The Early Origin of Religion

Natural selection works to cull features from a population, if those features are negative and return no biological advantages, Yet religion pervades. Human culture so reasonably plays a positive, supportive role in biological survival; looking to primitive religions to discover these biological roles of religion has the advantage of viewing religion at its most fundamental, before becoming embellished and encrusted with secondary social roles. Successful traditions and cultural customs persist because they improve the survival of individuals practicing them. Celestial punishments may await the mortal sinner, but in this world, biological sins matter most because they can send an individual to an early grave without passing along genes or adaptive customs to offspring. Religion functions as a survival kit; in its beliefs, ceremonies, and myths are bundled basic knowledge that directs one to meet the challenges posed by the environment.

A Socioevolutionary Approach to Religious Change

A number of scholars have suggested that religion may be explained using evolutionary theory and, in particular, natural selection. Much of this research suggests that behaviors encouraged by religions are beneficial while failing to illustrate a causal relationship between religiosity and these behaviors. This chapter challenges these approaches, arguing that religion is primarily a social phenomenon and that any health or evolutionary benefits that might indirectly derive from religions are actually attributable to the behaviors themselves: Religions have simply co-opted those behaviors. Additionally, it argues that natural selection alone is a problematic approach to understanding religion and suggests that Darwin’s notion of artificial selection be integrated into any attempts to use evolution to explain religion. We use examples from a variety of religions to illustrate how a socioevolutionary theory of religion that incorporates natural and artificial selection is preferable to approaches that rely exclusively on natural selection.

Mickey, Yahweh, and Zeus

Religions are complex and multifaceted. People engaged in the scientific study of religion may explore a diverse range of topics, ranging from supernatural agent beliefs to ritual practices to rites of passage to notions of eschatology and the afterlife. Recent decades have seen a flourishing of evolutionary theorizing on religion. This chapter poses six key questions for emerging theories, focusing on (1) the ubiquity of supernatural agent concepts across cultures, (2) the cross-cultural recurrence of common supernatural agent themes, (3) the fact that most people believe in only a select few mentally representable supernatural agents, (4) the fact that people tend to only believe in a subset of the gods currently worshiped worldwide, (5) the existence of atheists, and (6) the cultural success of some specific religions. I argue that modern approaches to cultural transmission and gene-culture coevolution are necessary components of any comprehensive evolutionary account of religion.

An Introduction to Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion

Given that religious beliefs and behaviors are so pervasive and have such a powerful influence, it is vital to try to understand the psychological underpinnings of religiosity. This chapter introduces the topic of evolutionary perspectives on religion, beginning with an attempt to define “religion,” followed by a primer on evolutionary psychology and the concept of evolved psychological mechanisms. With this framework in place, the chapter then provides an overview of key adaptationist and byproduct hypotheses of various components of religion, highlighting the complementary nature of these hypotheses and their roles in forming a cohesive understanding of the evolution of religion. Concepts introduced in this chapter include hyperactive agency detection, minimally counterintuitive concepts, in-group cooperation, costly signaling theory, gods as moralizing agents, and cultural evolution.

Religion as a Means of Perceived Security

Despite the ubiquity of religion, religiosity varies substantially at the individual and societal levels. This chapter presents a study that sought set to replicate and extend previous findings regarding Norris and Inglehart’s (2004) secure society theory of religiosity, which states that religiosity varies with the extent to which one feels secure in one’s environment. The relationship between individual perceptions of societal security—as opposed to national indicators of societal security—and religiosity has not previously been investigated. The study analyzed data from the General Social Survey, supplemented by Federal Bureau of Investigation and US Census data. The results indicated that the extent to which one feels safe walking around one’s neighborhood at night predicts religiosity, even when crime rate, poverty rate, age, sex, and race are controlled statistically. Additionally, time series analyses of data from 1980 to 2012 provided partial support for the secure society theory, with neighborhood fear and poverty predicting future religiosity.

Charismatic Signaling

This chapter describes an evolutionary model of religion called “charismatic signaling.” The theory focuses on features of religion that express automated within-group cooperation—that is, cooperation that does not rely on strategic reasoning or explicit social prediction. The model is interesting because it explains otherwise puzzling features of religious systems. Such puzzles range from intrinsic religious motivations to ritual human sacrifice as evolved adaptations for social coordination. An additional virtue of the model is that it explains the reliability of cooperation with strangers who cannot observe or assess cooperative intentions directly or by reputation. The chapter describes the intellectual motivations for charismatic signaling theory and outlines ethnographic and historical puzzles the theory solves.

Selected to Kill in His Name

Religion motivates, exacerbates, and even justifies violence. This chapter argues that religious beliefs regarding violence—particularly those of monotheistic, Abrahamic faiths—are shaped by evolved psychological mechanisms. Further, it argues that religiously motivated violence is most likely to occur in evolutionarily relevant contexts. Guided by sexual selection theory and parental-investment theory, it first provides an overview of human sexual selection from an evolutionary perspective. It discusses how and why an evolutionary perspective—and principles of sexual selection and parental investment in particular—may provide a richer understanding of religiously motivated violence. Next follows an overview of research addressing several types of religiously motivated violence such as mate guarding and controlling behaviors, wife beating and uxoricide, honor killing, child abuse and filicide, male and female genital mutilation, war, and terrorism. Finally, it highlights the parallels between religiously motivated violence and evolved psychological mechanisms for violence, concluding with suggestions for future research.

The Evolution and Exploitation of Transcendence

This chapter discusses the transcendent experience, which is defined as an ego-dissolving encounter with something greater than one’s self. The transcendent experience is cross-cultural and panhistorical. This chapter presents a model describing the evolution and function of various evolved modes of transcendence, such as group-directed transcendence, theory of mind (ToM) transcendence, aesthetic transcendence, and epistemic transcendence. It then discusses the susceptibility of these modes of transcendence to costly exploitation by selfish individuals. The ensuing sections discuss the relationship between transcendence and human development across the lifespan, and concludes with some thoughts on the epistemic and ethical utility of transcendence.

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology of Children’s Religious Beliefs

The pancultural presence of religious beliefs suggests that children’s ordinary development may incline them toward such beliefs. Various cognitive processes that mature during this time period may enable and encourage religion. Such processes include the ability to distinguish agents from objects, think about the mental states of other agents, see purpose in the world, and view agents dualistically. The generation and persistence of religious beliefs may also be a product of their violation of certain intuitive ontologies, as such violations are more memorable for younger individuals. The naturalness of religion is discussed, and evolutionary accounts of religion as an adaptation and byproduct are presented.