Harvard Prof Questions Origins of Religion

The Harvard Crimson:

A new study finds that religion may have evolved as a by-product of non-religious, cognitive processes, dispelling a competing theory that religion served as an adaptation to help unrelated individuals cooperate.

 

 

Read the whole story: The Harvard Crimson

Comments

[SangZe]

04:20 PM on 02/25/2010

Religion is humankind's defense against the unknown. Nothing more. It's the fear of that thing that's hiding under the bed, waiting.

[Elk Hunter 1]

12:28 AM on 02/26/2010

Maybe it's humankinds attempt to find a purpose to living. It could be a coping mechanism for people who want to believe there is something more. It might be a great equalizer for people who haven't recieved the opportunities or had the blessings of others. It could just be something that people like to have because it gives them hope that this isn't all we have.

Even through all the lives that have been taken, wars that have hurt the people who have been involved I still think that religion is a good thing for most people who practice it. If it gives them peice of mind and helps them to be better people I say what's the harm. For every radical in any religion there are 100 or more people who are normal and wish no harm on anyone.

[ThankGodhesgone]

04:18 AM on 02/26/2010

Then you have not read your history. The Christian Crudades in Jerusalem. Spanish Inqusition. Exterminaton of the Americas native populution's religions. Henry the VIIII's gutting of the catholic monestaries to get their wealth. The elimination of the Huegonots, extermination of the Jews. Catholic and Protestant warfare in N. Ireland. Shia vs Shite in Irag and the Muslim/Christian conflict.

[CarmenCameron]

03:05 PM on 02/25/2010

I completely understand the hostility to religion that I am reading in so many of these posts.

But there is an enormous chasm between formal religious institutions (rituals and dogma) and highly personal transcendent experience. Like many here, I have NO respect for the former while honoring the rights of those who seem to need it. But at the same time, I would ask everyone who's hostile to consider the possibility that the insight and inspiration of the latter is not only something to be desired by all, but that it is essential if we ever want to learn how to truly love one another.

"A universal theology is impossible; but a universal experience [of transcendent love] is not only possible, it is essential." At least, if we are ever to have a genuine peace within our world - and with the planet.

Please consider that y/our energies would be FAR better spent in directing our energies to obtaining the latter than in attacking the unquestionable deficiencies of the former.

Tearing down the beliefs of others is a hateful sport.

Building something of real intrinsic value takes dedication.

If you really care about the quality of life you see out there, then look within FIRST.

[Lakeview Greg]

01:55 PM on 02/25/2010

Someone looked up at the sky and yelled, "Hey, who's making it rain on my hunt!"

[LCAIN]

12:54 PM on 02/25/2010

Do not depend on man's interpretation of life, study the only instruction book the Amightly sent: The Holy Bible (KJV). May God open your hearts so that you may receive the TRUTH.

[CarmenCameron]

02:31 PM on 02/25/2010

"May God open your hearts so that you may receive the TRUTH."

Right back attcha.

[FJ 1200]

06:56 PM on 02/25/2010

King James wrote a bible to suit his needs. And you believe in it.

[ThankGodhesgone]

04:26 AM on 02/26/2010

Actually, it was the council of Nicea in AD 381 that determined which books would exist in the Bible and those books that they decided to reject that formed the current form of the Bible.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

03:33 AM on 02/25/2010

I think that most religions began as a big tribal joke. Five cavemen head out on a hunt and one pats his hand on a rock on the way out. The hunt is very good and it is clamed that it was due to the pat on the rock; everybody rolls over laughing. Next hunt, all the hunters pat the rock and laugh; it is a very good hunt. In the middle of the night, somebody takes a piece of coal and draws a face on the rock. The whole tribe of cavepersons is convulsed with laughter in the morning and all spend the day adding to the drawing. They place little rocks with faces painted on them all over the cave. On and on it goes, getting more ridiculous by the minute; everyone is having a great time at this. They make up songs around the campfire about the rock and many are quite dirty.

The kids are watching and taking all of this very seriously...a religion is born.

[MuchMadness]

01:42 AM on 02/25/2010

“Morality is far more ancient than religion,”

How could the professor possibly know this? To know that there was a sense of human morality that predated religion, wouldn't there have to be, as evidence, some sort of ancient, historic, written record that gives indications of moral reasoning or that explains human actions? And aren't the oldest written texts from societies that clearly had religious beliefs and rituals?

[David Fruits]

01:50 AM on 02/25/2010

Just because a society HAD a religion, the religion does not get to take credit for that society's contributions. Religion was a way to tie it all together in easy to swallow bedtime stories.

[MuchMadness]

09:06 PM on 02/25/2010

If the professor desires to assert that morality predated religion, then, unless he is engaging in pure speculation, the burden of proof is on him to show clear evidence of notions of morality, apart from religion, motivating ancient human behavior. The fact is that it is impossible to know anything about ancient human motivations prior to the advent of writing. And when writing did develop, those societies nearly always had some sort of religion, so it would be difficult to show that the motivations were independent of religion.

[DaveBNYC]

12:27 PM on 02/25/2010

Other species show moralistic and altruistic behavior so Hauser interprets this (here and in his other journal articles) to mean that moral tendencies arose earlier in our evolution as a species. This actual journal article in TICS, "The origins of religion : evolved adaptation or by-product?" is only controversial because it is represented by the press attention as if it meant that religion is somehow less important, less deeply rooted in our human nature, than morality, because religion is derived from earlier evolutionary developments, and thus is less important or more attackable or able to be discarded.
Every trait we (and all other contemporary species) now have, evolved from earlier ones, so what's the big deal? P&H are unfairly contrasting their position with that of Bering, "The folk psychology of souls" (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2006). Religion has only existed since we evolved language and symbolic thought, and Bering's argument applies to evolution since then, while P&H's position applies to evolution before and up to then.

[MuchMadness]

09:09 PM on 02/25/2010

I reject the idea that notions of morality were naturally selected in some Darwinian manner. Would any biologists support such a notion?

[susankhbelen]

11:30 PM on 02/24/2010

A must read: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong.
So much is based on historical facts from ALL OVER!!

[David Fruits]

01:03 AM on 02/25/2010

Dinosaurs.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

03:45 AM on 02/25/2010

Back off. Noah cut holes in the roof of of the Ark for Mr and Mrs Brontosaurus.

[susankhbelen]

09:51 AM on 02/25/2010

this book is NOT a slam dunk for religion....in fact it infuriates any thinking person.
btw this book would NOT say that dinosaurs and man roamed the earth a the same time. It substatiates that much of today's Bible (with the MANY versions) is based on historical alagories and mythology.....

[OlHippie]

11:09 PM on 02/24/2010

At Harvard, like most Universities, the rule is "publish or perish." This is a fine example of that principle; there is absolutely nothing new here; Lippman espoused many of the same ideas in "A Preface to Morals" published in 1929.

[Erdgeist]

10:37 PM on 02/24/2010

I don't know the origin of religion. We may never know. However, religion has practical applications as Napoleon Bonaparte was keen to observe: "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich"!

[farmilyman]

10:29 PM on 02/24/2010

Religion has always been used by con-artists to control people and extract money through fear. That really it's purpose.

[thundermummy]

09:16 PM on 02/24/2010

Religion came from the pet food aisle. No joke. God told me. Prove me wrong.

[jozzie]

08:22 PM on 02/24/2010

One more reason I know I didn't miss anything by not going to Harvard.

This is no news. Behaviorists have known that moral judgments are close to instinctual. Animals make moral decisions.

The distinction that is not being made here is between moral order and, for lack of a better term, spirituality. Why do we worship? We are the only animals who do. Why do we deal with concepts of God(s)? We are the only being on this planet that does that.

There is an interesting article in this week's Time or Newsweek about an extremely ancient (10,500 years old) massive temple site that is being excavated in Turkey. The archeologist in charge says it proves that religion came before civilization and agriculture—and probably spawned them. Turns upside down some very important evolutionary/sociological assumptions.

[David Fruits]

01:10 AM on 02/25/2010

No, the earth is only 6000 years old and we rode dinosaurs to work at the quarry.

[CarmenCameron]

03:54 PM on 02/25/2010

Once again, Jozzie, we seem to be on parallel paths!

Gobekli Tepe (Turkey) has indeed turned everything archeologists previously thought right on its head. lol

Here's a link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html

[Paul108]

07:52 PM on 02/24/2010

The concept of "preceding religion" is inherently atheistic. God is eternal, as are the individual spirit souls, and religion means to follow God's orders. Religion is therefore without a beginning.

"The Yamadūtas replied: That which is prescribed in the Vedas constitutes dharma, the religious principles, and the opposite of that is irreligion. The Vedas are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, and are self-born. This we have heard from Yamarāja." http://vedabase.net/sb/6/1/40/en

As stated in the purport, "Dharma is not actually manufactured by Nārāyaṇa. As stated in the Vedas, asya mahato bhūtasya niśvasitam etad yad ṛg-vedaḥ iti: the injunctions of dharma emanate from the breathing of Nārāyaṇa, the supreme living entity. Nārāyaṇa exists eternally and breathes eternally, and therefore dharma, the injunctions of Nārāyaṇa, also exist eternally."

[David Fruits]

01:06 AM on 02/25/2010

You can't state a proof and then use that proof to prove the proof. You also cannot divide by zero. Flying Spaghetti Monster prohibits this.

[CarmenCameron]

04:00 PM on 02/25/2010

God is indeed eternal and unchanging but neither attribute can be claimed for mankind. Our ability to comprehend God chnges through time and so the ways he speaks to us likewise changes. So, too, does the expression of religion which is undeniably a time-dependent concept. Any viable religion must therefore chnge with time to meet the needs (and capabilities) of changing times, all devotion to ancient expressions that are today's gobledygoop, notwithstanding.

[Paul108]

07:35 PM on 02/24/2010

Anyone can speculate, but what is it worth? As soon as one says "it may be like this," it's clear he does not know. Apart from the attempt to understand the world by such guesswork, there is the perfect method of descending knowledge, hearing from one who knows. Employing such a process by consulting the original purport to Vedic knowledge, emanates directly from the form of the Lord, we find the following:

"All the demigods and their exalted qualities, such as religion, knowledge and renunciation, become manifest in the body of one who has developed unalloyed devotion for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva. On the other hand, a person devoid of devotional service and engaged in material activities has no good qualities. Even if he is adept at the practice of mystic yoga or the honest endeavor of maintaining his family and relatives, he must be driven by his own mental speculations and must engage in the service of the Lord's external energy. How can there be any good qualities in such a man?" http://vedabase.net/sb/5/18/12/en

In fact, so called morality that is not derived from bona fide religious principles has no real basis. One person may argue in favor of compassion on account of sentiment, and another may say that might is right based on evolutionary theory. Either way it's speculation and can never be conclusive.

[CarmenCameron]

07:08 PM on 02/24/2010

With all due respect to the learned professor, his theory overlooks some rather glaring data. I know that I am not the only person to have had a revelatory experience of a benign and all-powerful entity existing beyond the reach of the body's senses. My first such experience was at the age of two and far from being induced by some religious belief instilled by my elders, it was an experience of protection FROM them.

I would respectfully suggest that the good professor consider looking at such available supporting data for the existence of religious impulses being based on something real before concluding from his LACK of personal experience that it's an artificial though useful construct.

[jozzie]

08:28 PM on 02/24/2010

Interesting. I too have had "revelatory" experiences. My first one at the age of three. I've had several others throughout my life. Big ones. But they all have left me with ambiguity about what we are and what this consciousness is. There is a vast uber-intelligent consciousness that is perfectly OK with hiding, and being fronted by the silliest superstitions imaginable.

[CarmenCameron]

09:02 PM on 02/24/2010

The wisdom conveyed and the non-linear results obtained from my various experiences are all the proof I need that we are all *ultimately* safe. And I guess that's all I needed to know.

As for the very valid question that you pose, I have long found solace in Kohlberg's "Stages of Moral Development", a theory that proposes that just as individuals go through stages of social/moral maturation, so do groups and whole societies and nations. (The Bible is in actuality nothing more than a record of the gradual maturation of one nation from a rather barbaric level into a people with at least some sense of ethics.)

Our UNDERSTANDING of our relationship with God is in a process of re/evolution and there is definitely a "learning curve" involved. And many of our brothers and sisters are just not ready YET to step out of the "cowboys and Indians" playground phase of learning.

And the best thing those of us with an experience of God's love can do, by my understanding, is to determine to be physical channels of that all-encompassing love to others, WHATEVER their current stage of development.

Not always easy - but there's the challenge of growing up! lol