What is the evolutionary advantage to religion?

My take is that this thread encapsulates a classic error. It effectively makes the ultra-adaptionist presumption that every feature has to convey some "advantage" for it to persist.Many things effectively come along for the ride; and many features of organisms are not inherited. It's really dubious to presume that every feature must have an advantage if we just look hard enough, and its especially dubious to look for "evolutionary" advantages in cultural phenomena.Cheers -- Sylas

You've omitted the essential feature of inheritance. There's deep water lurking here. The notion of the "meme" -- poorly defined and not rigourously analysed -- is an attempt to map evolutionary notions into the field of ideas; but I'm frankly dubious that linkage to the scientific models used in evolutionary biology is all that useful. It also runs into strife with the notion of just what is the replicator: the organism or the idea itself.I'd have no particular problem with the question phrased as "what is it about religion or about humanity that makes religion such a persistent and pervasive phenomenon?" The same questions could be asked about music, or body piercing. It's the explicit invocation of "evolutionary advantage" that raises red flags for me. I do not think this has anything much to do with evolutionary advantages at all.Cheers -- Sylas