Evolutionary Origin of Religious Belief

Inventing any plausible or non-plausable explanation for things has a byproduct in creating order amoung a society which subsequently defines itself by that order. This eventually differentiates between societies and forces the ideas of both into adapting and evolving, or annhilation and defeat. Religion has supernatural emelents, but over all it is an extension of the purpose or goals prescribed by a culture to its functions.All of the possible explanations are meritorious in some purely physical/survival scenerios, although of course when you look at the differences in modern world religions, and the over-all shift from viewing ourselves as clans, to a global community, the ways in which religions can be useful shifts a bit as well. Religion is viewed now as a left-over tendency and in opposition to what we want as an entire species. It is seen as a dividing line from an antique mind-set, despite that most religions teach the same humanitarian and pacifist ideals of secular society.

My bolding.You were talking a load of old sense till you got to the supernatural bit.Adding the supernatural achieves exactly nothing to this debate.

But that was my point. I was glossing over the supernatural in favor of the practical.

Well put, but I'm not sure how much, if any, irrationality we need. Some people might think that they need it, but they might be being unnecessarily irrational in believing so.There are lots of interesting bits in the article Archer links to in the O.P. like: This might explain why some religious people get annoyed if you compare belief in their God to belief in the Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and other such spoofs on religion. Such things don't fit the "minimally counterintuitive" qualification.Interestingly, it's arguable that the God of the young earth fundamentalists has become "maximally counterintuitive" for non-fundamentalist Christians due to an increase in scientific knowledge, so they have done away with literal interpretations of Genesis, and substituted a more "minimally counterintuitive" God for the old one.

Interesting stuff, yes, but I am not sure that it fits with fundamentalism.Biblical literalism is counter-sensitive, rather than counter-intuitive. In a certain sense, it is not illogical to have a belief in the Bible which is absolute and inerrant, and then to hold to that belief. But inerrantists are holding only to their own interpretation as gold, not the Bible. Or, their interpretation of the word inerrant, to be exact.The 'God' in both scenerios remains the same minimal-intuitve God, but what creative powers we ascribe to that God have changed.What is sensory is different from what is intuitive...or known by 'feeling'.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.Edited by anastasia, : spelling

I didn't know that any Christians believed in a God who has "creative powers" that are in any way limited. Live and learn. I thought He could do whatever he wanted to do.Minimally and maximally intuitive are Pascal Boyer's terms, and obviously fairly loose. What I meant was that with increased scientific knowledge, the God of genesis creation becomes more like the tree that can talk, fly and travel. Maximally counterintuitive in the way that Boyer is using the term. If your beliefs are in a God who created this universe as scientists perceive it and who decided to communicate with our species by having a succession of prophets all from the same Middle-Eastern tribe (highly impractical) and have a son by a woman from the same tribe, that could be described as just minimally counterintuitive.

I think that even if I am not precise in wording, although I do try, that you will understand that I mean the creative processes which we imagine of God have changed from one of instantaneous creation of life as we see it, to one of evolved life. I undestand, but I think that you are using 'intuitive' to cover what is statistically probable, logical, or visible, and these things are not in the realms of what is considered intuitive. Maybe I can get back to you with a definition.

I did guess pretty much what you meant, although it wasn't what you said, so my apologies for nitpicking! Here's something to go on. So I think that all Gods are counterintuitive, just going by the first sentence of the above.Perhaps you're confusing intuition with instinct? Edited by bluegenes, : Bit about instinct.Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

This means that th edepressed individual gets it right more than the non depressed individual. Depressed people display a marked lack of hope and posotivity towards the future. They predict negative outcomes and stop striving to attain goals. The thiing is the predictions they make (more negative than norms) are more accurate reflections of reality.Being able to block this effect with any of irrationality (e.g. belief in gods and spirits et al) is good for the organism as it protects against psychological disorders such as depression (the number one killer in the western world!).I like the idea of a continuum of counter intuitiveness. The more we learn about the natural world the more counter intuitive religion becomes.Xianty in the UK has (in my experience) devolved into a quiet little belief that most people are content to leave undisturbed because drawing attention to it illuminates how counter intuitive it actually is.

Yeah, *scuffs feet, looks at floor chastened* s'pose.

Yes, I understand what you're saying, but there's an obvious catch to it. Religion isn't going to work for the people that you think would benefit from it. Those people whose thought processes lead them to conclusions or predictions that are "accurate reflections of reality". So, in serious cases, you would have to treat them with other opiates, anyway.You're then left with religion comforting people whose thought processes do not lead them to predictions that are accurate reflections of reality (almost by definition, I'd say!), and these are the ones who are least likely to suffer from depression anyway, according to the research that you're basing this on (which I'm perfectly prepared to believe as bright and sensitive people being more prone to depression and other forms of mental illness fits my experience).Does this fit with the evolutionary history of our species? If what you're saying is right, it's almost like saying that we've evolved to become the most intelligent ape while at the same time evolving a special and unique kind of stupidity (religiosity) in order to be able cope emotionally with existence at our level of sentience.I'm not really against the adaptive side of the argument as described by the article in the O.P., and I think your points about religion helping us to cope with grief are good ones, but I'm sure there are some contradictions in there somewhere. I also think that religion is at least partly, if not largely or entirely, "byproduct".

Sorry, double post, technical problems.Edited by bluegenes, : Double post.

Ah, Larni, you know me...I will always think there is more to it...but I can be objective enough at times to view religion as an extension of, or a packaged form, of those lovely moral codes. That part is easy to understand when it comes to evolutionary purpose. The part which is not so easy is really the supernatural element. I mean, what usefulness would a 'god' concept be? A big bad shepherd driving the sheep into line, maybe?Actually, tho, if I am not mistaken, the whole idea of 'supernatural' is a bit later in the game, isn't it? The earliest religious forms were much more practical or 'grounded'?

Not really, they still use behaviour or thought to effect the natural world in a non causal way.

I think the most interesting aspect of the idea that religious tendencies might be (by)products of our mental makeup, developed through our evolutionary history, is what it means for the truth claims of religion.If good evidence is found for this idea, what evidence can religion then bring to bear to show that religious ideas have any factual basis?Religious ideas may indeed be comforting and so forth, but that is no evidence that they are true.