3: The Evolution of Religion
Religion and spirituality are universal constants of humanity. Even though some individual people don’t practice religion or spirituality, in every part of the world there are people who do.
Every religion in the world is exactly the same as every other religion in the world. Every religion in the world was created to serve the needs of Homo sapiens who are evolutionarily equal and have asked the same questions about life. Every group of people in the world found answers to those questions that satisfied them, by extrapolating upon what they did understand about the world to try to explain the things they didn’t understand.
Every religion in the world offers its followers the same basic things, which include: An explanation for what makes the universe work, some way for people to escape their physical mortality, ways for people to build healthy families and strong communities, and ways for people to make themselves feel satisfied with their lives. Any argument over whose religion is better than whose is impossible to win, because everything about the two religions that has observable evidence to support it is identical, and everything that’s different doesn’t have any observable evidence to support it.
In effect, in the same way that different sects of Christianity are just different versions of the same basic religion, every religion in the world is just a different sect of one universal religion of humanity.
Some religions are practiced in ways that are emotionally or physically harmful to people, and some people even equate global mass suicide with eternal salvation, but the religions are not responsible for that, people are responsible for that. Religions are universal constants of humanity. Globally suicidal religions are not universal constants of humanity.
Dr. Andrew Newberg and Dr. Eugene D’Aquili examine the evolutionary origins of religion in their book Why God Won’t Go Away. The chain of logic they draw goes like this:
The evolution of human intellect made humans the dominant species of the world, because it gave humans an advantage in hunting that no animal species was equipped to defend itself against. Humans could remember seeing animals in a certain place at a certain time of the year, they could imagine seeing them there again at the same time next year, and they could make plans among themselves to cooperate in hunting the animals. That made humans the only species in the world that could always change their hunting tactics faster than their prey could evolve defenses against them.
Well those same abilities also made humans the only species capable of perceiving their own mortality at all times. The abilities to imagine, remember, and communicate also gave them the abilities to remember people dying, to hear about people dying, and to imagine themselves dying. That made them perceive a permanent and inescapable threat to their survival. That forced them, essentially, to write an escape clause to life, so they could perceive a way to survive their mortality. Religion was an evolutionary inevitability, because without it, our entire species would’ve become extinct due to mass clinical depression.
Those other three universal constants of religion followed close behind the first. Human intellect gave people the ability to wonder how the universe worked and how to make themselves happy, so every group of people figured out ways to answer those questions based on the information they had to work with. While they were telling stories to answer those questions, it was easy to add in stories about how people had to act to make their communities function—morality, in other words.
(I should add that morality is a universal constant of humanity. Christian morality isn’t a universal constant of humanity. Every group of people has discovered that they can teach their children to feel like acting in whatever way people need to act in order to make their communities function. Christians don’t have a monopoly on morality, and neither does any other group of people.)
Every philosophical ideology that serves in the place of religion also offers its followers these four universal constants. Take Atheism, for example.
What makes the universe work?
The laws of physics, some of which we understand, some of which we don’t, but we keep searching for more answers.
How can people survive their physical mortality?
There’s a lot of different ways this could be answered, but I think this is the most profound: Everyone lives forever in the effects that their lives have on the world.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was recognized as a hero in his life, and Adolf Hitler was recognized as a villain in his. Now, decades after their deaths, one of them is still remembered as a hero, and the effects of his life are still benefiting people. The other is still remembered as a villain, and people are still trying to erase the effects his life had on the world.
How can people build strong families and healthy communities?
A good place to start is by learning about things like physics, environmental science, child psychology, and human sciences in general.
Then, just act the way people do on Sesame Street. It’s really not that difficult. Conflict resolution, cooperation, fairness, responsibility, sharing, turn taking, and pretty much everything else you learn on Sesame Street are universal constants of humanity.
How can people make themselves feel satisfied with their lives?
Well that’s up to you to figure out. Obeying the laws of physics is always a good idea. Another good trick is abandoning traditional religious morality that doesn’t serve any purpose anymore. You can drink and have sex all you want now without undermining society or ruining your life, so long as you do it responsibly and avoid all those big time negative consequences that can come with either of those.
Buddhism throws in a couple of unusual twists that at first glance seem to disprove two of the universal constants of religion, even though they don’t really.
What makes the universe work?
Nothing. The universe sprang forth out of nothing, and we are all nothing.
How can people escape their physical mortality?
You can’t. When you die, you cease to exist.
While it is true numerically speaking that “nothing” means “the absence of anything”, once you give that nothing a name, it becomes something, because it becomes an idea that people can think about.
Likewise, the ultimate goal of asking, “How can people escape their physical mortality?” is to find an answer to the question. Once you answer the question, you give the people something they can prepare themselves for. They survive their physical mortality by learning to accept it.
Once you accept that the force that powers the universe is called “nothing”, and you accept that when you die you become “nothing”, you’ve accepted that when you die you become one with the force that powers the universe. Change a couple of words around there and suddenly we’re talking about Christianity.
See what I mean about every religion in the world being a different sect of one universal religion of humanity?