This interesting
essay/article, which is a summary of current hypotheses concerning the evolution and cognitive function of religion, catches some of the curiously obtuse nature of the debate, in my opinion. Religion, it is posited, is a 'spandrel', an 'unintended byproduct' of certain evolutionary traits, not in itself a feature of adaption; yet it is 'the default position for the human mind' by virtue of the way in which our minds are structured.
Quote:
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Agent detection evolved because assuming the presence of an agent — which is jargon for any creature with volitional, independent behavior — is more adaptive than assuming its absence. If you are a caveman on the savannah, you are better off presuming that the motion you detect out of the corner of your eye is an agent and something to run from, even if you are wrong. If it turns out to have been just the rustling of leaves, you are still alive; if what you took to be leaves rustling was really a hyena about to pounce, you are dead.
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Now, as I see it, this would not be true today. There are impulses running counter to the survival instinct; though you would perhaps be better off running, you might well not bother. On consideration, you might convince yourself that the noise was almost certainly nothing, and it would be foolish to run. How did this impulse, running contrary to the principles of adaption, arise?
The article approaches the subject with a degree of respect, which is nice, but fails to address many issues. Religion may well be the inescapable offshoot of necessary biological instincts, but how does, for example, the evolution of religious feeling coincide with the development of
moral structures? Did it precede the notion of an absolute judgement of good and evil? Where did the phenomenon of religion as moral barometer come from, and why?
The problem with these sorts of hypotheses, as I see it, is that they paint a one-dimensional picture of human nature. Humans are stubborn, willful creatures, and singularly incapable of following evolutionary guidelines. Consciousness itself inhibits our natural instincts. Morality, in any conventional sense, seems to presribe attitudes that do not appear adaptive; religious duty requires self-sacrifice at the expense of self-preservation.
Religious feeling is inescapably linked to these two concepts and cannot be fully explicated independently.The question, in short, is not what we are bound to do, but why we choose to do it, and evolutionary anthropology as it stands surely falls short of providing an answer.
Any answers or feelings, or is this just gibberish?
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