How Does Evolution Explain Religion?

[fantome profane]

That's very true. In order to posit that religion evolved to promote social cohesion, one would need, I think, to show how animism promotes social cohesion. That is, animism -- or something similar -- is probably the form religiosity took for at least hundreds of thousands of years (and possibly even millions of years) prior to the rise of more familiar kinds of religiosity.

Valid point. I think the other problem we have when talking about the evolution of religion is that we tend to view religion as “a thing” rather then a wide variety of “many things”, some of which are not even as closely related as we think.

I would not posit that religion evolved to promote social cohesion (and I don’t think anyone is saying it is that simple or absolute). But still I would suggest that social cohesion did play a role in the evolution of certain elements that we today group under the umbrella of evolution.

 

[painted wolf]

39 died and you want to use what less then 50 members a statistic againts 6 billion people???

What? Did you jump back to Heavens Gate?

If so... death cults are bad no matter how many people are killed by them. The insanity is the same no matter if you blame it on UFO's or Demons.

are you to deny that people are naturally spiritualistic???

are you to deny the vast majority of people are not religious????

are you to deny that most atheist belong to developed countries????

I looked for a hour and could not find any proof anywhere of a tribe with no spiritual or religious belief's.

Oi vey!
Did I anywhere give the impression I was arguing otherwise? :help:
(except the more atheists part: I would amend that as more "open atheists")

And here I thought you were starting to pay attention and catch on. :bonk:

Why are you not paying any attention to what I'm saying? One minute you are agreeing with me and then the next you are putting words in my mouth and having fun with the strawman you just built.

I wasn't asking you to find a culture with no spiritual beliefs. I was asking you provide an example of a more "wacked out" belief than those held by us "civilized" people.

You have yet to do this. Given the amount of modern people that believe in such wacky things as alien abduction, Chupa-thingy, Homeopathy and so on... I find your statements illogical to say the least.

We believe the same things today as we did 10,000 years ago... we just put modern names to them and convince ourselves we are somehow superior to those "primitives".

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

We believe the same things today as we did 10,000 years ago...

sad really you taking it this far, being we know nothing about people's belief 10,000 year ago.

you can take what I say out of contect if you like.

fact is remote tribes still believe in things like smoke spirits who wash evil away and rain gods ect ect ect.

I never said modern day religions were not comepletely wached out, just that as a whole, primitive tribes show more whacked out beliefs.

the more educated a people are the less whacked out the belief is.

these are facts and not up for debate.

 

[painted wolf]

sad really you taking it this far, being we know nothing about people's belief 10,000 year ago.

LoL....

you can take what I say out of contect if you like.

Hey, pot how's it goin'?

fact is remote tribes still believe in things like smoke spirits who wash evil away and rain gods ect ect ect.

And modern people have taken these same kinds of beliefs and morphed them into modern guises like homeopathy and other forms of woo.

eI never said modern day religions were not comepletely wached out, just that as a whole, primitive tribes show more whacked out beliefs.

And I say they are not more wacked out than "modern" beliefs. You have yet to demonstrate that "modern" wacked out beliefs are less wacked out than "primitive" ones.

How is the belief in "healing smoke spirits" more wacked out than the belief in healing magic water? Or the belif that taking Ecchinacia will keep you from getting a cold?

They are all the same, but placed in different cultural contexts.

the more educated a people are the less whacked out the belief is.

Incorrect, they simply believe in different wacked out things.
Homeopathy vs. "smoke spirits" as you put it.
Bigfoot vs. Unicorns
Aliens vs goblins
Same level of wackyness... different justifications. One claims to be "scientific" the other doesn't.

Just claiming your wackyness is scientific and "modern" doesn't make it less wacky.
Believing that Grey's are probing peoples butts is just as wacky as the belief in Incubi and goblins that preceded it.
It's the exact same belief (same psychological causes), but given a cultural up-date to allow it to thrive in our technological society.

these are facts and not up for debate.

These "facts" of yours are arrogant assertions not facts.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

These "facts" of yours are arrogant assertions not facts.

I guess lucky for me this is only your opinion.

Homeopathy vs. "smoke spirits" as you put it.

homopathy is not a religion or a spirit, it is alternative medicine. A practice that must be used with extreme caution.

Bigfoot vs. Unicorns
Aliens vs goblins

all myths

maybe you do not understand the point im trying to get at.

primitive people do not know the reality of the world around them scientifically, do they then make up spirits to explain what they do not know??? answer, yes they do make up spirits to fill in the gaps of their knowledge

do educated people generally make up spirits to explain away what they do not know???

answer, no they generally do not

 

[painted wolf]

I guess lucky for me this is only your opinion.

homopathy is not a religion or a spirit, it is alternative medicine. A practice that must be used with extreme caution.

Yes, homeopathy is religious in origin... yes, it is magical thinking and no it's not scientific in the slightest.

all myths

maybe you do not understand the point im trying to get at.

primitive people do not know the reality of the world around them scientifically, do they then make up spirits to explain what they do not know??? answer, yes they do make up spirits to fill in the gaps of their knowledge

do educated people generally make up spirits to explain away what they do not know???

answer, no they generally do not

No, they make up aliens, trans-dimensional beings, quantum-woo and so on.

Why don't you get this?

Spirit or alien it's the same mental process that creates it. There is no difference between someone making up a spirit to explain something and someone making up aliens to explain the same thing.
One is not more primitive or wacky than the other.

Your claim that "primitive" people have more "wacky" beliefs than "modern" people is simply untrue. We just convince ourselves that our ideas are better because they feel "scientific".
Thus you are willing to defend Homeopathy but think that the holy water of Lourdes is bunk. (hint: it's the same thing... water)

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

Spirit or alien

spirits are man made myths to explain away what they do not know.

aliens have a mathematical possibility using the drake equation

Yes, homeopathy is religious in origin... yes

Um ya,, i dont see anybody worshipping homeopathy or any religious origin here.

Homeopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homeopathy (also spelled homoeopathy[1] or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners treat patients using highly diluted[2][3] preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient. The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo

Thus you are willing to defend Homeopathy

im not defending it at all. it just doesnt apply to our little debate here.

Why don't you get this?

funny I thought as people progress and become educated they generally quit believing in magic and spirits as they dont have to explain away nature and the origins of mankind as there is no longer a illusion of reality

 

[painted wolf]

spirits are man made myths to explain away what they do not know.

Not always... they are usually part of a cultural framework in which people place their relationship to the world around them.

Spirits are complex cultural constructs. Often they are abstract concepts in "primitive" cultures. Wendigo for example, is a very complex psyco-cultural concept rather than a simple explanation for the unknown.

aliens have a mathematical possibility using the drake equation

Whatever you need to do to justify your faith in little green men. There is just as much evidence for aliens as there is for spirits.

Drake's equation is the alien equivalent of Pascal's wager... a fun thought excersize but not worth having faith in.

Um ya,, i dont see anybody worshipping homeopathy or any religious origin here.

Homeopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homeopathy (also spelled homoeopathy[1] or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners treat patients using highly diluted[2][3] preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient. The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo


im not defending it at all. it just doesnt apply to our little debate here.

Homeoathy is particularly prevalent in New Age and Eastern religious circles. Along with other magical healing methods.

You simply replace "molecular memory" with spirits. It's the same type of thought process.

It is a perfect example of how "modern" people are no less wacky than "primitive" people. Call it "science" and now you find it totally non-magical and not worth questioning.

funny I thought as people progress and become educated they generally quit believing in magic and spirits as they dont have to explain away nature and the origins of mankind as there is no longer a illusion of reality

Sorry to disappoint you. They just replace old magic for new magic and tell themselves it's "scientific" to make themselves feel better.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

quit it now

dang it!

your not giving me anything to argue about

 

[painted wolf]

quit it now

dang it!

your not giving me anything to argue about

LoL
Now you can ponder and argue about what in our biology and psychology as a species leads us to make these jumps into magical thinking.

Why would this sort of mental behavior evolve? What I find really interesting, is that care for the sick and elderly seems to have developed in the hominids not long before we start to see evidence of magical/spiritual thinking.

I can't help but wonder if the two are related.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

LoL
Now you can ponder and argue about what in our biology and psychology as a species leads us to make these jumps into magical thinking.

Why would this sort of mental behavior evolve? What I find really interesting, is that care for the sick and elderly seems to have developed in the hominids not long before we start to see evidence of magical/spiritual thinking.

I can't help but wonder if the two are related.

wa:do

I dont think love is conclusive to humans

 

[painted wolf]

I dont think love is conclusive to humans

I never said it was. I don't know how this applies.

What I said was care for the sick and elderly in hominids predates evidence of magical/spiritual thinking by a very very small margin, if at all.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

I never said it was. I don't know how this applies.

What I said was care for the sick and elderly in hominids predates evidence of magical/spiritual thinking by a very very small margin, if at all.

wa:do

you dont know how love is applied when it comes to taking care of older or sick family members that cant help themselves????

its called love and kindness

this has never originated with religion

 

[painted wolf]

you dont know how love is applied when it comes to taking care of older or sick family members that cant help themselves????

its called love and kindness

this has never originated with religion

Here we go again.

Do you want to talk about evolution or do you want to take cheap shots at religion and look like a fool?

I don't like to play these games with creationists and I'm not going to play them with you either.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

I never said it was. I don't know how this applies.

What I said was care for the sick and elderly in hominids predates evidence of magical/spiritual thinking by a very very small margin, if at all.

wa:do

and this has something to do with evolution???

Do you want to talk about evolution or do you want to take cheap shots at religion and look like a fool?

I didnt take a so called cheap shot

if you want to talk about evolution then practice what you preach

 

[painted wolf]

and this has something to do with evolution???

Duh... :slap:
This thread is about human behavioral evolution... How does the first appearance of behaviors in the hominids not relate to our evolution?

That is like saying that the first stone tools have nothing to do with our evolution and technological development.

I didnt take a so called cheap shot

if you want to talk about evolution then practice what you preach

Yes, you did.
"This has never originated with religion" is a cheap shot. The exact same cheap shot used by creationists against atheists. It's a pointless statement that has nothing to do with the conversation except to troll.

Now... do you have something useful to add or are you going to troll some more?

For those actually interested in the subject:
Hominids first started to seriously care for their post-reproductive elderly and the sick/disabled about the same time they started to bury their dead.
This is a fascinating combination of behaviors for several reasons.

1) It shows that group members were being valued for something other than their ability to physically contribute to the groups survival.

2) It shows a ritualistic thinking around death. Death wasn't simply accepted, but it was made into an occasion of some meaning.

Somewhere between H.erectus and H.heidelbergensis something changed in the way hominids viewed themselves. This also was when fire was first being tamed and complex stone and wood shelters were being built.

wa:do

 

[Noaidi]

For those actually interested in the subject:
Hominids first started to seriously care for their post-reproductive elderly and the sick/disabled about the same time they started to bury their dead.
This is a fascinating combination of behaviors for several reasons.

1) It shows that group members were being valued for something other than their ability to physically contribute to the groups survival.

2) It shows a ritualistic thinking around death. Death wasn't simply accepted, but it was made into an occasion of some meaning.

Somewhere between H.erectus and H.heidelbergensis something changed in the way hominids viewed themselves. This also was when fire was first being tamed and complex stone and wood shelters were being built.

wa:do

In another thread, I mentioned how the use of fire and technology may have contributed to the continuation of brain expansion in the hominid line. I'm interested to find out if any novel areas of the brain (or any already-existing areas) developed during the erectus - heidelbergensis period.

According to Robin Dunbar, more emphasis was placed on vocalisation (but not language as we know it) due to increasingly complex social interactions as a result of living in larger groups (Grooming, Gossip and Language - Robin Dunbar, 1996).

In a recent book, Jesse Bering expanded on this by outlining the idea that larger, more cohesive groups with some vocal ability could regulate its members by 'gossiping' about those that cheat and steal from others in the group. In this way, people became aware of how others viewed them - a theory of mind developed, which acts in a self-regulatory way. It would make adaptive sense to be viewed by others as altruistic and kind rather than a cheat or thief (The God Instinct - Jesse Bering, 2011). As we developed as a species, these regulatory mechanisms would have remained and could have been easily co-opted by early 'religion'. Virtually all religions today have the basic tenet of 'do unto others...' in one form or another.

 

[outhouse]

This has never originated with religion

that is not a cheap shot or trolling.

homo erectus goes back 1.9m years roughly and we know nothing of their religion if that had any at all. We can however deduce that they did have human feelings and one of these would have been love. to what degree we have no idea

homo sapiens have been on the planet roughly 200,000 years

we have writing going back 6000 years, we could say we know nothing of religion for a 194,000 year spread to apply evolution to.

this is not trolling these are the facts people has emotions good and bad before they had religion.

cheap shot only in your eyes

 

[painted wolf]

And I never said that love started with religion... so you are attacking a strawman and your insistence otherwise is thus trollish.

In fact I didn't say anything about love at all, I noted that the appearance of ritual/spiritual behavior and the care for the elderly and sick appear in the fossil record of hominids at about the same time.
I have never proposed any set religious beliefs to our ancestors so you can get rid of that strawman right there.

Do you have something of value to add? Or are you going to keep attacking your strawmen?

wa:do

ps. Yes can make inferences on ritual/spiritual behavior prior to the written word. Our ancestors left behind plenty of evidence in the form of ritual objects, burials and artwork. Religion didn't simply pop ex nihlo into existence with writing, and to insist that we can't learn anything about it's evolution is as blind as newhope saying we can't piece together physical evolution without every fossil or genome.

 

[painted wolf]

In another thread, I mentioned how the use of fire and technology may have contributed to the continuation of brain expansion in the hominid line. I'm interested to find out if any novel areas of the brain (or any already-existing areas) developed during the erectus - heidelbergensis period.

I'm not sure about any specific brain areas that can be seen from the skulls.

According to Robin Dunbar, more emphasis was placed on vocalisation (but not language as we know it) due to increasingly complex social interactions as a result of living in larger groups (Grooming, Gossip and Language - Robin Dunbar, 1996).

There is a good living model for this idea in the Hamadryas baboons. They form massive social groups with as many as 200 odd individuals composed of smaller groups. So keeping track of your particular subgroup in this massive community is a challenge. They seem to do so by being extra chatty.

I think that increasing loss of hair would also push our ancestors in the language direction, as there isn't much left to groom and thus more need for an alternative bonding method.

In a recent book, Jesse Bering expanded on this by outlining the idea that larger, more cohesive groups with some vocal ability could regulate its members by 'gossiping' about those that cheat and steal from others in the group. In this way, people became aware of how others viewed them - a theory of mind developed, which acts in a self-regulatory way. It would make adaptive sense to be viewed by others as altruistic and kind rather than a cheat or thief (The God Instinct - Jesse Bering, 2011). As we developed as a species, these regulatory mechanisms would have remained and could have been easily co-opted by early 'religion'. Virtually all religions today have the basic tenet of 'do unto others...' in one form or another.

I'm a little more skeptical of this though... as theory of mind is proving to be a far more expansive mental attribute than previously assumed.
Also, every species with a complex social structure seems to have a variant of the "do unto others" rule. Indeed, this rule is what drives grooming behavior in primates.

I will agree in part though.... I think that most religious tenants are reflections of cultural social practice used to keep social friction to a minimum by providing a shared frame work to live by.

wa:do