THE EVOLUTIONIST ROLE OF RELIGION; SOME ARGUMENTS Cover Image

THE EVOLUTIONIST ROLE OF RELIGION; SOME ARGUMENTS
THE EVOLUTIONIST ROLE OF RELIGION; SOME ARGUMENTS

Author(s): Viorel Rotilă
Subject(s): Philosophy, Theology and Religion
Published by: Ideas Forum International Academic and Scientific Association
Keywords: Evolutionism religion; religious package; survival strategy; adaptive strategy; evolutionary advantage;

Summary/Abstract: In this article we analyze religion from the perspective of a stage necessary in the evolution of humanity,contributing to the birth of society, to the creation of specific dimensions of the human mind prior to theemergence of philosophy and then of science. We explore the possibility that mental religious resortshave facilitated the transition from group to society: the existence of a set of mental instruments that canbe called the "religious package" has provided integrative meanings and goals, mediating the transitionfrom small groups to large societies, from hunters-gatherers to agriculture and sedentariness. We bringsome arguments for the state of religion of social survival strategy: through the cooperation it establishesin the multiple plans of human existence it favours the groups with the highest degree of coherenceSeveral evolutionary advantages of religion: generates predictability through the systems of humanclassification and ordering of the possible relationships among the peers (social context stabilization),namely of ordering reality (cosmos), shaping existential models. Religion is an explanatory system ofreality and normative for human existence, while ensuring the social framework necessary foroutsourcing, thereby facilitating the development of the mind. Religion is an integrative meta-narrative: itis a reference framework for integrative narratives (contexts that make the meaning possible) that reducethe pile of information that invades the mind to some schemes of understanding. Religion could be themost appropriate example of geno-cultural co-evolution, clarifying this assumption being attemptedthrough an appeal to anthropological and neuro-science research

  • Issue Year: 2/2018
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 160-167
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: English