Do you think that religion is just an unfortunate by-product of self-awareness?

Question

It seems all evolutionary attributes have some downsides to them.
For example, fish can breathe in water, but die if exposed to air long enough; a salamander can regenerate limbs, however, they are extremely frail.
Our greatest evolutionary advantage is self-awareness, the ability to analyze one's own thoughts and recognize one's own existence.
But is seems the downside of not functioning on instinct alone is being prone to delusions induced by fear of the unexplained and the brain trying to make sense out of a seemingly chaotic environment.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Self-awareness is the result of the complex neurochemical activity in the human brain. Religion might be considered a by-product of self-awareness, but only to the extent that it is the response to two features of self-awareness:
1. The ability of the self-aware individual to contemplate her own death.
2. The ability of the self-aware individual to engage in highly abstract, imaginative thinking and rationalization in an attempt to come to terms with their own painfully finite existence, the suffering that is inevitable to all living beings, and the forces of Nature that human beings, particularly primitive or uneducated humans, do not understand.

Religion is the answer that Stone Age man and the unintelligent today turn to cope with a reality that is frequently, as the philosopher Hobbes said, "nasty, brutish, and short."

Answer 2

Religion probably is because it's man made. Long before man supposedly became self aware he worshipped THINGS as if a god. If anything self awareness seems to make many think that they don't need God.

Oddly enough though true faith (not religion) is why many come to believe in God. With so much pain, suffering and chaos what is the point of going on if this is all there is? Why care if you hurt others? If death is no more than sleep why rage against it even when the pain is unbearable?

Though instinct may account for some of it after a certain point an animal will choose to wait for death rather than struggle. Rarely do you find that in man (even in the most youngest). How much less fear would there be if he honestly believed on instinct there was nothing else? It's that very fear of the "beyond this life" that brings the struggle so why would he deliberately create a delusion of it existing? That's not rational nor analytical. So I guess my answer is no, I don't agree.

Answer 3

Within our global culture, communities of faithful believers self organize around a favored way of ornamenting a model of self and world with myth. This way of ornamenting a model of self and world with myth helps communities of faithful believers to create an identity for themselves. With their favored ways of ornamenting a model of self and world with myth communities of faithful believers answer the grand enigmatic questions of identity. They explain to themselves and to the rest of the global culture who, what, where, when, how and why they are and how they came into existence. Through art, music, drama, science and ideology they communicate myths of creation and existence. With myths of creation and existence, they fashion reality.

It may be of paramount importance to our continued survival that we learn to answer these grand enigmatic questions of identity in a manner that leads us to have the highest esteem of self and world we can possibly imagine. Perhaps if we recognize the limitations of the senses, and adopt an agnostic position; and we ornament a model of self and world with myth and fantasy that produces the most powerful emotional response of joy, faith and love that we can possibly imagine then we will put ourselves in the best possible position to take control of our emotions, overcome obstacles, and progress towards victory. Maybe if we devote energy, space, and time to thoughts, beliefs, and expectations about higher self and higher world then may be doing so will lead us to a higher future.

Answer 4

Yes, it seems to come from a part of the brain that originally evolved for something else.

I'd love to be a neuroscientist and work on that part.

Answer 5

You hit the nail on the head amigo.

Answer 6

Why yes, of course.

Answer 7

Religion is a killing machine.
Jesus is Love.

Answer 8

Why no, of course not.