptivity...

so a social advantage, i'd say...

Answer 2

Yes.

We have evolved (or been engineered) with a religious receptor in our brains. In some this is stronger. Artificially stimulating religion centres of the brain results in differing results depending on ones religious beliefs. A catholic might believe they meet Mary whilst a soccar fan might meet their favourite player in a vision. Whilst an athiest might start shaking saying "I see nothing" like Schudlts in Hogan's Heroes.

There is also a centre that makes us sense ghosts or demons when stimulated. I am not quite sure what use this would be. Sometimes radio alarm clocks can give off frequancies stimulatimg this are of the brain; So of you find your bedroom is haunted try throwing out any electric devices in the room, before you call an exorcist. Some geologic formations apparently have a similar effect causing the whole house to be haunted. If this is the case you may have to sell if the aluminium bathing caps don't do the trick.

If we have evloved a tendancy to be religious it is probhably there because it gained us an advantage.

Religion can also be "an opiate to the masses" providing false comfort in times of uncertainty. Sporting teams or waring armies can all gain confidence believing God is on their side.

Churches also provide many social functions. Having a large group of people with a shared set of beliefs and customs provides a safe place to make friends, court partners, do business deals, or seek help in times of need.

Humans are primarily pack animals (like dogs). Religions provide a formalisation to regulate pack activities and pecking orders. They also provide a simplistic argument to ensure survival customs through rituals, beliefs and adherance to church authority. E.g. "Obey the ten commandments or you'll burn in hell" is simpler than arguing the pros and cons of polite behavior.

There also might actually be a god or similar something beyond our normal understanding that can be acessed through prayer.

Bhudists monks and Catholic nuns in prayer or meditation apparentlly have indistinguishable brain state measurements. Even if such states don't actually enable communication with a real God they may act similarly to sleep or dream states which help organise thoughts and replenish brain cheimistry.

A recent survey of catholics and other religious believers seemed to suggest religious belief has health benefits. Whether religion acts as a placebo or has more tangible effects is unclear.

Religious belief can also provide a simple explanation of the universe that is comfortinmg or provide optimism in uncertain times. Since optomists tend to live longer religion may provide us with a less stressful set of beliefs and the optomism to run faster when being approached by an oncoming bus.

My person al experience is that asking God or the universe for things or other methods of formalising goals through visualisation can have miraculous effects.

Answer 3

Well, look at it this way -- intelligent, college educated people who believe in Evolution tend to have fewer children later in life, with both parents working. People who are very strongly religious -- particularly Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians who do not believe in Evolution, and also some more traditional Catholic families -- tend to start their families much younger, have many more children, and the mother stays home to care for the kids. Those children are more likely to want to have big families when they grow up, and to teach their children the beliefs they were taught. So, in a twist of irony, in Darwinian terms it is Evolutionarily advantageous to not believe in Darwin. (though some people would call this "Devolution")

But not that there's anything wrong with religion. There are other, more positive functions. Social cohesion, emotional support, imparting values, etc. These things are all important survival functions.

Answer 4

There's a sociological advantage. It helps to form a cohesive society and gives common ground when the religion is shared by all in the society.

And I suppose there could be an evolutionary advantage, where it keeps people from thnking too hard about things they can't understand. It allows them to have easy answers and focus on more important things like survival.

Answer 5

yes, there is. Religion would provided a cohesive identity to the tribal group, plus an effective way of threatening people who go against the morals of the group.
Also shamans and their rituals would have provided a release for the group's neurosis's.
There's a part of the brain that gets excited by religious feeling, so evolution has had a physical effect on religious feeling.

Answer 6

There does seem to be reason to accept that there is a genetic propensity to accept a belief system. I'm not sure that there is an advantage or not to it. Evolution does not mandate or even ensure that every trait is advantageous, especially as a trait in one environment may be advantageous and detrimental in another.

Answer 7

The advantage is to religion, not to believers.

We have certain systems built into us by evolution, much the same as all other animals. Among these are our belief formation systems, which are, of course, a large part of what keep us alive. These systems do not work towards forming true beliefs: they work towards us remaining alive long enough to reproduce and guarantee the survival of the next generation.

Much as deer are "spooked" by random noises, and treat movement and noise as predators (for the purposes of staying alive), we also - using the same systems - mistakenly attribute good and bad events in our lives as being the product of the intentions of some unseen benefactor or demon.

Religions evolve to take advantage of that belief-formation environment. Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" goes into considerable detail. It's a really worthwhile read.

Answer 8

in primitive societies, religion acts as a cohesive force as well as a code of behavior, therefore more sophisticated religion certainly provided some social advantage over primitive religion.
but you could also state that advanced societies create an advanced version of religion.
of course, that advantage is maximized with the most advanced version of "religion" - secularism, or atheism.

Answer 9

Surprisingly enough, Daniel Dennett, noted atheist philosopher of mind, actually made a conjecture on the same line.

If i remember correctly, he's still "agnostic" about whether or not it does. He does give the idea a fair shake instead of outright condemnation (ie: Richard Dawkins) - citing various benefits of group cohesion and societal formation.

Answer 10

definitely. it may be said that other religions sprang from the one earlier as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i faith all originated with a divine covenant between the God of the ancient Israelites and Abraham around 2000 BCE.

Or it may be the other way around, we sprang from you because you were defective or something like that.

Answer 11

I certainly have examine some books on historic varieties of theory which comprise animism, fetishism and totems and a honest quantity approximately old religions of the midsection east like Zoroastrianism and that i might trust him that it replaced into stepped forward through fact it replaced into an benefit, theory is something that facilitates us to in the present day regulate our behaviour and react to changing environments, such through fact the substitute from hunter gatherers to city dwellers the place non secular theory replaced to fulfill the hot standards and helped to impose order on increasing tiers of inhabitants density. Religions interior the form of the Abrahamic faiths are fairly new, Homo sapiens have been around for 2 hundred.000 years and purely reached Behavioral modernity 50.000 years in the past and the final public of that element replaced into spent with people appeasing ancestors and spirits. yet finally faith itself is all area of our skill to think of symbolically and how we use this skill could be an excellent benefit, yet non secular theory is way less of an benefit now interior the stepped forward international as advances in technologies, philosophy and society frequently recommend that we no longer prefer it to understand the international around us or to end us from killing one yet another as quickly as we are forced to stay in such dense communities.