3 A New Approach

So if the purpose and function of religious behavior is unlikely to be to help cope with extreme emotions, provide answers for the unknown, alleviate the anxiety of uncertainty, achieve pleasurable highs, or ensure the success of a ‘group’ of unrelated people, what is the function of religious behavior?  Without using the premise of belief in the supernatural, this chapter proposes an evolutionary framework for understanding why people around the world behave religiously.

But first, a brief overview of evolution by natural selection.  In so many words, human behavior, like all outwardly identifiable human traits, is the result of one’s genetic code interacting with one’s physical and social (for humans especially) environments.  Evolution by natural selection would predict that, over time, the genetic coding that allows for behaviors that better ensure the survival and ability to produce surviving offspring of an individual will result in more individuals than genetic coding that allows for behaviors that have either no effect on survival and reproduction, or a detrimental effect.

Some behaviors were so effective in ensuring the survival and reproduction of individuals (at the cost of other individuals) that they became human universals; behaviors like tool-making, the use of fire, cooking food, and, as will soon be discussed, religious behavior.  Right now you might be asking yourself, understandably so, “How could a behavior that encourages self-sacrifice, or altruism, the literal antithesis of increasing one’s survival and reproduction, lead to enough individuals to become a human universal?”  Through selective altruism, known to some as “Green Beard” altruism, where the outwardly identifiable traits that green beard altruism requires in order to succeed are supernatural claims, ancestor worship, totemism, and other religious behaviors.

These topics will be discussed in greater detail in the following section, but suffice it to say that religious behavior was such an effective strategy in increasing the survival and reproduction of individuals that we see it everywhere there are humans.