Religion- A figment of the human imagination

enevitable · Apr 28, 2008

Incredibly interesting article on an analysis of how humans evolved into creating religion:
http://www.newscientist.com/article...n.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news3_head_dn13782

Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.
\t \t \t That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.
\t \t \t Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they've died.
\t \t \t Once we'd done that, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Uniquely, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unify with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. The transcendental social also allows humans to follow the idealised codes of conduct associated with religion.
\t \t \t "What the transcendental social requires is the ability to live very largely in the imagination," Bloch writes.
\t \t \t "One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even though one never comes in contact with the other members of it," says Bloch. Moreover, the composition of such groups, "whether they are clans or nations, may equally include the living and the dead."
\t \t \t Modern-day religions still embrace this idea of communities bound with the living and the dead, such as the Christian notion of followers being "one body with Christ", or the Islamic "Ummah" uniting Muslims.
\t \t \t \t \t \t\tStuck in the here and now

\t \t \t \t \t No animals, not even our nearest relatives the chimpanzees, can do this, argues Bloch. Instead, he says, they're restricted to the mundane and Machiavellian social interactions of everyday life, of sparring every day with contemporaries for status and resources.
\t \t \t And the reason is that they can't imagine beyond this immediate social circle, or backwards and forwards in time, in the same way that humans can.
\t \t \t Bloch believes our ancestors developed the necessary neural architecture to imagine before or around 40-50,000 years ago, at a time called the Upper Palaeological Revolution, the final sub-division of the Stone Age.
\t \t \t At around the same time, tools that had been monotonously primitive since the earliest examples appeared 100,000 years earlier suddenly exploded in sophistication, art began appearing on cave walls, and burials began to include artefacts, suggesting belief in an afterlife, and by implication the "transcendental social".
\t \t \t Once humans had crossed this divide, there was no going back.
\t \t \t "The transcendental network can, with no problem, include the dead, ancestors and gods, as well as living role holders and members of essentialised groups," writes Bloch. "Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words transcendental."
\t \t \t \t \t \t\tNothing special

\t \t \t \t \t But Bloch argues that religion is only one manifestation of this unique ability to form bonds with non-existent or distant people or value-systems.
\t \t \t "Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society."
\t \t \t "Once we realise this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion," he says.
\t \t \t Chris Frith of University College London, a co-organiser of a "Sapient Mind" meeting in Cambridge last September, thinks Bloch is right, but that "theory of mind" – the ability to recognise that other people or creatures exist, and think for themselves – might be as important as evolution of imagination.
\t \t \t "As soon as you have theory of mind, you have the possibility of deceiving others, or being deceived," he says. This, in turn, generates a sense of fairness and unfairness, which could lead to moral codes and the possibility of an unseen "enforcer" - God – who can see and punish all wrong-doers.
\t \t \t "Once you have these additions of the imagination, maybe theories of God are inevitable," he says.
Click to expand...

The trascendental social, an interesting notion. What do you guys make of this article, does anyone actually disagree?

I mean it only makes sense that religion is a figment of our imagination, because well, look at how many there are. It couldn't be that varied if it all wasn't getting made up.

But theres no doubt that spreading these imagined religions promotes social cohesion and bonding, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

wtfEver · Apr 28, 2008

So god starts with the imagination..... No wonder im so spiritual!!!

Thats what i got out of that artical...

Bloch forgot to mention the Ego. Did that come from our imagination as well? As far as i know, we are the only species that has an ego....

we imagine ourselves supreme....... until an astroid comes blasting at us going 98174508715544 miles an hour....and puts the smack down on our ass's....

as far as there being so many different religions, they are all actually very very similar....

very good artical!! kudos!

seahag · Apr 28, 2008

tell that to morphyx.

tea.mochi · Apr 28, 2008

I agree to a point. I think there are states of higher conciousness that we can reach with the help of religion, but I don't really want to say that religion is fake, cause who really is to say?
The reason there are so many is because so many people from different reigons have their own interpretation. You can't expect a man in ancient China to come to the same conclusions of the spiritual world as a man in ancient Egypt.
I think it comes down to drugs and space really... So many stories in religion can be traced in the stars, theres the theory that the sun is the savior of most religions and if any of you listen to Terrance Mckenna you will pretty much get what I'm trying to say...

enevitable · Apr 29, 2008

teamochi said:

The reason there are so many is because so many people from different reigons have their own interpretation. You can't expect a man in ancient China to come to the same conclusions of the spiritual world as a man in ancient Egypt.
Click to expand...

Exactly. So many cultural and regional influences really help creativity

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