The following is the original Discussion section I wrote for my master's thesis. My advisor today informed me that it sound too grandiose for my measly finding. So I figured that posting it on idio would cancel that out for me.
The Evolution of Organized Religion
Charles Darwin (Descent of Man, 1874) [On the other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.
Darwin’s insightful observations regarding religion as costly may have led him to seek out alternative explanations for religious systems such as culture. Darwin never continued any serious investigation regarding the subject of religion, however if he had, perhaps he would have observed the strong influence that religious systems have on social groups structures and more importantly on the individuals within these groups. Or conversely the influence socioecological factors have in shaping features of religious systems both of which would have been consistent with Darwin’s initial observations that religion is shaped by culture. One reason for this relationship may reflect selection pressures for religious systems, typical of human groups, towards functions that facilitate social exchange and subsequently promote group cohesion.
The belief in the supernatural has been argued, for instance, to exhibit predictable socioecological differences (Soiss and Alcorta, 2003) resulting from the interaction between environmental conditions and human’s evolved cognitive architecture focused on detecting mental states (Baren-Cohen, 1995). Evolved mental capacity towards religious thinking is argued to employ highly flexible cognitive mechanisms that provide reliable information concerning individual’s physical and psychological states via an emotional feedback system (Purzyaki & Sosis, 2009). A supernatural agent concept is argued to emerge from a multitude of systems that include both a hyper-agency detection mechanism and a capacity for symbolic thought. The confluence of these systems, more importantly, allows humans the remarkable ability to ascribe arbitrary values to ordinary concepts and even supernatural beliefs. The ability to symbolically represent and assign value to supernatural agents is not enough, however, to explain how religious institutions form and are able to thrive.
For religious systems to flourish requires that a specific supernatural agent or religious ideology be assigned greater value over other competing deities. In accordance with this, cues of credibility given to particular religious belief are determined, most often, by individuals in positions of power. Individuals in positions of power tend to be viewed as highly credible and as such are given the authority to rationalize and legitimize the value of these symbolic beliefs within their social group. Analogous to this, money is nothing more than colored pieces of paper birch, however, the symbolic value placed on money is so strong that individuals are willing to kill one another for it. Like religious systems, those within the group that have leadership positions largely determine the value of money (e.g., Federal Bank). This subsequently creates opportunities within the group for individuals to counter-fit items deemed as being credible by those in charge. As a result, there are also systems in place to stop individuals from claiming false credibility such as social policing and public punishing of those that attempt to counter-fit.
In line with this, Purzyaki and Sosis (2009) argue that religious systems encourage the collective acceptance of religious ideologies through public displays and rituals. Religious ideologies, in turn, become internalized and are used to make evaluations of others in ones social environment (D’ Andrade, 1992; Ryan et al., 1993). An individual that adopts a particular religious belief, in other words, may be at an advantage in their ability to make reliable heuristical assessments of potential social partners (Rapport, 1999). The motivation to form coalitions based on shared supernatural beliefs, therefore, may facilitate the ability of individuals to coordinate their strategies and trust that others with shared beliefs will do the same.
In accordance with this, results from the current study support predictions that religious cues were significantly more effective at influencing both positive and negative perceptions of others compared to spiritual cues. Although spiritual beliefs involve counterintuitive concepts, these beliefs are not as organized as religious beliefs nor do they typically involve routine ceremonies and costly public displays. Religious systems, on the other hand, create added costs for individuals that decide to join the group. Requiring members to give time and resources in order to maintain membership in turn may facilitate group cohesion by decreasing the number of defectors within the group. Whether religious systems are actually successful at decreasing the amount of defectors or whether these acts are actually costly is not as important as how these acts are perceived by others in the group as being credible.
While religion affects individuals within the group by creating new selection pressures for in-group behavior, this relationship is not one-way. There is evidence, for instance, that religious systems, in addition, are constrained by the number of individuals comprising the group. In accordance with this, Purzyaki and Sosis (2009) argue that the use of one all-mighty supernatural agent rather than several less powerful deities may reflect the number of people within ones social group that must be accounted for. Individuals living in small-scale societies, for instance, would not have experienced intense selection pressures for belief in one all-powerful deity since social behavior can more easily be observed and moral reputations readily known. Humans living in much larger social groups may benefit from greater longevity by employing concepts such as one God that watches over everyone and judges those based on their actions in the social environment.
The use of standardized religious beliefs may further facilitate the transmission of these ideologies across generations. One reason for this may be that supernatural agency concepts are more attention grabbing and more memorable than other types of events. Boyer (2001, p. 32), for example, argued that religious thinking is highly memorable because it directly violates a basic ontological category (e.g., biological, physical, psychological). Consistent with this, emotionally salient counterintuitive ideas were found to be easier to remember and retain compared to intuitive or non-emotional ideas (Barrett, 1930; Purzycki, 2006). Religious cues, therefore, may serve to trigger emotional reactions that influence how a particular individual will interact with others within their social environment. Shared religious beliefs, as a result, can also serve than to maintain a perceived state of equality among individuals within the social group (Alcarta and Sosis, 2005).
Consistent with this, there is considerable experimental, cross-cultural, and historical evidence that costly rituals are associated with in-group solidarity and cooperation. Soiss and colleagues (2007), for instance, found a positive correlation between the costliness of male ritual and warfare. Other studies by Sosis and Ruffle (2003; 2004) and Ruffle and Sosis (2007) found that individuals who participate in frequent public displays that were costly in terms of the time invested were perceived as more cooperative than those who did not attend synagogue daily. Conceptualization of shared social institutions may be an important tool for humans for successfully acquiring resources and mates.
The bidirectional relationship between social groups and religious institutions are further complicated by other environmental factors such as pathogen prevalence. Individuals living in tropical climates, for instance, face much greater threat of dying from infectious disease compared to individuals living in more temperate environments. Tropical environments also tend to experience the greatest diversification among groups including features such as language and religion. One explanation for this by Fincher and Thornhill (2008) suggests that religion reduces the rates of infectious disease by facilitating in-group assortative sociality and out-group avoidance and through limited dispersal. Tropical environments provide better conditions for many types of pathogens and as a result individuals living in these areas increase their chance of surviving by avoiding exposure to new pathogens. In line with this, Ficher and Thornhill (2008) argue that religion strengthens inter-group boundaries in ways that limit the number of individuals with in the group. As groups begin to grow in size they are more likely to experience a diversification process that breaks the larger group into smaller ones that in turn than adopt their own religious beliefs. Beliefs related to the newly formed group help to facilitate group unity and subsequently the likelihood of success. As a result individuals living where infectious disease is high may experience in even greater emotional reactions towards cues of shared beliefs.
Consistent with Darwin’s observations, culture may provide new insight into better understanding the emergence of religious systems. Selection pressures for religious systems toward in-group cohesion, fueled by competition among neighboring groups, may have resulted in religion’s affective ability to exploit human’s evolved psychology through use of counterintiuitive beliefs and routine public rituals. Larger human groups, , are argued to experience greater selection pressures toward developing religious beliefs centered on a potent supernatural agent that monitors and incentives actions of group members as a means to facilitate cooperation. To better understand the role evolved mechanisms, cultural processes, and costly signaling play in influencing perceptions of individuals encounters in the social environment throughout development and into adulthood requires more rigorous investigations into the nature of these relationships.
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Everything has a sociological perspective. From wars fought over religion to indulgences granted by the Catholic church, there is clearly something bigger (like money) than supernatural beliefs that has to do with the time and place.
As for group cohesion, according to Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality, a wordy economic perspective of altruism, the human race has moved away from working together and more toward a selfish choice. Coincidentally, it is something Darwin spoke of, too. Even though altruism would, overall, benefit everyone, there are reasons we stray from it. (Altruism is defined as helping someone else even if you also benefit from said helping. What makes it altruism is that you could've chose not to do it and used your time to do something else to benefit yourself. It didn't touch on religion, just other subjective "benefits".)
Is your main point that people join religious affiliations for some selfish reason? (avoiding illness, whatever)
"Conceptualization of shared social institutions may be an important tool for humans for successfully acquiring resources and mates."
But why are people drawn toward religious affiliations rather than just a fraternity of some sort?
I'm also curious as to your take of Carl Jung and his studies of symbolism.
Indeed everything does have a sociological perspective, however, what I am arguing for essentially, and I do I poor job explaining it in this version of the conclusion, is that there are selection pressures, similar to those operating on a biological level, for religious/political systems. These section pressures for religious systems have coevolved with the advent of culture. Ultimately I believe that there are two different ways in which to look at the evolution of religion, from the individual perspective and from the social group perspective.
From the individual perspective the propensity for supernatural thinking emerged as a byproduct of other processing abilities. Humans are capable of symbolic thinking that allows us the rich ability to draw inferences about stimuli that is only partially presented. In addition, a while back in our evolutionary past our ancestors also evolved an overactive hyperagency detection system. The confluence of these two systems allows humans, in part, the ability to generate a ghost concept in the first place.
In addition, not all supernatural concepts are equal they must violate certain fundamental folk features of biology, psychology, or physics. A ghost is a human that is invisible violates our understanding of it's biological function, whereas. a human with 8 arms is less interesting since no fundamental changes across these domains have occurred. If there are selection pressures operating on these abilities it would be facilitate humans ability to infer rich information from the environment from partial stimulus allowing better reaction time during hunting or in avoiding a predator. Hunter-gather groups will manipulate, much like with drugs, their response of excitement or fear typically triggered when the hyper-agency detection system is activated through use of group ceremonies where costumes are worn consisting of half animal half human agents or music is played to evoke the spirits.
Religious systems only piggyback off these individual abilities. For early hunter-gather societies shared belief in the supernatural was used help explain the world around them. Religious thinking as displayed by smaller human groups may have been less susceptible to section pressures to features that latch onto social group structures. To learn more about the differences between religious organizations and hunter-gather religions Jarred Diamond has a great lecture on you tube. He argues that as humans groups began to grow in response to the advent of culture, religious systems began to become embedded into the group’s social network. It was not intentional, no one probably thought to themselves hey let's start a religion to control people. Rather groups that developed strong-shared religious beliefs that governed how they interacted within a group were more likely to survive and flourish compared to groups that did not.
In fact, it was such a good move for groups that to date there is no known early societies that did have supernatural agent(s) embedded in their political systems. Why is it such a good move, well for one it plays off an individual capacity for religious thinking? This thinking since it's connected on a neurological level with agency detection, emotional feedback, and stronger memory retention facilitates its effectiveness as a meme.
Moreover, having a shared belief in an all-knowing supernatural agent that punishes those that are bad and rewards those that are good is a wonderful social tool. Consistent with the effects of religions that employed these tools there is a good paper discussing how during the Roman empire the emergence of monotheistic religions had a profound impact on societies. This also relates to the one issue you brought up about other types of social groups like sport teams, which have been shown to have profound influences on group behavior. This question is actually argued a lot in the religious literature. Ultimately these groups maybe unable to capture the captivating features of religious systems such as an all-knowing leader that dictates the rules of social exchanges.
In large groups, game theory suggests that most social encounters should end unsuccessfully or in a Nash equilibrium. The reluctance of individuals within the social group to engage in social exchange with stagers relates to the rewards of cooperating versus not cooperating. Adding an incentive for cooperative behavior such as from an ultimate social exchange partner, God, is highly motivating. In other words, you follow God's rules to cooperate with those that believe what you believe and try to convert or not cooperate with those that do not and this in turn may strengthen the amount of successful social exchanges within the group and increases the likelihood the group will remain intact and propagating.
On the other hand an individual must still decide whether or not the costs associated with joining a group are less than the benefits of the group. For the potential rewards of external bliss or alternatively avoidance of external punishment may not be enough for them to give precious time and resources associated with weekly church attendance and donations not to mention time spent in praying to the God. Whereas a sports group or a fraternity may be a great motivator, but once the teams begins consistently loosing or the initial costs surrounding the induction are fulfilled typical motivation to stay within the group and not join one of the many of other groups around is great. Consistent with this is work by Sosis and colleagues examining differences in longevity between religious and secular communities. Finding religious systems to be the best predictor of whether or not a group was likely to stay together for over two years.
As for Carl Yung he is much too psychoanalytical for my taste, however, his notion of spirituality being a cure for alcoholism may hold a bit true on some levels. Many people actually credit him with be the inspiration behind AA. As you said belief in the supernatural is not enough and I agree. In times of uncertainty, be it economic, climate, or political research does show that people will seek out religion. It may provide people with greater social support not to mention greater illusion of control in their lives.
Finally I do not mean to imply that it’s religion or bust for large human groups but rather it’s important to examine the selection pressures for religious systems. Through understanding the evolution of these systems we can begin to see patterns emerge. For example, there is much work suggesting that Nations that have free market religious systems as opposed to having a state church like in England or Sweden tend to have much higher rates of religiosity. This comes as a result of section pressures towards these groups to attract and maintain members. Leading to an evolutionary arms race between competing religious systems has birthed the evangelical groups that have an arsenal of highly effective tools now to can members. Knowing why the United States despite it being the 21st century still remain a highly religious nation is critical to stopping it’s oppression of science of humanity. Not just through understanding it’s hold but in understanding it’s relationship within politics and social groups in general hopefully will provide us insight into better understanding on a grander scale how to get people to cooperate in a globalized world for delayed rewards rather than selfishly for immediate gratification.
Do you think that religion is still important? And will remain to be, at least, biologically, or do you think that it is something the masses can evolve out of and live without?
Nicole, I don't think you were asking me but I'm gonna answer anyway. I think we CAN. But I don't think we will. Why? It's been around forever. For ever ever. It is ingrained it too many systems.
This thinking since it's connected on a neurological level with agency detection, emotional feedback, and stronger memory retention facilitates its effectiveness as a meme.
You can have those skills without believing in god(s). It is too convenient that people who have a tendency to be very illogical (IMO) have the capacity for such useful skills. I never thought about that benefit on the neurological level though. My initial reaction was "oh, awesome" followed quickly by thinking that's fucked up that someone who has a tendency to blindly follow and conform is fostering and mirroring interpersonal skills with other idiots.
In times of uncertainty, be it economic, climate, or political research does show that people will seek out religion. It may provide people with greater social support not to mention greater illusion of control in their lives.
Yes. As said in the prison I worked in "You find god when you get here and you leave him here when you leave."
All-in-all, these instances, blind faith instances, close-mindedness, money... the tons and tons of reasons that turn people off from organized religion really do fuck it up for the Mother Teresa types.
Not just through understanding it’s hold but in understanding it’s relationship within politics and social groups in general hopefully will provide us insight into better understanding on a grander scale how to get people to cooperate in a globalized world for delayed rewards rather than selfishly for immediate gratification.
Religion is something, but it is such an intersectionality of that, race, language (gender, ability, socioeconomic status and all the rest) that we need an understanding of for a more cooperative world. As religion evolved, language and race and all that was a huge factor. This is a whole different topic though. Maybe religion would be the place to start. I'm holding onto this hope that it is easier than that though. Just seeing people for the human qualities instead of categorizing them.
As for decreasing peoples' desire for immediate gratification- Americans will be the last to accomplish that.
Okay, to get back to [what I think] your point is- there's a societal pressure to join that just sort of evolved indirectly through religious systems. It has the capacity to benefit individuals as a part of a group. Right?
So religious groups are using a type of exclusion to decide who is in and who isn't.
How many problems arise from that? Splits in denominations happen. Families are broken up over shit like this. What started off as a benefit for the whole group creates turmoil. I read somewhere that more people have been killed in wars over any other death rates. I believe it. I just can't fathom how being a part of a religious community is so important to so many people. Social support is nice, yeah... but I guess I've just never needed anybody to agree with me about any "personal relationship" (with a god or another person) in order to be a part of their so-called group.
Organized religion still flashes FAIL FAIL FAIL to me. It is somewhat comforting to know that there's some rational benefits though.
Yeah that very long response was me replying to you interesting questions/comments while preparing my master's defense powerpoint. I defended yesterday and in fact one of my committee members asked me very similar questions.
I think that the transition from folk religious beliefs towards organized religion was unintentional resulting from a good move for large groups. Unfortunately even from the very beginning these religious systems were manipulated to benefit the Decision Makers of the Group rather than the individuals in the group. Chiefs and kings emerged into roles were they stole resources from the group and as a result had to justify this. Early on the most stable way to do this was by claiming divine powers or access to the divine who they claimed told them what to decide. By manipulating accountability these early leaders were able to take credit for when good things happened (e.g., successful harvest) for there ability to provoke these events while conversely blaming individuals in the group for offending the god when bad things happen (e.g., drought).
In this light I really do not think that there was ever anything particularly good going on with religious systems that is only now out of control. Religious systems experience selection pressures - religions that can remain stable or grow among many generations of individuals that live in these systems is key. In an arms race to survive, religions that were better able to attract and keep members were the victors. This is done in part by stimulating human emotion regrading the supernatural, creating standardized rules and religious rituals, and creating social support systems. My hope is that in the future more secular based groups will come in and fill this niche.
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that response should be its own blog. 
Do you think that religion is still important? And will remain to be, at least, biologically, or do you think that it is something the masses can evolve out of and live without? 
