I doubt there is any specific evolutionary advantage to it, and I suspect that it is mostly a combined byproduct of a relatively recent (10000-12000 years) technological tendency to organize ourselves into larger communities and our cognitive tendency to look for and find patterns (even if there are none).

This isn't to say that religion doesn't offer advantages, and I think it offers advantages like wearing a tie offers advantages. That is to say in a completely arbitrary and socially constructivist fashion (pun intended).

This argument seems faulty to me. Sosis argues that religion provides an evolutionary benefit because people who follow religious rituals signal their acceptance in a believable way (because of the cost of following religious rituals--e.g. circumcision, building expensive temples, dietary restrictions, etc.) of the rules and beliefs of that religion. If those rules also include rules that increase cooperation, decrease free-riding, etc., then religious societies have an advantage over an otherwise identical society without religion.

You argue that the existence of non-religious ways of signalling acceptance of some non-religious set of rules and beliefs that also encourage pro-social behavior--shows that it isn't religion that is the primary driver here, but rather just having some moral system plus signalling mechanism. But that is just an analytic point. You can always go to a more general and abstract level in understanding what is driving evolution (is it really eyesight that drives the evolutionary benefit, or is rather a greater ability to sense danger?).

The question is not whether religion is the only kind of moral plus signalling system (obviously not true), but whether it is an instance of such a system. If it is, and we agree that there is an evolutionary benefit to society to having such systems, then we can see how religion can provide an evolutionary benefit to society. Of course, whether it actually did so is a historical/anthropological question that cannot be answered through just theorizing.

Sure, and a peacock's feathers are an instance of how physical displays of sexual prowess can provide an evolutionary advantage. But shouldn't an answer to "why does a peacock have feathers" at some point mention the word "flying"?

For our case, it could well be that religious belief is around for reason X, and then because social signals of behavioural norms is advantageous (call this reason Y), social expression of that gets bundled up in religion as well. The "real" reason is X, and Y just sort of comes along for the ride being expressed through the lens of religion which exists for reason X.

Much in the same way that people are probably going to come up with social signalling of behavioural norms in the context of whatever culture they have, many animals are going to come up with physical displays of sexual prowess in the context of whatever physical characteristics they have (feathers vs antlers, say). But the "real" reason birds have feathers and cultures become religious may be entirely separate from this.

Religion seems particularly likely to succumb to such difficulties because it is a fairly large thing, encompassing a wide range of human behaviours. So one can point to any particular such human behaviour, claim it is advantageous (which will usually be correct) and deduce that that is the reason for religion, when it is very possible this behaviour is merely being expressed through the lens of religion which exists for some independent reason, or a combination of many reasons, or some such thing.

Christianity too believes that humans were made in God's image and that we are all one and worthy in God's eyes. Perhaps this course should also focus on Christianity that is not that of evangelicals and other fundamentalists. This religion has been homogenized when it is very diverse.

What do you mean by "worthy"?

Grunch, this has prob already been said but just in case...

-Gaining compliance to rules is far more likely to succeed if you tell your fellow savage that God will burn them in eternal hellfire if they rebel.

-Getting folks to act "bravely" by charging a machine gun nest is probably easier if they believe that this life doesn't matter much because there is an eternity of bliss afterward, *if* they do as they're told.

-It's another potential uniting factor between tribe mates and unity is strength.

I think that in many small Christian churches young people pretty much pair off and get married. This is probably facilitated by the culture of church and the obvious text, "go forth and multiply", etc, therefore, religion today, in some cases at least, provides "an evolutionary advantage".

What is the evolutionary advantage to assuming that evolutionary advantage is not only a prime driver in human development and coursing but a real thing?

Grunch-

I’ve read that religion acts as a shorthand version of a person’s beliefs and the rules he/she follows, and this helps when groups of humans came into contact for the first time.

If you’re a nomadic tribe of Muslims in North Africa in 1000 AD and you run into another group of people you don’t know, discovering they’re also Muslim might help this meeting go more smoothly as there’s a bunch of shared beliefs and experiences you share.

What do you mean by "evolutionary advantage"? Also, by "religion" do you mean the Christian faith exclusively?

The first reason is the main one. It takes the dilemma out of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

I don't think it makes sense to look at recent (say last 5000 years) forms of religion when talking about the evolutionary advantage to "religion" during the actual evolution of the human species (last 500,000 years). I suspect the common form of religion over evolutionary time spans for pre-humans and humans revolved around superstitious magic and sacred meeting places.


PairTheBoard

Humans are extremely risk-averse, which obviously has its survival advantages, and a byproduct of risk-aversion may be superstition, which formalized into early religion over time. Modern religion had to serve other purposes, such as set and enforce moral code, yield metaphysical answers etc, which may be a function early human sociology, not evolutionary psychology.

Evolution doesn't exist, the idea that things get better over time is so laughable that it can easily be hand waved away as foolery because the underlying presuppositions are so inherently flawed.

The world is in a fallen state. It didn't just fall once and then everything else happened after that, it is continually falling lower and lower.

If you say so?

You, like many creationists, don't seem to know what evolution is. It's not about "things getting better over time." At least define what you mean by "better"

For starters it would be clear to comprehend religions's place in the living progression of the individual man. Due to the material intellectual nature of our times most answers speak to the movement of the species such as ape to man or even, by theory, the progression of mineral to man (big bang).

None of these "scientific theories" speak to the individual man, placing him as a unknown object within the warp and woop of a movement in time, more like an interloper within a process to which he is born and dies , leaving his mark, so to speak, but having no effect upon the future to which we are all ( not all , just our progeny to which we are not a part or parcel of) prophesied to enter into that "heat death" better known as entropy.

The inevitable conclusion is that all of which men have credited within the earth; nations, laws, art, music, religion,etc.. is for naught and certainly the individuals short time on earth makes this even more so, in the end we are all dead; the sovereign science of the material.

In short, if we continue to generalize and only speak of "man", the abstraction, and somehow in undercurrent, include the individual as part of this generalization which presupposes forces to which he has no effect, acting within him from birth to death, that unknown force to which "science" will not take consideration and in this the obfuscation of the individual soul, the denial of the spirit.

If the evolution of the individual soul is to be considered rightly then we must approach the problem as to how each and every individual can manifest within our earthly sojourn in progression or even retrogression through the eons of time. I hope to come back and continue but I'll leave with this quote:

"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

>What was the evolutionary advantage to religion?
someone else said it above: in-group solidarity. Violence, ostracization against out-group.

Whether a religion is true or not, most followers do not go deeply into assessing its truth or falsehood, they instead came to their religion because of societal factors.

In the evolution of the individual man we note that at death the physical body is given up to nature and decomposes appropriately. From this it is apparent that nature destroys the physical body of man and any such science which only speaks to the physical body is immersed in the process of decomposition and cannot, and does not , speak to "life".

Pertinent examples are the physicist's approach to particularity, the chemists acid base reactions and the medical Krebs's cycle,all pointing to the destructive process , or that of nature and the corpse of man.

At death or events of extreme distress, the process of "life passing through one's eyes" is well known, anecdotal but none the less telling. This progression of one's life at death which lasts approximately 24-72 hours is the giving up to the cosmos what is known as the "etheric body" of man".

This is not the "ether" to which the material scientists couldn't find in the Michelson-Morley experiment but the "life body" of the individual to which one's memories, thoughts, and thinking activities are ensconced. Includes is the "life" of the individual, and also that which keeps the "form" of the physical body intact until at death, it leaves and enters into the cosmic etheric realm.

Trying not to make it too abstruse one can say that if we observe a sleeping human being he is alive or displays "life" and "physicality" . When "life" leaves we have the panorama experience as the "life body' leaves the physical body and enters into a higher realm, the realm of the spaceless.

Physical Body, Etheric or Formative Force Body....

But of course while sleeping sentience is not evident which leads to a third body of man, or that of the "astral" body . the astral body is no longer connected to the nervous system at sleep and upon awakening it can be noted that the astral body returns to manifest "consciousness".

Within the astral body are encased the passions, desires,feelings and all of such nature to which the human "soul"can be experienced. It is here that the "soul" can be clarified as that which experiences the earthly via the physical and etheric bodies and also reaches its arms up into the higher spiritual realms the realms of the "ego" or "I".

In the astral realm the "soul'" "thinks, feels, and wills".

In this we have the second characteristic of man or that of the 'soul", man as body( physical, etheric) and soul . In the third realm is the "spirit" or the "ego" or "I" realm or that to which man receives his individuality.

The human being as body, soul, and spirit.

If the human being is perceived physiologically then through the nervous system he works within the spiritual through "thinking" the soul nature through the confluence of the respiratory and circulatory flow through "feeling" of the rhythmic balance . He "wills" through the earthly via the "body' or his physicality and etheric natures.

The connection to "evolution" is such that the bodies of men as such within nation,race, gender, etc.. do go through an evolution but not aliken to the modern conceptive passage through the animal but an evolution through which the human soul and spirit enters into and thereby manifests an "evolution of the soul and spirit" .

Therefore there are two evolutionary streams, that of the body and that of the soul/spirit.

Evolution of the Body ...

Evolution of the Soul and Spirit.....

The "body" is man's "temple" that to which he enters into at birth and as like an artists this body become his paints and palette to which the soul and spirit do their manifest workings.

The "body" is not the human being but formed to man by higher divinity which also consists of Beings known to the religious as the higher angelic realms which would be termed in the religious tomes .

The human being, the "spirit and soul" human being , is born out of the spiritual realm , entering into the fetus , growing through youth, middle age, and old age and thereby gaing fruits of his work on the earth.

These fruits cause changes to the being of the soul and spirit and during his sojourn in the world of the soul and spirit after death he becomes a citizen of those worlds , gaining other abilities and upon return entering into a new body, and as changed soul and spirit man.

In the evolution of the soul and spirit the earth is changed and the future morphs into the ennoblement of the human being , as the immortal spirit to which he earns due to his earthly life. Other worlds will arise consequential to the human being and the sense of materiality to which we believe to be the "only" will not longer be and death will be overcome and in this is the guidance of the Christ Being who is now the spirit of the earth as we are the spirits within our bodies.

The "evolution of the body" can become such that decadence will apply but in no way can it be said that the human being will incarnate into the decadent aspect for each man enters into that body to which can offer him the best milieu for his progression and also for the progression all human beings, or the cosmic humanity.