How to unravel the riddle of religion?It has emerged as an ancestral necessity, at least believed, and has remained to this day with no indication that it will disappear. If we look at history, will we realize this religion?If we can speak in singular? He went through a lot of variants. Thus, for example, we have seen the birth of monotheists religions, in which a God is worshipped.
These gods have also undergone changes over the centuries and have received different names and forms, there are gods that cannot be represented, as well as others to whom fantastic forms are attributed, sometimes related to animals.
- “Renounce God with all your heart.
- For often your mercy rains in times when hopes are at their lowest point.
- -Miguel de Cervantes-.
Religion has also been institutionalized and, in its name, social institutions have been created to provide or improve services, such as education and health. The disadvantage is that there have also been great wars in his favor and many crimes and injustices have been committed. the basis of the precepts of faith, often misinterpreted.
Many explanations have been proposed to try to explain the birth and enigma of religion over the centuries Is it one of the most defended we defined in the first place?Religion plays the role of answering these questions to which we cannot answer. otherwise, but this is not the only explanation given to religion.
Here are some of these attempts to explain the birth, survival, and enigma of religion:
Why did religion stay?
According to Scott Atran’s book, “In the Gods We Trust,” religion attempts to change genes with a predisposition to certain behaviors, group selection, and mimicry or imitation. From this point of view, religion is not a doctrine or an institution, not even a faith, according to this conception, religion is born as a result of the common tasks of the human spirit in the face of vital concerns, such as birth, old age, death, unforeseen events and love.
To understand this perspective it must be understood that religion has a cost and that its doctrines often contradict intuition, for example, the meaning given to sacrifices offered by certain religions, following a particular religion has a high cost, sometimes it can even cost To compare the positive and negative characteristics of religion can have a negative history , indicating that religion is not simply chosen on the basis of its advantages.
“Man finds God behind every door that science manages to open. -Albert Einstein-
Religion is therefore understood to be a non-adaptive consequence of the adaptive characteristics of human cognition, i. e. religion is a cognitive adaptation that, in itself, is not adaptive if we look at the costs and benefits it presents. like other cultural phenomena, it is the result of a confluence of cognitive, behavioral, physical and ecological limitations that inhabit the mind.
As already said, religion develops through certain psychological faculties that serve to adapt to living conditions, some of these faculties are:
In short, humans tend to identify the agent, or the cause of an action, where it is not present; for example, belief in the supernatural is largely explained by the same cognitive adaptation that caused our ancestors to interpret the sound of moving wind. a tree like the presence of a saber-toothed tiger.
This interpretation is useful because it benefits survival, so supernatural agents would be an evolutionary by-product caused by the predator identification scheme.
From this interpretation, religion would be the instrument that uses our minds to give us plausible interpretations of facts that are undefined to us; In turn, the mind would reproduce these mechanisms or patterns through evolution to ensure group membership as well as their survival.