Evolution of Religions

In The Name of The Evolver

Mankind's nearest living relatives are normal chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a typical precursor with people who lived in the vicinity of six and eight million years prior. It is thus that chimpanzees and bonobos are seen as the best accessible surrogate for this normal precursor. Barbara Lord contends that while non-human primates are not religious, they do show a few characteristics that would have been important for the development of religion. These attributes incorporate high insight, a limit with respect to representative correspondence, a feeling of social standards, acknowledgment of "self" and an idea of continuity. There is uncertain confirmation that Homo neanderthalensis may have covered their dead which is proof of the utilization of custom. The utilization of entombment customs is believed to be proof of religious action, and there is no other confirmation that religion existed in human culture before people achieved behavioral modernity.

There is almost certainly that numerous creatures encounter rich and profound feelings. It's not a matter of if feelings have advanced in creatures yet why they have developed as they have. We should always remember that our feelings are the endowments of our predecessors, our creature family. We have sentiments thus do different creatures.

Among the diverse feelings that creatures show unmistakably and unambiguously is distress. Numerous creatures show significant sorrow at the misfortune or nonattendance of a dear companion or cherished one. Nobel laureate ethologist Konrad Lorenz states: "A greylag goose that has lost its accomplice demonstrates every one of the manifestations that [developmental psychologist] John Bowlby has portrayed in youthful human youngsters in his popular book Newborn child Sadness . . . the eyes sink profound into their attachments, and the individual has a general hanging background, actually giving the head a chance to hang . . ." Ocean lion moms, watching their children being eaten by executioner whales, howl pathetically, anguishing their misfortune. Dolphins have been seen attempting to spare a dead newborn child and grieve a short time later. Stories about sorrow stricken friend creatures flourish; see moreover).

Wild creatures likewise lament. Among the best illustrations are lamenting customs of elephants in the wild saw by such famous analysts as Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Cynthia Greenery and Joyce Poole. Hostage elephants additionally lament; see too. To cite Joyce Poole: "As I viewed Tonie's vigil over her dead infant, I got my first extremely solid inclination that elephants lament. I will always remember the demeanor all over, her eyes, her mouth, the way she conveyed her ears, her head, and her body. All aspects of her spelled sadness". Youthful elephants who saw their moms being murdered frequently wake up shouting.

Cynthia Greenery portrays the activities of the individuals from an elephant family above after a gathering part had been shot: "Teresia and Trista ended up plainly frenzied and stooped down and attempted to lift her up. They worked their tusks under her back and under her head. At a certain point they prevailing with regards to lifting her into a sitting position however her body slumped down. Her family had a go at everything to energize her, kicking and tusking her, and Tullulah even went off and gathered a trunkful of grass and attempted to stuff it in her mouth."

Iain Douglas-Hamilton and his associates have demonstrated that elephants stretch out this empathy to nonrelatives, to the individuals who aren't hereditarily related, and no less than one tale indicates them extending it to people. A news report recounted an elephant in northern Kenya that stomped a human mother and her youngster and afterward halted to cover them before vanishing in the shrubbery. Elephants don't indicate concern only for their own kinfolk, or their own particular kind, yet rather elephants demonstrate a general worry for the situation of others.

Nonhuman primates additionally lament the loss of others. Gana, a hostage gorilla, unmistakably lamented the loss of her newborn child and the picture of her conveying her dead infant was appeared far and wide. Jane Goodall watched Rock, a youthful chimpanzee, pull back from his gathering, quit eating, and pass on of a broken heart after the demise of his mom, Flo. Here is Goodall's portrayal from her book Through a Window:

"Never should I overlook looking as, three days after Flo's demise, Stone climbed gradually into a tall tree close to the stream. He strolled along one of the branches, at that point ceased and stood unmoving, gazing down at a void home. After around two minutes he dismissed and, with the developments of an old man, descended, strolled a couple of steps, at that point lay, wide eyes looking forward. The home was one which he and Flo had shared a brief time before Flo passed on. . . . within the sight of his enormous sibling [Figan], [Flint] had appeared to shake off a tad bit of his melancholy. Be that as it may, at that point he all of a sudden left the gathering and hustled back to where Flo had passed on and there sank into ever more profound wretchedness. . . . Rock turned out to be progressively torpid, declined nourishment and, with his safe framework consequently debilitated, fell wiped out. The last time I saw him alive, he was empty looked at, emaciated and totally discouraged, clustered in the vegetation near where Flo had kicked the bucket. . . . the last short adventure he made, delaying to rest each couple of feet, was to the very place where Flo's body had lain. There he remained for a few hours, in some cases gazing and gazing into the water. He battled on somewhat further, at that point nestled into—never moved again."

Another account of lamenting chimpanzees as of late was accounted for in the Day by day Mail.

Gorillas are known to hold wakes for dead companions, something that a few zoos have formalized in a service when one of their gorillas passes away. Donna Fernandes, now leader of the Wild ox Zoo, recounts the narrative of being at Boston's Franklin Stop Zoo ten years back amid the wake for a female gorilla, Babs, who had kicked the bucket of disease. She depicts seeing the gorilla's long-term mate say farewell: "He was wailing and slamming his chest,... furthermore, he got a bit of her most loved nourishment — celery — and place it in her grasp and attempted to inspire her to wake up. I was sobbing, it was so passionate." Later, the scene at Babs' December burial service was likewise moving. As revealed by neighborhood news, gorilla relatives "one by one ... recorded into" the room where "Babs' body lay," moving toward their "dearest pioneer" and "delicately sniffing the body."

Whenever Sylvia, a primate, lost Sierra, her nearest prepping accomplice and little girl to a lion, she reacted in a way that would be viewed as exceptionally human-like: she sought companions for help. Said Anne Engh, a specialist in he College of Pennsylvania's Division of Science. "With Sierra out of the picture, Sylvia experienced what could just truly be depicted as misery, comparing with an expansion in her glucocorticoid levels."

Jim and Jamie Dutcher depict the melancholy and grieving in a wolf pack after the loss of the low-positioning omega female wolf, Motaki, to a mountain lion. The pack lost their soul and their perkiness. They never again cried as a gathering, yet rather they "sang alone in a moderate forlorn cry." They were discouraged — tails and heads held low and strolling delicately and gradually — when they happened upon where Motaki was murdered. They reviewed the zone and stuck their ears back and dropped their tails, a motion that ordinarily implies accommodation. It took around a month and a half for the pack to come back to ordinary. The Dutchers likewise recount a wolf pack in Canada in which one pack part passed on and the others meandered about in a figure eight as though looking for her. They additionally cried long and forlornly. Foxes additionally have been watched performing memorial service ceremonies.

"Llamas are gregarious by nature, to a great degree discerning, and produce profound bonds with each other. In the field, our llamas frequently encourage in a similar range, rest by each other, and remain nearby together when they go head to head a new creature or predator. On the trail, they turn out to be to a great degree unsettled on the off chance that they dismiss each other when one stops to rest and falls behind. They vocalize a considerable amount. My most loved is their fragile welcome call, which sounds like a little bagpipe breathing out. At the point when my family moved from Colorado to The Frozen North, we carried our two Colorado llamas with us. As destiny would have it, we acquired two The Frozen North llamas with our new house and grounds. Every twosome had spent their lives together. At in the first place, the twosomes were somewhat standoffish, however in time, they turned out to be quick companions and a foursome. Quite a while later, the most seasoned llama, Boone, passed on abruptly at twenty-seven years of age. One day, he set down on his side, excessively feeble, making it impossible to get up. The following day, his life accomplice, Bridger, kicked the bucket in a similar manner, beside him. It was late-winter and the ground was as yet solidified, so we procured a companion with an escavator to set up their grave directly over the fence. We painstakingly raised Boone and Bridger over the fence and into the ground, at that point secured them. The other match, Taffy and Pumpernickel, remained by and viewed the whole procedure unobtrusively. For the following two days, stoic Taffy remained over the fence from the grave and gazed at the opening in the ground. She scarcely moved from the spot. Volatile Pumpernickel remained in his little stable and cried for two days. On the third day, they rose up out of their lamenting and continued their typical exercises. Did Bridger surrender himself to death following the loss of his long lasting mate Boone? Furthermore, Taffy and Pumpernickel, both exceptionally unmistakable identities, lamented in their very own ways. For me, the most moving memory of losing two llamas so near one another was encountering the minding and agreeable llama passing and lamenting procedure."

Jaybirds likewise lament the loss of different jaybirds; see too. I as of late got this story by means of email in light of the papers about my perceptions of jaybird sorrow. "I have a homestead in Bolton, UK and we were invade with Jaybirds. The response from the jaybirds [to the body of another magpie] in the region was likened to a scene from the film 'The Winged creatures', as they encompassed the dead fowl and attempted to stir it with their bills. When they achieved the conclusion that it was without a doubt dead, there was an overflowing of noisy snickering clamors which came to a significant crescendo (there were around 20 of them); this was resounded by a comparable thoughtful melody from an adjacent wood and inside a moment, from all encompassing zones giving the feeling that several jaybirds were being recounted the demise and all the while communicating their despondency. It was very frightening and I stayed inside the protected bounds of an outbuilding until the point when all was finished."

Why do creatures lament and why do we see misery in various types of creatures? It's been recommended that sorrow responses may take into consideration the reshuffling of status connections or the filling the conceptive opportunity left by the expired, or for encouraging congruity of the gathering. Some conjecture that maybe grieving fortifies social bonds among the survivors who gather as one to pay their last regards. This may upgrade aggregate union when it's probably going to be debilitated.

Sadness in creatures: It's presumptuous to think that we are the only ones who worship.

Elephants really exhibit ceremonies around their expired, which incorporates long stretches of quiet and grieving at the purpose of death and a procedure of coming back to grave destinations and stroking the remains. An imperative region of science includes researching the beginnings in creatures of characteristics that are thought of as exceptionally human. One way that people seem one of a kind is in the significance they join to the dead groups of different people, especially those of their nearby family, and the customs that they have produced for covering them. Conversely, most creatures seem to indicate just restricted enthusiasm for the cadavers or related stays of dead people of their own species. African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are strange in that they not just give sensational responses to the dead groups of different elephants, but at the same time are accounted for to deliberately explore elephant bones and tusks that they experience, and it has infrequently been proposed that they visit the bones of relatives.

(Image: Royal Society/Karen McComb)

Elephants therefore pay reverence to the bones of dead relatives in their home ranges, an investigation of the animals' reactions to skulls and ivory recommends.

People separated, just a couple of creatures demonstrate any enthusiasm for their own particular dead. Chimpanzees indicate drawn out and complex practices towards a dead social accomplice – however relinquish them once the cadaver begins decaying. However, lions, for instance, may sniff or lick a dead individual from its own particular species previously continuing to eat up the body.

African elephants have been seen to end up plainly profoundly unsettled when they run over the assemblages of their own, and they have been believed to give careful consideration to the skull and ivory of long-dead elephants. Notwithstanding, this intrigue had not been tried tentatively.

Presently inquire about from a group in the UK and Kenya has exhibited that African elephants pay a more elevated amount important to elephant skulls contrasted and those of different creatures and ivory contrasted with wood.

Nonetheless, the group couldn't prove stories that elephants particularly visit the bones of dead relatives. The elephant families in their investigation were not able choose the skull of their dead female authority from other families' dead matrons.

"In any case, their enthusiasm for the ivory and skulls of their own species implies that they would probably visit the bones of relatives who kick the bucket inside their home range," composes the group, lead by Karen McComb at the College of Sussex, UK.

Extensive brains, seemingly perpetual

"It makes one wonder why do they do this? This enthusiasm for stays of creatures, long-dead, hasn't generally been seen in some other species separated from people," McComb disclosed to New Researcher.

She likewise noticed that recorded enthusiasm for the dead has been found in elephants and chimps – "two extremely social species, with very mind boggling structures, substantial brains and who are seemingly perpetual". She theorizes: "It might be associated with specific subjective capacities or parts of social conduct."

"Elephants are exceptionally savvy and profoundly material creatures," says David Field, head of creature watch over London and Whipsnade Zoos in the UK. "The reality they can recognize their own skulls and those of different species is not shocking."

"Elephants themselves are a matriarchal society loaded with aunts and relatives who include close bonds inside a gathering," he includes. A demise in the family may be a critical get-together. "It could affect social holding and structure inside the gathering," he disclosed to New Researcher.

Noticing and touching

McComb and associates examined African elephants (Loxodonta africana) living in Amboseli National Stop, Kenya. Groups of elephants were given protests by putting them around 25 meters far from the closest elephant and after that heading out and watching the response of creatures.

In one examination, 17 families were given skulls from an elephant, a wild ox and a rhinoceros. The elephants demonstrated impressive enthusiasm for the skull of their own species. They did this by noticing and touching individual items with their trunks and once in a while touching them gently with their feet.

In another examination, 19 families were given an elephant skull, a bit of ivory and a bit of wood. The animals demonstrated a solid inclination for the skull over the other two items, and for the ivory over the wood.

The third examination tried three elephant families who had as of late lost the leader of their family. Every wa gave three skulls of female authorities including their own – however they didn't demonstrate an inclination for their relative's skull.

The thought of elephant burial grounds – where old elephants stray to bite the dust – has been uncovered as myth by past examinations, the scientists note. Regardless, they trust their examinations "cast light" on why elephants are regularly observed interfacing with the skulls and ivory of dead associates.

However, there is no real way to tell whether the elephants are grieving their dead – despite the fact that they get extremely energized when moving toward bodies, with emissions spilling from their sanctuaries.

Diary reference: Science Letters (DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2005.0400)

Here, we utilize precise introductions of protest exhibits to show that African elephants demonstrate more elevated amounts of enthusiasm for elephant skulls and ivory than in normal items or the skulls of other expansive earthly well evolved creatures. In any case, they don't appear to explicitly choose the skulls of their own relatives for examination with the goal that visits to dead relatives most likely outcome from a more broad fascination in elephant remains.

During human evolution, the hominid brain tripled in size, peaking 500,000 years ago. Much of the brain's expansion took place in the neocortex. This part of the brain is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are connected with human religiosity. Dr Narinda proposes that numerous species lament passing and loss.

The two main schools of thought of Dr Narinda hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations, Dr Narinda says. Social living can take one of two forms: animals can form loose aggregations (exemplified by insect swarms and antelope herds, which are typically based on short-term advantages and whose persistence depends on immediate costs and benefits) or they can form congregations (exemplified by the bonded social groups of primates and some other mammals, including cetaceans, elephants and equids among others) whose advantages derive from long-term association, and whose persistence mainly depends on the trade-off between short- and long-term benefits and costs . It has been suggested that this second kind of sociality is a kind of large-scale coordination problem that depends on bonding processes underpinned by more sophisticated cognitive mechanisms (associated with larger brains ). Indeed, the social brain hypothesis implies that the size of group that can coordinate its behaviour is limited by the cognitive capacity (essentially, the neural processing capacity) that organisms can bring to bear on the problem.Individual religious belief utilizes reason based in the neocortex and often varies from collective religion.

Religious ideas can be traced to the evolution of brains large enough to make possible the kind of abstract thought necessary to formulate religious and philosophical ideas. Not only do our brains permit us to outwit predators and colleagues and solve extraordinarily difficult problems; they also create prob-lems by endowing us with intense consciousness and knowledge of our own mortality. This produces a load of anxiety that some feel is unbearable and that all of us attempt to find some way to reconcile. As the saying goes, life is tough, and then you die. In the face of life's tribulations, people seek a belief system that appears to justify those tribulations. Those who find such a system of orientation, it seems, tend to enjoy not only better mental health but also better physical health. Beliefs in the supernatural clearly have had and continue to have enormous influence on human behavior and the evolution of human societies. An examination of why religions evolved, the roles of religion, and the evolution of those roles is critical to understanding human natures and can be carried out without reference to the "truth" or "falsity" of the claims of any religion. Sociality is primarily a coordination problem. However, the social (or communication) complexity hypothesis suggests that the kinds of information that can be acquired and processed may limit the size and/or complexity of social groups that a species can maintain, i.e. successive increases in the kinds of information processed allow organisms to break through the glass ceilings that otherwise limit the size of social groups: larger groups can only be achieved at the cost of more sophisticated kinds of information processing that are disadvantageous when optimal group size is small. Dr. Narinda simultaneously support both the social brain and the social complexity hypotheses.

The recent resurgence of interest in the relationship between communication complexity and religious complexity (the social complexity hypothesis) offers a possible mechanism by postulating that (i) the complexity of religious information processing limits social group size and (ii) these communication competences depend on computationally expensive cognitive capacities and sharing of religious beliefs, memetic religious zealotry and also sharing their mutual communal joy when they proselytize their religion to other species. For example, Homo Erectus ergo Homo Homo Sapii enjoyed seeing Neanderthals behave atypically as they did. In chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain.

Dr Narinda argues that the critical event in the evolution of the neocortex took place at the speciation of archaic homo sapiens about 500,000 years ago. His study indicates that only after the speciation event is the neocortex large enough to process complex social phenomena such as language and religion. The study is based on a regression analysis of neocortex size plotted against a number of social behaviors of living and extinct hominids. Dr Narinda also argues that Hinduism was the first Sanata Dharma of the hominids, ie Homo Sapiens of the Indo-European Aryan sub-haplo-group that spread after the interbreeding of Homo Neanderthalis and Homo Homo Sapii Grandis. Dr Gupta suggests that religion may have grown out of evolutionary changes which favored larger brains as a means of cementing group coherence among savannah hunters, after that larger brain enabled reflection on the inevitability of personal mortality, he posits in his new book “Vedic Evolutionary Cyclic Sub-Stratic Para-Homo-Sapii-Grandiis of the Robotic Future”

Peer Namasimha argues that causal beliefs that emerged from tool use played a major role in the evolution of belief. The manufacture of complex tools requires creating a visual restitudic visualance of an object which does not exist naturally before actually making the artifact. One’s hubric psyche must understand how the tool would be used, that requires an understanding of causality. Accordingly, the level of sophistication of stone tools is a useful indicator of causal beliefs, Namasimha posits. Swami Mandu lal contends use of tools composed of more than one component, such as hand axes, represents an abiliction to conflate cause and effect. However, prior studies of other primates postulate that causality may not be a uniquely hominid trait. For example, chimpanzees have been known to escape from pens closed with multiple latches, which was previously thought could only have been figured out by Neanderthals who understood causality. Chimpanzees & Whales are also known to mourn the dead, and notice things that have only aesthetic value, like sunsets, both of which may be considered to be components of religion or spirituality, Lara Sutra contends. The differentiality between the comprehensionsibility of causalic dissosance by humans and chimpanzees is one of degree. The degree of comprehenric implausiality in an animal depends upon the size of the prefrontal neo-cortex: the greater the size of the prefrontal cortex the deeper the IQ of the animal. It is postulated that black people were the first ones to evolve religion out of worshiping stones, graves of their ancestors, as the memories of their deceased loved one lingered on in their minds, and deification of the ancestors and also the worship of the graves of their relatives was a formative basis for modern day religion. Indeed, if we look at the religion of Christianity for example, Modern day Homo Sapiens still worship a dead distant jewish hominid ancestor who passed away 2000 years ago. Religion requires a system of symbolic communication, such as language, to be transmitted from one individual to another. Siddharta Gautama Buddha states "human religious thought and moral sense clearly rest on a cognitive-linguistic base. Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 100,000 years ago. Although religious rituals usually involve dance and music, they are also very verbal, since the sacred truths have to be stated. If so, religion, at least in its modern form, cannot pre-date the emergence of prot0-language. It has been argued earlier that prot0-language attained its paleo-modern state shortly before the exodus from Paleo-Africa. If religion had to await the evolution of modern, articulate prot0-language, then it too would have emerged shortly before 30,000 years ago."

Vishnu distinguishes individual religious belief from collective religious belief. While the former does not require prior development of language, the latter does. The individual human brain precortex, the pineal gland, the third eye, has to explain a phenomenon in order to comprehend and relate to it. This activity predates by far the emergence of paleo-prot0-language and may have caused it. The neo-theory is, belief in the presupernatural emerges from pre-hypotheses c0-arbitrarily pre-assumed by memetic individuals to explain natural sub-stratic phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise hitherto. The resulting need to share individual post-hypotheses with normative others leads eventually to collective pre-religious belief. A socially accepted post-hypothesis becomes hyper-dogmatic backed by social sanction.

Sri Vishnu and Barbara Parvati both view neo-human morality as having grown out of pre-primate post-sociality. Though post-morality awareness may be a unique post-human trait, many social pre-animals, such as pre-primates, paleo-dolphins and pre-whales, have been known to pre-exhibit pre-moral hyper-sentiments. According to Dr. John Gabriel, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great hom0 apes:

"dis-attachment and lateral bonding, less cooperation and co-mutual aid, sympathic overtones and empathic undertones, post-direct and pre-indirect neo-reciprocity, hyper-altruism and co-reciprocal super-altruism, post-conflict resolution and abvalent peacemaking, deception and hyper-deception detection, community concern and disconcern for others, and not caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group, is what makes us unique."

Dr Ishtar posits that all socio-normative animals and hyper-post-human-mongoloids have had to restrain or alter their behavior for group living to be worthwhile. Pre-moral sentiments evolved in primate societies as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. For any un-social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group should outweigh the benefits of individualism. A lack of group hyper-cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Being part of a group may also improve the chances of finding food. This is evident among animals that hunt in packs to take down large or dangerous prey. Memetic un-thinking is the way of the formative norm as per her. Pleb.

John Elite of the Rich and Famous postulates that “All animals and humans have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment. However, higher order primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. Chimpanzees remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. For example, chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have previously groomed them.”

What the fuck?

Bonobos live in fission-fusion groups that average 50 individuals. It is likely that early ancestors of humans lived in groups of similar size. Based on the size of extant hunter-gatherer post-ape societies, recent Paleolithic post-hominids lived in bands of a few hundred individuals. As community size increased over the course of human hyper-evolution, greater enforcement to achieve group supercohesion would have been required. Morality may have evolved in these bands of 100 to 200 people as a means of social control, conflict resolution and group solidarity. According to Dr Gupta, human morality has two extra levels of rastic presophistication that are not found in paleo-primatic societies. Humans enforce their society’s normative moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. Humans also apply a degree of judgment and reason not otherwise seen in the animal kingdom.

Psychologist Shankali argues that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by superexpanding the scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural agents. By including ever-watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the habitable realm, proto-humans discovered an effective strategy for superrestraining hyperselfishness and building more supercooperative groups. The maladaptive supervalue of proto-religion would have enhanced group survival. Dr Maldini is referring here to collective religious belief and the social sanction that institutionalized morality. According to Maldini's teaching, individual religious belief is thus initially ontologic-epistemological, not meta-pre-ethical, in normative nature.

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. The two main schools of thought hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations.[22] Stephen Jay Gould, for example, believed that religion was an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words that religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.[23][24][25]

Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm (agent detection), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (etiology), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (theory of mind). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life, etc.[26] The emergence of collective religious belief identified the agents as deities that standardized the explanation.[27]

Some scholars have suggested that religion is genetically "hardwired" into the human condition. One controversial proposal, the God gene hypothesis, states that some variants of a specific gene, the VMAT2 gene, predispose to spirituality.[28]

Another view is based on the concept of the triune brain: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex, proposed by Paul D. MacLean. Collective religious belief draws upon the emotions of love, fear, and gregariousness and is deeply embedded in the limbic system through socio-biological conditioning and social sanction. Individual religious belief utilizes reason based in the neocortex and often varies from collective religion. The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the neocortex and is, therefore, stronger than it much in the same way as the reptilian is stronger than both the limbic system and the neocortex.

Yet another view is that the behavior of people who participate in a religion makes them feel better and this improves their fitness, so that there is a genetic selection in favor of people who are willing to believe in religion. Specifically, rituals, beliefs, and the social contact typical of religious groups may serve to calm the mind (for example by reducing ambiguity and the uncertainty due to complexity) and allow it to function better when under stress.[29] This would allow religion to be used as a powerful survival mechanism, particularly in facilitating the evolution of hierarchies of warriors, which if true, may be why many modern religions tend to promote fertility and kinship.

Still another view, proposed by F.H. Previc, is that human religion was a product of an increase in dopaminergic functions in the human brain and a general intellectual expansion beginning around 80 kya.[30][31][32] Dopamine promotes an emphasis on distant space and time, which is critical for the establishment of religious experience.[33] While the earliest shamanic cave paintings date back around 40 kya, the use of ochre for rock art predates this and there is clear evidence for abstract thinking along the coast of South Africa by 80 kya.

Prehistoric evidence of religion

When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era (300–500 thousand years ago)[citation needed] and possibly earlier.

Paleolithic burials

The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species.[34] Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."[16]

The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in Spain. At this location the bones of 30 individuals believed to be Homo heidelbergensis have been found in a pit.[35] Neanderthals are also contenders for the first hominids to intentionally bury the dead. They may have placed corpses into shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. The presence of these grave goods may indicate an emotional connection with the deceased and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Neanderthal burial sites include Shanidar in Iraq and Krapina in Croatia and Kebara Cave in Israel.[36][37][37][38]

The earliest known burial of modern humans is from a cave in Israel located at Qafzeh. Human remains have been dated to 100,000 years ago. Human skeletons were found stained with red ochre. A variety of grave goods were found at the burial site. The mandible of a wild boar was found placed in the arms of one of the skeletons.[39] Philip Lieberman states:

"Burial rituals incorporating grave goods may have been invented by the anatomically modern hominids who emigrated from Africa to the Middle East roughly 100,000 years ago".[39]

Matt Rossano suggests that the period between 80,000–60,000 years before present, following the retreat of humans from the Levant to Africa, was a crucial period in the evolution of religion.[40]

Use of symbolism

The use of symbolism in religion is a universal established phenomenon. Archeologist Steven Mithen contends that it is common for religious practices to involve the creation of images and symbols to represent supernatural beings and ideas. Because supernatural beings violate the principles of the natural world, there will always be difficulty in communicating and sharing supernatural concepts with others. This problem can be overcome by anchoring these supernatural beings in material form through representational art. When translated into material form, supernatural concepts become easier to communicate and understand.[41] Due to the association of art and religion, evidence of symbolism in the fossil record is indicative of a mind capable of religious thoughts. Art and symbolism demonstrates a capacity for abstract thought and imagination necessary to construct religious ideas. Wentzel van Huyssteen states that the translation of the non-visible through symbolism enabled early human ancestors to hold beliefs in abstract terms.[42]

Some of the earliest evidence of symbolic behavior is associated with Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. From at least 100,000 years ago, there is evidence of the use of pigments such as red ochre. Pigments are of little practical use to hunter gatherers, thus evidence of their use is interpreted as symbolic or for ritual purposes. Among extant hunter gatherer populations around the world, red ochre is still used extensively for ritual purposes. It has been argued that it is universal among human cultures for the color red to represent blood, sex, life and death.[43]

The use of red ochre as a proxy for symbolism is often criticized as being too indirect. Some scientists, such as Richard Klein and Steven Mithen, only recognize unambiguous forms of art as representative of abstract ideas. Upper paleolithic cave art provides some of the most unambiguous evidence of religious thought from the paleolithic. Cave paintings at Chauvet depict creatures that are half human and half animal.

Origins of organized religion

Invention of writing

Prehistoric religion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History of religions

founding figures

Anthropology

Comparative religion

Development

Neurotheology / God gene

Origins

Psychology

Prehistoric

Ancient Near East

· Ancient Egypt

· Semitic

Indo-European

· Vedic Hinduism

· Greco-Roman

· Celtic · Germanic

Axial Age

· Vedanta · Shramana

· Dharma · Tao

· Hellenism

· Monism · Dualism

· Monotheism

Christianization

Islamization

Renaissance · Reformation

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Prehistoric religions are the religious beliefs and practices of prehistoric people such as Paleolithic religion, Mesolithic religion, Neolithic religion and Bronze Age religion.

Paleolithic

Main article: Paleolithic religion

Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods, may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice (the onset of burial itself being a canonical indicator of behavioral modernity) since, as Philip Lieberman suggests, it may signify a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life".[1]

Picture of a half-animal half-human being in a Paleolithic cave painting in Dordogne, France which archeologists believe may provide evidence for early shamanic practices

A number of archeologists propose that Middle Paleolithic societies such as Neanderthal societies may also have practiced early forms of totemism or of animal worship. Emil Bächler in particular suggests (based on archeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a widespread Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal bear-cult existed (Wunn, 2000, p. 434-435). A claim that evidence was found for Middle Paleolithic animal worship c 70,000 BCE (originating from the Tsodilo Hills in the African Kalahari desert) has been denied by the original investigators of the site.[2][3] Animal cults in the following Upper Paleolithic period, such as the bear cult, may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults.[4]

Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic intertwined with hunting rites.[4] For instance, archeological evidence from Paleolithic art and from bear remains reveals that the bear cult apparently had a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism in which a bear was shot with arrows, then finished off with a shot in the lungs and ritualistically buried near a clay bear-statue covered by a bear fur, with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately.[4]

Neolithic

There are no extant textual sources from the Neolithic era, the most recent available dating from the Bronze Age, and therefore all statements about any belief systems Neolithic societies may have possessed are glimpsed from archaeology.

Jacques Cauvin suggested that the Neolithic Revolution was influenced by an important theme he termed the "Revolution of the Symbols", suggesting the birth of "religion" in the Neolithic. He argued that Neolithic humans were influenced by a change in thinking as much as changes in the environment and noted a series of stages in this process.[5] His work suggested important concepts in the evolution of human thinking, by examining figurines and early art depicting first women as goddesses and bulls as gods, he suggested several important ideas about the evolution of perception and duality.[6]

The structures known as Circular Enclosures built in Central Europe during the 5th millennium BCE have been interpreted as serving a cultic function. In the case of the Goseck circle, remains of human sacrifice were found. Many of these structures had openings aligned with sunset and/or sunrise at the solstices, suggesting that they served as a means of maintaining a lunisolar calendar. The construction of Megalithic monuments in Europe also began in the 5th millennium, and continued throughout the Neolithic and in some areas well into the early Bronze Age.

Marija Gimbutas, pioneer of feminist archaeology, put forward a notion of a "woman-centered" society surrounding "goddess worship" in Neolithic Europe. The Neolithic "matristic" cultures would have been replaced by patriarchy only with the arrival of the Bronze Age. Gimbutas' views do not have widespread support today.[7]

Remains of a statue in the Tarxien Temples c. 2800 BCE
A detail from the Megalithic temple of Mnajdra c. 2800 BCE
According to Gimbutas: Hourglass Neolithic Goddess with Bird arm, from Cucuteni culture 5000-3500 BCE
According to Gimbutas, a Cucuteni culture Goddess representation; around 4900-4750 BCE
Goddess representation 3800-3600 BCE, Cucuteni Culture
Goddess council around 4900-4750 BCE
A clay model considered by some historians to be a sanctuary; Cucuteni Tripolie culture
Bull representation, having a ritualistic role according to Gimbutas

Bronze Age

Main articles: Religions of the ancient Near East, Minoan religion, Ancient Mesopotamian religion, and Ancient Egyptian religion

Reconstructions

The early Bronze Age Proto-Indo-European religion (itself reconstructed), and the attested early Semitic gods, are presumed continuations of certain traditions of the late Neolithic.

Archaeology

Bronze Age Europe

Hints to the religion of Bronze Age Europe include images of solar barges, frequent appearance of the Sun cross, deposits of bronze axes, and later sickles, so-called moon idols, the conical golden hats, the Nebra skydisk, and burial in tumuli, but also cremation as practised by the Urnfield culture.

The Avanton Gold Cone, c. 1500-1250 BCE (Avanton, France).
"Fire dogs", dating to the 11th to 9th centuries BCE, found in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, kept at the Swiss National Museum
"Wheel pendants", dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, found in Zürich, kept in the Swiss National Museum, showing the "sun cross" and variant shapes
The Trundholm sun chariot, Nordic Bronze Age, c. 1400 BCE (Denmark).

Iron Age

Further information: Axial Age

While the Iron Age religions of the Mediterranean, Near East, India and China are well attested in written sources, much of Iron Age Europe, from the period of about 700 BCE down to the Great Migrations, falls within the prehistoric period. There are scarce accounts of non-Mediterranean religious customs in the records of Hellenistic and Roman era ethnography.

In the case of Circumpolar religion (Shamanism in Siberia, Finnic mythology), traditional African religions, native American religions and Pacific religions, the prehistoric era mostly ends only with the Early Modern period and European colonialism. These traditions were often only first recorded in the context of Christianization.

For these reasons, the interpretations and understanding of the Iron Age cult in Europe has to rely primarily on archaeological material.

Göbekli Tepe (pronounced [ɟøbekˈli teˈpe][1]), "Potbelly Hill"[2] in Turkish, is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, approximately 12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (980 ft) in diameter.[3] It is approximately 760 m (2,490 ft) above sea level.

The tell includes two phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world's oldest known megaliths.[4] More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock.[5] In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular

The earliest evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand years to the Middle and Lower Paleolithic periods. Archaeologists refer to apparent intentional burials of early Homo sapiens from as early as 300,000 years ago as evidence of religious ideas. Other evidence of religious ideas include symbolic artifacts from Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. However, the interpretation of early paleolithic artifacts, with regard to how they relate to religious ideas, remains controversial. Archeological evidence from more recent periods is less controversial. Scientists([which?] generally interpret a number of artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic (50,000-13,000 BCE) as representing religious ideas. Examples of Upper Paleolithic remains associated with religious beliefs include the lion man, the Venus figurines, cave paintings from Chauvet Cave and the elaborate ritual burial from Sungir.

In the 19th century researchers proposed various theories regarding the origin of religion, challenging earlier claims of a Christianity-like urreligion. Early theorists Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) proposed the concept of animism, while archaeologist John Lubbock (1834-1913) used the term "fetishism". Meanwhile, religious scholar Max Müller (1823-1900) theorized that religion began in hedonism and folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt (1831-1880) suggested that religion began in "naturalism", by which he meant mythological explanation of natural events.[3][page needed] All of these theories have since been widely criticized; there is no broad consensus regarding the origin of religion.

Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) Göbekli Tepe, the oldest religious site yet discovered anywhere [4][5] includes circles of erected massive T-shaped stone pillars, the world's oldest known megaliths [6] decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The site, near the home place of original wild wheat, was built before the so-called Neolithic Revolution, i.e., the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry around 9000 BCE. But the construction of Göbekli Tepe implies organization of an advanced order not hitherto associated with Paleolithic, PPNA, or PPNB societies. The site, abandoned around the time the first agricultural societies started, is still being excavated and analyzed, and thus might shed light to the significance it had had for the region's older, foraging communities, as well as for the general history of religions.

Surviving early copies of complete religious texts include the Dead Sea scrolls, which support the textual accuracy of later Biblical scriptures, with Old Testament copies written 2000 years ago.

Complete Old Testament Hebrew texts, translated into the Greek language (Septuagint 300-200 BC), were in use by the time the New Testament scriptures were written. Various apostles originally composed most of the New Testament in the koine (common) Greek language, with very few New Testament scriptures originally written in Aramaic.

The Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world, dating to between 2400-2300 BCE.[7][8] Writing played a major role in sustaining organized religion by standardizing religious ideas regardless of time or location.[citation needed]

Advantages of religion

Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability to large populations through the following ways:

Organized religion served to justify a central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services to the state. The empires of India and Mesopotamia were theocracies, with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders.[9] Virtually all state societies and chiefdoms around the world have similar political structures where political authority is justified by divine sanction.[citation needed]
Organized religion emerged as means of maintaining peace between unrelated individuals. Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However states and nations include thousands or millions of unrelated individuals. Jared Diamond argues that organized religion served to provide a bond between unrelated individuals who would otherwise be more prone to enmity. He argues that a leading cause of death among band and tribal societies is murder.[10]

Axial age

Middle Ages

World religions of the present day established themselves throughout Eurasia during the Middle Ages by:

Christianization of the Western world
Buddhist missions to East Asia
the decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent
the spread of Islam throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe and India

During the Middle Ages, Muslims came into conflict with Zoroastrians during the Islamic conquest of Persia (633-654); Christians fought against Muslims during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (7th to 11th centuries), the Crusades (1095 onward), the Reconquista (718-1492), the Ottoman wars in Europe (13th century onwards) and the Inquisition; Shamanism was in conflict with Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Christians during the Mongol invasions (1206-1337); and Muslims clashed with Hindus and Sikhs during the Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent (8th to 16th centuries).

Many medieval religious movements emphasized mysticism, such as the Cathars and related movements in the West, the Jews in Spain (see Zohar), the Bhakti movement in India and Sufism in Islam. Monotheism reached definite forms in Christian Christology and in Islamic Tawhid. Hindu monotheist notions of Brahman likewise reached their classical form with the teaching of Adi Shankara (788-820).

Modern period

European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to the Americas, Australia and the Philippines. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century played a major role in the rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation under leaders such as Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564). Wars of religion broke out, culminating in the Thirty Years War which ravaged central Europe between 1618 and 1648. The 18th century saw the beginning of secularisation in Europe, gaining momentum after the French Revolution of 1789 and following. By the late 20th century religion had declined in most of Europe.[citation needed]

In the 20th century, the regimes of Communist Eastern Europe and of Communist China were anti-religious. A great variety of new religious movements originated in the 20th century, many proposing syncretism of elements of established religions. Adherence to such new movements is limited, however, remaining below 2% worldwide in the period 2000-2009. Adherents of the classical world religions account for more than 75% of the world's population, while adherence to indigenous tribal religions has fallen to 4%. As of 2005, an estimated 14% of the world's population identifies as nonreligious.

Period years ago	Society type	Number of individuals
100,000–10,000	Bands	10s–100s
10,000–5,000	Tribes	100s–1,000s
5,000–3,000	Chiefdoms	1,000s–10,000s
3,000–1,000	States	10,000s–100,000s
2,000*–present	Empires	100,000–1,000,000s

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