On Religion, Part Four: Presumed Origin

The origin of religion, along with language, music, and art, as some of the products of human civilizations, are not so much understood. But, it is well-established that religion, even though it opposes evolution, in fact emerged from the evolution of human brain. This is why humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, like souls, and the possibility of life after death. To understand how religion developed, we can observe from individual sphere and social sphere.


Individual Origin


Supernatural concepts are heavily attached to humans' intuition. This intuitive and imaginative ability was first evolved circa 30.000-50.000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic, the final end of Stone Age. That time, arts (like petroglyphs, cave paintings), funerary*) artifacts, and more sophisticated and diverse rock tools begun to bloom. This intuition led to "agency detection," that is the tendency to "feel" or register the presence of agency even though there is only inconclusive evidence. "Agency detection" coupled with humans innate desire to find and seek meaning and other novel things led them into primordial supernatural concepts. When primitive humans, for instance, see lightning, which is outside their capability to explain (unlike now, we know how lightning can be formed.) and given its destructive power, loud sound of thunder, and majestic appearance of the lightning, it's easily to ascribe lightning as something that comes from God, or even that there is God of lightning.  If this intuitive capability is somehow diminished, then people will be less likely to believe in God or other supernatural concepts. There are at least three studies to support this:


1. The study that shows that people with autism are less likely to believe in God. It tells us that that religious belief relies on being able to intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to human beliefs, desires and concerns, a capacity known as "mentalizing." Autistic people, lacking the ability to imagine what other people are thinking, are having difficulty in conceiving the notion of a concerned God, and therefore less likely to believe in it.

2. The study that shows that people with analytical thinking are less likely to believe in God. Humans use two separate cognitive systems for processing information: one that is fast, emotional and intuitive, and another that is slower and more analytical. The first system innately assigns purpose, mental state, and personality to objects, leading to supernatural beliefs; but activating analytical thinking can override this intuitive system, leading to disbelief in God.

3. The study that shows that children have a natural propensity to regard the world as intentionally and purposefully designed. They instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose. It turns out that this bias can extend into adulthood, leading children into religious persons.

Social Origin

How did individual belief then develop into such organized religion? The key is on the size of society. At least until 12.000 years ago, humans lived in relatively small groups which mostly consisted of family or had some sort of familial relationship. Cooperation among them was ensured by kin cooperation and reciprocal altruism. But as the size of the groups grew vast, the interactions with strangers were inevitable and occurred more often, thus humans needed an extra safeguard to ensure the cooperation among them - safeguard to punish the violators and free-riders. Thus religion comes to rescue. Since humans at that time hadn't been able to conceive legal system as what we have nowadays, with its laws, legislators, polices, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and courts, the idea that there is an omniscient, omnipresent, watchful God made people cooperate and ensuring the contracts. This study tells us that thinking about God makes believers feel as if their behavior is being monitored, and, subsequently, increases their public self-awareness and socially desirable responding.

There are also some studies that support the notion that people will better cooperate if they're under the impression of being watched. This study, for instance, shows that even subtle exposure to drawing resemble eyes encourage good behavior among strangers. Another study shows that children's belief in an invisible person inhibits cheating. Another, shows that believers in omniscient-omnipresent God are more generous than those who believe in deities who aren't as omniscient and as morally concerned. Even, according to this study, exposing people to words like "God," "spirit," and "divine" increases their generosity in economic dictator game.

The role of religion (or belief in God) to maintain social cohesion is perhaps the reason why atheists have the lowest approval ratings of any social group, including other religions. Intolerance of atheists stems from the intuition that people will behave better if they feel that a God is watching them. Thus, outward display of disbelief in a watchful God can be perceived as untrustworthy.

When the concept of omnipotent-omnipresent-omniscient, interventionist, watchful God became increasingly common, religion then intertwined to morality; making the notions of supernatural punishments and blessings, damnation and salvation, heaven and hell, karma, etc. also became more increasingly common. As the society gets even larger, ritual became even more essential, as displays of strict religious devotion such as fasting, taboos, animal sacrifice, martyrdom signify a sincere intention to cooperate. Some prominent figures then rose with the claim that they were chosen by God or ever directly talked to God**). If people believe in them, then they started establishing some rituals and particular definitions/characteristic/descriptions of God and enforced them to other people. If not, then they might be considered crazy. These particular rituals and God concepts were passed to next generation via oral tradition or written scriptures. The era of organized religions thus begun.

Towards Post-religionism?

As development of secular morality such as secular humanism, and also the development of legal system to protect people from violation of each others' rights and/or bind them into their obligations, religion becomes more estranged in human lives. In secular countries, like Scandinavian countries, the role of religion to ensure social cohesion has been replaced by secular concept, yet still somehow retains the happiness and cooperation among their citizens. Interestingly, atheism increases along with the quality of life. First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be seen. Belief in God declines in more developed countries and atheism is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%. The reason that religion loses ground in developed countries can be explained by how religion, with the concept that there is/are God(s) who care to human being and cater their needs, slowly losing its importance in human lives. With the better science, medicines, government safety nets, security, and legal protection, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion.


The development of science to replace religion as something that can satisfy human's desire to find meaning and purpose, pushes religion even further. Creationism and intelligent design are challenged by cosmology, physic, and evolutionary biology. The infallibility of Holy Book like Qur'an or Bible is challenged by historical study and textual criticism. The claims of miracle are challenged by chemistry, archaeology, anthropology, and medical science. One thing is left: that belief in God is a subjective experience (thus, there is no way to prove to disprove it.) However, recent developments in evolutionary biology and neuroscience***) have tried to decode the thought process that gives birth to the notions of God and religion. One day, when human mind is finally mapped and it turns out that religion is just a mundane brain phenomenon and there is nothing supernatural or holy about it, what is left from religion? We don't know. But are we ready?

Post Scriptum:

*) Even though burial rites first came 300.000 years ago during Middle Paleolithic, there are still debates whether their purpose has supernatural meaning or just simply honoring the dead.


**) It has been suggested that religious figures like Moses (on Exodus 3 and Exodus 19), Saint Paul (on Acts 9:1-19a, Acts 22:3-16, Acts 26:9-18, and perhaps 2 Corinthians 12:7), and Seventh-day Adventists Church founder Ellen White (who once had brain trauma when she was 9) all had temporal lobe epilepsy, which may cause hallucination. This hallucination could be mistakenly perceived as religious vision or divine encounter. Some even wilder theory suggests that Moses was under the influence of psychedelic plants when Ten Commandments were given.


***) - For instance, the "light tunnel" vision during near death experience/NDE (in which some people ascribed that with a journey to the afterlife) can be explained by hypoxia/cerebral anoxia (lack of oxygen to brain.) When a person enter clinical death, brain is deprived of oxygen supply and higher brain areas (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe) in the cortex quickly blank out. The more primitive lower brain area (medulla, pons, midbrain, thalamus, hypothalamus) remains active for several minutes, causes "neural noise," or an overload of information sent to the brain's visual cortex, creating an image of a bright light that gradually grows larger, which may be interpreted as going through a tunnel. NDE can also be explained by a sudden REM sleep state while brain is still awake, that is triggered by extreme stress or trauma. Since the higher brain (to process spatial sense, logic, and bodily perception) is malfunctioning during NDE, sensory inputs that come from lower brain (in which also regulate memory) are not processed, resulting in out-of-body experience (OBE), "traveling in extra dimensions," and encounter with angel, demon, God, or dead people. NDE also triggers brain to release endorphin as coping mechanism, which may cause the tranquil, calm, heavenly sensation. Sensory malfunctioning and euphoric sensation from the endorphin together can be simply mistakenly perceived as "afterlife." See also God helmet.


- OBE or astral projection itself can be explained by malfunctioning in temporal parietal junction, causing brain unable to distinguish what is real or not.


- Transcendental feeling when people are meditating is now linked with increased activity in frontal lobes (makes people having more attention and focus.) The thalamus also shuts down normal sensory input during meditation. The parietal lobes (which regulate our spatial and temporal perception) is also less active. Add to that increased flow of endorphin, giving the sensation of having a sense of timelessness, a suspension of self, a feeling of bliss and being "united with universe."


- Speaking with tongue (glossolalia) is associated with lower activity in frontal lobes - the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do, as were the language centers. This gives the impression for the speaker that God is taking control of her body, and manifested in some unknown speeches.


- Ghost sighting is liked with infrasonic sound. Because the brain is not used to registering frequency so low (since it's not what is usually heard in normal situation,) it cannot associate such frequency to any object/definition, causing spooky feeling. The low frequency can also cause eyeballs to vibrate slightly due to resonance, and it might alter the vision for split seconds, creating ghostly images.