If religious belief itself has changed, what is the constant on which it was built ? We can now answer this question scientifically. Recent neurological research has helped us discover what is now called the "God Module", that is, a particular area of the temporal lobe which is functional for approximately 90% of people (which, by perhaps coincidence, is the approximate percentage of theists in the world) and which is activated by religious words. This area amplifies religious stimuli by stimulating the pleasure center.
The fact that not all people have a functioning god instinct shows that this module in the brain appeared rather late in man's evolution. This is perfectly normal : most animals have no need for spirituality, since they are not sufficiently aware to use it.
However, homo sapiens' emerging awareness must have posed certain problems. One of them is death. Being the first species aware of its own existence, we are also aware of the fact that we all die. Even religionists, who supposedly believe in souls and the "afterlife", are keenly aware of this. Since we are made to survive, and want to survive, the existence of death becomes emotionally problematic. The easiest solution to this side-effect of consciousness is to induce or encourage belief in the individual that death is not real in some way - that there is a higher plane of existence. Inadvertantly, the evolution of man's mind has later encouraged this belief because of its own complexity (in the form of the belief in souls).
One other problem of an emerging awareness is individuality. With the awareness of the person's unity comes also many problems : responsability for oneself, having to face life's problems, lack of purpose. They are difficult things to accept because being at cause over things requires a lot of thinking and energy, which is not only tiresome but could be used for other more important things. Here too the easiest mechanism to counter this is to delegate one's responsabilities to a superior being or beings. But of course one needs to believe in this being beforehand.
How about the common explanation, which is that spirituality gives a sense of community ? We do observe today that religion's most important role is to give people this sense of community. However this is probably a later evolution rather than a basic function. The reason I say this is because growing spirituality does not initially give cohesiveness in a society, especially when notions of gods are ill-defined and vague. To have this cohesiveness that helps survival, you need to have a formalized system of belief which is at odds with other systems of belief. However growing spirituality does help in terms of the fear of death, the fear of responsability, and such.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Francois Tremblay's Atheism topic, please visit the Discussions page.