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Origin of religion

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Every religious system has its own particular creation myths. In more recent times scientists have adopted secular studies towards the origin of religion. In the early part of the 20th century, a number of psychological and sociological theories of religion were put forward. More recently, evolutionary sciences have taken an important role in the study of religion.[1]

When exactly humans first became religious remains unknown. Some of the earliest evidence of human religious behavior is from Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age era (250-50kya). In evolutionary science, religion is thought to have coincided with the emergence of modern human behavior.

Anthropology

Main articles: Anthropology of religion and Indigenous religion

Though religious behaviour varies widely between the world's cultures, in its widest sense religion is a cultural universal found in all human populations, past or present. Common elements include:

Prehistoric evidence of religion

The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species. Humans are therefore unique in their treatment of the dead[2]. Ritual burial thus represents a significant advancement in human behavior. Ritual burial represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life"[3]. The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in spain. At this location the bones of 30 individuals believed to be Homo heidelbergensis have been found in a pit.[4]

Neanderthals are also contenders for the first homonids to intentionally bury the dead. They may have placed corpses into shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. The presence of these grave goods may indicate an emotional connection with the deceased and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Neanderthal burial sites include Shanidar in Iraq and Krapina in Croatia and Kebara Cave in Israel.[5][6][7][6]. The earliest known burial of modern humans is from a cave in Israel located at Qafzeh. Human remains have been dated to 100,000 years ago. Human skeletons were found stained with red ochre. A variety of grave goods were found at the burial site. The mandible of a wild boar was found placed in the arms of one of the skeletons[8]. Philip Lieberman states:

Burial rituals incorporating grave goods may have been invented by the anatomically modern hominids who emigrated from Africa to the Middle East 100,000 years ago.[8]

Other than burials, there is some evidence of ritual behavior from Middle Stone Age sites in africa such as one site in South Africa dated to 70,000 years ago. [9]. Several sites also show increased use of pigments, which are thought to relate to ritual activity, dating back as far as 100,000 years.[10].

The role of cognition

There is general consensus that the emergence of religion was related to increased human cognition and also increased social complexity. Religion is a complex social phenomena and has been described as an extension of the human social world into the supernatural. The religious mind is one consequence of a brain that is large enough to formulate religious and philosophical ideas. [11]. During human evolution, the hominid brain tripled in size , peaking 500,000 years ago and has since shrunk slightly. Much of brain's expansion took place in the neocortex which is responsible for higher cognitive functions such as self-consciousness and social interactions. Among mammals there is a general correlation between the relative size of the neocortex and social complexity. Humans possess the largest neocortex volume relative to brain size of all mammals. The peaking of brain size half a million years ago is some indication that hominid social life had achieved a significant level of complexity in the direction of the modern religious mind.

Abstract thought and imagination are of significant importance to the origins of religion. This is because Gods and many other spiritual beings are abstract and not concrete. One common human tendency that involves abstraction is to anthropomorphize gods or other naturally occurring objects. [12]. Other mammals and even higher order primates lack the capacity to demonstrate abract thought. Evidence of abstract thought in the fossil record is thus a useful indicator of a mind capable of religious thought.

It is generally believed that the creatively designed stone and bone tools, artwork and the ritual burials of the Upper paleolithic constitute cognitive abilities consistent with a religious mind. The manufacture of complex tools requires, firstly, creating a mental image of an object that does not exist naturally before actually making artifact. Furthermore, one must understand how the tool would be used, which requires an understanding of causality[13] Hence the manufacture of these tools represents the capacity to imagine gods and other spiritual beings that are not naturally occurring. [14].

Language and religion

See also: origin of language and myth and religion

Religion requires a system of symbolic communication such as language to be transmitted from one individual to another. Philip Lieberman states "human religious thought and moral sense clearly rest on a cognitive-linguistic base," [3] From this premise science writer Nicholas Wade states:

"Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 50,000 years ago. Although religious rituals usually involve dance and music, they are also very verbal, since the sacred truths have to be stated. If so, religion, at least in its modern form, cannot pre-date the emergence of language. It has been argued earlier that language attained its modern state shortly before the exodus from Africa. If religion had to await the evolution of modern, articulate language, then it too would have emerged shortly before 50,000 years ago. "[15]

Primate behavior and religious evolution

This section examines the primatological evidence for the evolutionary development of religion. Chimpanzees and Bonobos are the closest living evolutionary relatives to humans. Some studies show chimpanzees to be genetically more closely related to humans than to gorillas or any other species. Chimpanzees exhibit many traits in common with humans. They live in large groups and also demonstrate high levels of intelligence relative to other mammals. Humans have a neocortex ratio of 80%, Chimpanzees have a neocortex ratio of 50%, second only to humans in size. The study of chimpanzee behavior offers valuable insight into the evolutionary history of humans behavior.[13]

Citing a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self", and a concept of continuity, anthropologist Barbara King suggests that chimpanzees and bonobos, exhibit traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of religion in human beings. [16][17][18] Primatologist Frans de Waal recognizes primate sociality, which he describes as the nonhuman primate behaviors of empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking, as precursors of human morality.

Evolution of morality

See also Morality and Evolution of morality

Morality is a uniquely human trait, however, social animals such as primates, dolphins and whales have been known to exhibit premoral sentiments. According to Michael Shermer, the precursors of morality exhibited by many social animals include attachment, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection and awareness and conformance to social norms. These sentiments are especially prominent in chimpanzees. [19]

Premoral sentiments evolved in primates as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. Within social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group outweigh the benefits of individual selfishness. For example, lack of group cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Group members encourage or enforce cooperation through these behaviors. Chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have groomed them.[20]

Chimpanzees live fission-fusion groups that average 50 individuals. Paleolithic hominids lived in bands that could range from 30 people to a few hundred. This increase in community size would have required greater enforcement to achieve group cohesion and cooperation. Moral codes that were enforced through rewards, punishment and reputation building. According to Dunbar's theory cohesion of these larger communities was achieved by expansion of the neocortex. This enabled the human brain to process a greater number of social relations. Dunbar's theory also postulates that humans in groups of less than 150 people can maintain group cohesion by social forces alone. Groups larger than 150 individuals require more restrictive rules and regulations to maintain cohesion.

Religion is thought to have evolved after morality. Religion built upon morality by expanding social scrutiny to include the supernatural. By including ever watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans living in large groups were still forced to be more cooperative and socially responsible[21] The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival.[22] [23]

Neolithic religions

Main article: Neolithic religion

Until 11,000 years ago all humans around the world lived as semi-nomadic hunter gatherers. The population density of these hunter gather societies was relatively low. As the pace of technological development intensified following the great leap forward the global human population began to increase. Populations abandoned the nomadic lifestlye and adopted sedentism. The subsequent invention of agriculture led to dramatic social changes to human societies around the world. Population densities increased and humans began living in settlements comprising thousands of individuals. Hunter gatherers religions are normally associated with animism, shamanism and ancestor worship. Religion became an institution during this period and had several roles, chiefly, maintaining social order through the justification of social hierarchies[19]. A major technological advance that had a major impact on religion was the invention of writing 4000 years ago.Some scientists regard the Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt as the oldest know religious texts in the world dating to between 3300 to 3150 BCE.[24] [25] It is these factors that led to the development of the world religions during the Axial Age.

Evolutionary psychology of religion

See also: Evolutionary psychology of religion

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. There are two schools of thought. One is that religion is a darwinian trait that evolved through some mechanism of natural selectin such as group selection, in which case religion conferred some sort of evolutionary advantage. Proponents of this hypothesis argue for a strong genetic component to religion and that these genes were subject to natural selection. The other hypothesis posits that religion is an evolutionary byproduct, a neurological accident. Stephen Jay Gould was a proponent of this hypothesis. He believed that religion was an exaptation or a Spandral. That is religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that were designed for other purposes.[26][27][28][29]. Group selection theories because they religious practices, such as rituals and sacrifices, are too costly to confer any adaptive value upon religion.One popular by-product theory is the "predator agency" or "Hyperactive agency detection device" which posits that religious imagination arose as a result of ever detection of predatory threats.

Genetics

Some scholars have suggested that religion is hardwired into the human condition. Dean Hamer, has put forward the God gene hypothesis. Hamer proposes that some human beings bear a gene which gives them a predisposition to episodes interpreted by some as religious revelation. One gene identified is VMAT2.[30] A number of scientists and researcher though are highly critical of this theory; Carl Zimmer, writing in Scientific American, points out that Hamer rushed into print with this book before publishing his results in a credible scientific journal. In his book, Hamer backs away from the title and main hypotheses of his book by saying "Just because spirituality is partly genetic doesn't mean it is hardwired,"[31]

See also

footnotes

  1. ^ "The Prehistory of the Mind The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science By [[Steven Mithen]] Reviewed by Andy Gorman" (PDF). there are many fields of study that can contribute to the discussion of the human mind. These include psychologists, philosophers, neurologists,primatologists, biological anthropologists, social anthropologists, and computer scientists. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  2. ^ Elephants may pay homage to the dead
  3. ^ a b Lieberman (1991). Uniquely Human. ISBN 0674921836. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  4. ^ Greenspan, Stanley. How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Early Primates to Modern Human. ISBN 0306814498.
  5. ^ "The Neanderthal dead:exploring mortuary variability in Middle Palaeolithic Eurasia" (PDF). {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  6. ^ a b Evolving in their graves: early burials hold clues to human origins - research of burial rituals of Neanderthals
  7. ^ "BBC article on the Neanderthals". Neanderthals buried their dead, and one burial at Shanidar in Iraq was accompanied by grave goods in the form of plants. All of the plants are used in recent times for medicinal purposes, and it seems likely that the Neanderthals also used them in this way and buried them with their dead for the same reason. Grave goods are an archaeological marker of belief in an afterlife, so Neanderthals may well have had some form of religious belief. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  8. ^ a b . Uniquely Human page 163
  9. ^ World’s oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago, apollon.uio.no, retrieved 2007-12-22 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  10. ^ Rossano, Matt (2007). "The Religious Mind and the Evolution of Religion" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ Ehrlich, Paul. Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect. pp. page 214. ISBN 155963779X. Religious ideas can be traced to the evolution of brains large enough to make possible the kind of abstract thought necessary to formulate religious and philosophical ideas {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  12. ^ "Human Uniqueness and Symbolization". This 'coding of the non-visible' through abstract, symbolic thought, enabled also our early human ancestors to argue and hold beliefs in abstract terms. In fact, the concept of God itself follows from the ability to abstract and conceive of 'person'
  13. ^ a b Six impossible things before breakfast, The evolutionary origins of belief. ISBN 0393064492. with regard to hafted tools, One would have to understand that the two pieces serve different purposes, and imagine how the tool could be used,
  14. ^ Wolpert, Lewis. Six impossible things before breakfast, The evolutionary origins of belief. p. page 82. ISBN 0393064492. Belief in cause and effect has had the most enormous effect on human evolution, both physical and cultural. Tool use, with language, has transformed human evolution and let to what we now think of as belief {{cite book}}: |page= has extra text (help)
  15. ^ *"Wade, Nicholas - Before The Dawn, Discovering the lost history of our ancestors. Penguin Books, London, 2006. p. 8 p. 165" ISBN 1594200793
  16. ^ Gods and Gorillas
  17. ^ King, Barbara (2007). Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion. Doubleday Publishing." ISBN 0385521553.
  18. ^ Excerpted from Evolving God by Barbara J. King
  19. ^ a b Shermer, Michael. The Science of Good and Evil. ISBN 0805075208.
  20. ^ Videos of chimpanzee food sharing
  21. ^ Rossano, Matt (2007). "Supernaturalizing Social Life: Religion and the Evolution of Human Cooperation" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  22. ^ [Nicholas Wade. Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior. New York Times. March 20, 2007.
  23. ^ Matthew Rutherford. The Evolution of Morality. University of Glasgow. 2007. Retrieved June 6, 2008
  24. ^ Budge, Wallis. An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Literature. pp. page 9. ISBN 0486295028. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  25. ^ The beginning of religion at the begining of the Neolithic
  26. ^ A scientific exploration of how we have come to believe in God
  27. ^ Toward an evolutionary psychology of religion and personality
  28. ^ The evolutionary psychology of religion Steven Pinker
  29. ^ Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function Pascal Boyer
  30. ^ Hamer, Dean (2005). The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired Into Our Genes. Anchor Books. ISBN 0385720319.
  31. ^ Hamer, Dean H. 2004. The God gene how faith is hardwired into our genes. New York: Doubleday. Pages 211-12.

References

Further reading

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