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ABSTRACT
How
can the evolution of religiosity be explained? To answer this
question, we attempt to develop an understanding of the psychological
domains underlying religious behaviour. We see four evolved domains,
the sum and interaction of which constitute religiosity, namely:
mysticism, ethics, myths and rituals. Even if the individual content,
accents and implementations differ in each specific religion,
they nevertheless derive from evolved Darwinian algorithms that
are species-specific adaptations of homo sapiens.
Mysticism. Intuitive ontologies are the basis for mystical experiences.
Usually they serve to classify reality into animate and inanimate
objects, animals or plants, for example. For a variety of psychological
reasons, supernatural experiences result from a mixture of different
ontological categories.
Ethics. The basis for ethics lies in the social competency of
human beings. Ethics is founded on the concept of social exchange
(“social-contract algorithm”) with its ideas about reciprocity,
fairness, justice, cheater detection, in-group/out-group differentiation,
etc.
Myths. The basis for myths is the “language instinct”.
We interpret myths as the verbal expression of the cognitive content
of those individual modules that constitute the belief system.
Above all, myths document the experience and processing of contingency
and thus help social bonding.
Rituals. Rituals are based on the handicap principle. By making
certain symbols and acts more expensive, they signal commitment
for a reliable in-group morale.
In conclusion, we argue that human religiosity emerges from a
cognitive interaction between these four domains. Religiosity
processes contingencies and enhances co-operation through social
bonding, norm setting and cheater detection. It fulfils those
functions for which the mental modules of its four domains have
evolved so that we feel it appears to be justified to attribute
to religiosity the evolutionary status of an adaptation. [REFERENCES]
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