Religion: a survival mechanism?

In Message 42, Schrafinator reacted to Faith's claim that unreliable eye-witness accounts are caused by a decline in moral standards.Here's part of the exchange: Schrafinator mentioned the survival value of "human biases and thought errors and communal reinforcements". If I am not mistaken, she uses the quoted phrase in the previous sentence as a description of how she views religion. And, again if I am not mistaken, religion was indeed Faith's point of departure when making that statement about declining moral standards.Coincidentally, just before I saw Schrafinator's comments, I read an article in Guardian Unlimited which describes just that view - that "religion may be a survival mechanism". The article discusses how scientists are trying to explain the phenomenon of religion and gives some interesting details - and differing opinions - from diverse lines of research.A few extracts:

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Faith has long been a puzzle for science, and it's no surprise why. By definition, faith demands belief without a need for supporting evidence, a concept that could not be more opposed to the principles of scientific inquiry. In the eyes of the scientist, an absence of evidence reduces belief to a hunch.

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As well as providing succour for those troubled by the existential dilemma, religion, or at least a primitive spirituality, would have played another important role as human societies developed. By providing contexts for a moral code, religious beliefs encouraged bonding within groups, which in turn bolstered the group's chances of survival, says Pascal Boyer, an anthropologist turned psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.

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"Will science be the death of religion? As neuroscience, it's interesting to see how brains can create very strange states of consciousness, but in terms of threatening religion, I think it'll have absolutely no effect."

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The article also describes at some length the neurological research into religious experiences, effectively presenting the view that they can be seen as (part of) a neurological condition.I find the "survival mechanism" view of religion very interesting, if not compelling, as a possible explanation for it as a phenomenon, although I have not made up my mind about which of the various possibilities would be closest to the truth. Personally, I would add the concept of religion as a meme-complex into the mix. (That would still involve a survival mechanism, but of a different entity.)Probably, as is usually the case, things are not quite as simple as we would like them to be, and a combination of all three (survival mechanism, neurological condition, meme-complex), perhaps spiced up with even more unthought-of possibilities, may be what we're looking at.But in this thread, I would like to hear your opinions about the "survival mechanism" theory.{Note for the admins: Although one could argue for "Biological Evolution" as the proper forum, I think this would be better placed in "Faith and Belief".}This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 02 March 2005 13:30 AM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I read that article and found it intriguing. Back in the day when me and my friends ingested hallucinogenic drugs and mushrooms, we often transcended the realm between self and "oneness." The experience was different from my "born again" epiphany which happened some years later, but I must admit that God is totally a belief and faith that I have embraced. I would agree except to also state that no substance can properly be proven to enhance the spirit world in any way. The spirit world is by definition a world of acceptance and belief.Does this mean that it is a product of imagination? I do not believe so, but that is just me. Check this link: Religion Is a Virus – Mother JonesI don't agree with it, but it is controversial!This message has been edited by Phatboy, 03-04-2005 08:47 AM

Oh dear - I'm thumping one of my familiar tubs again in this post. Bear with me.I'm not sure about the quality of the studies, but there seems to be suggestion of a corrolation between religious belief and observance and longer life, as well as faster recovery from illness. I tried to find a few links on google, but a lot of them are to dodgy looking religious sites. This is quite ironic, considering that this effect is observed across all denominations and not reserved to one affiliation(as far as I can see), it would suggest that the power of the placebo effect, and not a supernatural power, is what is at work here. But regardless of that, what a power it is!Of course, even if these studies are accurate, we can't be confident that these studies can be extrapolated up to prove the evolutionary benefit of the development of religious beliefs in humans. But it would be great if religious beliefs could be demonstrated to be advantageous in this way. But assuming that religious beliefs do offer health benefits and extended life, why is it so?This is purely speculation, but I'm tempted to believe that it is because our mental state, as with many others creatures, heavily influences our physical wellbeing. Unlike other creatures however, ideas framed in linguistic terms can influence our state of mind for good or ill. Big questions, like 'what's happened to granny after she dies?' need pleasing answers or else we could face depression, ennui and accompanying damage to our health and wellbeing.Being self-aware, language using creatures, we find it impossible to imagine an end to consciousness becuase such a thing is self defeating. It is also terribly scary. We need fictions - any fictions - to reasure us.
It seems to me that the common ground shared by most religions isn't in the similarities between their various deities but in their refusal to countenance a cessation of consciousness (Buddhism might be an exception to that - but as far as I'm aware, reaching Nirvana is the exception to reincarnation).So I think that the problem is that self-aware, complex language using animals are inevitably going to be scared of an end of consciousness, and the most effective solution so far has been to deny the possibility - through religions. Mental trauma will have physical repercussions, and so it would make sense if there were some evolutionary advantage to solving this worry. It makes me wonder if there are any other solutions to the problem. The most obvious in our modern technological age is to put off the end of consciousness indefinitely by maintaining the body - or by freezing our heads in liquid nitrogen. I don't think that any religious memeplex could withstand such a challenge.Just an idle thought.

Tusko,Thank you for your reply.You focus on mental health and physical well-being and the direct implications of these for evolutionary fitness on the level of the individual.But as you can read from the article, the "survival mechanism" approach targets the effects of religion on a group of individuals.Here's the quintessential passage:

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By providing contexts for a moral code, religious beliefs encouraged bonding within groups, which in turn bolstered the group's chances of survival [...]

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If the effect of religion on a group is to endow it with some sort of moral system, then that may give the group as a whole an evolutionary advantage. It may bind the group members and motivate them to help the needy individuals in their group. These may then in turn be able to survive and even procreate, where they might not have been without this chain of religion giving rise to morals, giving rise to compassion, giving rise to actual care. You would be surprised by what memeplexes are capable of withstanding. After all, some people still refuse to acknowledge the fact of evolution, in spite of an overwhelming amount of evidence, simply because a religious memeplex forbids them to.How ironic it is then to contemplate the idea that religion, one way or another, may itself be a factor in, and a product of, evolution.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

I'm an amateur when it comes to science and the accompanying jargon; and my knowledge is limited to what I have read. I do find science fascinating though.

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I find the "survival mechanism" view of religion very interesting, if not compelling, as a possible explanation for it as a phenomenon, although I have not made up my mind about which of the various possibilities would be closest to the truth.

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If turning to religion for whatever reason was a survival mechanism, shouldn't groups turn away from religion for the same reason? In a book I read on the history of the Jews, they repeatedly faced abuse and death because of their beliefs and extreme practices. (I'm not at home so I don't have the book in front of me, sorry.) Wouldn't true self preservation dictate rejection of those actions that result in death? I've read that many Jews did convert for those reasons.This part of the article concerning children interested me.

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Psychological tests Boyer has run on children go some way to proving our natural tendency to believe. "If you look at three- to five-year-olds, when they do something naughty, they have an intuition that everyone knows they've been naughty, regardless of whether they have seen or heard what they've done. It's a false belief, but it's good preparation for belief in an entity that is moral and knows everything," he says. "The idea of invisible agents with a moral dimension who are watching you is highly attention-grabbing to us."

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The Christian churches I have been a part of continually stress "being as a child." This article on The Origin of the Domestic Dog has an experiment that makes me think of religion. Here is the excerpt.

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The experiment was started in the 1940's by the Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev, who studied the process of domestication using a population of fur farm foxes (see Fig. 1). The foxes used in the beginning stages of the experiment were difficult to handle, very afraid of people and generally behaved like wild animals. The experimenters began to selectively breed the foxes for one trait - tameness around people. At the age of one month, an experimenter would offer food to each fox kit while trying to pet and handle it. This was done twice - while the kit was alone and while it was with other fox kits. This routine was repeated monthly until the kit was seven to eight months old and at that point, each kit was assigned to one of three classes based on how tame it was. Class III foxes attempted to flee from experimenters or tried to bite them. Class II foxes were not friendly to the experimenters, but allowed themselves to be touched. Class I foxes were friendly towards the experimenters and would often approach them. After six generations of breeding only tame foxes, a new class, Class IE, ("domesticated elite") had to be added.

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Given the various places in the Bible where those who do not follow "God's Law" are killed or ostricized, IMO this continued culling could have created a class of people maintained in the childlike state and susceptible to various styles of religion.I wish the researchers had studied beliefs that didn't deal with a God/Father image or overall enlightenment. Some of the Native American beliefs don't really go in that direction. (Again, I don't have the book with me.)Many of the Native Americans did take up the Christian religion for the sake of self preservation. Believe or be culled.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

There are many, many such examples. My own family contains one such example. A distant relative was capture by Christians and held for ransom. Eventually, after years of captivity she converted to Christianity and married one of her captors.We often hear that Islam was spread by the sword. Christianity was most certainly spread by the sword and a vast number of Christians accepted the religion only for that very reason. In addition, unlike Islam that not only allowed but encouraged conquered people to retain their own National Identity, Religions and Cultures, Christianity usually set out immediately to destroy and obliterate any evidence, knowledge or remnants of such Identity, Religion or Culture.This is why I believe that anyone who considers himself or herself as a Christian should be aware of both the good and bad that's been done. Unless we know and understand such things we will continue to practice them. Those who forget history will relive it.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Bonding and Authority can both play a part as survival mechanisms. In fact, when you examine most early cultures the line between religion and civil authority blurs to the point where it is often difficult to separate the two. This is particularly true when you look at the Eastern Religions, the early societies around the Mediterranean and those that we know of in the Americas and may well be true of all cultures.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

At the risk of straying off topic, I think that while this is true to an extent, Christianity has also demonstrated a phenomenal capacity for absorbing and incorporating aspects of foreign culture and competing religions - which is undoubtedly one of the reasons for its success.I agree with Tusko's well thought, and well written post about religion as a response to fear of death; and while I agree to some extent with the argument that religion helps group survival by imposing rules in the guise of morals, I don't see this aspect of it as much different from self-imposed laws and rules of the secular variety.In effect, humans show the ability and affinity to self-govern, but they don't need religion to do it. I think this argument weakens the 'survival' aspect of religion.This message has been edited by custard, 03-02-2005 13:43 AM

While one aspect of religion is as a form of maintaining group cohesion, I think another aspect of it is as a teaching tool, which also underlies the group cohesion. Religious ideas passed down through generations would have included rules on eating (safe foods, preparing foods .ie. Jewish Talmud?), social rules and social organization rules (rulers, lords, authorities, social taboos), origin ideas, and incorporation of ideas. Think of all the rules that the bible contains, and the proscriptions of punishment for breaking the rules. Authorities of religion, be they priests, shamans, or Kings/Queens, could use religion as a form of social control through learning the rules and practices. If you look at not only western religious practices, but world wide religious ideas you should see a pattern of proscribed acceptable practices and punishments for transgresions. These may also include origins and punishments dealt by supernatural beings to the poeple who did not obey.

So is the consensus that if atheists don`t band together and introduce rewards and punishments, we are doomed?

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In effect, humans show the ability and affinity to self-govern, but they don't need religion to do it. I think this argument weakens the 'survival' aspect of religion.

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In the course of this thread I'm seeing two types of "survival."I was thinking of physical survival in the real world, but with the mention of fearing death it brings up the possiblity of life after death being the survival mechanism.I don't feel that religion begat morals, rules, etc. The religious haven't really been any more moral than the secular.When people stick with a religion despite persecution, death, etc.; it doesn't sound like self preservation.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

The Jewish people did survive, though. Even under the most extreme of pressures, they didn't fall apart. Their distinctive genetic makeup was neither eradicated nor diluted.Without religion, is there any doubt that they would have folded into the general populace? That would spell death for most of their genes.

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Back in the day when me and my friends ingested hallucinogenic drugs and mushrooms, we often transcended the realm between self and "oneness."

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Strange, but what do you mean by transcended the realm between self and oneness? Isn't that just an effect of the drugs, not really going outside yourself?

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The subtlety of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the understanding; so that the specious meditations, speculations, and theories of mankind are but a kind of insanity, only there is no one to stand by and observe it.
-Francis Bacon "Novum Organum"

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If the effect of religion on a group is to endow it with some sort of moral system, then that may give the group as a whole an evolutionary advantage

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This is trivial or silly if the real problem is that Carnap was wrong when he said "from a modern point of view the situation looks quite different. Kant should not be blamed.." The cross generational resolution sought is not something that requires more punishment of the parent.Carnap wrote that in Kant's Synthetic A priori in the Structure of Space in Philosophical Foundations of Physics in An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science edited by Martin Gardner. The whole journal "scientific american" loooks this contraian way. That's how on reading the "brain" issue I was able to compare with Penrose on TV and think something neither in the electronic medium nor in that print. Turn out Kant had most of it if not allmost of it already. Yes my brother over there in Metz France and my other one in Washington DC tend to look in carnap's favor or your latin say, as if replacing my lack of understanding of Jammer's. The "situtation" does not look differnt in this generation. It did comparing my mother and grandmother but not my daughter and sister.

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Geometry provided Kant with one of his chief examples of synthetic apriori knowledge. His reasoning was that if the axioms of geometry (by which he meant Eucledean geometry — no other geometry was available in his time) are considered, it is not possible to imagine the axioms as not true. For instance, there is one and only one straight line through two points. Intuition, here gives absolute certainty. It is possible to imagine a straight line connecting two points, but any other line conceived of as passing through them must be curved, not straight. Therefore, Kant argued, we have the right to complete confidence in the knowledge of all axioms of geometry. Since the theorems are all logically derived from the axioms, we are also entitled to complete confidence in the truth of the theorems. Geometry, therefore, is completely certain in a way that does not demand justification by experience. It is not necessary to make points on a sheet of paper and draw various lines in order to establish the statement that only one straight line will connect two points. It is justified by intuition; and, although a geometrical theorem may be very complicated and not at all obvious, it can be justified by proceeding from axioms by logical steps that are also intuitively certain. In short, all geometry is a priori.
On the other hand, Kant continued, the theorems of geometry tell something about the world. Consider the theorem that the sum of the interior angels of a triangle is 180 degrees. This can be be derived logically from Euclidean axioms, so there is a priori knowledge of its truth. But it is also true that, if a triangle is drawn and its angles measured, they are found to add up to 180 degrees. If the sum deviates from this, a more careful examination of the construction will always reveal that the lines were not perfectly straight or that, perhaps, the measurements were inaccurate. The theorems of geometry, then, are more than apriori statements. They describe the actual structure of the world and, therefore, are also synthetic. Yet, clearly they are not a posteriori in the way scientific laws are. A scientific law has to be justified by experience. It is easy to imagine that tomorrow an event coul be observed that would contradict any given scientific law. It is easy to suppose that the earth might go around the moon, instead of vice versa, and it can never be certain that tomorrow science mightnot make discoveries that would require a modification of what was previsouly supposed to be true. But this is not the case with geometrical laws. It is incoceivable that new discoveries in geometry could modify the truth of the Pythagorean theorem. In geometry, Kant was convinced, we have a paradigm of the union of synthetic and apirori knowledge."

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CaRNAP p 181We may have this rather in mutation but because of moral issues made political we cant get scientists to consider this possiblity. I didnt see this as actual a few years ago but it is today.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-03-2005 19:30 AM