Being as I'm never going to get see Richard Dawkins at one of his lectures, stand up and ask this question. I'll put it here instead.

To all Atheists.............

Humans have religion. To my knowledge, animals don't. I'm not certain but I guess my pet cat or the pigeons on my roof haven't made-up a fanciful myth to placate all their existential wonderings.

So humans have evolved the unique capacity to be religious. This means they must gain some evolutionary advantage from having this capacity.

So my questions..........

1. What evolutional advantage do people gain from religion?

2. Why do athiests want people to stop utilizing this advantage?

Who said atheists want to stop people from being religious? They just dont subscribe to it themselves.

I have read enough of Dawkins to know what he might say. You didn't ask the right question. You should ask, what is the evolutionary advantage of having the capacity to be religious? Another way of saying "the capacity to be religious" is, the capacity to form mental models of the world.

The capacity to form mental models of the world has obvious advantages, mostly in being able to form hunting and gathering strategies.

So my questions..........

1. What evolutional advantage do people gain from religion?

2. Why do athiests want people to stop utilizing this advantage?

If we proceed from the assumption that the answer to the first question is not "because God exists, and favors those who embrace Him," then I would speculate that the obvious answer is that religion provides two things (i) social stability and (ii) comfort to the fearful.

Social stability seems to be what we strive for in many ways as humans. We have morality, customs, traditions, taboos, laws, etc. all seemingly designed to set up systems of behavior under various conditions in our society. The most obvious advantage this brings is social stability because those rules tend to make people's behavior more predictable than it would be in the absence of such rules. Predictable behavior let's us all form confident expectations about our place in the world and how to act in it. That's an important thing because we are generally (if not always) risk averse.)

Comfort is a factor because we developed the ability to ponder the future, but again are risk averse. We can ponder the future, but have little ability to spontaneously predict it or to come up with explanations for why things are the way they are (and following from that how they might be in the future).

Pre-scientific minds likely did not have the same grasp of logic we do today (Aristotle did claim to have invented it, after all) and given our desire for certainty and apprehension in the face of risk, a lot of magical thinking was probably going on. If a man slapped his wife before breakfast, and shortly thereafter hurt his foot, he might have been inclined to assume that slapping wifey in the morning, leads to accidents (he'd never heard of post hoc ergo propter hoc...it took until the time of the Romans to name it). Over time the collection of superstitions builds and one begins to wonder what the mechanism is; how is it that if I hurt my wife, I myself and later hurt. Imagining all-seeing, invisible forces that judge you makes about as much sense as any if you accept the premise.

With the many things early-man did not understand (and given the human mind's ability for self-deception, which may also have been an evolved trait), his beliefs in these invisible judges and the arbitrary superstitions they make you follow probably made the world seem predictable, and reduced his anxiety, all without removing the risk aversion to capacity to ponder causality that otherwise served him well.

As for the atheists, an argument could be made that, applying reason steadily over millennia, we now have logic and science to answer the questions that raise apprehensions, so religion isn't needed to reduce anxiety. Also, while religion may have been good in small groups, in larger groups in close contact, it's proven deadly.

That said, I doubt that most atheists care what others believe.

I don't think the behavior of being religious has existed long enough to be favored by evolution. More likely, it is an offshoot of being able to hypothesize events in abstract, symbolic terms. The Aztec religious practice of sacrificing their best virgins to the Gods certainly offered no tangible advantage that I can think of. The Catholic practice of keeping their most intelligent and best educated citizens, the priests, from reproducing, was not an advantage (the priesthood was one of the few avenues for educational advancement in medieval Europe).

I agree not all athiest want people to stop being religious but some do. They all however choose not to benefit from this evolutionary advantage if indeed it is one.

It's generally believed Neanderthals had religion too. It was during our homo-erectus stage our big brains really formed. They also lived in fairly ordered communities and constructed large and architectually complex structures, complex enough knowledge would have to be transmitted, so probably spoke. They may have had a religion, no evidence has yet been found, however if it was during this stage of evolution our brains gained the capacity, half a million years would be enough for much evolution to go on in.

According to some studies, atheism has a higher correlation with suicide, substance abuse and poor impulse control. I'm guessing these are not advantageous evolutionarily.

According to some studies


:rolleyes:

From a secular website:

According to a recent study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry religious affiliation is associated with significantly lower levels of suicide compared to religiously unaffiliated people, atheists and agnostics. Source: Kanita Dervic, Maria A. Oquendo, Michael F. Grunebaum, Steve Ellis, Ainsley K. Burke, and J. John Mann. "Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt" (161:2303-2308, December 2004).

Full article online: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/161/12/2303

ABSTRACT:

OBJECTIVE: Few studies have investigated the association between religion and suicide either in terms of Durkheim's social integration hypothesis or the hypothesis of the regulative benefits of religion. The relationship between religion and suicide attempts has received even less attention.

METHOD: Depressed inpatients (N=371) who reported belonging to one specific religion or described themselves as having no religious affiliation were compared in terms of their demographic and clinical characteristics.

RESULTS: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. Unaffiliated subjects were younger, less often married, less often had children, and had less contact with family members. Furthermore, subjects with no religious affiliation perceived fewer reasons for living, particularly fewer moral objections to suicide. In terms of clinical characteristics, religiously unaffiliated subjects had more lifetime impulsivity, aggression, and past substance use disorder. No differences in the level of subjective and objective depression, hopelessness, or stressful life events were found.

CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention.

------------------------

Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman compiled country-by-country survey, polling and census numbers relating to atheism, agnosticism, disbelief in God and people who state they are non-religious or have no religious preference. These data were published in the chapter titled "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns" in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). In examining various indicators of societal health, Zuckerman concludes about suicide:

Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.


http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html

Oh I know you have posted it before, good job.

There is one more ;)

There is one more ;)

No way!!!!! :eek:

I agree not all athiest want people to stop being religious but some do. They all however choose not to benefit from this evolutionary advantage if indeed it is one.

It's generally believed Neanderthals had religion too. It was during our homo-erectus stage our big brains really formed. They also lived in fairly ordered communities and constructed large and architectually complex structures, complex enough knowledge would have to be transmitted, so probably spoke. They may have had a religion, no evidence has yet been found, however if it was during this stage of evolution our brains gained the capacity, half a million years would be enough for much evolution to go on in.

Correlation isn't causation. As soon as we were intelligent to think about the reasons for things, we could invent religion. We invented all sorts of other things at the same time.

I have read enough of Dawkins to know what he might say. You didn't ask the right question. You should ask, what is the evolutionary advantage of having the capacity to be religious? Another way of saying "the capacity to be religious" is, the capacity to form mental models of the world.

Exactly.

From a secular website:

So what? The implication is that not killing yourself is better than killing yourself. Suicide is a certain cure for depression, and it rids society of the burden of caring for your sorry ass, and it prevents the transmission of your depressed genes.

So what? The implication is that not killing yourself is better than killing yourself. Suicide is a certain cure for depression, and it rids society of the burden of caring for your sorry ass, and it prevents the transmission of your depressed genes.

Exactly. :D

According to some studies, atheism has a higher correlation with suicide, substance abuse and poor impulse control. I'm guessing these are not advantageous evolutionarily.

And ? How does this prove religion right ?

So what? The implication is that not killing yourself is better than killing yourself. Suicide is a certain cure for depression, and it rids society of the burden of caring for your sorry ass, and it prevents the transmission of your depressed genes.

I get yelled at every time I say that..

And ? How does this prove religion right ?

I don't know that it does. We're talking evolutionary advantage. ;)

I don't know that it does. We're talking evolutionary advantage. ;)

It may very well be an advantage to be religious, but that doesn't mean religion is right.
The OP is suggesting that if the capacity to be religious is an evolutionary advantage, religion is right.. so God must exist.
It's complete nonsense.

It may very well be an advantage to be religious, but that doesn't mean religion is right.
The OP is suggesting that if the capacity to be religious is an evolutionary advantage, religion is right.. so God must exist.
It's complete nonsense.

Generally one considers an evolutionary advantage to be a benefit.

e.g. in this (http://www.med.uio.no/iasp/files/papers/Bertolote.pdf) paper

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7066/picture4el2.png

the authors discuss how the majority of suicides are committed between 5-40 years (55% of all suicides) and are greater in males than females.

Thats a disadvantage for survival.

Not necessarily. If they are occurring among males, then that frees the remaining males to mate. The number of existing females is much more important than the number of males, because females take 9 months to give birth, and a male can impregnate hundreds of females in that time, and with improved sperm that is more free of the genes for depression. Also, these days overpopulation is more relevent to the survival of your genes than underpopulation.

Not necessarily. If they are occurring among males, then that frees the remaining males to mate. The number of existing females is much more important than the number of males, because females take 9 months to give birth, and a male can impregnate hundreds of females in that time, and with improved sperm that is more free of the genes for depression.

Looks like its still a work in progress.;)

The "polygamous" Muslims appeared to have found that balance, but these are figures before the war, of course.

Perhaps since atheist more frequenty commit suicide they actually have more of a evolutionary advantage as they are helping to forward it by removing themselves from the gene pool.

Leaving us with stronger smarter people/Atheists =p

Generally one considers an evolutionary advantage to be a benefit.

e.g. in this (http://www.med.uio.no/iasp/files/papers/Bertolote.pdf) paper

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7066/picture4el2.png

the authors discuss how the majority of suicides are committed between 5-40 years (55% of all suicides) and are greater in males than females.

Thats a disadvantage for survival.

So what ? What do you think that means ?

Perhaps since atheist more frequenty commit suicide they actually have more of a evolutionary advantage as they are helping to forward it by removing themselves from the gene pool.

The Unselfish Gene?

The evolutionary mechanism is clear, and it relates to spidergoats statements on mental models. If you have the ability to form intuitive models of how the world works (e.g. you can imagine scenarios of what might occurr given various courses of action), then you have an advantage in planning and anticipating the behavior of other creatures. A harmless(?) outgrowth of this is the desire to give everything meaning or purpose.

Therefore, I would say there is no direct evolutionary advantage to religion per-se, but the mechanism that gives rise to it is highly advantageous.

...
...
...
So my questions..........

1. What evolutional advantage do people gain from religion?

2. Why do athiests want people to stop utilizing this advantage?

1. Sharing of resources (both material and psychological) with like-minded people increases the survival chances of the group.

2. As an atheist I see religion (A generic concept of human relationships) as a positive and beneficial thing.

If you change the question's subject to "belief in 'God'", the answers might be more revealing.