Do Humans Have a Religion Instinct? [Part 2 of BBC Article Series]

[Newsposter]

Are spiritual beliefs an inevitable consequence of evolution? In the second article in a two-part series, Brandon Ambrosino examines the ways that spiritual beliefs emerge from ancient psychological tendencies.

Read the entire (long) article

[Sefiru]

Read the entire (long) article

This pair of articles made for some interesting reading ... for one thing, it mentions that 'religion' is a much broader thing than just JCI faiths, but at the same time, some of the researchers (or possibly just the journalist) haven't *quite* shed all of their biases in that direction. (Guilt and shame are required emotions for religious belief? Really?)

Thankfully, there wasn't any of that most annoying evo-psych trope, "[practice of my culture] is a product of evolution, so my culture is Doing It Right and anyone else is Doing It Wrong."

There was that one theorist mentioned, who believes that worship of ancestors/ghosts first arose as a way of policing behavior, like a neolithic Elf-on-the-Shelf. The article did not mention which ancient belief systems they based this theory on, so I'm remaining skeptical on this one.

Likewise the theory that all emotions are combinations of four basic ones. I thought the Four Humors were out of fashion these days? A very reductive theory, is what I'm saying. Also, awe is a combination of fear and happiness? What?

Though I do think the theory that humans dropped grooming in favor of music/dancing for social bonding, to be sound. Er, no pun intended.