Why assume that religion is a result of human evolution and not a side effect of awareness of self and mortality? Don't get me wrong, I am an immunologist and I have studied evolution for most of my life but it seems unlikely that religion would provide a survival advantage to breeding age, although maybe the foundations of religion, ritual and community would provide this advantage.

The other possibility is that because humans are aware of their individuality and their mortality, the side effect of this awareness in a tendency toward spirituality which gives rise to religion. There may be absolutely no selection involved. In evolution not every trait is there for a "reason", if a trait is not deleterious, that is it isn't selected against it often stays as long as loosing it doesn't result in the retention of energy (that is, if loosing the trait means that energy will be saved by not producing the gene product itself or the resulting activity of the gene. A good example are so called "luxury" genes that many bacteria carry which are not necessary for survival in culture but help dealing with various situations the bacterium may encounter. These luxury genes have a cost and many are energetically expensive so if in culture where these genes are not needed the bacterium often loose the genes because there is no selective pressure and there is an energetic advantage to loosing them.). All we really know is that religion does not result in a survival disadvantage up into breeding age.

My personal guess is that your theory correctly accounts for much of the character of modern religion, though not for religion itself.

Split-S wrote the following post at 08/11/2009 3:00 PM:

Why assume that religion is a result of human evolution and not a side effect of awareness of self and mortality?...

Is it remotely possible that it has continuned for thousands of years because it has at its core truth of expierience? (I mean, generally the useless, untrue stuff, does not persist so long, does it?)

Sure but that has nothing to do with selection. Useless stuff does persist if it is not deleterious to the organism, ie pinky toes and earlobes also the majority of the genome (human and others) is so called "junk DNA" which does not contain genes. If religion was a byproduct or a side effect of being self aware and aware of mortality then it would persist without being selected for.

If my theory is true, (that religion is a byproduct or side effect of being a self aware organism that is also coginsent of its own mortality then it would acount for religion itself.

Are you REALLY trying to argue that religion has been as innocuous and unimportant to human society as the pinky toe is to the human body? Sounds like your views are colored by a personal agenda.

Not at all my friend!

My comment about the pinky toe was about natural selection, and has nothing to do with the importance of religion. the pinky toe comment was to illustrate that as long as a trait is not deleterious then it is not selected against. I am arguing that religion does not provide a direct survival advantage but is a necessary consequence of being and animal that is both aware of self and of mortality.

"I am arguing that religion does not provide a direct survival advantage but is a necessary consequence of being and animal that is both aware of self and of mortality."

Yet, many humans are currently aware of self and mortality but are not religious. Can't be a "necessary" consequence it would seem.

Natural selection, especially in a social species, is contingent on direct competition for fitness with members of your own species. Whether via genetics or individual choice, we have a 10,000 year history which suggests the majority of people on earth are, in fact, religious.

Methinks you are too wrapped up in the heavenly, philosophical aspects of religion hence you assume it doesn't "provide a direct survival advantage". You ignore the social aspects which are so crucial to fitness within a social species. Could religion steer an individual toward earlier marriage and greater lifetime childbearing? Could it provide a network of support which allows a greater child survivor rate in the face of family hardship? Can you see how religious families might be able to outcompete their non-religious, disconnected neighbors over the course of a few thousand years?

Perhaps you will argue that other social constructs could perform these evolutionary fitness duties just as well as religion; as communism attempted to do. Perhaps one day you will be right. But for now, nothing beats religion. Religious families continue to outcompete non-religious families (as can be currently seen in Europe and elsewhere).

Actually Homo sapiens have been here for at least 100 thousand years (I think 130k rings a bell). Spirtuality has been with us since the begining and I think that this is the result (or side effect if you will) to being self aware and aware of mortality.

maybe the foundations of religion, ritual and community would provide this advantage.

This is from my first post. Yes I think spirituality is a natural consequence of being aware of one's self and mortality. Religion is something else entirely. Rituals and common belief that strengthen the unity of a tribe would likely provide an advantage, but spirituality and subsequent religion are not necessary for these things to happen. Just because a tribe might not be religious, does not mean that they would be disconnected, you make that assumption.

However, you are missing the point of my entire argument which is not to make a case for one over the other but to show that it is impossible to arrive at the conclusion that religion was selected via natural selection because if spirituality is necessarily a side effect of being a aware of mortality and self then we would never be able to discern this constant from a selected trait as it has possibly always been a part of our natural history. You try to counter this by saying that not all individuals are religious, but all of our early societies were, and I would argue that all of us from the most vehement atheists (like myself) are spiritual beings, I believe it is impossible not to be and that is my point, just as septic shock and potental auto-immunity were not selected for by natural selection but exsist as consequences of how our immune system evolved to fight local infections. One could incorrectly come to the conclusion that ability to undergo septic shock was selected for by natural selection simply because it is a trait that has not been extiguished by natural selection, when in reality it is only a consequense to an immune sytem that is highly evolved to fight local infection (which provides a much more effective survival advantage. Likewise, evolving a powerful brain that allows an organism to plan, share information, feel empathy and build tools (all of which provide obvious and effective survival advantages) may bring with it the consequence of spirituality which due to the fact that spirituality is not deleterious would not be selected against.

As an aside, I claim to be an atheist because while I see evidence of powerful forces in nature (from entropy to gravity) I see no evidence of morality or consciousness in these powers. You could call these forces "god", but if it (they) are god then it is possible that our "god" is indifferent, or more likely, unaware of its own power and god-ness

"pinky toes and earlobes"

The human body has very few if any vestigial organs. I am not saying this from an anti-evolutionary perspective as I have read some do. I say this by way of information. Your earlobe contains a pressure point that assists your vision, an element crucial to human survival. The fact that it remains cooler than the rest of the head allows for faster electrical impulse transmission and its position lower than the eyes allows it to feel more gravity, putting slightly more pulling pressure on it than is on the eye. Sailors in many cultures, especially if assigned to the crow's nest, often had at least one ear pierced to add a metal ring for weight and possibly even improve electrical conductivity to this strategic nerve.

Our bodies are far more complex than cultural philosophers (who don't necessarily study the body itself), evolutionary biologists (who unfortunately all-too-often abandon objectivity), and surgeons (who have historically been trained to remove--for profit--tonsils, appendixes, and thyroids, destroying our immunities and metabolism) are inclined to admit.

Furthermore, as an advocate of barfeootedness, and therefore a fellow in possession of very wide feet, I refute the vestigiality of pinky toes. Having five toes (and complex feet in general) is very beneficial, a fact supported by nearly half of the human body's bones being present in the feet. I use my pinky toe all the time. Shoes are the enemy. (Spoken halfway in jest.) Look up "the five fingers." It's the un-shoe.

I am talking about traits that are not detrimental do not get selected against by natural selection. This means that we (and other animals) retain traits that do not directly afford a survival advantage. So you and 17th century sailors find earlobes useful but you would be hard pressed to show evidence that it provides a selective advantage. I'd be willing to go out on a limb an say that primitive men without earlobes would have been just as competitive as their earlobed cousins. That is to say, show me the data on this earlobe theory of yours. Show me the data in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and I may be convinced. We can live without gal bladders, appendixes, hair, etc. but we still have them. Spirituality may be the same way. Just open your mind a bit.

Erm, Split S, you continue to obsess over the philosophy in your own head while ignoring the real world.

First, Homo sapiens did not plop onto the face of the earth 100,000 years ago from nowhere (actually they were Homo erectus at that point). We have ancestors. You argue that all humans are spiritual, so does that mean all Homo erectus were spiritual? All Homo habilus? All australopithecines (our ancestors who were basically like upright walking chimps)? How about apes? Monkeys? All mammals perhaps? Vertebrates?

Where do you draw the line? Did, one day, some ape-man become aware of his own mortality and then instantly become endowed with full-blown spirituality and religion? Sheesh. You know how ridiculous that is.

Obviously if we go back to our ancient ancestors we would find that for spirituality (as for any other trait, physical or behavioral) there is diversity. And diversity is the grist for the natural selection mill. Who did better, who produced more surviving offspring, the more spiritually inclined or less spiritually inclined primitives?

You have doubts? Who produces more offpspring in modern times, atheists or the devoutly religious? I mean, I understand a self-serving belief system, but come ON! You'd have to be blind not to realize that if atheists don't stop agonizing over their angst and start getting busy in the bedroom you are a doomed species ;- ).