Scholarly record
IF RELIGION IS AN EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION WHICH PARTICULAR RELIGION CAN BE RECKONED AS THE BEST ONE?
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate in the contemporary studies on religion and society on whether religion is an evolutionary adaptation or a by-product of our human evolution. Taking the most convincing pros and cons into consideration I come to the conclusion that religion is both: as a set of universal norms and ethical regulations it is an adaptation functioning as a cybernetic homeostat; as a set of beliefs and imagined spiritual beings it is a culturally dependent by-product that enables the implementation of behavioral constraints. The most interesting question is thus: if religion is an evolutionary adaptation, which particular religion can be reckoned as the best one? Which one provides its followers with the most effective and resilient mechanisms that maintain the social coherence and make society immune against destabilizing effects of the modern life style such as individualism, self-indulgence, promiscuity, tolerance for nonstandard behavior, striving towards endless change, disapproval of religious sentiments? All evidence suggest that it is Islam, the religion that is chronologically the last of the three great monotheisms. It can be argued that this consecutive evolution makes Islam the most advanced adaptation which has brought about the most effective mechanisms of social discipline, obedience, and resistance against the threats.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
References15
See for example: ANDREW NEWBERG, EUGENE D’AQUILI, VINCE RAUSE, Why God Won’t Go Away. Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, New York 2002; Where God and Science Meet. How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion, (ed.) PATRICK MCNAMARA. Vol. 1: Evolution, Genes and the Religious Brain; Vol. 2: The Neurology of Religious Experience; Vol. 3: The Psychology of Religious Experience. Westport 2006.
The wording comes from the chapter “Do Religious, Spiritual or Mystical Experience Change Lives?” in O’LEARY DENYSE, BEAUREGARD MARIO, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, New York et al. 2007, pp. 229ff. For review of different theories and research see e.g.: Handbook of Religion and Mental Health, (ed.) HAROLD G. KOENIG, San Diego 1998.
For review of so called solidarity theories see e.g.: RICHARD SOSIS; CANDACE ALCORTA, Signaling, Solidarity and the Sacred: The Evolution of Religious Behavior, Evolutionary Anthropology 12 (2003), pp. 264-274.
See e.g.: PASCAL BOYER, A Cognitive Theory of Religion, Berkeley 1994; STEWART E. GUTHRIE, Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion, New York 1995; SCOTT ATRAN, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford 2002; JUSTIN BARRETT, Why Would Anyone Believe in God, Lanham 2004.
The citation comes from: TEEHAN JOHN, In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence, Chichester 2010, p. 216. See also: ROBERT WRIGHT, Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are, New York 1994; MATT RIDLEY, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, New York 1999.
FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE, Premier cours de linguistique generale 1907 / Saussure’s First Course of Lectures on General Linguistics 1907, (ed. and trans.) EISUKE KOMATSU & GEORGE WOLF, Oxford et al.: 1996, p. 1,27, passim.
STEVEN PINKER, The Language Instinct, London et al. 1994.
RICHARD DAWKINS, The Selfish Gene, Oxford 1976, p. XXI.
The term “religious instinct” has a long history. See e.g. HENRY R. MARSHALL, The Religious Instinct, Mind 6(21), 1897, pp. 40-58; THOMAS J. HARDY, The religious instinct, London et al. 1913. It remains highly disputed although in the light of selfish genes theory it is an irresistible conclusion that religion is the product of our genes that manipulate our behavior in such a way that we optimize our social environment in order to spread them and to maximize their replicative success.
MISKAWAYH cited after: The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. SABINE SCHMIDTKE, Oxford 2016, pp. 306-306. For the rendition of al-amāʾ al-ḥusnā see for instance MUHAMMAD ASAD, Message of the Quran, www.islamicbulletin.org, p. 321.
SAYYID QUTB, Milestones. Ma’alim fi’l-tareeq, Birmingham 2006, p. 27. CHARLES 67X cited after EDWARD E. CURTIS IV, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam 1960-1975, Chapel Hill 2006, p. 92. ABDUL WADOD SHALABI, Islam Religion of Life, Cairo 1993, p.8.
For details see: IGNACY NASALSKI, »Wa-ʾiḏā quriʾa l-qurʾānu fa-stamiʿu lahū wa-ʾanṣitū laʿallakum turḥamūna«. Remarks on the Koran’s Self-Propagation [in:] Orientalistische Studien zu Sprache und Literatur: Festgabe zum 65. Geburtstag von Werner Diem, Hrsg. ULRICH MARZOLPH, Wiesbaden 2011.
See e.g.: IGNACY NASALSKI, What Makes Some Cultures Particularly Susceptible to See Things that Others do Not See: the Case of the Muslim World, 5th International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts SGEM 2018, Conference Proceedings 2018, vol. 5, pp. 169-176.
Magical thinking is most notable in books concerning the miraculous nature of the Quran and the perfect nature of Islam. See for example books by HARUN YAHYA (bibliographical data can be retrieved from his internet site: https://pl.harunyahya.com/). For conspiracy theories see e.g. DANIEL PIPES, Hidden Hand. Middle East Fears of Conspiracy, New York 1996; BASSAM TIBI, Die Verschwörung. Das Trauma arabischer Politik, München 1994. Compare also: ROBERT S. ROBINS & JERROLD POST, Political Paranoia. The Psychopolitics of Hatred, New Haven 1997.
The terms postfigurative and tradition-directedness come from MARGARET MEAD (Culture and Commitment, Frogmore, St Albans 1972, p. 31ff) and DAVID RIESMAN et al. (The Lonely Crowd, New York 1961, pp. 9ff) respectively.
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.
