Evolutionary Origin of Religious Belief

This assumes, of course, that God is entirely a perceived threat or
a predator that threatens our way of life. Maybe He is bringing something to the forest that we can actually use. Thats for the non-scientific Forums, however--right?

On the right track; we freeze first and can display 'tonic immobility' where we collapse.When we are suprised or shocked our blood pressure drops sharply freezing us in place, then it rockets and we go into fight or flight.

No, no, no. Actually you kind of answered my question. I didn't know the correct terminology to ask it in. I was wondering if this study was about biological evolution or pyschological evolution, or if the two areas ever link up.Take your example about birds. If they all start milk-bottle pecking, does that become a biological trait that is handed on even if the baby never saw a bird peck milk?

Over a few generations it is purely learnt, but, just as birds will sing without any teaching, a bird who listens to singing will sing 'better' than one raised in isolation.Over many many generations birds that are more inclined (just through chance- remember we are talking many many generations) the behaviour will become hard wired.Just like our propensity for language and tool use is 'hard wired': it started as random behaviour that became 'instintual'.

If what He "brings" is in the forest, what difference does it make how it got there?From a survival/evolutionary standpoint, His only significance seems to be His predatory nature. Do we fight or do we flee? Sacrificing ourselves to Him seems counterproductive.

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Hullo Archer,I clicked on the link below, I registered at New York Times but I'm still not allowed to see the text of the article unless I pay.So, I'm going to react to your post only."The New York Times Magazine carries a feature this week by Robin Marantz Henig. Under the rather misleading title 'Darwin's God,' the article offers an extensive discussion of ongoing scientific investigations into the origin of religious belief.

[Scott Atran's] research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.

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If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?

The complexity of the question facing scientists is noted early.

The debate over why belief evolved is between byproduct theorists and adaptationists.[...] But a scientist’s personal religious view does not always predict which side he will take. And this is just one sign of how complex and surprising this debate has become.[....] According to anthropologists, religions that share certain supernatural features ” belief in a noncorporeal God or gods, belief in the afterlife, belief in the ability of prayer or ritual to change the course of human events ” are found in virtually every culture on earth.

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[....]

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When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success. In many ways, it’s an exercise in post-hoc hypothesizing: what would have been the advantage, when the human species first evolved, for an individual who happened to have a mutation that led to, say, a smaller jaw, a bigger forehead, a better thumb? How about certain behavioral traits, like a tendency for risk-taking or for kindness?

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Atran saw such questions as a puzzle when applied to religion. So many aspects of religious belief involve misattribution and misunderstanding of the real world. Wouldn’t this be a liability in the survival-of-the-fittest competition? To Atran, religious belief requires taking “what is materially false to be true” and “what is materially true to be false.” One example of this is the belief that even after someone dies and the body demonstrably disintegrates, that person will still exist, will still be able to laugh and cry, to feel pain and joy. This confusion “does not appear to be a reasonable evolutionary strategy,” Atran wrote in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion in 2002. “Imagine another animal that took injury for health or big for small or fast for slow or dead for alive. It’s unlikely that such a species could survive.” He began to look for a sideways explanation: if religious belief was not adaptive, perhaps it was associated with something else that was.

That's a taste. The full article may be found here:
Evolution and Religion - Darwin’s God - Robin Marantz Henig - The New York Times"You wrote (apparently the author of the article of course), "The debate over why belief evolved is between byproduct theorists and adaptationists..."Honestly speaking I can't understand why is that so. Most scientists I know would see a condition, a social behaviour as being religious much more complex than that."When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success."This is again a very simplistic view on evolution, esp. e. of Homo Sapiens, many scientists would argue."Wouldn’t this be a liability in the survival-of-the-fittest competition?"There is no theory as of today that supports such claims. Not to mention that we're dealing with other issues here than simply biological evolution."“Imagine another animal that took injury for health or big for small or fast for slow or dead for alive. It’s unlikely that such a species could survive.”"This, again, is simply wrong. There are thousands of examples of such behaviour in animals. We can experience that on a daily basis. How many times does a fly fly towards the window? One-, twohundred?How many insects fly into the lamp and die?Andrea
Edited by princesszin, : No reason given.

Welcome to EvC, princesszin. That's the catch, I'm afraid, with sharing any article from the New York Times. It is posted for view by the public for about a week or so. After that it goes into their archives and becomes pay-per-view.Quoting from your responses to the article: Good point. And I share your feeling about the simplistic nature of much discussion in the article. To be candid--and this is going only by the picture presented in the article--I found Atran's ideas shallow at best and prejudiced at worst.What else is one to make of his choice to define religion as 'taking injury for health or big for small or fast for slow or dead for alive'? He starts all his research from the premise that religion is and must be denial.This definition is short-sighted to the point of simple-minded. A moment's thought about his own example shows this.Atran looks at belief in an afterlife when faced with the death of an individual and the deterioration of the corpse. He says 'The life is gone and the body deteriorates. Why would anyone observing this believe the person continues to exist? The belief denies observed reality.'Except that it could also explain it. Our ancestors knew basic arithmetic:

2 - 1 = 1

They observed that first there exists a person. This person consists of a body plus an animating force--some sort of energy that generates will, volition, intelligence, personality. At death there exists only a body. The animating force is gone.The question 'Where did the animating force go?' would be a rational one.One hypothesis offered in answer to that question--that the animating force and the body are two aspects of the person that were once united and are now separated--is likewise rational. It connects logically with the observed reality.Two other ideas logically follow from this. They likewise find support in observation:

1. This animating force is connected with the body's ability to cohere. (Observation: the body holds together while the force is present and quickly decomposes after it is gone.)

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2. The animating force is invisible. (Observation: we never observe the force directly, whether present or departing, yet we see effects for each.)

The 'separation hypothesis' is not the only one human beings have proposed--including religious human beings. But I don't see how anyone who is honestly trying to come to terms with the question could overlook this.And that's just one example. Religion, as you say, is a complex phenomenon. One would expect a person who puts 'religion' in the definition of his life's work to show some knowledge of this. Is Atran aware of the research being done in fields like comparative religion? Has he read Eliade? If so, we find no evidence of this knowledge in the article. We are told about the Uncle Sam suit he wore to the student protest rally, about the attention he sought (and got) from his favorite bigwigs, and about the need he feels today to assert a boundary between the origins of ideas like 'communism' and those of 'unreal' ideas like religion.Religious belief has everything to do with our human tendency to form mental pictures of reality. The essence of religion lies not in denying the obvious but in creating a structure for it. We are symbol-making creatures. The mental characteristic that produces religious belief is akin to the one that produces art, music, philosophies, scientific theories, and language itself.---The story is told in the film Smoke about Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth smoking cigars together. Raleigh suggests that smoke can be weighed. The queen wonders how such a thing is possible. Smoke vanishes into the air 'like the human soul.' How does one measure this?Sir Walter puts a cigar on a scale and notes its weight. He then lights the cigar and lets it burn down. He then notes the weight of the ashes.The difference, he says, is the weight of the smoke.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo, clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Your post seems incomplete without a reference to measuring the weight of the human soul.

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Hullo Archer,Thanks for your reply, very intelligent post.I hope you're only kidding with the 'experiment' about the smoke.You wrote, "The story is told in the film Smoke about Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth smoking cigars together. Raleigh suggests that smoke can be weighed. The queen wonders how such a thing is possible. Smoke vanishes into the air 'like the human soul.' How does one measure this?Sir Walter puts a cigar on a scale and notes its weight. He then lights the cigar and lets it burn down. He then notes the weight of the ashes.The difference, he says, is the weight of the smoke."Andrea

Not at all. That story really is in the movie.It was a metaphor to illustrate a point I had made. If it doesn't help, skip it. (I realize that literal interpretations will run heavy on scientist-vs-fundamentalist boards.)

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ArcherAll species are transitional.