The evolution of religion?

Or implying that they didn't want dead granny lying around the cave, attracting rats.

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What other method for disposal of the dead would you recommend?Maybe burial of the dead just coincides with living at a fixed location, where various kinds of sanitation become desirable. How does the enjoyment of ceremony and ritual imply religious belief?

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Do we know for sure that Neanderthals didn't burn some of their dead or throw some of them in the bog?Do we eat our dead pets? Or let other animals eat them? Do atheists bury their dead pets? I honestly think we don't know for sure. There's only a hint that maybe they had religious beliefs. Why would we assume that they did? Why not?

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If burial with "religious ritual" was a teeny-tiny minority practise, how would it say anything about the evolution of religion? Mental illness.

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That's what I'm saying. A ritual doesn't necessarily have to be religious, a ritualistic burial doesn't necessarily imply religious beliefs. When a pet dies, we comfort our children with "he's in Turtle Heaven". We comfort adults with "he's in a better place" or "he's not suffering any more".We do that even if we don't have a specific belief in the "spirits" that we give lip service to. I wonder if the belief in spirits might have come from the social need to comfort each other.

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Only if it was determined that the Neanderthals did, in fact, have religion. So far, as far as I know, the jury is still out on that point. All we have is a possible indication that they might have had something like religious beliefs. That's basically what I'm getting at. It seems likely that the rituals and social practices did evolve on separate occasions in different places for different reasons. One of the reasons might have been belief in god(s). Another reason might have been fads that survived. Another reason might have been charismatic leaders with mental health issues.I'm just wondering if a lot of different reasoning didn't converge into what we now think of as "religion". For some people, it certainly does.(Present company excepted. You seem to be a pretty level-headed guy, even though you're always wrong when you disagree with me. ) It isn't. I'm just saying that that kind of behaviour might be the origin of rituals and social practices that are often attributed to "belief in God". It's possible that "the gods" were invented by scam artists to take advantage of people's natural social behaviour. Do you really want to get into "Lies, Fairy Tales and Religion"? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.Edited by Ringo, : Ye olde spellinge.

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I'm drawing a (dotted) line at some external "reason" for the behaviour.If I like to drink coffee out of my lucky Giant Tiger mug, it's because the handle fits my hand, not because the gods will reward me. That's not religion. If I'm buried wearing my favourite Three Stooges T-shirt, it's because that's the way I want to be remembered, not because I need it to get into heaven. That's not religion.If you get sprinkled or dunked or hosed because you think that will wash away your sins, that's religion. If you're good to your neighbours because that's what you think God wants, that's religion. That's what I'm asking though: How do trinkets, etc. "indicate" religion? Again, that's my point: How would you know the reasons were "purely supernaturalistic"? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.Does perceived practicality count as practicality?What do we know about Neanderthal perceptions?

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How do you know you have eliminated "all" other possibilities, Sherlock? I've suggested a couple of possibilities - mental illness, comfort. How can you reasonably eliminate those? If the question is, "Is it a duck?" we should be fairly slow to come to that conclusion. We should have more than two criteria (or in the case of the Neanderthals, one) to base a conclusion on.Since the question here is, "Is it religion?" we shouldn't be confirming our biases by finding examples of religion under every rock. Take a less practical example, like counting steps. (I do that, by the way. )
What's the practical reason, perceived or real?Is it religious or non-religious?

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