Religion as a human construct

We can find religion and mythology throughout the World in many societies both current and in the past, from our modern monotheistic religions to primitive tribal religions to the ancient religions of Rome and Egypt, from Native American religions to the religions of Japan.  The evidence we have for religion shows that they probably developed as part of our evolution as a spices from our primitive ancestors influencing our culture as our culture influences our religions.  In [1], Barbara King argues for the evolution of the concept of god. She argues that humans have a need for emotional attachment and for belonging. This emotional need has then evolved with us during the evolution of our species. For example, observational evidence indicates that other apes as well as monkeys have a set of emotional and social behaviour characteristics similar to our own. Other apes have developed social interaction that has some of the characteristics of religion. They have the ability to relate to each other, follow rules and they form hierarchies with alpha males at the top. These social-emotional connections appear to have developed through a process of evolution as species go from one to one relationship to groups among social animals and appears to have a relationship to brain size and capacity. Barbara King then argues that as our ancestors evolved and their brain size increased their capacity to form social and emotional connections from one-to-one relationships to group relationships to connecting with the dead and with nature increased. This was combined with their increased capacity to imagine and create, thus forming the beginnings of shamanism and early religions such as ancestor worship as well as an interpretation of the world using symbols, which we can see in Neanderthal’s as well as and our own ancestor’s cave paintings and burials, for example. In [2], Matt Rossano sees these developments as going through three distinct phases.

01Phase one would have centred on rituals for social bonding and healing, which we tend to see in other apes today.

02Phase two would have involved shamanism and

03Phase three, ancestor worship before we come to seeing gods in nature.

These represent not only our ancient ancestor’s attempts to understand the world but also to relate and interact with the world.

One can find further support for the evolution of religion as an emergent phenomenon in [3]. Here, Lee Kirkpatrick argues that a number of mechanisms have evolved that result in the formation of religion. Attachment forms one such mechanism. Attachment as a human behaviour evolved and resulted in infants maintaining a relationship with their parents and increasing their probability of survival, which, through natural selection, resulted in the behaviour having a dominate place among the set of human behaviours. Attachment builds an emotional bound. This behaviour extends into adulthood as people form attachments to other people. The attachment becomes one of psychological proximity rather than physical. Many scientists have studied attachment and the theory has much supporting empirical evidence.

Lee Kirkpatrick then goes on to argue that relationships form an important theme within religions and the notion of gods form examples of attachment figures. Concepts of heaven then form example of safe havens offering security associated with attachment figure. Lee Kirkpatrick then extends this idea with additional mechanism, such as power, rank and status with the concept of gods seen as power figures. Other important mechanisms include the way we think about the world (our tendency to anthromorphosise).

These different mechanisms interact in various ways and to various degrees to form our religions.  We can find further support for the complex interaction of a number of mechanisms resulting in religions in [4].

Religion has an active nature due to the people participating in religion and reinterpreting their beliefs. As society has changed, so has religion. In [5], Jill Fuller and Burke Grandjean argue that changes in society that resulted in increasing economic surplus lead to changes in religion. One can then argue that religion adapts to changes. The adaptational characteristic of religion was highlighted in [6]. Here, Joseph Bulbulia argues that evolutionary pressures resulted in religions as functional element for social cohesion arguing that religious groups form more effective groupings than non-religious groupings.  

In contrast to the wealth of evidence that support the idea that religion has evolved along with our species as our ancestors developed emotional attachments, creativity and imagination we lack the evidence to support the existence of any of the thousands of gods proposed. Although many people have put forward arguments for gods, the evidence tends to fall short of actually proving the existence of a god. For example, the “first cause argument” or various books that people claim originated with specific gods yet contains nothing that we can not explain in human terms, thus we can see religion as a human construct.

Thus, from the foregoing we can see religion belongs to the set of human constructed ideas. It forms an integral part of us building on our emotional needs to bond with others.