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"Evolution equipped our species with powerful defense mechanisms to deal with this foreknowledge—in particular, psychological suppression and religion." Religi
by primroot 7y ago
"Evolution equipped our species with powerful defense mechanisms to deal with this foreknowledge—in particular, psychological suppression and religion."
Religion is a result of evolution?
- katmannthree 7y agoOn some level you can think of it as a consequence of over sensitive pattern matching, which is something that I believe we can attribute to evolution. It's also quite convenient for increasing local societal cohesion (though generally to the detriment of inclusiveness) which could conceivably provide a group advantage.
- damontal 7y agoDan Dennet argues this in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- vermilingua 7y agoIsn't, arguably, all of society a result of evolution?
- buboard 7y agocultures are created and die at a rate much higher than evolutionary timescales
- vermilingua 7y agoBut the structures that give rise to cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process.
- buboard 7y agoyeah but culture doesn't need to wait for natural selection in order to evolve. Incidentally this phrase " cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process" is a apparently taboo for anthropologists today. I tried to ask such a question on reddit's askanthropology, about which aspects of genetic differences contribute to cultural artifacts, like alcoholism differences, lactose intolerance differences etc. the question was apparently racist and removed
- dan8521 7y agoSee also: The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker, 1973. For a bird's eye view, skim the wiki page on Terror Management Theory.