The Evolution of Religion,

Religiosity and Theology

This book takes a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach to

religion, religiosity and theology from their earliest beginnings to the present
day. It uniquely brings together the natural sciences and theology to explore
how religious practice emerged and developed through the four parts into
which the book is organized: evolutionary biology; philosophical linguistics,
psychology and neuroscience; theology; and anthropology.
The volume features an international panel of contributors who develop
an innovative picture of religion as a culturally created social institution;
religiosity as a more personal and subjective anthropological element
of people expressed through religion; and theology as the study of god.
To survive in changing times, living systems  – a good characterization of
religion, religiosity and theology – must adapt.
This is a vital study of a rapidly burgeoning field. Thus, it will be of great
interest to scholars in religious studies and theology and in the psychological,
sociological and anthropological study of religion.

Jay R Feierman retired as clinical professor of psychiatry at the University

of New Mexico in 2006. He has degrees in zoology and medicine with
postdoc specialization and board certification in psychiatry. Almost all of
his academic publications in psychiatry and religion have been from the
perspective of human ethology, the evolutionary biology of behavior. He
has organized a number of international conferences on the evolutionary
and biological aspects of religion. He also edited The Biology of Religious
Behavior: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion (2009) and has a
number of articles and book chapters in this area.

Lluis Oviedo is full professor of theological anthropology (Antonianum

University, Rome) and invited professor in the Theological Institute of
Murcia (Spain) for questions of religion, society and culture. He has
published the books Secularization as a Problem; Altruism and Charity;
The Christian Faith and the New Social Challenges and is coeditor with
A  Runehov of the Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. His research
focuses on the scientific study of religion and its theological impact and on
issues about secularization and religious social dynamics.
Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion,
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new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study and in key
areas for contemporary society.

Theologising Brexit
A Liberationist and Postcolonial Critique
Anthony G Reddie

Vision, Mental Imagery and the Christian Life

Insights from Science and Scripture
Zoltán Dörnyei

Christianity and the Triumph of Humor

From Dante to David Javerbaum
Bernard Schweizer

Religious Truth and Identity in an Age of Plurality

Peter Jonkers and Oliver J Wiertz

Envisioning the Cosmic Body of Christ

Embodiment, Plurality and Incarnation
Aurica Jax and Saskia Wendel

The Evolution of Religion, Religiosity and Theology

A Multilevel and Multidisciplinary Approach
Edited by Jay R Feierman and Lluis Oviedo

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

religion/series/RCRITREL
The Evolution of Religion,
Religiosity and Theology
A Multilevel and Multidisciplinary
Approach

Edited by Jay R Feierman

and Lluis Oviedo
First published 2020
by Routledge
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© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Jay R Feierman and Lluis
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Contents

List of figuresviii
List of tablesix
Prefacex
List of contributorsxiv

Introduction: A Multilevel and Multidisciplinary

Approach to Understanding Religion and Its Evolution 1
LLUIS OVIEDO

PART 1
Evolutionary Biology19

  1 Cultural Evolution, Biology and the Case of Religion 21

HANSJÖRG HEMMINGER

  2 The Evolutionary Biology of Religion-Specific Beliefs

and Interreligious Conflict 37
JAY R FEIERMAN

  3 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 54

DANIEL COHEN

  4 The Biological Basis for Religion and Religion’s

Evolutionary Origins 70
DONALD M BROOM
vi  Contents
PART 2
Philosophy of Language, Psychology and Neuroscience85

  5 A History of the Evolution of Religion: From Religion

to Religiosity to the Processes of Believing 87
HANS-FERDINAND ANGEL

  6 The Processes of Believing in Religion’s Evolution:

A Cognitive Neuroscience Hypothesis 104
RÜDIGER J SEITZ

  7 Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in Sensing the

Divine: One Foundational Role in Religion’s Evolution 120
MICHAEL N MARSH

  8 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion: On the Evolution

of Awe and the Origin of Religions 138
ELLIOTT D IHM, RAYMOND F PALOUTZIAN, MICHIEL VAN ELK
AND JONATHAN W SCHOOLER

  9 Whence This Need for Salvation?: Childhood Corporal

Punishment and the Cultural Evolution of Religious Myth 154
BENJAMIN ABELOW

PART 3
Theology171

10 What a Theological Appropriation of Cognitive Linguistics’

Blending Theory Brings to a Scientific Understanding
of the Evolution of Religion 173
ROBERT L MASSON

11 The Evolution of Religiosity: A Theologian’s View 190

CHRISTOPHER C KNIGHT

12 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus: Brain Evolution

and Emergence of the Capacity for Spirituality 205
WILLIAM ULWELLING

13 Emotions and the Evolution of the Belief in God 221

CHRISTIAN EARLY
 Contents vii
PART 4
Anthropology237

14 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion: Issues

and Debates among the San of Southern Africa 239
ROBERT K HITCHCOCK

15 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols: Archaeological

Evidence for the Origins of Religion 256
ANNE SOLOMON

16 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself: The Evolution

of Christianity 271
LAURA BETZIG

Conclusion 285
JAY R FEIERMAN AND LUIS OVIEDO

Index290
Figures

5.1 “Religious” – a double-wing but (practically) monopolized

adjective95
5.2 Beyond the fixation on religion: the evolution of religiosity96
6.1 Hypothetical model of the processes of believing 107
6.2 Schematic display of the believing processes
in social interaction 110
7.1 A plot scattergram of percentages (vertical axis) of subjects
experiencing components of NDE/OBE (horizontal axis) 122
10.1 Jesus is the Messiah blend 181
10.2 Aquinas’s blends. (a) Aquinas’s God is simple blend
and (b) God’s essence is “to be” blend185
12.1 Human brain growth curve 208
14.1 Map showing approximate distribution of major
San groups across Southern Africa 244
14.2 A Tshwa traditional healer engaged in a trance dance in
Manxotae, Nata River Region, Botswana 248
15.1 (a) The Venus of Hohle Fels and (b) A therianthropic
figure, with animal head and hooves 261
Tables

7.1 Components of near-death and out-of-body experiences 123

7.2 Egocentric and para-centric space, or body image 125
7.3 Predispositions to near-death and out-of-body experiences 126
14.1 Southern African Khoisan (non-Bantu) languages and their
classification241
Preface

Overview
The phrase “the evolution of religion” might sound like a contradiction in
terms. For the first hundred years after Darwin’s On the Theory of Evolu-
tion by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859, religion and Dar-
winian evolution were competing paradigms for understanding who we
are and how we came to be this way. However, the mechanisms by which
humans came to be is a separate issue from the evolution of the social insti-
tution called religion, its anthropological expression called religiosity and
the study of the object of faith (i.e., God) called theology.
More recently, evolutionary scholars began collaborating with scholars in
religious studies and theology. Natural selection, as a mechanism of evolu-
tion, could, with some reservations and modifications (see Hemminger, this
volume), be applied to culture in general and religion, as a social institution,
in particular. It likewise was recognized that biological (i.e., genetic) and
cultural evolution of religion were similar to the evolution of human lan-
guages. Both must have a genetically transmitted foundation on which spe-
cific human religions and languages can, under the right circumstances, be
culturally acquired and expressed as what in biology are called phenotypes,
the interactions of genes with the environment.
More recently, open-minded theologians began asking how theology
could be reconciled with modernity. And so, the collegial interaction began.
Religion became the explanandum and Darwinian evolution became the
explanans, although other ways of scientifically understanding the evolution
of religion also exist and are used in some of the chapters. An important
question arises: Why did religion evolve, also meaning what are its func-
tions or what does it do to increase adaptedness (survival and reproductive
success)? Darwinian natural selection mainly addresses the how question.
The why and what (are its functions) questions are more interesting and
challenging.
Two answers to the “how?” question have dominated: the adaptation
position and the by-product position. According to the adaptation view,
the genetics that underlie religion evolved specifically for the purpose of
 Preface xi
generating religion. According to the by-product view, the genetics that
underlie religion evolved for purposes unrelated to religion and then reli-
gion evolved as aby-product. Regardless of which position is taken, religion
exists and can be studied. Religion is a powerful force in society and in the
world, and it needs to be understood. Interreligious conflict has historically
divided the world, yet religion also arguably provides social cohesion, moral
strength and hope amid great stress to billions of people in the world today.
Thus, we can learn more about both humankind and often ourselves by
studying religion and its evolution.
Natural scientists do not look to revelation in sacred texts for answers.
Theologians do. But many natural scientists will concede that some of these
words are profound, have changed the course of human history and are at
least “inspired.” And one could ask, “Inspired or revealed, what really is the
difference?” Today, the discipline of theological anthropology is incorporat-
ing the outcome and inputs from the natural sciences. So we can all learn
from one another, which is why this volume’s two editors come from the
natural sciences and theology respectively.
This volume emphasizes “high-level” ideas about religion rather than new
empirical data. Such data are referred to, of course, but not for their own
sake. Rather, they are cited to serve an overarching purpose: to support an
argument, bolster an explanation or illustrate a fundamental principle. The
volume is intended for a multidisciplinary, scholarly academic audience and
does not require specialized technical knowledge in any particular discipline.
When the volume uses disciplinary jargon terms, the authors have defined
them at their first appearance. Additionally, the volume should be valuable
to those working in disciplines such religious studies, cognitive science of
religion, theology, philosophy of religion, sociology of religion, psychology
of religion, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology,
human behavioral ecology and history of religion.
The evolution of religion is spoken about in the present tense. Evolution
is not something that happened only in the distant past. Rather, it is part of
an ongoing dynamic process that extends to and encompasses our own time.
One such evolutionary path – secularization – is not directly covered in this
current volume. But readers might keep in mind a fundamental biological
principle: form follows function, and as function wanes, so does form. The
form in this case comprises the “physical” parts of religion itself. So the
very process of secularization suggests that some of the functions of religion,
which have been important in the past, are decreasingly important now.

About the Present Book

The book begins with an introduction by coauthor and theological anthro-
pologist Lluis Oviedo. The book is divided into four main parts: evolutionary
biology; philosophical linguistics, psychology and neuroscience; theology;
and anthropology. Not all the authors agree with the conclusions of each other.
xii  Preface
In this early stage of the natural science study of religion’s evolution, this is
both expected and healthy. Next, a short summary of each contribution is
given as a guide to introduce the work that constitutes this volume.

Introduction
Oviedo’s introductory chapter explains the need to have a multilevel (i.e.,
top-down and bottom-up) and multidisciplinary approach to develop a bet-
ter understanding religion’s evolution.

The Evolutionary Biology section contains four chapters:

Chapter  1 by Hemminger addresses the issues and controversies involved
in applying the principles of the biological evolution of organisms by
Darwinian natural selection to the cultural evolution of religion.
Chapter 2 by Feierman focuses on religion-specific beliefs and one of their
main biological functions in human evolution  – acting as in-group
markers for religious in-group breeding populations.
Chapter 3 by Cohen takes a neurobiological perspective that connects sex-
ual orgasmic experiences with the capacity for self-transcendence, as
deeply related with religious experience.
Chapter 4 by Broom discusses the proto-morality features found in nonhu-
man animals. It then analyzes morality’s and religion’s respective origins
and development as two closely entangled processes, especially after the
Axial Age.

The Philosophical Linguistics, Psychology and Neuroscience

section contains five chapters:
Chapter 5 by Angel distinguishes the term “religion” from that of “religios-
ity,” a more anthropologically leaning concept, and then moves on to
an interdisciplinary investigation of the processes of believing as the
better way of understanding the evolution of religiosity.
Chapter 6 by Seitz begins where Angel’s chapter ends to show how one can
understand the processes of believing through neuroscience.
Chapter  7 by Marsh focuses on the role that out-of-body and near-death
experiences could have played in the formation of the human belief in
the supernatural realm. He also reviews the neuroscience behind such
experiences.
Chapter 8 by Ihm, Schooler, van Elk and Paloutzian moves into the field of
awe as a meaning- making emotion. They then propose how the evolu-
tion of awe as an emotion, which seems to have had precursors in our
hominid ancestors, influenced the evolution of human religion.
Chapter 9 by Abelow addresses the idea of salvation and the role that child-
hood corporal punishment plays in the cultural evolution of religious myth.
 Preface xiii
The Theology section contains four chapters:
Chapter 10 by Masson applies cognitive blending theory to the evolution
of religious beliefs to better understand some developments in Christian
faith and its struggles to find the right ways to express emerging beliefs.
Chapter 11 by Knight develops a rich theological analysis, mostly devoted
to showing that a right understanding of divine presence and action in
the world would not prevent a naturalistic view of religious origins and
evolution.
Chapter 12 by Ulwelling links the experience of religious transcendence to
neoteny, the prolonged brain growth after birth.
Chapter 13 by Early deals with emotions – specifically fear, love, awe and
gratitude – and their influence on the evolution of belief in God.

The Anthropology section contains three chapters:

Chapter  14 by Hitchcock gives a rare view of religion in one of the few
extant hunter-gatherer tribes today, the San peoples of sub-Saharan
Africa. It is widely known that for most of religion’s existence, humans
were hunter-gatherers.
Chapter 15 by Solomon looks at the archaeological evidence, primarily in
Africa, for the earliest human religions.
Chapter 16 by Betzig’s offers an historically documented tour through the
evolutionary origins of Christianity, to test a human behavioral ecol-
ogy, Darwinian history theory connecting Christianity’s origin with
reproductive competition.

The Conclusion
The Conclusion by the two coeditors summarizes the study of religion his-
torically from theology to the naturalistic study as well as the challenges and
implications for a new dialogue between both approaches.
This collection will offer the reader some introductory knowledge of the
new natural science study of religion’s evolution. The volume’s chapters can be
thought of as a collection of archaeological test pits dug over surface material
(religion) that suggested that more is to be found about the surface material’s
origins beneath the surface. This volume demonstrates that religion’s evolu-
tion is able to summon and commit a diverse-background group of scholars
and awaken the interest of many different academic disciplines. We hope that
our combined effort might inspire further research and new insights into a
subject whose intriguing character has yet to be fully understood.
Jay R Feierman (coeditor)
Lluis Oviedo (coeditor)
Contributors

Benjamin Abelow (M.D. Yale; B.A. history, University of Pennsylvania) is

an independent scholar of religion who has presented his work in peer-
reviewed articles and chapters and at academic conferences in the United
States and Europe. He is currently completing a book on the connections
between childhood trauma and religion.
Hans-Ferdinand Angel trained in ancient philology, theology and history;
became professor of religious education at the Technical University of
Dresden/Germany (1996); and was appointed in 1997 as full professor
of catechetics and religious education at the University of Graz/Austria.
Since 2011, he has been director of the Credition Research Project https://
credition.uni-graz.at/.
Laura Betzig sees sex, politics and religion as a means to the spread of genes.
She’s lectured across Europe and the United States and published over a
hundred articles and three books. She’s spent the last couple of decades at
work on The Badge of Lost Innocence: A History of the West.
Donald M Broom is emeritus professor of animal welfare at Cambridge
University, Department of Veterinary Medicine. His research concerns
assessing animal welfare, animal cognition, sustainable farming and the
scientific bases for morality and religion. His 370 refereed papers and
12 books include The Evolution of Morality and Religion (Cambridge
University Press).
Christian Early is assistant chair of ethical reasoning at James Madison Uni-
versity. He is the editor with his partner Annmarie Early of Integrating
the New Science of Love and a Spirituality of Peace: Becoming Human
Again  (Cascade, 2013). Christian and Annmarie live in Harrisonburg,
Virginia with their three children.
Daniel Cohen is assistant professor of religious studies at the University of
Missouri. His research involves the intersection of religious studies and
neuroscience. He has published numerous articles on the neuroscience of
spiritual experience and recently on evolution and religion, and he works
to advance collaborations between the humanities and sciences.
 Contributors xv
Jay R Feierman retired as a clinical professor of psychiatry in 2006, when
his interests changed from the evolution of psychiatric disorders to the
evolution of religion. In 2009 he edited The Biology of Religious Behav-
ior. He has written a number of articles and book chapters on various
aspects of religion’s evolution.
Hansjörg Hemminger retired 2014 as Commissioner for World View Ques-
tions of the Protestant Church in Germany. His scientific background is
ethology, brain research and psychology.
Robert K Hitchcock is an adjunct professor in anthropology at the Univer-
sity of New Mexico and a board member of the Kalahari Peoples Fund.
He has a PhD in anthropology. His work is on human rights and devel-
opment among Indigenous and minority peoples in Africa, the Middle
East, and the Americas.
Elliott D Ihm  is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Psychological
and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He
is investigating the impact of mindfulness training on neural networks
underlying perception and attention. Elliott’s research also addresses the
phenomenology of awe-eliciting experiences.
Christopher C Knight is a senior research associate of the Institute for
Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England. He is the author of
Wrestling with the Divine and The God of Nature, both published in the
Fortress Press’s Theology and the Sciences series.
Michael N Marsh studied medicine at Magdalen College, Oxford; became
a university-based gastroenterologist; and studied theology (Oxford) on
retirement. He then followed a doctorate on near-death experiences,
with further publications on the ethical problems of disability, abor-
tion, the human fetus, death and assisted suicide. He is now at Wolfson
College University of Oxford.
Robert L Masson is an emeritus professor of theology at Marquette Uni-
versity and the author of Without Metaphor, No Saving God: Theology
after Cognitive Linguistics (Peeters Press, 2014). He has served as chair
of Marquette’s Department of Theology, president of the College Theol-
ogy Society and coordinator of the Karl Rahner Society.
Lluis Oviedo is full professor of theological anthropology (Antonianum
University, Rome) and invited professor in the Theological Institute of
Murcia (Spain) for questions of religion, society and culture.
Raymond F Paloutzian is professor emeritus of experimental social psychol-
ogy and edited The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
for 18  years. He wrote at Westmont College, Stanford University and
University of Leuven. Widely published in the psychology of religious-
ness, he gave invited talks around the world on the psychology of religion
in global perspective.
xvi  Contributors
Jonathan W Schooler  is a professor of psychological and brain sciences
at the University of California Santa Barbara and director of UCSB’s
Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential. His research includes
discerning the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering
and understanding the impact of exposing individuals to philosophical
positions.
Rüdiger J Seitz is a professor of neurology at the Heinrich-Heine-University
Düsseldorf and honorary professorial fellow at the Florey Neuroscience
Institutes, Melbourne, Australia. His scientific interests are in clinical
neurophysiology, neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience, including
postlesional brain plasticity and the control of human behavior.
Anne Solomon is an archaeologist (PhD, University of Cape Town, 1995)
specializing in Southern African hunter-gatherer rock arts and folklore.
She has been a Postdoctoral research fellow at the Getty Center for the
History of Art and the Humanities and was formerly senior curator of
archaeology at the Natal Museum, KwaZulu-Natal.
William Ulwelling completed his MD and psychiatry residency at UCLA.
Previously, he had been in the Jesuit seminary for ten years, completing
requirements for a master of divinity degree at the Jesuit School of The-
ology, Berkeley. He currently works as a psychiatrist consultant for the
National Nuclear Security Administration, The United States.
Michiel van Elk is assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, Neth-
erlands. He completed his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the Don-
ders Institute in Nijmegen. His research focuses on religious experiences,
and he uses a multidisciplinary approach, including self-report, psycho-
physical and neuroimaging methods.
Introduction
A Multilevel and Multidisciplinary
Approach to Understanding Religion
and Its Evolution
Lluis Oviedo

Introduction
Religion is a complex phenomenon that entails social, cultural and individ-
ual aspects, including beliefs, rituals and symbols. It includes also subjective
and objective aspects. This broad set of features is unavoidably affected by
the historical moment, our biological constitution, cognitive structure, per-
sonality and place of upbringing. It is difficult to classify and control each
variable involved in such a dynamic interplay. The complexity of religion
and its evolution justifies the need for a pluralistic approach. However, such
an approach has not been the case in most recently published scientific stud-
ies of religion, where the most successful scholars often take a reductionistic
approach and explore just one or at most two variables, one of which is
often presumed to causally influence the other.
The cognitive science of religion (CSR), one of the most vibrant new fields
in the scientific study of religion, has applied the heuristics provided by
contemporary developments in cognitive psychology, often combined with
the so-called mental module aspects of evolutionary psychology, to explain
religion. The alternative program we see today, often conjoined with the
cognitive one, explores the more biological dimension of religion, giving
rise to studies in which religion is studied on the basis of its evolutionary-
adaptive or by-product origins. However, such programs have often ignored
its social and cultural dimensions. In recent years, some of the same scholars
have been paying greater attention to the more culturally acquired aspects.
One cannot state, as yet, whether those aspects of religion acquired cultur-
ally through social learning are best treated as independent variables or are
just assimilated within a more biological evolutionary framework as part of
gene-culture coevolution (see Hemminger, this volume).
For many religious scholars, the use of the aforementioned reductive
methods are currently normative, since the inductive scientific approach to
understanding religion moves forward step by step and focuses on one vari-
able at a time. Then, as part of what Thomas Kuhn (1970 [1962]) has called
“normal science,” what was empirically discovered is explained by one of
the prevailing paradigms, which in regard to religion is always borrowed
2  Lluis Oviedo
from other scientific disciplines. The borrowing occurs because currently
there is no scientific theory of religion and its evolution. Theories born from
related fields – like genetics, economics, sociology, psychology, ecology, sys-
tems and information theory – have found wide application in the study of
religion and its evolution.
When almost everyone in psychology had switched from behaviorism
to cognitivism in the 1950s, it was natural that cognitive psychology’s
offspring  – evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion,
which both started in the 1990s – would use cognitive paradigms. However,
the current academic reformulation of both of these disciplines has not been
followed by a similar rethinking in their application to the scientific study of
religion. In reading this current volume, the reader will have the opportunity
to look at religion and its evolution through several different paradigms or
theories. Hopefully, exposure to new ways of thinking will result in new
insight into and a new understanding of how religion evolves.
This introductory chapter will report on the different strands that adopt
the current scientific study of religion to provide a guide into this pluralistic
panorama.

Pleading for Pluralistic Methods in the Study of Religion

and Its Evolution
The standard criteria assumed in the scientific praxis are difficult to meet in
something as complex as religion and almost impossible to meet when one
wades into religion’s evolution. However, many attempts are offered.
Plurality in studying religion and its evolution emerges as a consequence of
applying different methods or focusing on different aspects or functions. For
instance, studying the functions of religious forms means trying to establish
what they do, their function or, teleologically speaking, their “purpose.” Reli-
gious forms, like all forms in the life sciences, can have more than one func-
tion. So, a religious form, like a religious mythical story, can have theological,
sociological, psychological and biological functions, all of which can be differ-
ent. Religious forms are what things are. Religious behaviors, rituals, prayers,
sacred texts and many other “physical” items associated with religion are
considered religious forms. Most natural science studies of religion attribute
functions to religious forms from a particular discipline’s point of view.
Apart from the bottom-up reductive approaches, pluralism in the study
of religion and its evolution can be conceptualized in two different ways: de
facto deductive (top down) as a methodological choice of the investigator. As
an example, the cultural transmission of a religious behavior via social learn-
ing can be considered top-down causation, whereas the activation of presumed
religion-related “mental modules,” commonly used in the cognitive science of
religion, would be considered bottom-up causation. It is not a zero-sum game
where the presence of one contributing cause precludes the operation of the
other. Both can be involved, each coming from different hierarchical directions.
 Introduction 3
The de facto argument for pluralism
The evidence is overwhelming in support of an existing pluralism in the
current scientific study of religion and its evolution, as attested by the
multidisciplinary nature of this volume. In a recently published book
chapter, I  systematically reviewed 75 publications offering different natu-
ralistic explanations of religion (Oviedo 2017). The list was incomplete
and destined to grow. We can observe that some paradigms are currently
dominant in the new scientific study of religion, like the cognitive and the
­evolutionary-adaptive and evolutionary–by-product ones. But, they can by
no means exhaust the number of alternative paradigms and methods, some
of which are well rooted in recent scientific developments, like cultural evo-
lution, human behavioral ecology, life history theory, cybernetics and infor-
mation theory, social psychology, sociology, neuroscience and so on.

Pluralism as a methodological choice

The other way of conceptualizing pluralism is the investigator’s choice to
use one of the top-down deductive methods. Things are changing in recent
years after a long season in which radical, inductive, bottom-up reduction-
ism was the rule. The new heuristic climate has given place to more nuanced
and moderate positions. Many expressions from that highly reductive sea-
son have lost their way by inductive errors and are becoming easy targets of
criticism and even mockery. Examples include biological and neurological
reductionism, not the medical or therapeutic applications but rather bold
statements on human religious nature.
In some studies, humans in their natural social habitats are presumed
to act similarly to nonhuman animals in cages, robots, computer simula-
tions, computerized prisoner dilemma game players and even emotionless
zombies (Malik 2002; Tallis 2011). Such experimental designs study maps
but then must address the degree to which the map fits the territory. This
is not saying that all reductionism in the natural science study of religion
and its evolution is bad, just that in reference to living and behaving reli-
gious human beings, it has to be balanced with complementary top-down
multilevel approaches. A good example of a pluralistic approach is the wide
acceptance of Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb’s book Evolution in Four
Dimensions (2005), which established a new paradigm for the study of
human evolution.
Another related issue is the strong presence in recent years of the cul-
tural dimension in the study of human evolution. This was an aspect mostly
neglected in the first paradigms used to explain religion with the new cogni-
tive and biological frameworks. Accounting for the cultural dimension in
our understanding of religion’s evolution, which is a top-down approach,
now appears unavoidable. Cultural creation and transmission have to be
integrated into the study of religion, as many specialists now acknowledge.
4  Lluis Oviedo
One could also raise the objection that the study of culture often appears
less as a sign for methodological pluralism and more as a new attempt to
reduce every aspect of human and social life to the evolutionary “univer-
sal acid,” as Daniel Dennett once described (1995, 61 ff.). Time will help
to discern whether this new interest in culture’s role – which has justified
the creation of the new Cultural Evolution Society, with a big inaugural
­conference  – will point in the reductive or pluralistic direction or, more
likely, a combination of both.
Other issues surrounding more pluralistic approaches are found in the
protests by many traditional scholars who study religion  – sociologists,
anthropologists, historians and (obviously) philosophers of religion and
theologians – concerning the flaws and mistakes that they perceive in the
some of the current publications by the expert “newcomers” from other
disciplines. Some of the traditionalists, like senior sociologist David Martin,
have been vocal in their criticism. Among their arguments is that the new
scientific study of religion, especially the cognitive branch, has been unable
to explain a series of religious dynamics in advanced societies, because it
overlooks historical, social and cultural influences (Martin 2011, 130 f.).
The point is that today we cannot provide a universal paradigm that is able
to cover and understand all aspects of those extremely complex phenomena
called religion or its evolution. Given that we do not have a paradigm or
theory of religion and its evolution itself, we might expect an attitude of
modesty and restraint on the side of the newcomers. Their valuable contri-
butions explain only a small amount of the variance in religion’s expression
and evolution. To my knowledge, nobody has expressed such conviction
better than Robert McCauley, a pioneer in the CSR, who publicly, and
after witnessing critical notes about limits in CSR during a workshop held in
2015 in Amsterdam, stated that CSR just explains “some features of some
features of a very complex phenomenon, which we, for convenience, call
religion” (Oviedo, personal observation).
The last argument to which I will draw attention is more epistemological.
It has primarily been developed by Steve Horst in two of his books. From a
more critical stance, Horst has shown the limits of the reductionist program
(Beyond Reduction 2007). In a more constructive effort, he has recently
pleaded for an approach that he labeled Cognitive Pluralism (2016). A core
thesis is that human knowledge proceeds through stages that try to explain
processes or events, which are tailored to specific situations and contexts.
This creates barriers to unifying sciences, since after accounting for many
explanatory levels, non-integrated pluralism is unavoidable. For an alter-
native position, consider consilience, which is the unity of all knowledge
across disciplines, from the arts to the sciences and through the subjective
experience of the theistic presence of a “law-giving God” (Wilson 1998).
In contrast to consilience, when the disciplines are kept apart, rival par-
adigms can be seen as complementary models of a multifaceted reality.
This can easily be applied to the scientific study of religion and religion’s
 Introduction 5
evolution and to the de facto pluralism we witness. However, not only is this
a de facto observation, something that just happens, but it also becomes a
necessary and positive epistemological and methodological position, which
pushes the study of religion in many directions and tries to exploit many
programs and disciplinary fields, without the exclusion or dominance of one
over the others.

Trying to Put Some Order in a Pluralistic Panorama

First, it is convenient to clarify what is meant by the phrase “evolution
of religion,” since that concept has many meanings and reflects different
things for different researchers (see Angel, this volume). Of course, the con-
cept of evolution, even though it means more than Darwinian evolution
by natural selection, is often assumed to have biological (i.e., living mat-
ter) resonance, even though items like the automobile, a product of gene-
culture coevolution, has evolved over the past hundred years. And there is
cosmic evolution as well. In this volume, we appreciate that “evolution”
means gradual and incremental (usually more effective and efficient) change
over time. Then, inside a presumed biological framework, evolution often
implies “origins” from preexisting features or conditions, which in refer-
ence to religion’s birth are often called proto-religions. However, this is by
no means the only meaning that the term “evolution” covers, as can be seen
in several different chapters in this volume. And of course, religion did not
“evolve”; it is still “evolving.”
When speaking about religion, evolution is full of social and historical
resonances, and it could not be otherwise (e.g., Betzig, this volume). Reli-
gions are evolving in time, and this change has happened at different levels
in different parts of the world: beliefs, rituals, moral attitudes, structures
and relationships with society. We can witness such processes in the most
recent religions from literate societies that keep documents and have histori-
cal records. That religions register many changes along time is quite obvi-
ous; possibly the difficulty is to what extent those changes can be described
as “evolution,” even in the broad sense. Not all change represents evolution.
Some changes are just alternative, equally effective and efficient variants of
the same religious form.
Broadly speaking, “evolution” in terms of gene-culture coevolution by
natural selection denotes that what is evolving is becoming better adapted
and more effective and efficient for survival and reproductive success for
individuals, their families and the in-groups to which they belong in cur-
rent environments. But environments change. Many evolutionary changes
can be adaptive in one environment and selection neutral or maladaptive
in another. Evolution by natural selection makes adaptive changes prob-
able. Many evolved changes in a population, such as those that occur as the
result of immigration and emigration or random changes, are not necessar-
ily adaptive.
6  Lluis Oviedo
One central question in the attempt to better characterize religion’s evolu-
tion is to what extent all such processes can be identified and associated with
Darwinian evolution’s biological logic or whether cultural evolution follows
a somewhat different pattern, as many authors claim (see Hemminger, this
volume). Most of what has changed and is still changing in the evolution of
religion over the past few thousand years has been accomplished through
gene-culture coevolution. Renouncing hasty solutions, prudence invites us
to keep all options open and to decide later on in which instances religion
follows a more Darwinian evolution paradigm or some alternative para-
digms of change, such as those found in psychological, sociological, eco-
nomic, historical, contingent circumstances, ideological developments and
those influenced by other issues, like period changes in aesthetics or chang-
ing moral issues. In short, there are more than Darwinian paradigms for
evolutionary change.
The former introductory remarks should help in establishing a first-
order approximation to put the different perspectives used to understand
religion’s evolution into some type of order. Let’s distinguish at least three
main categories: (a) evolution related to religion’s origins; (b) evolution as a
big change or crucial transformation; and (c) evolution as a long historical
process.

Evolution related to religion’s origins

In the first category, “evolution” means the same as “origins,” in the sense
that religion emerged through the “evolution” of preexisting traits or condi-
tions, sometimes called proto-religions. In this case, evolution is less about
following changes or refinements and more about religion’s creation. The
idea behind such positions is that religion, even conceptualized as a human
social institution, is the result of a “natural” process, as is every other
evolved human trait, and nothing, including religion, arises out of nowhere
or in a sudden and unexpected way. This category should be considered a
stand-alone, since the study of religion’s evolution as its “origins” is mostly
detached from the study of further developments, when religion is already in
place and well established in hunter-gather bands and then tribes, where we
have lived for almost all of our 200,000-300,000-year history as a species
(Hublin et al. 2017). Religion – in most of the reported views, which are not
for certain the correct views – is not seen as something new, sui generis, but
more as a continuity with previously existing forms.
The alternative possibility is that something totally new evolved in
our species, such as the emergence of the capacity for symbolic speech,
on which even the simplest forms of religion depend. Human syntactic
and recursive symbolic speech might be only 50,000 years old, when for
reasons unknown our cultural achievements rapidly advanced. Ancient,
prehistoric religion is not like cave art or the advances in lithic industries
that leave material objects to be studied. We also cannot even presume that
 Introduction 7
extant hunter-gather religions are clues to religion’s prehistoric origins (see
Solomon, this volume; Hitchcock, this volume).
Even if ancestral origins and later developments in religion can be tempo-
rally correlated with changes in human social organization, it seems more
fruitful to distinguish between the two dynamics. In addition, one can’t
assume causality from just temporal correlation. It is just a presumption
that what initiated the emergence of prehistoric religion is what kept and
perhaps is still keeping religion alive today. The issue gets even more com-
plex theologically, like a chicken and egg problem as to what came first.
Did religion evolve to worship the human concept of (generic) god or did
the human concept of (generic) god create the necessity for the origin of
religion? Any answer would be highly speculative at this time.

Evolution as a big change or crucial transformation

The second category looks at some steps, events or crucial historical changes
that have defined or deeply determined the nature of religion throughout its
long history. Reference to this appears in many registered entries. In general,
they is an evolution that points to the “moralizing phase” that “evolved
religions” have known after the discovery of larger-scale agriculture and the
emergence of large societies (i.e., greater than one million people) (White-
house et al. 2019). This includes the Axial Age religions, or those emerging
during huge cultural changes that happened between the 8th and 3rd centu-
ries bce (Bellah 2011).

Evolution as a Long Historical Process

The third category can be linked to stages of religious development through
history, covering a spectrum that reaches from ancestral times, including
the most “elementary forms,” until modern times and the more complex or
elaborated expressions of religion. Sometimes, such theories contain con-
cepts in our intellectual history that are the main factors that spur such
developments, like “rationalization” (Weber 1993 [1963]), “differentia-
tion” (Luhmann 1989) or “differentiation and growing complexity” (Bellah
2011). In other cases, a multilevel or complex set of factors is proposed, like
epigenetic, cognitive-developmental, and social-historical factors (White-
house 2008, 2013). These three categories for accommodating religion’s
evolution are clearly complementary and are not in competition, allowing
for a fruitful pluralistic interplay.

Alternative Approaches
Another approach in categorizing religion’s contributing causes and its
evolution can make use of the factors that have influenced the process. In
this case, it is relatively easy to distinguish between those pointing more to
8  Lluis Oviedo
biological influences and those that stress more the cultural aspects, which
include symbolic and meaning systems (see Ihm et  al., this volume) and
those pointing more to social or structural factors, as is usual in sociological
and anthropological approaches.
Those pointing to more biological influences include features of religion’s
role in facilitating in-group cohesion or what is sometimes called human
eusociality (see Feierman, this volume; Betzig, this volume), or they point
to other features. They include various elements that increase biological fit-
ness through internal solidarity, such as the emergence of human altruism
and empathy (see Broom, this volume; Early, this volume). Torrey (2017)
has recently proposed an original biological theory of how our concepts
of god and religion have evolved paralleling the progressive changes of the
hominid brain.
Another approach focuses on religion’s cognitive features as a symbolic
system that provides meaning and other related capacities (see Ihm et al.,
this volume). Evolution therefore involves the progressive ability to perform
new functions or expressions that enhance them.
Then, a few more approaches can be characterized as “structural” and
belong to the sociological or cultural anthropological fields, where identify-
ing the big forces behind social evolution is paramount. In some cases, like
the ones mentioned by Whitehouse (2008, 2013), a few sets of factors come
together and combine in a multilevel format.
To some degree, these other approaches correspond to disciplinary bound-
aries and reflect programmatic paradigms in each discipline. In this case, the
complementarity principle can be stated with more conviction: The bio-
logical account should not deter or dismiss the sociological, anthropological
or symbolic ones. Again, it seems pointless to force a choice among them.
Indeed, all the described approaches make good sense and have enough
heuristic power to be kept in our repertoire.

Factors That Influence the Evolution of Cultural Complexity

A different path considers recent attempts to describe the factors that influ-
ence the evolution of cultural complexity (Andersson and Read 2016). After
discussing the merits and limits of the so-called treadmill model, the authors
lay out alternative models in a list that comprises eight distinct forms.
They conclude – in a case that can be applied to the evolution of religious
complexity.

While in many cases it is a scientifically sound practice to isolate and

explore causal factors, there is a big difference between expecting one
such factor to be “the winner” in the end (a strong interpretation), and
expecting it to be part of an explanation where the factor in question
interacts with other factors (a weak interpretation).
(Andersson and Read 2016, 274)
 Introduction 9
Turner and colleagues defend a model that integrates biological and socio-
logical forces and their selective pressures acting on religion in its origins and
along its history (Turner et al. 2017). Wunn and Grojnowski (2016) review
the available theories showing the respective limits and the need to move
toward a different level, in which religion itself becomes the unit or object of
selection. They are treating religion’s evolution in an analogous way to how
one can treat the spear point’s evolution archaeologically in prehistoric times.
Indeed, several of the current theories about religion’s evolution imply
that evolution affects genes, individuals, kin and in-groups. These proposed
distinctions can overlap with the theories that lean more toward cultural
evolution as an autonomous process. Another related question concerns
how to understand “religion” (the collective noun) when it is presented as a
unit or object of selection, given that religion as a whole contains objective
and subjective elements as well as functions and their forms.
We could focus on religion’s beliefs, as a system that clearly evolves and
influences behavior, groups and organization. But by the same token, we
could also focus on behaviors, rituals, or religious organizations. In an ear-
lier publication, Feierman (2009) argued that only structural design features
associated with religion can be the object of genetic or cultural selection in
that they are the forms (versus the functions) of which religions are made.
The problem gets more complex in this volume when multilevel selection
is used. Selection operates not just on one level but rather on many lev-
els, including the interactions between these levels—for example, between
beliefs and their individual holders; between beliefs, their holders and the
in-groups/religions in which the individuals with their beliefs belong; or
between all three levels, occurring concurrently in multilevel selection.

New Entries Waiting to Be Listed as Contributing

to Religion’s Evolution
The scientific study of the human condition and what renders us distinct
as a species has advanced a lot in the last few years, drawing attention to
aspects formerly neglected in the more reductive versions of the earlier sci-
entific anthropology. The issue now is to what extent we can make good use
of those contributions to enlarge the spectrum of the available explanations
that help to narrate religion’s evolution, adding new factors and variables to
an already rich panorama. The list of possible candidates is growing. We will
focus on only a few: (a) the cultural evolution of religion (b) the development
of human coordination; (c) the “super-cooperative” nature of human socie-
ties, (d) language and symbolic functions; and (e) the processes of believing.

Cultural evolution of religion

The book by Laland and Brown Sense and Nonsense (2011 [2002], 2nd ed.)
is a good starting point and a qualified guide to a wide view on the different
10  Lluis Oviedo
approaches to cultural evolution. The authors distinguish five major pro-
grams: human sociobiology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psy-
chology, cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution. Later, the study of
Graber (2007) added some nuances to the cultural-evolutionary program,
depending on the larger or smaller perspective taken when one observes
a cultural process. The field appears divided between those with a more
biological approach and those stressing more the culturally specific char-
acteristics. The field is now more similar to a “spectrum” than to a single
paradigm, and in many cases, authors plead for some sort of coevolution.
The plural panorama is enriched with models trying to integrate different
influences and levels in cultural evolution, as exemplified by the previously
quoted paper by Andersson and Read (2016).
The point is that cultural evolution has moved in some cases toward a
prominent position that dares to challenge even standard evolutionary the-
ory, as in the case of Kevin Laland and his colleagues, who even ask whether
“evolutionary theory needs a ‘re-think’ ” and suggest an “extended evolu-
tionary framework” including developmental bias, environment-driven
plasticity, niche construction and cultural coevolution (Laland et al. 2014).
Evolution seems to change its appearance and dynamics when culture is
included. This is clearly the case when religious diversification and complex-
ity are under study (Doebeli and Ispolatov 2010).
Orlando Patterson (2014) published on the different attempts at explain-
ing how culture relates to aspects of personal and social life. The exposed
complexity and the richness that culture entails and its many interactions
at different levels prevents a too-easy adoption of that category and invites
a more engaged and diversified application to religion as a culture or sub-
culture that evolves specific patterns involving interactions, mutual enforce-
ment and creativity.

The development of human coordination

Michael Tomasello, for instance, has insisted on how coordination explains
humans’ specific evolutionary path. He has analyzed the process that starts
from joint attention and moves on toward more complex stages and then
to the emergence of rules or norms that regulate common behavior (A
Natural History of Human Morality, 2016). Some ideas about how moral
evolution proceeds find easy application to religion and its evolution (see
Broom, this volume).
The lesson is that morality is the result of plural and complex human
abilities, and not just straightforward cognitive development or adaptation;
religion would fit in the same description. The second useful idea in the
study of religion’s evolution is Tomasello’s two-step theory for the emer-
gence of morality: first collaboration, then culture. The starting moment
moved at the level of personal interactions and small groups; the second one
required greater coordination capacity and the objectification of collective
 Introduction 11
and broadly accepted norms. Here too, religion could have evolved along
a similar path, from subjective experiences, fears or expectations, to widely
shared views and codified doctrines within a cultural framework. The move
from the individual or family level to the larger in-group has been decisive
in religion’s evolution. That move may have little to do with the develop-
ment of more prosocial religions. Indeed, many religions were well cultur-
ally codified before and after the emergence of social-enhancing versions we
now identify around the Axial Age (8th to 3rd century bce).
Even if Tomasello (2016, 131 f.) considers religion as an example of help-
ing to enforce rules – a tradition in which Rappaport (1999) and many oth-
ers can be identified – things could move in a different way. Religious ideas,
symbols and rituals could have been in place in earlier times and only later,
as a by-product, assisted in such functions or perhaps, even more probably,
both, where morality and religion coevolved together. The history of human
coordination could be simply a subchapter in the long history of religious
beliefs and practices. Indeed, the historical record points rather in that direc-
tion. Many religious expressions were just individual or at most family or
clan features, and their extension or success gave place to their application
to ground or support moral codes or to exert coordination functions.
We have to be able to admit that as of this day, the primary driving forces
for religion’s evolution are largely unknown. One can’t do controlled scien-
tific experiments on events that occurred ten thousand or more years ago.
Then, religious coordination, mostly achieved through ritual activity that
we see today in extant hunter-gatherers, does not necessarily entail general
coordination, as it is obvious only in certain settings. Nevertheless, such
exercises in coordinating rituals could involve a clear evolutionary path,
since the religious beliefs that underlie the rituals can expand only to the
extent that they involve more practitioners.
The past few centuries have seen great advances in communicative tech-
nology, from the printing press to the telegraph, telephone, newspaper, tel-
evision and then computers, most of which are now used as mobile devices.
We are now in the information age with social media and cloud computing.
All of these new technologies are facilitating human coordination in expo-
nential proportions, including religious coordination. Social media “friends”
present competing modern alternatives to co-religious congregants.

The super-cooperative nature of post-agricultural human societies

Human beings, as compared to our closest living relatives, chimpanzees,
are exceptionally cooperative within their in-groups. This has recently led
to considering human social organization, at least since the advent of agri-
culture, to be “loosely” eusocial, along with the “strictly” eusocial insects,
such as ants, bees and termites (Nowak and Highfield 2011; Wilson 2012).
The mostly agreed-on criteria for loosely defined eusociality include multi-
ple generations living together, the cooperative care of young, the defense of
12  Lluis Oviedo
a home locale and a division of labor. For the more strictly defined criteria,
the division of labor includes a (sometimes reversible) reproductively sup-
pressed cast. Two chapters in this volume (Feierman and Betzig) use the con-
cept of human eusociality to understand religion’s evolution. Betzig presents
evidence of strict human eusociality with a high male reproductive skew,
which happened during one stage of our evolution in the Roman Empire
around the time of the birth of Christianity.

Language and symbolic function

Human symbolic language  – expressed through behaviors that produce
speech and eventually, in recent times, writing  – belongs to the list of
human-specific features. That the evolution of language might run in paral-
lel with the evolution of religion, and even that both coevolved reinforcing
each other in some way, as for instance, implementing symbolic capacities
(Deacon 1997; Rappaport 1999), should be considered. This thesis is still
in its early development, and only a few authors have emphasized it. How-
ever, it seems quite plausible to conceive of a historical scenario in which
symbolic language and religion coevolved, as symbolic language provides
the unavoidable communication means and religion the symbolic content
and regulatory enforcement. The relationship between religion and sym-
bolic language or, in Christian biblical terms, between God and the “Word,”
is more than just a classical inspiring motive. Religion can indeed even be
seen as a “specialized language” and its evolution can be traced back as a
dynamic and living communication means that follows many of the same
rules as every living language (Oviedo 2015).
We can also consider theories about the evolution of rationality to exam-
ine the extent to which religion follows similar clues. This is an old thesis
that has been around since the Reformation, which found an excellent clas-
sical expression in Max Weber’s analysis of the rationalization process and
religion. Many other additions have been made, such as the recent book
by Roger Wagner and Andrew Briggs, The Penultimate Curiosity (2016),
where “curiosity,” giving place to science, follows the path traced by the
search for big and final answers, meanings and, more explicitly, religion’s
role in all of this. In their approach, the evolution of religion and scien-
tific knowledge are intimately interwoven and nourish each other along a
millennia-long history.
A further example is provided in the new book by Hugo Mercier and
Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason (2017), where rationality grows as we
become better able to spot other people’s mistakes: not as a solitary skill but
rather as a mutually correcting activity. This thesis adds new content to the
issue of human coordination as a central evolutionary clue and again invites
us to think of religion’s evolution in a similar way. As rationality grows
through mutually critical assessment and feedback, doctrinal developments
in various approaches to religion, through a long history, can be read in the
 Introduction 13
same vein, like in the case of prophetic criticism against established religious
forms. Indeed, such patterns could be quite easily applied to the evolving
reconstruction of religious views in the biblical record and those corre-
sponding to other religions. This model would put some more flesh into the
formerly advanced thesis linking rational growth with religion’s evolution.

The processes of believing

This is a neglected feature among most scholars who study religion and its
evolution but one that is recently capturing attention and needs to be included
in the various pluralistic approaches to religion’s evolution. Three authors’
chapters in this volume specifically address the processes of believing –
Angel, Seitz and Feierman.
Briefly, beliefs have a life of their own and are subjected to their own
dynamic processes of acquisition, retention, growth, stabilization, activa-
tion, decline and extinction. Such dynamics could be applicable to theories
of religion’s evolution. However, as in the case of cultural evolution, the
studies on beliefs reveal their own set of dynamics involving a complex net-
work of cognitive, emotional, relational and environmental factors.
The study of human general beliefs, not just religious ones, has grown in
the past few years. At least six models have been proposed to understand
their dynamic processes and evolution: the credition or functions model by
Angel and Seitz (2016), the stages model by Connors and Halligan (2015),
the network model by Castillo and colleagues (2015), the conversion model
by Smith (2014, 2016), the dimensions-of-faith model by Donaldson (2015)
and a new evolutionary biology model introduced by Feierman, in this vol-
ume. These different models offer valuable material for the ongoing research
into religion’s evolution. Their common element defends the claim that
beliefs should not be dismissed or considered as second-class immaterial, fic-
tive mental items quite far from the certainties of science and empirical data.
Just as no one has ever seen a Freudian ego, no one will ever see a belief,
if beliefs are considered non-“physical” functional concepts of the human
mind, as is traditional in philosophy and psychology. However, placing
beliefs in the immaterial mind is not a given. If beliefs are information-
laden entities, and if information is always “physical,” beliefs would have to
exist in various formats in the actual physical brain, something like engrams
are in memory, which eventually would make beliefs and the processes of
believing accessible to neuroscience (see Seitz, this volume).
The study of beliefs has also been afflicted by some negative biases, since
they have often been associated with pathological delusions, as in schizophre-
nia and mania. There are certainly false religious beliefs (e.g., the earth is only
six thousand years old), where the belief-word-prefaced propositions written
in antiquity that are associated with the belief are clearly not true. However,
as will be seen in many chapters, a belief’s importance can be related to what
the belief does, even if what is held to be true is not true. Many (but certainly
14  Lluis Oviedo
not all) religious beliefs assist in orienting human life and, once acquired,
in making behavioral decisions with better cognitive speed and efficiency.
Religion-specific beliefs also bind people of faith together.
The Credition Research Project, which is based in Graz, Austria, is one
of the most original and mature attempts at better characterizing belief
dynamics. It is a functional model that deals more with what beliefs do in
the processes of believing than with what beliefs are. The general model of
beliefs and the processes of believing are also applicable to other nonreli-
gious realms, such as politics and everyday life (Angel et al. 2017).
Now, whether and to what extent beliefs and the processes of believ-
ing can be applied to religion’s evolution is still an open question. To
begin with, religions contain hierarchically arranged beliefs (i.e., belief
systems), and hence, beliefs’ evolution and dynamics would affect the gen-
eral or broad pattern of religion’s evolution. However, it is convenient to
show how beliefs can evolve as independent variables and discover what
they do in the active processes of believing and how they interact with
other variables previously discussed in this chapter, and they add a new
piece to the puzzle’s solution. It would be unfortunate for scholars of reli-
gion to ignore beliefs and the processes of believing, because they are dif-
ficult to fit them into existing evolutionary or cognitive science of religion
paradigms. After all, people of faith are often characterized as believers.
The evolution of beliefs, including religious beliefs, might follow some
of their own rules. We can call it evolution in a broad sense, but it needs
to be wisely integrated into the plural panorama advocated here. In that
sense, religious beliefs interact with ritual practices, moral rules and organ-
izational dynamics. The interplay between the individual and the shared
beliefs of religious communities is quite complex and has many potential
expressions, as do the many ways that beliefs and religious practices interact
in religious rituals.

Conclusion
We can hope to eventually achieve some kind of consensus on which among
various factors or variables intervene in the generation of religion and its
evolution. This would already be a great achievement, but it requires a more
multidisciplinary approach and more modesty from the individual practi-
tioners in order to recognize the always-incomplete character of one’s own
perspective and the need to complement it or connect it with other available
paradigms. Perhaps the network model, integrating and harmonizing differ-
ent approaches, would be more fitting, realistic and respectful of religion’s
complexity. We hope that the various chapters in this volume reflect some
of this diversity and that one day the various pieces might fit together more
completely into a theoretical whole.
As in other scientific endeavors, at the periphery, knowledge about the
phenomenon seems to be more secure and reliable. But when we approach
the core of the phenomenon, things become more intricate, complex and
 Introduction 15
intriguing. As Günter Palm states about computational neuroscience, “The
further we move away from the periphery into central information process-
ing and true human cognitive abilities, the sparser gets the amount of insight
or inspiration we can find in current computational neuroscience” (Palm
2016, 3). This volume’s contribution to the early stages of our quest to gain
knowledge about religion’s evolution just scratches the surface of something
whose interior is still mysterious and complex.

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Part 1

Evolutionary Biology
1 Cultural Evolution, Biology
and the Case of Religion
Hansjörg Hemminger

Reviewing Recent and Current Research

No explanation for the evolution of religion can be regarded as relevant that
is not embedded in a concordant explanation of cultural evolution (Bulbulia
and colleagues 2013; Richerson and Christiansen 2013). Haidle and col-
leagues (2015) distinguish between culturalistic and naturalistic views on
culture, which should be synthesized. The literature trying to integrate the
evolution of culture and the evolution of organisms might be sorted into
three categories of study, each of which will be discussed in more detail:

1 Evolutionary biology applied to culture, showing how cultural traits

evolve following a pattern similar to biological evolution. They result
in adaptationist or selectionist models of cultural evolution, including
kinetic theories and theories of group selection.
2 The influence of culture in human evolution, as a form of niche con-
struction that constraints individual and social developments. They lead
to dual inheritance accounts and to theories of gene-culture coevolution.
3 The interaction of mind, behavior and culture as an integrated pack,
in the sense of embedded cognition, including evolutionary studies of
culture without cultural evolution: culture perceived as emerging from
cognitive evolution.

Evolutionary biology applied to culture

A Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) colloquium,
introduced by Whiten and colleagues (2017), advocated “the extension of
biology through culture.” Feldman (2017) reaffirmed the project, as well as
a sweeping manifesto signed by founding members of the Cultural Evolution
Society, formed in 2014 (Brewer and colleagues 2017). They regard it as a
reenactment of the Modern Synthesis in biology, which synthesized evolu-
tion and genetics between about 1918 and 1970. Laland and colleagues
(2014) accordingly call for an extended evolutionary framework, includ-
ing developmental bias, environment-driven plasticity, niche construction
and cultural coevolution. The respective model of Brewer and colleagues
22  Hansjörg Hemminger
(2017) has been characterized as the kinetic theory of culture, analogous to
the kinetic theory of gases (Lewens 2015). Many similar attempts preceded
them (Buskes 2015; Kundt 2015). Laland and Brown’s Sense and Non-
sense (2011, 2nd ed.) distinguishes different starting points for evolutionary
explanations of human nature: sociobiology, behavioral ecology, evolution-
ary psychology, cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution. Mesoudi
and colleagues (2006) argue that a “unified science of cultural evolution”
has to be homologous (common evolutionary origin) with evolutionary
biology, from subdiscipline to subdiscipline, from method to method (2006,
fig.1). The concept presupposes that the transmission of cultural informa-
tion across generations has some similarities to genetic transmission and
operates through units, similar to units of genetic transmission. Among the
many names given to such units, the most popular have been – following
Richard Dawkins’ suggestion – memes (Aoki 2001).
However, it is widely accepted now that the notion of cultural memes,
which are closely analogous (i.e., same function but different evolution-
ary origin) with genes, is unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, Richerson and Boyd
(2005, 14) claim that “natural selection acting on culture is an ultimate
cause of human behavior, just as natural selection acting on genes.” Runci-
man (2005, 1) states that the “fundamental process of heritable variation
and competitive selection of information affecting phenotypes (interaction
of genes with environments) underlies both biological and cultural evo-
lution despite their obvious differences.” Yet the terms “heritable” and
“selection” pose problems. Acerbi and Mesoudi (2015) and Whiten and col-
leagues (2017) acknowledge that cultural contents are often not copied or
randomly changed like genes. They are reconstructed by processes they call
guided variation and biased transmission. The authors note that the latter
is a Lamarckian (inheritance of acquired characteristics) rather than a Dar-
winian (evolution by natural selection) process. Nonetheless, they confirm
that cultural evolution follows “broadly Darwinian principles.”
On the other hand, there is a good deal of skepticism (Fracchia and
Lewontin 1999, 2005; Ingold 2007; Read and Lane 2008). Gray and col-
leagues (2007) point to the need to leave aside memetics (information and
culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution) and to focus more
on phylogenetic (evolutionary history) studies, including new approaches
like network construction, reconciliation analysis and Bayesian mixture
models. Phylogenesis is the Darwinian biological process by which new life-
forms appear. Abrutyn (2016, 325) finds fault with “the construction of
general theories of macro-level evolution” because they lead to models that

either ignore or unsatisfactorily handle two facts: Some aspects of socio-

cultural evolution, arguably, are driven by purposeful, active collective
efforts and the processes of selection, at some levels of social reality such
as the group or the institutional sphere are driven by non-Darwinian
selection forces.
 Cultural Evolution, Biology and Religion 23
Gabora suggests models based on an autopoietic process (i.e., a sys-
tem capable of reproducing and maintaining itself), a form of emergent
self-­production or on communal exchange (2008, 2013). See also Sperber
(1998), Claidière and André (2012), Claidière et  al. (2014). Turner and
colleagues (2017) propose that four types of non-Darwinian selection pro-
cesses were at work in the evolution of religions. Somewhat surprisingly,
the authors still speak of “natural selection,” even though one type of selec-
tion pressure stems from consciously perceived “need states and behavio-
ral propensities,” and the actors are, for example, “goal-seeking corporate
units” or “social movement organizations.” Indeed, the authors pursue a
nonscientific interest by their choice of terminology, “to expand inquiry
and yet maintain some continuity with biology” (46). To the contrary, the
literature discussed in the next section emphasizes the distinct dynamics of
cultural evolution.

The influence of culture in human evolution

Many studies have stressed the specificity of human evolution, compared
with that of our close biological relatives, by highlighting the crucial
role that culture played in that process (Janson and Smith 2003; Heyes
2012; Barrett et  al. 2012). Not all other species lack elementary forms
of culture. A  recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science (2017) offers an introductory overview and a collection of
19 articles concerned with cultural phenomena in apes, monkeys and
cetaceans (marine mammals), as well as human culture. Oviedo and Fei-
erman (2017) argue that there is little evidence of religion in behavioral
performances outside the genus Homo. (For a different perspective, see
Broom 2008 and this volume.) The evolution of religion has to be embed-
ded in human, or perhaps hominin, cultural evolution. Its sophistication,
the enormous capacity to transmit and replicate cultural information
that humans exhibit, renders our culture a uniquely human trait. Some
theoretical concepts integrate culture into a broad pattern of multilevel
factors or dimensions that influence human evolution. An almost classic
example is a book by Jablonka and Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimen-
sions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the
History of Life (2005). The title indicates that human evolution has been
shaped both by biological factors and cultural ones, the latter depending
on a world of symbols. The approach was further developed by Fuentes
(2008), who proposed the use of the ecological concept of “niche con-
struction” to account for the inevitable effect of culture on evolution-
ary processes. Haidle and colleagues (2015) propose a comprehensive
three-dimensional model of cultural capacities and performances, which
includes an evolutionary-biological dimension, a historic-social dimen-
sion and an ontogenetic-individual dimension. Brown and Strawn (2014)
offer another holistic and complex model.
24  Hansjörg Hemminger
Interaction between behavior, mind and culture
The third approach to the topic of culture and its integration in a biologi-
cal account of the human mind and human behavior concerns the inter-
action of cultural phenomena with the human mind. It is supported by a
cultural scaffolding providing symbols and many auxiliary tools. Another
notion is that of the extended mind, pointing to its unavoidable link with
external means to fully develop its role. In the past 20  years, a copious
body of specialized literature has dealt with these issues. Among the
most quoted names are Merlin Donald, Edwin Hutchins, Terrence Dea-
con, Michael Tomasello, Andy Clark, George Lakoff, Gilles Fauconnier
and Mark Turner. The culturally available symbols obviously evolve with
a cognitive architecture adapted to their use and management. In other
words, culture progresses as an evolving, abundant and dynamic system
of symbols that helps to provide knowledge, meaning and specific skills to
individuals. That complex interaction of mind and culture is vital for the
explanation of many features of human behavior and its highly contingent
character. If one regards the biologically evolved human mind in this man-
ner as the basis of the evolution of culture, it is debatable whether their
interaction can still be described as “Darwinian” and what such an anal-
ogy could still mean.

Evolutionary Biology and Culture: Basic Considerations

An extended evolutionary synthesis?

Brewer and colleagues (2017, 1) argue that “The scientific study of culture
is currently undergoing a theoretical synthesis comparable to the ongoing
synthesis of biological knowledge that began in the twentieth century.”
They refer to the classic modern synthesis of evolutionary biology, which
is connected with the names of Julian Huxley (1887–1975), Ernst Mayr
(1904–2005) and Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975). They emphasize
that “Critical to both syntheses is the application of Darwinian evolu-
tionary concepts and methods.” Yet, the present development in biology,
which is often regarded as leading toward an extended evolutionary syn-
thesis (EES), is not the result of establishing and asserting Darwinian prin-
ciples or processes in more and more biological disciplines. It is the result
of a much-extended knowledge about the inner workings of the evolv-
ing systems. The more the intricacies and subtleties of these systems are
known, the less Darwinian principles look like ruling evolution absolutely,
although the theory of natural selection specifies universal conditions with
which all evolutionary processes have to comply. Its formalism does not
exclude but rather includes the non-selective processes influencing a par-
ticular evolutionary trajectory:
 Cultural Evolution, Biology and Religion 25
• Innovations and constraints of the process by which an organism devel-
ops from the fertilized egg cell (ontogeny) determine new possibilities
and no-go zones for its further evolution. They are the subject of evolu-
tionary developmental (evo-devo) biology.
• Niche construction is an ecological concept developed to consider how
organisms actively change their own environment and thus their own
evolution. They pass on an ecological heritage, not only a genetic one.
• The nongenetic plasticity of organisms ensures that the phenotype of
a population (the sum of observable characteristics or traits) varies,
depending on environmental factors, much more than its genotype (the
genetic information that influences the characteristics of the phenotype).
• Epigenetics effects are environment-driven modifications of genetic
information that directly affect the genome (the genetic material of
an organism) and that, to a limited degree, can become heritable in
humans.
• Neutral evolution, which was established as a concept decades ago,
is much better understood today because of the progress of molecular
genetics. Most of the genetic variation between individuals and popula-
tions is not caused by natural selection but instead by mutations, which
do not affect their reproductive success, and by the random dispersion
of these neutral mutations.
• It has been shown that, under specific conditions, natural selection
works not only through the varying reproduction rates of individuals
but also through reproductive competition between groups. The con-
cept provides an alternative explanation to kin selection (i.e., nepotism)
and other classical selective processes for the evolution of behavioral
traits that are “good for the collective,” such as altruistic behavior. The
formal conditions of group selection and multilevel selection are dis-
cussed by Nowak and Highfield (2011, 21–24, 87–90) and Allen and
colleagues (2013).

The innovative components of evolutionary biology listed here by way of

example do not suspend the formalism of natural selection, but neither do
they expand its explanatory range. Charlesworth and colleagues (2017) in
their review paper correctly regard them neither as a revolution nor as a
unification of evolutionary theory but rather as a differentiation.

The biological species

Wunn and Grojnowski (2016) use a key concept of the modern synthesis:
the natural, or biological, species. They insist that the various forms of reli-
gion are the equivalent of the biological species: they are “religio-species”
(30). Consequently, it should be meaningful to classify “culturo-species”
accordingly. But their close analogy is misleading. The biological species,
26  Hansjörg Hemminger
defined as a reproductive community, exists on two levels: as genotype and
as phenotype. The forces of selection act directly on the phenotype and
thereby indirectly on the genotype. The vast majority of higher organisms
reproduce sexually. They generate specialized, usually haploid (half the
number of chromosomes), gametes (egg and sperm cells) genetically distinct
from the usually diploid (full complement of chromosomes) parent cell. The
gametes recombine to constitute the genome of the next generation. As a
consequence, the species, generation after generation, offers a varied range
of attributes to the forces of natural selection. When the term “biological
evolution” is used in this text, it signifies such a process.
The different phenotypical traits, acquired by the interaction of the geno-
type with different environments, are usually not heritable. The genome of
the next generation results from a recombination of the parental genetic
information, regardless of the parents’ life history. It is varied by replication
errors, some other mutations, possible effects of lateral gene transfer and
special epigenetic effects. The species adapts genetically because the corre-
sponding phenotypes contribute an unequal share of their genetic informa-
tion to the next generation. In addition, there are non-­adaptive processes
like neutral evolution, which influence the gene pool. Because the culturo-
species is without genotype, its analogy with the biological species seems
remote.
Every generation of the biological species comes from an elementary start,
from a fertilized egg cell (zygote). The culture of the next generation is not
produced from any elementary, or condensed, form of itself. The next gen-
eration of Christians does not come into being by developing a primeval
state of biblical religion (if there ever was one) into Catholicism or Protes-
tantism. In biological terms, there is no difference in the “cultural organ-
ism” between a germ line (cells that pass their genes on to the progeny)
and a soma line (somatic cells that are not in the germ line). According to
Wunn and Grojnowski (2016, 31–32), Gabora (2013, table 2) and Acerbi
and Mesoudi (2015), that is why culture adapts by Lamarckian heritability,
which means the inheritance of acquired characteristics. That would indeed
bypass the cycle of phenotype and genotype. Adaptation by selection, called
teleonomic adaptation, would be largely replaced by heritable plasticity
(teleological adaptation). “The processes that fuel cultural change are goal-
driven, intuitive, strategic, and forward-thinking” (Gabora 2013, 12). If
cultural evolution follows such Lamarckian principles, it cannot likewise
follow Darwinian principles. So far, no form of Lamarckian evolution has
been found in biology other than epigenetic effects, which might for a few
generations preserve an acquired modification (Charlesworth et al. 2017).

Ecosystems and cultures

The genome is a logistic center able to build the adult organism. This is
why the natural species requires reproductive isolation to preserve itself.
 Cultural Evolution, Biology and Religion 27
The genetic instructions for the ontogeny (development during the lifespan
of the individual) are incompatible with those from different species, except
from closely related ones. The narratives and practices of culture, which are
reproduced in the next generation, do not include the basis of their own
reproduction: the brain. Therefore, the cultural unit does not require repro-
ductive isolation and cannot be defined as a sequestered reproductive unity
analogous to the biological species. The closest equivalents might be bio-
cenoses (ecological associations). They can be classified in the form of a
typology. But as between cultures, the distinctions are somewhat artificial.
Both can be regarded either as an integrated entity or as a point selected
along some continuum. Regarded as entities, they have a certain historic
stability: They propagate, and they evolve in time. But there is no genotype,
and changes acquired in time are, as in cultural evolution, simply passed on.
There is competition between the components of the association, the species
present: New ones might intrude; others might disappear. And there is some-
thing like competition in a broad sense between associations. Environmental
variables will cause American tall grass prairie to expand at the expense of
forests or cause the forests to expand at the expense of the grass. The evolu-
tion of the biocenosis is superimposed as a higher system level (meta-level)
on the evolution of the many species that make up its parts. Cultural evolu-
tion also must be regarded as a meta-level yet superimposed on a different,
lower level: on the evolution of human society and the human mind.

Genetic and cultural transfer

Genes (which are not easily defined as functional units) are transferred as
macromolecules. This simple fact is not as trivial as it seems (Portin 2015).
Their material nature alone, if nothing else, bestows particularity, stability
and discreteness to genes. Cultural contents – that is, mental representations
stored in the brain or externally as symbols –might also appear discrete or
stable on a snapshot in time. But they are not screened from changes “on the
job” like genes are. Ideas, techniques and so on are subjects to be learned
and stored, with all the interconnections and mutual influences that those
imply. Gabora (2013) argues against Henrich and colleagues (2008) that
the way mental representations (e.g., beliefs) are encoded in memory show
both their distinct contents, and their contextual, reconstructive nature.
They are there, however, not simply because of their adaptive advantage.
A pan-­adaptationist or pan-selectionist concept of cultural evolution is even
more misplaced than in biology. There might be drift phenomena in cul-
ture, though (as there is no genome) no genetic drift. Certainly, many cul-
tural traits, which are there because of various reasons, remain there, as in
the genome, because they are not harmful enough to be discarded. They
are constrained by the natural environment in which a culture operates,
by the structure of the society that upholds it, by functional principles of
human cognition and other factors. But within such limits, cultural traits are
28  Hansjörg Hemminger
broadly adjustable. In contrast, the evolutionary trajectories of each species,
and of higher taxa as well, are far more constrained by their own systemic
properties. Ontogeny is “loaded” by phylogeny (evolutionary history). Cul-
tural evolution has a much higher degree of freedom. In biological evolution,
there are no “hopeful monsters,” no individual organisms that turn into
something else from one generation to the next. (There was a hopeful mon-
sters’ hypothesis in the first half of the 20th century that was based on the
idea that major evolutionary transformations occur by macro-­mutations.)
But in the history of religions, there are macro-mutations, and there are
hopeful monsters. John Smith, who founded the Latter-Day Saints in the late
1820s, combined elements of esotericism, theism, 19th-century evolutionism
and even an arcane temple worship he could have known only from litera-
ture into not exactly a unity but a successful amalgam. The founding of a
new religion by one individual has no counterpart in biology.

Social learning
Gabora (2013, 5) reaches conclusions similar to those presented so far, by
analyzing the algorithmic structure of biological evolution on the basis of
John von Neumann’s concept of a self-replicating automaton (SRA). Fol-
lowing John H Holland, she states that:

Structures, natural or artificial, that evolve through a selectionist pro-

cess share three fundamental principles. The first principle is sequestra-
tion of inherited information; the self-assembly code is shielded from
environmental influence. The second principle is a clear-cut distinction
between phenotype, which is subject to acquired change, and geno-
type, which generally is not. The third principle is that natural selection
incorporates not just a means by which inherited variation is passed on,
but a means by which variation acquired over a lifetime is discarded.

Biological evolution is of the type characterized by these three principles,

and cultural evolution is not. What is learned by individuals, or by a group,
is obliterated as any other phenotypical modification, except when it is
transferred by learning. But this exception is a formidable one. Processes of
learning in a social context are common, not only for animals living in sta-
ble, individualized groups like monkeys and apes but also for those living in
anonymous herds, in family units and so on. Yet humans depend on social
learning to a much higher degree than any nonhuman animal. The term
“dual inheritance” accounts for this, as does the concept of gene-culture
coevolution. Its purport is that genetic traits condition cultural traits, that
these in turn effect the further genetic evolution and so on by interconnected
feedback circles. There are more than two levels to consider, though. Cul-
tural evolution is itself multilayered and includes several intermeshed feed-
back loops. It has to be described (at least) as a “techno-social coevolution”
 Cultural Evolution, Biology and Religion 29
(Barrett et  al. 2012). The concept of niche construction (Fuentes 2008;
­Kendal et  al. 2011) also elucidates the interaction between culture and
genome. It regards culture as both the instrument and the result of an elabo-
rate reconstruction of the natural environment. To maintain that such an
evolution follows “broadly Darwinian principles” means to broaden them
so much that they sometimes turn into equally broad Lamarckian princi-
ples. Why then should anyone choose biological terms at all, which do not
apply to cultural phenomena without extensive specifications and reinter-
pretations? Remarkably, the model of cultural evolution presented by Hai-
dle and colleagues (2015), although it includes an evolutionary-biological
dimension, does not resort to “Darwinian” explanations.

Toward Understanding the Multilevel Evolution of Religion

Strong emergence as an epistemological principle

The evolution of human behavior has to be regarded as a process (or a num-
ber of processes) by which a complex, multilayer system adapts, changes and
expands, from the prehistoric beginnings of the hominins to known history.
Cultural evolution constitutes, from a scientific perspective, the uppermost
system level, with religion as a subsystem. Such a complex system, within
each layer, develops characteristics that cannot be completely reduced to
the characteristic of its parts. The principle is one of strong emergence. It
is not self-evident; reductionist views abound in science. Here, they cannot
be criticized adequately. That is left to Drossel (2016), Deacon (2011), Gu
and colleagues (2009), Clayton (2005), and Laughlin and Pines (2000). The
following arguments presuppose that complete reductionism is impossible
in an explanation of human evolution.
There is nonetheless both upward and downward causation. Culture
obviously acts not only on itself but also on the physiology of individuals,
on their genetic fitness and on the genetic evolution of a breeding popula-
tion (a group) maintaining a culture. For example, Blume (2014) collected
data from contemporary religious groups showing that under modern con-
ditions, religious people have larger, and more stable, families than secular
ones. Kaufmann (2010) offers similar results. Thus, cultural (or religious)
evolution, which is not like biological evolution on its own system level,
produces “Darwinian” effects on a lower one. Likewise, biological selection
processes affect the spread or disappearance of cultural contents.
For example, the Amish people (in the United States) grow consistently
without missionary activity (Blume 2012). Their strong group commitment
might conceivably have a basis in a (probably slightly) different emotional
and cognitive mindset, which in turn might have a genetic basis. The twin
study of Lewis and Bates (2013) seems to indicate such a possibility. The
reproductive success of the Amish would increase the prevalence of such
hypothetical “social commitment genes” regionally, but not necessarily over
30  Hansjörg Hemminger
many generations or in the human species as a whole. If they exist at all, we
do not know if they are generally advantageous for human reproduction,
only under specific historical conditions or perhaps only for groups like
the Amish, which live as a religious minority among a diverging majority.
The latter would mean that selection pressures on these hypothetical genes
would, if at all, operate on the level of groups or sequestered breeding popu-
lations. Still, a relative or absolute fitness value could formally be ascribed
to these genetic alleles (alternative genes at the same genetic locus) as to any
others in the human gene pool. But it could not be quantitated. Thus, the
concept contributes nothing to the understanding of the evolutionary trajec-
tory of the Amish.
If the term “fitness” (the ability to survive to reproductive age, find a
mate, and produce offspring) is applied to cultural ideas or practices, its
unsuitability is obvious. In the modern synthesis, the concept is part of the
formalism that models genetic evolution. Without reinterpretation, it can-
not be carried over to the cultural level. For example, the effective vertical
transfer of Amish beliefs from generation to generation increases their rela-
tive frequency in the society as a whole. These beliefs contribute to their
own propagation by stabilizing the boundary to majority beliefs and by
supporting the reproductive isolation of the Amish. Yet to speak of a higher
fitness of Amish beliefs as compared with the religious or secular beliefs
of their contemporary neighbors, would be confusing. On the one hand,
within the Amish culture, their religion is functional and is an integral part.
On the other hand, their religious ideas are unsuitable for horizontal trans-
fer. The Amish attract few converts, and secular convictions threaten their
beliefs much more than vice versa. If one applies the fitness definitions of the
modern synthesis, they are neither fit nor unfit. They are – as Gabora sug-
gests (2013) – components of an autopoietic system, one which maintains
itself and which usually changes as a whole.

Religious evolution as a Darwinian process

As a further example, the influential work of Norenzayan will be briefly
considered. He states that “Religious beliefs and rituals arose as an evolu-
tionary by-product of ordinary cognitive functions that preceded religion.
These cognitive functions gave rise to religious intuitions” (2013, 8). The
terms “by-product” and “accidental side effect” (10) imply that these intui-
tions had no initial fitness effect, and other selection pressures drove the
process. But neither Norenzayan nor anybody else is able to refute the alter-
native, namely that even at the beginning “religious intuitions” provided
a fitness advantage for genes associated with them. Also, he pictures the
evolution of religions as closely analogous with the biological one. “The
iron law of Darwinian evolution” governs it (Norenzayan 2013, 30):“These
ever-expanding groups with high social solidarity, high fertility rates that
ensure demographic expansion, and a stronger capacity to attract converts,
 Cultural Evolution, Biology and Religion 31
grew often at the expense of other groups” (10). The author refers to bio-
logical fitness (“high fertility rates”) on the one hand and to the cultural
attraction of a religion (“capacity to attract converts”) on the other. Yet the
example of the Amish shows that religious beliefs might have important
biological and cultural functions, even if they do not attract converts at all.
Later, “within-group genetic transmission” (138) is regarded as essential for
the evolution of religions. Such theoretically unconnected propositions leave
it more or less open which processes on which system level drive religious
evolution in general. Accordingly, Kundt (2015) diverges from Norenzayan
when he argues that the evolution of religion is not adequately described as
a second Darwinian process superimposed on biological evolution. Other
analyses from different perspectives (Fracchia and Lewontin 1999, 2005;
Gabora 2013; Lewens 2015) agree with Kundt.

The “big gods” hypothesis

“Big gods” are supernatural beings concerned with the moral behavior of
humans. As Purzycki and colleagues (2016, 1) put it, “Cognitive representa-
tions of gods as increasingly knowledgeable and punitive, and who sanction
violators of interpersonal social norms, foster and sustain the expansion
of cooperation, trust and fairness towards co-religionist strangers.” The
hypothesis offers a solution to the evolution of cooperation, trust and fair-
ness in larger societies. But it is highly improbable that the rise of belief in
“big gods” was based on genetic changes at all. Atkinson and Bourrat (2011)
show by a cross-cultural survey that both the (certainly not genetically
conditioned) belief in an afterlife and the one in divine punishment influ-
ence the cultural attitude toward moral transgressions. The meta-­analysis
of Hartberg and colleagues (2014) augments the impression that belief in
supernatural enforcement is part of a cultural, not a genetic, solution for
the enforcement of prosocial behavior (see Slingerland and colleagues 2013;
Norenzayan and colleagues 2015). However, the issue is far from settled,
and several voices criticize the association of religion and prosocial behavior
(e.g., Oviedo 2016).
Other proposals for the adaptive value of religion are equally probable.
Rappaport (1999) proposes that religious rituals helped to avoid cheat-
ing and lying; Bellah (2011, 268) expounds that religion became a cultural
tool that enabled people to criticize and change the society they live in.
Blume’s research (2014) suggests that religion, from its beginnings, might
have supported confident action and future-oriented, farsighted decisions
by providing an encompassing interpretation of everyday life. Gamble and
colleagues (2015) think that the evolution of religion started well before
the Neolithic revolution, in hordes of hunter-gatherers large enough to turn
the maintenance of positive, personal relations into a problem. Wunn and
Grojnowski (2016) are certain that religion arose from the territoriality of
Mesolithic hordes and from an ever-present existential fear. As Feierman
32  Hansjörg Hemminger
(2018) reports, Slone and Van Slyke (2016) argue that the biological theory
of sexual selection explains the evolution of religion. Of course, all these
deliberations are not mutually exclusive (Oviedo 2017, 5–7). Altogether, a
large body of literature deals with supposed functional aspects of religion in
the evolution of the hominins, with its possible adaptation value, its fitness
advantages and so on. Only some examples have been mentioned here.

Looking for Alternative Paths

Three main lines or orientations in the study of culture and its relation to
human evolution give rise to three different sets of questions when they are
applied to the scientific study of religion:

1 Given that religion has a cultural format  – among other

dimensions – how did religions evolve or coevolve? What have
been the main mechanisms assisting in that process?
2 Since culture influences human evolution, how did the cultural
aspects of religion influence the course of human evolution?
3 Because culture generates meaning for social systems (see Ihm
et  al., this volume), how can religion be characterized inside a
framework of symbols that are codified to assist in the produc-
tion of meaning?

Some answers are available; others are in the making. Some issues have not
been dealt with so far. For instance, the so-called universal religions or post-
axial age (8th to 3rd centuries bce) religions obviously entail a sort of leap
in religious history. How this development could be fit into an evolution-
ary framework remains unclear, although Turner and colleagues (2017) and
Whitehouse and colleagues (2019) propose possible answers. Altogether, it
would be a pity if the study of the evolution of religion remained limited to
the first set of questions. There are good reasons for caution when evolu-
tionary biology is applied to the study of religion. Although analogies are
legitimate tools in science (Lorenz 1974), it is difficult to distinguish a scien-
tific theory on the basis of an analogy from a simple metaphor.

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2 The Evolutionary Biology
of Religion-Specific Beliefs
and Interreligious Conflict
Jay R Feierman

Introduction and Biological Background

Form and function are biology’s ontological dualism. Religious forms are
what religious things are. They are in the “physical” ontological realm of
mass, energy, force, space, time and information. Religious functions are
what religious things do. They are non-“physical” concepts that answer the
question, what does this religious form do? Most religious functions are
expressed as present participle verbs ending in -ing. This biological dualism
is the foundation for the chapter.
Religions are composed of a myriad of religion-general and religion-­
specific beliefs. This chapter is concerned only with the forms and functions
of religion-specific beliefs. As forms, they can evolve by Darwinian natural
selection (Feierman 2009a). This approach is similar to studying the forms
and functions of Native American tribal-identifying pottery designs (i.e.,
religion-specific beliefs) rather than those of clay-fired pottery (i.e., religion-
general beliefs).
Evolution of any kind means slow, incremental change, usually where
a form’s effectiveness and efficiency for a particular function is improved.
Religious culture, which evolves, is defined as the religious forms or their
construction instructions that are passed across (and within) generations by
more than just the DNA (sometimes with epigenetic silencing) within human
germ cells. Religion-specific beliefs, which contain culturally acquired infor-
mation, are “physical” because they contain information, which is always
“physical” (Landauer 1996). If one accepts religion-specific beliefs as
“physical,” their form, function and evolution can be dealt with not much
differently from the New Mexico pueblo people’s tribal-specific and tribal-
identifying, but otherwise arbitrary, pottery designs.
In humans, biological (i.e., genetic) and cultural evolution are not two
mutually exclusive kinds. Rather, they have some features and mechanisms
in common. They also influence each other and have features that are not
shared. They both pass information across generations by human bod-
ies. Gametic DNA does this in biological evolution. More parts of human
bodies  – such as brains, muscles, mouths and hands  – do this in cultural
38  Jay R Feierman
evolution. Variation, on which natural selection acts, is generated randomly
in biological evolution by genetic mutation; and except for chance, “which
favors the prepared mind” (Louis Pasteur), in cultural evolution, variation
is usually goal oriented (e.g., building a better mouse trap). Selection forces
are similar between them. Also, cultural but not biological evolution can
pass information-laden forms horizontally within generations. Gene-culture
coevolution, also known as dual inheritance theory (Richerson and Chris-
tiansen 2013) is about how biological and cultural evolution mutually influ-
ence one another. It is an emerging and controversial area of study.
Only evolution by Darwinian natural selection can adaptively (i.e., benefits
survival and reproductive success) accumulate religion-specific, gene-culture
coevolved form variants in the current environment in an in-group breeding
population, which is where and how all new religions start. Religion-specific
form variants in gene-culture coevolution can also change in frequency by
non-selective and not necessarily adaptation-producing processes.
Within multilevel (individual and group) natural selection, if a religion-
specific gene-culture coevolved form variant contributes to increased sur-
vival and reproductive success of a specific religious in-group breeding
population that possesses it – irrespective of from what it was made, how
it was acquired and whether the form variant can retain relative form con-
stancy across generations – it will be considered an adaptation. That will
hold true irrespective of its composition and architecture (if it has one) and
even if it had another function before being acquired. When information
is an adaptation, it is time, context and often specific-individual depend-
ent. This definition of adaptation, which works well in human gene-culture
coevolution, is modified from Williams’s (1966) definition, now putting the
emphasis of natural selection on used for rather than made for. For example,
humans can use hammers adaptively as weapons.
For natural selection to adaptively act on a religion-specific belief, two
criteria must be met: (1) At least one of its primary functions (e.g., bias
behavior in a probabilistically predictable way) must be in common with
its counterparts in other specific religions, and (2) there must be variation
in form on at least one selection level (e.g., how the behavior is biased) for
the same primary function with its counterparts in other specific religions.
With no variability in form for the same primary function across specific
religions, natural selection cannot act on religion-specific beliefs, which pre-
cludes them from evolving directly by gene-culture coevolution. Religion-
specific beliefs that are form variants across specific religions for the same
primary function (i.e., “cultural alleles”) can be adaptations or maladapta-
tions or be selection neutral, depending on time, context and possessor(s).
In gene-culture coevolution, only forms can be adaptations. Functions,
as non-“physical” concepts, only can confer adaptedness on forms whose
functions they are. Since gametic DNA codes only for forms, only the forms,
not their functions, are transmitted across generations in the genetic code.
In gene-culture coevolution, knowledge about what a form can do – that is,
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 39
its function or its construction instructions – is always transmitted across or
within generations by using “physical” information through social learning.

Religion-Specific Beliefs and Their Belief-Word-Prefaced

Propositions
The noun “belief” or the transitive verb “believe” (where the object of the
verb’s action would be the constitutive behavior of the believing individual)
is defined in philosophy as some variation of “that which is held to be true”
because of the way the word is used in discourse when it prefaces proposi-
tions, as in “I  have the belief that P.” This chapter does not address the
attitudinal perspective on religion-specific beliefs, which is “the belief in.”
That which is held to be true is the intellectualist perspective. There are
also dispositional and feeling perspectives (Leicester 2008) as well as the
evolutionary-biological perspective in this chapter.
A religion-specific belief will be defined by what it is (i.e., its form) and
what it does (i.e., its function). In a human brain, a religion-specific belief
is neuronally instantiated. Its primary function is to bias its constitutive
behavior (movement) in a (probabilistically) predictable way during the
“physical” processes of believing. Functions have functions, like a child who
asks “why?” to every answer given, so a religion-specific belief can have
an almost unlimited number of subsequent functions expressed through its
constitutive behavior, which includes vocalizing and writing behavior that
can generate discourse and religious mythical stories.
“A religion-specific belief” can be defined as “a formalized quantity of
instructional information, which when instantiated in brain and format-
ted at a level above that of an individual neuron, which biases (influences)
behavior in a (probabilistically) predictable way, where the accompanying
behavior could be, if the individual is not being deceptive, constitutive of the
religion-specific belief during the processes of believing.”
A human religion-specific belief communicates something similar to the
intellectualist-philosophical meaning of belief when prefacing propositions
in discourse. When a devout Muslim woman expresses the religion-specific
belief-word-prefaced proposition “eating pork is haram,” presuming she is
not volitionally lying, she will probably not be eating pork.
A religion-specific belief-word-prefaced proposition used in discourse that
is produced by the constitutive behavior of a religion-specific belief is not
liable to moral culpability as lying if through self-deception (Trivers 1976,
vi; 2013) the person genuinely believes what they say, even if what they say
is absolutely not true, as there is no intent to deliberately deceive (e.g., “the
earth is six thousand years old”).
This chapter’s evolutionary-biological way of understanding a religion-
specific belief has a few similarities with and many differences from how
the word “belief” has been used by other authors (e.g., Angel et al. 2017;
Coleman et  al. 2018; McGuire 2013; Nilsson 2014; Pinto and Bright
40  Jay R Feierman
2016; Shermer 2011; Szocik and Oviedo 2018). Because the processes of
learning are applicable to all vertebrates, a (generic) belief can be defined
in such a way that it too would be applicable to all vertebrates, which
does not preclude there being human-specific processes of both learning
and believing.

Other than absolute truth-conveying functions of religion-

specific belief-word-prefaced propositions
Religion-specific belief-word-prefaced propositions that accompany (i.e., are
not necessarily constitutive of) religion-specific beliefs have many biological
functions other than conveying absolute truth: (1) getting a listener to do
what is in the best interest of the speaker, (2) rationalizing past behavior, (3)
giving a listener grist for their theory-of-mind mill, (4) allowing someone to
talk about what they say they believe, (4) improving one’s higher-order cog-
nitive prowess, (6) comforting oneself through credo consolans (“I believe
because it is comforting”), (7) facilitating faster moral decision-making and
(8) being an in-group marker for a religion-specific in-group breeding popu-
lation. Later in the chapter, we will see where a biological approach can take
us as we explore biological function 8.
Before discussing religious belief’s in-group marking function, religion-
specific relative versus absolute truth must be addressed, which is analogous
to culture-specific relative versus absolute values and moral codes. Based on
what was explained in the “Introduction and Biological Background” part
of the chapter, for a religion-specific belief to evolve by gene-culture coevo-
lution by natural selection, (1) it can be only relatively true (i.e., religion-
specific) for the same function in other specific religions. (This generates
the necessary variation in form for the same function upon which natural
selection can act). And (2) it has to be held to be absolutely true by each
of the specific religion’s members, creating an unsolvable paradox through
self-deception (Trivers 1976, vi; 2013).
Consider the following syllogism: (a) a religion-specific belief-word-­
prefaced proposition is either absolutely or relatively true; (b) it is not abso-
lutely true; (c) therefore, it is relatively true. The following five examples are
of relative truths in specific religions:

1 When heard by people of other religions or by secularists, many religion-

specific belief-word-prefaced propositions in someone else’s religion
can seem “crazy” [an exact quote from the chapter’s title] (Irons 2008,
51–60). Yet these seemingly (by majority consensus) “crazy-sounding”
propositions for nonmembers, are by members, especially religious fun-
damentalists, believed to be absolutely true. If the religion-specific belief
conflicts with that of other specific religions, an objective investigator
has supporting evidence that the primary biological function of religion-
specific beliefs is not conveying the absolute truth.
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 41
2 The presence of copying errors during oral transmission of religion-­
specific belief-word-prefaced propositions derived from a specific
religion’s creation myth suggest that myths have other than absolute
truth-conveying function. Among the Navajo people, between the mid-
19th and the mid-20th centuries, when their creation myth was finally
memorialized by the tribe in English, each generation’s orally transmit-
ted creation myth – as unofficially memorialized by non-Navajos – even
though it had changed somewhat in detail, seemed as absolutely true for
the Navajo as that of previous generations (Feierman 2014).
3 In the Native American pueblos of what is now called New Mexico, the
same Christian religion-specific belief-word-prefaced propositions were
taught to most of the Pueblo people starting in the late 16th century by
the Franciscan missionaries. The Christian propositions have coexisted
for five hundred years alongside the Pueblo ones. Most of the Chris-
tian belief-word-prefaced propositions can’t be made syncretic with
the Indigenous ones (Parsons 1939). This suggests that the Christian
ones have other than absolute truth-conveying functions. Several Jemez
Pueblo members have told this author, “There is no conflict. They are
from two different religions,” an example of underappreciated Native
American wisdom (Mengelkoch and Nerburn 1993).
4 The 38 different tribes and bands of Athabascan-speaking Indigenous
peoples (e.g., Navajo, Apache, etc.) all started in Alaska as one in-
group breeding population before some of them started splitting apart
and migrating south between five hundred to several thousand years
ago. The differences today in their 38 tribe or band religion-specific
belief-word-prefaced propositions, which are derived from their once-
common creation myth, suggest they have other than absolute truth-
conveying functions (Feierman 2014).
5 Corporations often grow through mergers and acquisitions. Religions,
with a few rare exceptions, do not. They grow by relatively higher
recruitment rates and larger families. Religions then have internal
arguments over the absolute truth of particular belief-word-prefaced
propositions and split, thereby creating competitive religions with
contradictory and mutually exclusive, believed-to-be-absolutely-true,
­religion-specific belief-word-prefaced propositions. The religion-specific
belief-word-prefaced propositions of the new and old religion cannot
both be absolutely true, as that constitutes an unsolvable paradox.

Eusociality (sometimes called ultrasociality)

Religion-specific beliefs and belief-word-prefaced propositions, as well as
the specific religions in which they are embedded, can evolve by natural
selection only when individuals who make up the species are not randomly
distributed over space. Eusociality requires the individuals of a species be
grouped together or clustered on some basis into numerous smaller in-group
42  Jay R Feierman
breeding populations with borders that only under certain circumstances
can be penetrable. This relative reproductive isolation creates “structure.”
After all, “Where there’s life, there are lumps, clumps and colonies . . . all
real populations have some structure.  .  .  . could there be structures that
make [in-group breeding populations’] cooperation triumph over defec-
tors?” (Nowak and Highfield 2011, 69–70). Religion, which is a social insti-
tution, is such a structure.
Only 1 percent of all currently living animal species are eusocial. Most
are social insects. All eusocial species are the most biologically successful
animal species on earth. They are all only similar by analogy (same func-
tion but different evolutionary origin), which can be a source of knowl-
edge (Lorenz (1974). Of the forty thousand vertebrate species, only three
(0.0075 percent) are eusocial. Human beings, if eusociality includes loosely
defined eusociality, are one of the three (Wilson 2012). The other two are
rather “odd” but interesting (Bennett and Faulks 2000). Only one of the
three has religion and speech. Since speech generates religion-specific belief-
word-prefaced propositions, the relationship among human religion, speech
and eusociality is important.
The mostly agreed-on loosely defined criteria for eusociality require mul-
tiple generations living together, the cooperative care of young, the defense
of a home locale and a division of labor. For the more strictly defined cri-
teria, the division of labor includes a (sometimes reversible) reproductively
suppressed cast in either sex, producing what is called reproductive skew
(Hager and Jones 2009). In eusocial species, (almost) all members act as
though they put the welfare and survival of their in-group breeding popula-
tion (how all religions start) above that of themselves. The word “(almost)”
refers to the rare exceptions: non-eusocial human psychopaths and socio-
paths (Kielh 2014).
Eusociality is a quantitative dimension of sociality with lots of intermedi-
ate species. Today, human beings in the industrialized, educated, wealthy
democracies easily meet the loosely defined criteria (Nowak and Highfield
2011; Wilson 2012). Religious celibates, homosexuals, transsexuals, asexu-
als, post-menopausal grandmothers, and the 20 to 30% of mostly secular-
ized, educated, middle-age women in many of these nations who have never
had a child (irrespective of their self-reported reasons why), can all be con-
sidered reproductively suppressed by analogous mechanisms. They are all
harbingers of an evolving, non-reproductive “worker caste” in our species.
Comparison of genetic variation on the X (female) and Y (male) chro-
mosomes throughout most of human history (which means mostly hunter-­
gatherer history) shows that about two to three women reproduced for
every man who reproduced, with some temporal and geographic variation
(Lippold et al. 2014). However, just after the advent of agriculture (about
eight thousand years ago) in out-of-Africa human populations and also with
some geographic variation, DNA studies show a genetic bottleneck, the
interpretation of which is that for every 17 women who reproduced, only
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 43
one man reproduced (Karmin et al. 2015). In many ancient ­civilizations –
e.g., the Roman Empire, the Near East, Egypt, India and China – the repro-
ductive skew was so high for males that human beings came close to being
a strict eusocial species (Betzig, this volume). Socially imposed monogamy,
starting around the time of Christ in the Judeo-Christian world, slowly
started lowering male reproductive skew over the centuries, where high skew
means a relatively small number of individuals (of either sex) are breeders
in a population (Hager and Jones 2009). Today, male reproductive skew
is still relatively higher in polygynous societies, such as in the Islamic world,
and in many tribal societies.
All human societies are not equally eusocial. There is more division of
labor in advanced technological societies than in hunter-gather bands or
tribal societies. Supporting religion’s relationship to human eusociality
(Feierman 2016a), shamans were one of the first within-gender specialists
in hunter-gather and tribal societies (Sanderson 2018; Winkelman 2013).
There are two different (and academically contentious) bookkeeping meth-
ods to account for how eusociality can evolve: kin selection (nepotism) and
multilevel (group and individual) selection (Wilson 2016). This chapter uses
the latter.

In-groups and out-groups

Eusociality requires that there be in-groups and out-groups as well as in-
group favoritism, which started as nepotism, then became tribalism and
today is nationalism. Individuals in any eusocial society must be able to
recognize one another, if not as individuals then at least as members of
their in-group breeding population. Think of large armies with their in-
group marking, nation-identifying uniforms. All eusocial species have in-
group markers. Eusocial ants use pheromones. Eusocial humans use facial
features, language, non-foreign accent, dialect, clothing, hairstyle, jewelry,
customs, rituals, religion-specific beliefs, prayer postures (Feierman 2009b)
and other things. Biologically arbitrary symbolic markers, such as religion-
specific beliefs, can evolve as in-group markers through their functional
facilitation of in-group favoritism (Efferson et al. 2008).

The human paralimbic system, eusociality and psychopathy

and sociopathy
Behavioral, cognitive and affective changes associated with acquired lesions
in various parts of the human brain’s paralimbic system appear to mimic
aspects of psychopathy and sociopathy, a human phenotype (interaction of
genes and environment) that is incompatible with eusociality. Psychopaths
and sociopaths always put themselves first. True psychopaths and socio-
paths, who account for a few percent of all human populations (Kiehl 2006;
2014), do not have observable neuropathology to date (with our current
44  Jay R Feierman
technology) in their paralimbic system. They are thought to be evolved,
frequency-dependent, uncooperative defectors who are prone to immoral,
volitional deception (Harpending and Sobus 1987; Mealey 1995). They can
evolve only by natural selection when the phenotype is rare, which is what
“frequency dependent” means.
Psychopathy and sociopathy (Hare 2003) are related to antisocial personal-
ity disorder (DSM-V 2014), which adds unlawful behavior. Through reverse
engineering, the human paralimbic system, when functioning normally and not
showing the dysfunctional features associated with psychopathy and sociopa-
thy, is a good candidate, in a broad sense, for being one of the parts of the
human brain that are associated with eusocial-facilitating in-group-­favoring,
cooperative, altruistic, love-your-neighbor behaviors (Feierman 2018).
The paralimbic system includes the orbital frontal cortex, insula, anterior
and posterior cingulate, amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus and anterior
superior temporal gyrus. As reviewed in more detail in Kiehl (2006), lesions
in the human orbital frontal cortex and adjacent regions have been associ-
ated with impulsivity, irresponsibility, stimulation-seeking behavior, lack of
empathy, superficial charm, pathological lying and grandiosity. Lesions in
the human anterior cingulate have been associated with problems of pain
perception, affect regulation, response conflict, emotional unconcern, hos-
tility, irresponsibility, disagreeableness, perseveration, difficulty in affective
face and voice identification, error monitoring and response inhibition.
Lesions in the temporal lobe are often difficult to separate from damage
to tracts passing through to the amygdala, which is involved in emotions,
especially fear, and extracting emotional salience from linguistic stimuli and
processing distress cues.
On functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, psychopaths
and sociopaths do not show the normal pattern of differentiation between
affective and neutral stimuli in parts of the paralimbic system (Kiehl et al.
2001). Apart from the paralimbic system, event-related potential (ERP) dif-
ferences the fronto-central part of the brain to specific stimuli have been
interpreted by Kiehl (2006) as an electrophysiological “signature” of psy-
chopaths and sociopaths.

How beliefs (in general) could have evolved

When beliefs evolved by natural selection in the earliest vertebrates hun-
dreds of millions of years ago, the adaptation-collecting positive selection
pressures would have been on the beliefs themselves. The beliefs would be
the biological conceptualized (see the earlier definition of religion-specific
beliefs) rather than the intellectualist and philosophical human conceptu-
alized of “that which is held to be true.” Beliefs in the earliest vertebrates
would include their constitutive, species-universal-in-form fixed (or coor-
dinated or modal) action pattern behaviors in response to species-familiar,
specific environmental “releasing stimuli.”
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 45
The beliefs of the earliest vertebrates are another way of characterizing
“instincts” (Tinbergen 1951), as in the following example of the amphibi-
ous toad (Ewert 1980). The toad’s behavior can be interpreted as though
it believes that a small, moving, fly-sized object on a leaf (or a computer
screen) in front of it is edible food. In what can be interpreted as the pro-
cesses of believing, it orients toward the fly-like object and then flicks its
tongue to retrieve the object. The neural machinery used in what can be
interpreted as these processes of believing in the toad is similar only by anal-
ogy (Lorenz 1974) to the neural machinery used in human religion-specific
believing processes.
The processes of believing, where heritable belief-constitutive behav-
iors were biased in a probabilistically predictable way in response to
species-familiar environmental releasing stimuli, removed the need for
each species to evolve metabolically costly decision-making neural struc-
tures for each decisional instance. In humans, where things are more
complex, beliefs, often acquired culturally by social learning, can turn
slow contemplative thinking – which monopolizes valuable energy, time
and attention – into faster, more impulsive thinking when needed (Kah-
neman 2011).

How religion-specific beliefs could have evolved

Apart from our original kinship ties, in-group favoritism (a part of tribal-
ism) first appears developmentally in children at around age five (Plötner
et al. 2015) and is influenced by gene-culture coevolved factors (Lewis and
Bates 2017). Religion-specific mythical stories and beliefs, when repeated
through vocal discourse in collective religion-specific rhythmic rituals, are
thought to be associated with endorphin-mediated (Dunbar 2017) and
­oxytocin-mediated, (Bartz et al. 2011) primitive primate “troop-bonding”
(i.e., tribalism) emotions to which adolescents are developmentally vulner-
able (Alcorta and Sosis 2005).
Specific spoken or written religion-specific belief-word-prefaced propo-
sitions signal in-group identity, which is also signaled by religion-specific
ritual behaviors (Rappaport 1999). Belonging to an in-group, which, again
for emphasis, stems from tribalism, is essential for survival. As a result,
religion-specific belief-word-prefaced propositions, once acquired, are
­
resistant to being changed by outside forces. Religious fundamentalists in
all the Abrahamic faiths defend their religion’s putative absolute truths with
the same passion that combat war veterans show when defending the honor
of their nation’s flag.
Religion-specific spoken or written words, such as [I believe] “Jesus died
for our sins,” are acquired by conformity and prestige bias in the context of
social networking (Stark 2007). Religion-specific beliefs appear to be main-
tained by the strong emotional need to belong to, or at least not be rejected
from, a social in-group breeding population (Lin et al. 2018).
46  Jay R Feierman
The religious arms race
Among religious fundamentalists in all three of the major Abrahamic
faiths, it is a strongly stated belief that their religion is winning (longevity
or current membership or current growth rate) by being the guardian and
purveyor of the most absolute religious truths, even though a few of the
putative “absolute truths” are shared across sects, branches, denominations
and even religions. This impossibility has to be the result of a self-deceptive
cognitive illusion, similar the Muller-Lyer optical illusion where someone
believes that one of two parallel lines of the same length to be longer (i.e.,
“truer”) or like the 90 percent of university professors who believe that they
are better than average teachers.
Geography accounts for most of the variance in what attracts someone
to a specific religion. If a Christian fundamentalist takes the position that
“winning” is based on the most absolute truths, they will have to con-
cede that there could be more absolute truths in Islam than in Christianity.
Pew Research Center data (2015, 2017) have shown that Islam, although
currently a few percentage points lower in total worldwide members than
Christianity, is the fastest-growing doctrinal religion in the world today
and is expected to exceed Christianity in total members over the next few
decades.
Members of any specific religion could argue that that “winning” is
achieved by attracting members to their religion, where they will have a
better quality of life, more peaceful relations and greater personal develop-
ment. Irrespective of what mechanisms members say attract people not born
into their religion to join it, “winning” is also aided by higher procreation
rates among existing members. For a good discussion of how a specific reli-
gion achieves measurable means for “winning,” see Stark (2007). Among
the three major Abrahamic faiths at the present time, Judaism (at only
0.2 percent of the world’s population but 41 percent of the Nobel Prizes in
economics, 28 percent of those in medicine and 26 percent of those in phys-
ics) wins on longevity and relative cultural contributions, Christianity on
current members and Islam on the current relative rate of growth. They can
all believe they are winners onto themselves, at least for now.

Religious, population-separating mechanisms

Gene-culture coevolution generated variation in functionally similar
­religion-specific forms within the entire world human population allows
natural selection to facilitate the evolution of discriminate sociality that can
be modeled to simulate the spread of culturally transmitted traits (Ihara
2011). Although there have been exceptions in various historical times for
men, as in diasporas and especially for warriors, the discriminate-main-
taining barriers to gene flow between specific religions (i.e., “marry within
the faith”), especially for women, cluster humans into separated in-group
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 47
breeding populations. They can be breached only through strong emotion
(e.g., fear or love), primarily associated with the need to belong, or at least
not be left out of, an in-group breeding population, one’s religion or tribe.
Religious density (religions/area) increases in parts of the world in which
having the population more structured would be adaptive, given that the
most religion-dense areas of the world have the most contagious diseases
(Fincher and Thornhill 2008). This finding supports that one of the ultimate
evolutionary-biological functions of all religion-specific forms (including
beliefs) was structuring human breeding populations. Population structur-
ing by religion not only applied to pre–Axial Age (8th to 3rd century bce)
tribal religions. It allowed Jews to have much fewer plague deaths than
Christians in 14th-century Europe.

The maintenance of the unsolvable paradox

EO Wilson’s (1978, 171) famous aphorism, “Men, it appears, would
rather believe than know,” applies to the biological evolution of religion-
specific beliefs. See also Brockman (2006). The unsolvable paradox of
conflicting and mutually exclusive putative absolute truths across specific
religions, which generates the variation in form for the same function
and on which natural selection acts, is routinely maintained by religious
fundamentalists.
The author could not find evidence in the traditional, denomination-
affiliated theology literature of using an alternative to the unsolvable para-
dox by simply changing absolute truth to relative truth. If it were adaptive
within multilevel selection for a specific religion to do this, it would be com-
mon, which it is not. Only two modern religions known to the author have
accepted the beliefs of other religions and also lowered the interreligious
gene flow barrier – Bahá’í and Unitarian-Universalists (also a rare exception
to “religions don’t grow by merging,” which they did in 1961).
Denomination-affiliated theologians can be cordial and conciliatory
among themselves out of necessity, given that they know what other reli-
gions believe. They can each talk about the “conditional truth status” in
their respective religion (Lluis Oviedo, personal communication) while
thinking to themselves that their religion’s conditional truths are more likely
to be absolutely true. A  religious leader can preach using an unqualified
truth, “We are convinced of the truth [absolute or relative not specified]
and try to be faithful to it, respecting other faiths” (Lluis Oviedo, personal
communication). Or, theologians can use non-universally agreed-on (across
religions) definitions of “truth” (Depoortere et  al. 2012). None of these
tactics really resolve the unsolvable paradox or change assortative mating
by religion or “marrying within the faith,” which is how religion structures
populations and facilitates human eusociality.
The mundane copying of non-reproductive-related behaviors from
other people’s religions, such as Christians practicing yoga or Jews giving
48  Jay R Feierman
Christmas presents, makes no more of a difference biologically to the evolu-
tion of religion-specific beliefs than when a Christian European eats lunch
in a Buddhist Chinese restaurant.

The double-edged sword

As a general biological principle, when resources are limited, in-group
breeding populations of the same species with limited gene flow between
them, which is a good characterization of different religions, compete for
resources. If a specific in-group breeding population/religion (e.g., Islam) is
successful in relative growth today, the religion-specific in-group markers
(e.g., “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah”) will increase through gene-
culture coevolution by natural selection in our species, which is occurring.
In the wealthy, well-educated, industrialized democracies, Judaism and
Christianity are losing members north of the equator and in Australia and
New Zealand, primarily through smaller family sizes and secularization,
and among non-Orthodox Jews, primarily through high rates of interfaith
marriage. Yet these two religions, plus Islam, through the facilitation of bio-
logically adaptive, in-group-favoring human eusociality (Feierman 2016a),
have contributed in a positive way to us as being the exceptional species we
are today. But for some, eusociality has come at a terrible cost, given that to
have winners, there must also be losers.
Religion, as social institutions, has always been a double-edged sword
with the good – charity, cooperation, altruism and credo consolans – occur-
ring within specific religions and the potentially bad – the Holocaust and
other religious/ethnic cleansings, warfare and terrorism – occurring between
them. We cannot salvage the good parts of religion until, using an iceberg
metaphor, we understand more about what has necessarily been self-­
deceptively hidden from all of us under the water.
Interreligious conflict is dangerously dividing our current world, which
some historians have even called the beginning of World War III. In the pro-
cess of understanding the evolutionary biology of religion-specific beliefs,
this chapter has indirectly given some evolutionary biology–based insights
into how and why interreligious conflict is being maintained. From a purely
evolutionary biology perspective, the solution for reducing interreligious
conflict is simple. We need to expand our sense of the tribal in-group (Kazen
2018). That can be done only if we (literally) make love, not war. The heart
can be stronger than the sword.

Discussion
One criticism of the chapter could be that cultural variations in religion-
specific beliefs are “guided” by sentient beings and not randomly produced
like genetic mutations, making the cultural variations more Lamarkian
(inheritance of acquired characteristics) than Darwinian (evolved by natural
 Religion-Specific Beliefs and Conflict 49
selection). Irrespective of how the variations are produced (whether they are
“guided” or random), the powerful effect of directional natural selection
makes almost moot the manner in which the variation is generated. This is
especially true if the “guided” variations, most of which are derived from
religious mythical stories, are arbitrary, given that what they do trumps
what they are.
Another criticism could be that cultural forms of religion-specific beliefs
do not have the genetic equivalents of genotypes and phenotypes (interac-
tion of genotypes with specific environments). However, the construction
instructions for phenotypic religious forms (e.g., how to say the Roman
Catholic Mass) can be analogous to genotypes.
For the criticism that “cultural contents,” like the semantic contents of
a religion-specific belief-word-prefaced proposition, are not screened from
changes “on the job” like genes, I suggest seeing if there is any screening
process that occurs when one says, “I believe Jesus is the Son of God” in
front of a mosque in Saudi Arabia.
To the criticism that there might be drift phenomena in culture, though
(as there is no genome) no genetic drift, I counter by arguing that random
errors in the culturally acquired instructions for how to tell orally transmit-
ted religious myths or perform a religious ritual are culturally analogous to
the genetic drift of the genome.
To the criticism that cultural selection of religion-specific beliefs does not
involve sequestration of inherited information, distinction between pheno-
types and genotypes, one simply need look at religion-specific differences in
what has evolved through selection (e.g., female priests and bishops).
To the criticism that natural selection is also a means by which religion-
specific variation acquired over a lifetime is discarded does not apply to
religious cultural transmission, one need only look at how many Roman
Catholics today ignore and don’t teach to their children much of what is in
Papal Encyclicals (e.g., Humanae Vitae).
There is no need to defend the lack of mention of religious forms emerging
from cognitive evolution rather than by gene-culture coevolution by natural
selection of the “physical” religious forms themselves. Cognitive evolution
as a cause of religious evolution was never considered in this chapter. It is
currently a well-respected and subscribed competing paradigm in the Kuh-
nian sense for religion’s evolution.

Summary
From an evolutionary biology perspective, a “physical” religion-specific
belief can evolve by natural selection by being, among other things, an in-
group marker for a human breeding population, which is how all specific
religions start. A religion-specific belief in a eusocial human breeding popu-
lation is analogous to a pheromone in a eusocial ant colony. They both
function as in-group markers.
50  Jay R Feierman
For a religion-specific belief to be effective as an in-group marker that
maintains the clustering of religion-specific in-group breeding populations,
it has to have at least one function in common and be incompatible and
mutually exclusive in form for that function with its counterparts in other
specific religions. Variation is required for natural selection to act, and this
chapter discussed how this is accomplished.
Given what is known about the differences in the human paralimbic sys-
tem between most of us and the few percent of all human populations who
are non-eusocial psychopaths and sociopaths, the “anatomical location not
yet specified” a few years ago (Feierman 2016b) that facilitates our eusoci-
ality can be better specified as most likely coming from our brain’s widely
distributed paralimbic system. When functioning well, it has contributed to
making us the in-group-favoring, exceptional eusocial species that we are,
albeit at a cost – so exceptional that 2,500 years ago, the ancient Israelites
believed that we were “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26–27). Per-
haps we are (Feierman 2012). And if we are (Feierman 2018), we can try to
influence where we go from here.

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3 Sex and the Evolution
of Spirituality
Daniel Cohen

Introduction
This chapter argues that certain neurophysiological mechanisms of human
sexuality may have provided a foundation for the evolutionary development
of the human capacity for potent experiences of spiritual transcendence,
an idea that has been proposed before (Newberg et al. 2001). In this chap-
ter, I develop this idea more specifically, arguing for a possible connection
between the neurophysiological mechanisms of orgasm and the capacity for
experiences of spiritual transcendence.
Notably, others have argued that female orgasm in particular is simply
an evolutionary by-product and just a matter of shared ontology between
females and males, similar to nipples on mammalian males. However, more
recent research is showing that this interpretation should be reconsidered, at
least in humans, for reasons related directly to sexual bonding and mating
(Puts et al. 2012). Mating is essential in all sexually reproducing species for
evolutionary survival. This chapter proposes that certain aspects of the neu-
ral architecture that enables humans to experience orgasms also created the
capacity for profound experiences of spiritual transcendence as a secondary
(i.e., by-product) adaptation, called an exaptation.
These transcendent experiences are connected, at least in part, to the tem-
porary eradication or loss of certain aspects of the neuropsychologically
mediated sense of self. This loss of self led to the capacity for spiritual tran-
scendence. It may have provided some of the important foundations for the
development of religion. Potent experiences of spiritual transcendence may
include a sensation of unity with nature, the feeling of a special connection
with the cosmos, an awareness of divine or higher powers or the perception
of God (Hick 2004).
To explicate the connection between orgasm and spirituality, which
I  acknowledge as a delicate topic, I  will explore data on the neurophysi-
ological and neurobiological aspects of human sexuality; in the final section
of the chapter, I will propose that the evolution of human sexuality not only
could have facilitated the development of human spirituality via transcend-
ent experiences but more broadly may have been an important factor in the
development of human systems of religion.
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 55
The Autonomic Nervous System and Finding
a Sexual Partner
Animal sexuality involves appetitive and consummatory sequences that
are identifiable separately in neuroscience research (Porges 1998). In other
words, related but different neuropsychic, neurophysiological, and physi-
ological processes occur in sexual behaviors, including the processes of
mate attraction, the potential for physical bonding between sexual part-
ners, sexual arousal and intensified sexual activity, and orgasm (at least
for males).
In attracting a sexual mating partner, the first concern for any individ-
ual is to stay alive. However, often in courting activities, individual self-­
protective behaviors must be relaxed for sexual contact to occur. The
sympathetic aspect of the autonomic nervous system is in play here, and fear
or fright may lead to overt aggression or a hearty retreat (i.e., the fight or
flight response). One must overcome the cautious default of self-protective
behaviors to enable physical and social contact (see Karos 2009, 159–160).
But letting one’s guard down is potentially dangerous, revealing the tension
between individual survival and the evolutionary requirement to perpetuate
the breeding population. For mating to occur, an important set of neuro-
physiological mechanisms need to be and are operating, in particular the
dorsal and the ventral vagal complexes of the parasympathetic side of the
autonomic nervous system. According to the polyvagal theory posited by
Porges, these neural complexes are two functionally distinct branches of the
vagus (tenth) cranial nerve. Importantly, these two components of the vagal
neurophysiological complex operate separately.
The dorsal vagal complex is phylogenetically much older (Porges 1997)
and comprises a more primitive unmyelinated (i.e., slower) system of nerves
that foster digestion and respond to threats by reducing cardiac output,
eliciting behaviors associated with immobilization, which can include feign-
ing death. However, at any moment, the sympathetic side of the autonomic
nervous system can rapidly inhibit the dorsal vagal system, allowing an
organism to engage fight or flight behaviors.
The ventral portion of the vagal complex is phylogenetically more recent
and myelinated (i.e., faster) and is unique to mammals. Without having to
engage the sympathetic-adrenal system, the ventral vagus complex can facil-
itate rapid mobilization (fight/flight responses) in times of stress with much
less biological cost then a full autonomic nervous system response. This is
why Porges (1998) divides the vagal-parasympathetic nervous system into
two separate components, both structurally and functionally. The phyloge-
netically newer ventral vagal complex provides a more complex neurophysi-
ological basis for mammalian courting behaviors, signaling availability and
facilitating proximity with a potential sexual partner. According to Karo
(2009), despite the need for self-protective responses, transcending such
default states may be related to the evolutionary underpinnings for orgasm
(not simply ejaculation) and mystical states of consciousness.
56  Daniel Cohen
Sexual Arousal and Orgasm in Humans
Sexual arousal shows both similarities and differences in men and women,
neurophysiologically. According to Georgiadis and colleagues (2009), with
genital tactile stimulation, both men and women show deactivation in the
right amygdala and left fusiform gyrus, suggesting that fear and aggression
responses of the autonomic nervous system are lowered; word and facial rec-
ognition is reduced as well. During sexual arousal, women showed greater
activity in the left fronto-parietal and posterior parietal cortex, indicating
significant motor and somatosensory input. Men showed stronger responses
in the left claustrum and ventral occipito-temporal areas, perhaps to better
integrate different modalities (which may reflect a form of increased male
sensitivity to the physical needs of their sexual partner). Amygdala deac-
tivation in both sexes is likely important in lowering fear and heightening
trust in one’s partner, but research is not consistent here, in that some stud-
ies have shown increases rather than decreases in amygdala activity during
sexual arousal (Stoleru et al. 2012). As Stoleru and colleagues suggest, this
may be related to the different roles of the amygdala in how it responds to
emotional reactions versus reward processing, including sex, food and drug
incentives.
Based on a variety of studies (see Suffren et  al. 2011 for references),
autonomic discrepancies during sex may be reconcilable as it appears that
the amygdalae may be involved in both sexual arousal and sexual release
(orgasm) but that its roles in these different aspects of sexuality are lateral-
ized, involving opposite brain hemispheres and variant timings of activation
or inactivation. Interestingly, varying deactivations of the amygdala have
been reported during genital/tactile stimulation, relative to the no-sex rest-
ing state, but they show no further deactivation during orgasm in either
women or men (Georgiadis et al. 2009).
Relevant here are the strong neurophysiological similarities reported
for both sexes during orgasm, in contrast to what occurs in the phases
of sexual and genital stimulation that precede orgasm. During orgasm,
both sexes show a profound deactivation of the anterior orbitofrontal
cortex (Georgiadis et  al. 2009), turning off decision-making processes,
which may help lead to immersion in the experience of orgasm. Nota-
bly, lesions to this part of the brain are known to promote disinhibited
behaviors (preceded by poor decision-making) and hyper-sexuality. The
strong similarities among neurophysiological responses seen in women
and men during orgasm (than occurs in sexual arousal) fit well with
older sexological research, which showed that the written orgasm expe-
riences of men and women were difficult to segregate when reviewed by
gynecologists, medical students and psychologists (Vance and Wagner
1976). In other words, male and female descriptions of orgasm were
found to be nearly indistinguishable (except for references to dimorphic
sexual structures, such as genitalia).
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 57
Electroencephalogram and Orgasm
An early electroencephalogram (EEG) study by Cohen and colleagues (1976)
on self-stimulated orgasms found that both men and women exhibited a
strong visible change in brainwave amplitudes that was lateralized. Dur-
ing orgasm, left parietal brainwave activity remained unchanged and was
similar to baseline measurements – that is, alpha wave or relaxation mode
with full awareness. In contrast, in both men and women, right parietal
brainwaves showed a substantial jump in amplitudes at orgasm going from
baseline alpha waves to delta waves typically associated with slow-wave
sleep, but these conditions do not preclude awareness of what one is feeling.
This rapid change in brainwave amplitudes during orgasm was seen in
the right parietal lobe specifically, which is where important parts of our
neuropsychological sense of self are located, such as a detailed map of the
body schema, and it may indicate some form of loss of self-awareness of the
body during orgasm. In the EEG study by Cohen and colleagues, when some
of the female research subjects produced “fake” orgasms, these lateralized
EEG brainwave changes were not observed. Similar results of alpha wave
changes have been found in later studies with women who had orgasms
versus those who faked orgasm where measures of rectal pressure (signals)
were also included to verify orgasm occurrences (van Netten et al. 2008).

Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Orgasm

Functional imaging studies of visual forms of sexual stimulation have been
found to identify participants’ sexual preferences correctly on the basis of
neurophysiological reactions to gender-specific materials presented (Hu et al.
2008; Paul et al. 2008; Safron et al. 2007). Additionally, studies involving
visual sexual stimulation in males and females have shown no significant
differences in areas of brain activation or deactivation between homosexu-
als and heterosexuals (see Georgiadis et al. 2012 for additional references).
While not much research has occurred on gender, sexual orientation or gen-
der identity in terms of orgasm, in studies where an occasional individual
self-identified as gay or lesbian, no significant differences in brain activity
were detected during orgasm when compared to heterosexual counterparts.

Epilepsy and Orgasm

Functional imagining and EEG studies of healthy individuals during sexual
activity show bilateral activations in various cerebral regions, and particu-
larly in the temporal lobe (see Suffren et al. 2011 for references). But among
some people with lesion-caused epilepsy, there is a distinction between the
occurrence of hyper-sexuality and ictal (i.e., seizure-related) orgasm that
clearly indicates that these differences are related to different right and left
hemispheric lateralization.
58  Daniel Cohen
After a lesion has occurred, hyper-sexual behaviors appear to be a left-
hemisphere-dominant occurrence, whereas seizure-related orgasms are
right-hemisphere-dominant occurrences. Interestingly, orgasmic auras
caused by epileptic seizures are not always experienced as genital sensa-
tions (Komisaruk and Whipple 2005), although they still resemble normal
sexual climax experiences described specifically as the subjective feeling of
an orgasm, whether occurring either during a pre-seizure aura or at the
beginning of a seizure episode (Suffren et al. 2011). In a review of a large
number of published reports, Suffren and colleagues (2011) found that
­seizure-related orgasms were significantly more frequent with right hemi-
sphere seizure foci (i.e., the seizure point of origin).
A small but consistent subset of people with epilepsy describe having
ecstatic experiences related to their seizures that produce heightened self-
awareness and a feeling of union with the world or cosmos, as the divi-
sion between their self as subject and their surroundings breaks down (see
Gschwind and Picard 2016). Thus, despite being described at times as a
heightened self-awareness, such seizures may involve a loss of the everyday
sense of self and are sometimes described as experiences of profound tran-
scendence that can seem akin to sexual ecstasy. One person with epilepsy
distinguished sexual from seizure-related orgasmic feelings:

Maybe the closest sensation that I  know would be orgasm, but what
I felt was not at all sexual. I have no religious feeling, but it was almost
religious.
(quoted in Gschwind and Picard 2016, 2)

While orgasm is typically connected to sexuality, in people with epilepsy it

appears to engender a profound experience that goes beyond the physically
pleasurable sensual experiences associated with sex.

Neurophysiology, Sex and the Self

Before examining more of the possible connections between orgasm and
spiritual experience, it is important to look at research on the relationship
between the neuropeptide oxytocin and self-referential processing, to explore
certain aspects of how the brain processes the sense of self. In an important
study by Liu and colleagues (2013) that involved the intranasal adminis-
tration of oxytocin versus placebo administration, oxytocin was found to
significantly weaken self-referential processing. Self-versus-other processing
was strongly affected by oxytocin administration: The right parietal lobe
showed maximal deactivation in the loss of self-referential processing.
This is significant because the right hemisphere, and especially the right
parietal lobe, has been found to be strongly associated with many impor-
tant aspects of the sense of self (e.g., body schema). Additionally, many
neurophysiological studies have shown that self-recognition (in contrast to
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 59
recognizing others) is tied to the right parietal lobe (e.g., Devue and Brédart
2011; Decety and Moriguchi 2007; Feinberg and Keenan 2005; Decety and
Sommerville 2003). Furthermore, many neurological disorders of the self
have been mapped to injuries and lesions in the right parietal lobe. The right
parietal lobe is associated with “self-orientation” and injury, or decreased
functioning of the right parietal lobe leads to a decreased sense of the neu-
ropsychic or cognitive self (or increased “selflessness”), and it has been asso-
ciated with a stronger sense of spirituality and transcendence (Johnstone
et al. 2012, 2017; Johnstone and Glass 2008).
While the neurophysiological data on orgasm do not entirely support the
importance of the model of selflessness proposed here, comparing differ-
ent brain activations and deactivations in men and women during sexual
genital stimulation (in contrast to orgasm) reveals some important differ-
ences. Men’s and women’s neurophysiological responses are similar during
orgasm, in stark contrast to the significant neurophysiological differences
that are observed in regional brain functioning during the arousal and
plateau phases that precede orgasm (see Georgiadis et  al. 2009, table  1).
The relative changes in parietal lobe activity in both sexes during the pre-­
orgasmic neurophysiological responses are different from what occurs in
the brain during orgasm, where activity becomes similar. Georgiadis and
colleagues (2012) have found that before orgasm, the parietal lobes show
continually increased activations in one or more regions in men and women.
This is not surprising, because the parietal lobe is strongly connected to
body-related sensory and proprioceptive input and undoubtedly responds to
sensuality: the significant sensory input often associated with sexual activ-
ity. But at orgasm (and immediately post-orgasm), this parietal neural activ-
ity suddenly quiets down (Georgiadis et al. 2012, table 1).
The reduction of neurophysiological activity in the parietal and midline
frontal regions at orgasm represents a significant reduction in the immediate
sense of the self. This loss of the sense of self is bolstered by the release of
oxytocin and may also be connected to feelings of unity with one’s sexual
partner that may occur at orgasm and during the satiety or post-orgasmic
refractory period. Thus, orgasmic deactivation of the self/other distinction
may be neurophenomenologically related to what occurs in experiences of
spiritual transcendence that involve loss of the sense of self (i.e., heightened
selflessness).

Oxytocin and Spirituality

Not only does oxytocin promote reduced self-focus, but also the oxytocin
system seems to be critically involved in social bonding. Oxytocin appears
to increase a positive focus on others (Bartz et al. 2011), enhances overall
altruism (Israel et al. 2012) and increases empathy (Shamay-Tsoory et al.
2013). Recent research suggests that it also has influences on spirituality (Van
Cappellen et al. 2016). Spirituality here implies a special sense of connection
60  Daniel Cohen
with nature, the cosmos or a higher power. In this regard, profound feelings
and sensations of relatedness or interconnectedness often help confer belief
in the meaning or purpose of life, and such views, although highly varied
and multifaceted, are expressed by millions of people from a multitude of
religious (and even nonreligious) viewpoints.
Oxytocin is a polypeptide synthesized in the hypothalamus in the brain.
In women, stimulation of the vagino-cervix, as well as physical stimulation
of the nipples, causes the release of oxytocin. These effects are important in
mother-infant bonding during breastfeeding and also connected to the stim-
ulation of the smooth muscles of the uterus for inducing powerful contrac-
tions during childbirth. Reduced levels of experienced pain are obviously
relevant in childbirth, and increased oxytocin levels have also been found
to be associated with other forms of pain relief (Tracy et al. 2015; Xin et al.
2017). Additional effects have recently been found in both men and women.
Oxytocin concentrations can be measured by analyzing blood plasma or
saliva. Research on the relationship between oxytocin levels and spirituality
have been conducted using both of these (endogenous) sampling methods
(Kelsch et al. 2013; Holbrook et al. 2015). Other research has used intra-
nasal (exogenous) applications of oxytocin to study its potential effects on
spiritual dispositions (Van Cappellen et al. 2016). Collectively, all of these
studies have found a strong correlation between higher levels of oxytocin
and increases in spirituality measured through a variety of validated sub-
jective self-report measures (e.g., Ironson-Woods Spirituality/Religiousness
Index; Piedmont’s Spiritual Transcendence Scale). Importantly, in one study,
after the intranasal administration of oxytocin, these effects remained sig-
nificant even one week later, suggesting that the spiritual experiences engen-
dered were deeply embedded and left lasting impressions.
These studies used control subjects, placebos and double-blind testing
when methodologically suitable. Even when controlling for possible outside
(cultural) influences, such as participant’s involvement in organized religion,
studies measuring either the endogenous (internally produced) or the exog-
enous (externally administered) effects of oxytocin were consistent. Partici-
pants reported significantly higher levels of spirituality.

Oxytocin and Orgasm

The relationship between increased oxytocin levels and spirituality are also
relevant to the research on male and female orgasm. Significant oxytocin
release has been found to occur in both sexes during orgasm, which suggests
that exploring the link between spirituality and orgasm may be produc-
tive in identifying causally related factors. Interestingly, orgasm for both
sexes is neurophysiologically similar, in contrast to what is observed during
pair linking, sexual arousal and intense sexual activity, even when based
on visual (nonphysical) or imaginary (nonvisual) stimuli. In other words,
“differential brain responses across genders [i.e., the sexes] are principally
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 61
related to the stimulatory (plateau) phase and not to the orgasmic phase
itself” (Georgiadis et  al. 2009, 1), where men and women show similar
neurophysiological activity.
During orgasm, oxytocin (and vasopressin) are discharged into the
blood stream in high concentrations (Zeki 2007; see also the refer-
ences in Komisaruk and Whipple 2005). Oxytocin (and vasopressin) are
­hypothalamus-produced neuromodulators that are stored in the posterior
pituitary gland. A question that has arisen is whether oxytocin itself directly
influences the brain during orgasm. Oxytocin secreted from the posterior
pituitary gland cannot reenter the brain, because of the blood brain barrier.
However, it is thought that centrally projecting oxytocin neurons, different
from the ones projecting to the pituitary, are active during orgasm (Magon
and Kalra 2011). Additionally, studies have shown the hypothalamic acti-
vation of the paraventricular nucleus, which produces oxytocin during but
not before orgasm (Komisaruk et al. 2004). Although some studies have not
found evidence of hypothalamic activity during orgasm (Georgiadis et  al.
2006), most evidence points to its association.
Interestingly, Komisaruk and Whipple (2005) found, much to their sur-
prise, that women with complete spinal cord injuries at or above T10 (and
as high as T7) were able to experience vaginocervical stimulation via the
vagus nerve and have orgasms. Using fMRI, they regularly found strong
activation in the lower brainstem, forebrain and cerebellum in these women
during the women’s orgasms. Similar to other studies, neocortical and exec-
utive regions of the brain appear to have been much less involved. They also
saw activation in portions of the hypothalamus during orgasm, suggesting
the release of oxytocin during but not before orgasm, a result that has also
been found in studies of non-injured individuals.
Overall, the effect of releasing significant amounts of oxytocin that affect
areas of the brain during orgasm is becoming increasingly established
(Komisaruk and Whipple 2005; Blaicher et  al. 1999; Carmichael et  al.
1994, 1987), suggesting a direct effect of oxytocin on the brain related to
the perceptual experience of orgasm.

Oxytocin and Reward Centers in the Brain

Another commonality between the two sexes seen in brain function during
orgasm is a profound deactivation of certain regions of the prefrontal cor-
tex. Georgiadis and colleagues (2007), calling their prior published results
(Holstege et  al. 2003) on the neurophysiological aspects of male orgasm
“artifactual,” corrected their earlier analyses and found deactivations
throughout the prefrontal cortex and to a lesser extent deactivation in the
(left) posterior parietal cortex associated with male ejaculation. Extending
their earlier research, Georgiadis and colleagues (2009) later found strong
deactivation in the anterior part of the orbitofrontal cortex, thought to be
involved in turning off decision-making processes in both men and women
62  Daniel Cohen
during orgasm, which may help lead to immersion in the experience of
orgasm. During pre-orgasmic sexual activity, such as genital stimulation,
these areas of the prefrontal cortex were often seen to be highly active. These
neurophysiological differences between orgasm and pre-orgasmic states
may be related to both sexual decision-making and to how pleasure works
in the brain. Notably, lesions to this part of the brain have been known
to promote disinhibited behaviors (preceded by poor decision-­making) and
hyper-sexuality (Baird et al. 2006).
Significantly, “gender commonalities dominate the picture for
orgasm. . . [and] orgasmic experience is largely similar for both gender [i.e.,
sexual] groups” (Georgiadis et  al. 2009, 9). Thus, men and women may
follow different neurophysiological functional paths in getting to orgasm,
but once past the plateau phase and into the orgasm phase, they appear to
respond neurophysiologically in similar ways. This supports the idea that the
overall experience of orgasm for men and women may also have strong phe-
nomenological similarities, notwithstanding the fact that women’s orgasms
may be multiple and last considerably longer than men’s and thereby may be
said to exhibit more built-in spiritual propensities in a (reductionist) neuro-
physiological perspective. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why women are
in general more religious than men (Hackett et al. 2016).

Evolution and Female Orgasm

Over that last 30  years or so, there have been debates about the evolu-
tionary significance of orgasm in human females. The intent here is not to
review the development of this discussion, except to note a few prevailing
theories on this topic. One suggestion is that the female orgasm was merely
a by-product of evolution with no evolutionary-adaptive function, likely
a physiological and developmental happenstance related to the evolution-
ary significance of male orgasm. Despite the obvious misogynic orientation
of this explanation (notwithstanding repeated denials of this intent), more
recent research now makes this argument mostly an interesting (and unfor-
tunate) artifact of past theorizing.
One suggestion is that female orgasm evolved to better facilitate mate
selection. This idea has growing evidentiary significance, but it may prove
to be too narrow and thereby provide only a partial answer to this con-
cern. Another aspect that has received increased attention is whether female
orgasm promotes conception. As discussed, orgasm is associated with the
release of oxytocin into the bloodstream, which can induce peristaltic mus-
cular contraction in the uterus and oviducts. Additionally, orgasm reverses
uterine pressure from outward to inward, which may aid sperm in getting
to the oviducts (see Puts et  al. 2012 for references). Other related physi-
ological reproductive advantages may also arise from orgasm. Thus, there is
some merit to the idea that orgasm may enhance the chances of proximity
between ovum and sperm and is thereby evolutionarily important.
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 63
Another potential evolutionary link between female orgasm and adapta-
tion is pair-bonding. There is some challenge here because a review of pri-
mate literature on the female orgasm shows that in the majority of primates
who also exhibit orgasm, multi-male social structures with no pair-bonding
are found (Puts et  al. 2012). Additionally, humans are highly capable of
separating sex from love.
The literature on the pros and cons of each position is not central to the
purpose of this chapter, which is the relationship between orgasms in both
men and women and human spirituality. The data in support of both the
adaptive and by-product theories are reviewed and evaluated by Komisaruk
and colleagues (2006) and Puts and colleagues (2012).

Pleasure and the Neurophenomenology of Sex

In reviewing published materials on the functional neurophysiology of
human sexuality, sexual pleasure works similarly to other pleasures (e.g.,
food) in terms of underlying brain mechanisms and reward networks. Repro-
duction is certainly a requirement of evolutionary fitness, and its association
with intense pleasure via orgasm may be significant. However, some research
focuses too heavily on orgasm as a source of pleasure as its evolutionary
explanation. Most humans are quite capable of separating orgasmic sex with
self or others from romantic love and pair-bonding. There might be more to
understanding the functions (note the plural) of human orgasm than merely
which neurons generate experiences of pleasure and how they do so.
We know that behavioral and physiological indicators associated with
human orgasm have been observed in a variety of mammalian, especially
primate, species (Allen and Lemmon 1981; Dixson 2009). However, there
is growing evidence from psychology, biology and neuroscience that human
sexuality and orgasms may also have some significant functional differ-
ences from what is found in other mammalian (especially primate) species.
Although there are many commonalities, certain aspects of human sexual
behavior and orgasm appear “quite unique,” similar to how “human lan-
guage has no correspondence in other animals” (Agmo 2007, xii).
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore the functions of orgasm
in nonhuman mammals, especially primates, or to attempt to determine
whether animals have anything equivalent to what humans call spiritual
experiences, sexual or otherwise. One of the conceptual problems with
interspecies comparisons is the assumption that sex and orgasmic experi-
ences operates similarly in all animals. For example, despite some examples
of pair-bonding or of continuous sexual receptivity in some species (in addi-
tion to humans), this downplays important biological and evolutionary dif-
ferences, particularly in terms of reproductive adaptations like menstruation
(see Dixson 2009).
The development of spiritual orientations related to sexuality may be
more uniquely human and connected in some ways to neural entrainment or
64  Daniel Cohen
the coupling of mechanical and neuronal oscillatory systems (Safron 2016).
For example, in humans, both slow and fast rhythmic and repetitive reli-
gious rituals are believed to induce enhanced neural activity in the sympa-
thetic or parasympathetic branch of the autonomic system, neural activity,
which if it peaks, then it may cause a spillover or breakthrough effect on the
other branch, thereby ramping both sides of the autonomic nervous system
to maximal levels. This is suspected to occur in experiences of intense spir-
itual transcendence (d’Aquili and Newberg 1999; Hugdahl 1996; Gellhom
and Kiely 1972). Sexual arousal, copulation and orgasm may operate simi-
larly to rhythmic religious rituals, entraining synchronous brain oscillations
that can lead to trance-like states that involve altered self-processing and
could contribute to feelings of connectedness, together with the expansion
(or breakdown) of self-other boundaries (Safron 2016).

Conclusion: Orgasm as Spiritual Experience

One problem in research on sexuality and neuropsychology is how, for
example, views on the connection between sex, orgasm and oxytocin often
center on an assumed understanding that the desire for pleasure (and espe-
cially male-centered pleasure) is connected to the reward systems of the
brain and works as one of the core components of human sexual bonding.
This limited view does not grasp what may be a more complex evolutionary
relationship between the coevolution of human sexuality and spirituality,
which may have facilitated profound experiences of spiritual transcendence
and which perhaps provided the neurophysiological foundation for the evo-
lution of human religious traditions.
This subtle but crucial insight has gone largely unexplored because of the
way that ideas about human sexuality have developed in modern times. The
restrictions on sexual freedom in Western society in the first half of the 20th
century, in part the detritus of the Victorian Age and its values, led to a later
cultural rebellion against sexual limitations and the dissemination of a great
deal of information about and experimentation with sexuality. The problem
is that while the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond has
led to a great deal of sexual sophistication, it has not facilitated what has
at times been called sexual maturity (Ellens 2009). But there are currently
some signs that this superficial orientation toward sexuality and its rela-
tionship with spirituality may be beginning to change, and the increasingly
widespread research on the neurophysiological aspects of sexuality may rep-
resent a dynamic movement in this new direction.
The central argument of this chapter is that the evolution of mammalian
sexuality provided one of the foundations for the eventual rise of spirituality
as a secondary adaptation of human orgasmic sexuality. While (male and
female) orgasm may have in part been selected for via natural selection to
enhance pair-bonding and male parental investment, it also inadvertently
enabled the neurophysiological groundwork that would eventually facilitate
 Sex and the Evolution of Spirituality 65
the occurrence of profound spiritual experiences where aspects of the sense
of the self are briefly inhibited. While male ejaculation appears ubiquitous
in mammals as part of reproduction, the argument presented here is that
through the neurophysiological mechanisms of orgasm, humans may have
become able to experientially transcend the self, achieving the capacity
to physically and spiritually unite with another human being, a potential
reproductive mate. This development is not necessarily a completely con-
scious or volitional act but instead may have represented a subconscious
development.
From an evolutionary perspective, one of the reasons we can talk about the
spirituality of human orgasmic sexuality is that it opens the potential for not
only self-transcendence but also spiritual transcendence (Ellens 2009). The
argument here is that the spiritual and transcendent potentialities of orgasm
became adaptive in terms of natural selection and worked in conjunction
with the emergence of complex family structures and religion in hominin
society (Turner et al. 2018), developing the reproductive benefits associated
with religion as a fledgling human institution (see, e.g., Blume 2009).
Sexuality underlies the procreative necessity for the survival of human
breeding populations, and the argument in this chapter is that it also poten-
tially established the foundation for transcendent and spiritual dimensions
for human beings. Sex and orgasm, as neurobiological functions, do not
achieve this spiritual function when sexual beings are mere performers seek-
ing self-satisfaction. On the individual level, sex remains inherently narcis-
sistic and directed toward self-gratification, and while it may offer certain
forms of release and relieve physical or psychological tensions, it can also
leave a sense of spiritual emptiness. Masturbation works similarly and pre-
cludes the possibility of achieving unity with a mating partner or fostering
procreation. These activities do not produce the same profound qualitative
sense of the loss of self achieved through orgasm involving intimate sex-
ual relations, and various lines of research show that addictions, including
sexual addictions (e.g., to Internet pornography), often lead to feelings of
emotional and spiritual emptiness (e.g., Grubbs et al. 2017).
Profound experiences of interpersonal sexuality are said to be capable of
producing sensations of ecstasy, similar to what is said about many pro-
found mystical religious experiences. “Ecstasy” can be used to refer to both
orgasm and mystical experience (Ellens 2009). Both of these occurrences
have the potential to generate new levels of self-awareness, and evolution-
arily, they may have coevolved in human beings as they began to work
together. Spirituality has often been relegated to the transcendent and sexu-
ality trivialized as acts of self-gratification (a situation that can also occur
when religious traditions try to control people’s sexual expression). None-
theless, the human orgasm can be viewed as an evolutionary development
that helped facilitate experiences of self-transcendence, where an awareness
of the self from a neuropsychological perspective becomes radically altered
as the focus on and rational control over the self is temporarily abandoned.
66  Daniel Cohen
In conclusion, if the human orgasm is the ultimate experience of the spir-
ituality of human sexuality, it may have given humans the impetus to seek
additional expressions of spirituality. One can thereby imagine that human
sexuality became instrumental as one of the factors in the development of
human religious traditions.

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4 The Biological Basis for Religion
and Religion’s Evolutionary
Origins
Donald M Broom

Morality and Its Origins

The main argument presented in this chapter is that morality has been a cen-
tral part of all of the major doctrinal religions since the Axial Age (800–200
bce) and that the origins of these religions are closely tied to the evolu-
tion of morality. As explained by Broom (2003), there are many biological
mechanisms that have evolved as a part of a system with many components
for promoting morality and increasing the likelihood that individuals will
be religious. Feierman (2009) and authors in this volume describe how a
propensity for religion may have evolved. The preferences of individuals for
certain stimuli, and several other mechanisms in the brain, tend to increase
the chances of having experiences perceived to be religious. Many of these
mechanisms promote moral and religious behavior and feelings. The link
between moral actions and many religious practices has been key. Char-
acteristics that facilitate religious attitudes may have evolved because they
helped to increase moral actions so the effects were advantageous to indi-
viduals showing these actions.
It may seem from our observation of the media, and even from reading
novels, that people’s activity is mainly directed toward promoting them-
selves at the expense of others, even if the cost to others is high. However,
analyses of actions during a lifetime indicate that actions with such con-
sequences are relatively rare (de Waal 1996; Broom 2003). Most actions
do not harm others, especially when the others are close by or likely to be
encountered frequently. Why do people mainly do what is right rather than
what is wrong? Other social animals, especially those that are sentient, do
the same. Other predators feed on other living animals, but apart from times
when food must be obtained, nature is seldom red in tooth and claw. Most
individuals take particular care not to harm other individuals in their group
and do not gratuitously harm members of other species.
The idea that most of animal behavior is aggressive, or otherwise com-
petitive, is entirely wrong (de Waal 1996; Broom 2003; Broom and Fraser
2015). Of course, humans and other species do sometimes cause harm to
others, and these actions are important in life and well worth studying, but
 The Biological Basis for Religion 71
popular views about behavior that emphasize the occurrence of competi-
tion are misleading. Biologically, helping others and not harming others are
effective strategies, especially for animals such as humans who live in long-
lasting social groups (de Waal 1996; Broom 2003, 2006). Many animals
have weapons or body mass that could easily harm group members. Cattle
with long horns almost always move carefully in such a way that others are
not touched by the horns. Elephants walk around without squashing young
elephants or animals of other species. We humans can easily harm others as
we move around in our daily life, but we seldom do so.
If social animals harm others, the action is likely to make the society
less stable. Harms might reduce the survival chances of kin and could elicit
retaliation that could damage the individual both directly and indirectly –
indirectly because of a reduction in social group cohesion. Collaboration
in various species includes joining others who are likely to have found
food; observing others to find food sources or learn how to find or acquire
food; collaborating in hunting for, acquiring, handling or defending food or
avoiding depleted sources; sharing food; and giving food to others (Broom
1981). As a result of the advantages of harm-avoidance actions, genes that
promote avoiding harm or promote cooperation, and hence stabilize socie-
ties, confer benefits on their bearers and can spread in populations (Axelrod
1997; Riolo et al. 2001; Broom 2003, 2006).
Morality has a wide variety of biological components and has evolved in
animals that live in social groups whose members stay together or return to
the group. “Moral” means pertaining to right rather than wrong. A “reli-
gion” is defined as a system of beliefs and rules that individuals revere and
respond to in their lives and that are seen as emanating directly or indirectly
from some intangible power.
There are several genetic mechanisms encouraging altruism (Lehmann
and Keller 2006). There is competition among some genes to continue in
the phenotypes of animals, and some of this competition results in altruism.
The use of the term “selfish gene” by Richard Dawkins (1976) has been
misleading. Genes cannot be selfish, because this is a quality of whole organ-
isms that are aware; only sentient individuals can be selfish (Midgley 1994;
Broom 2003, 2006). “Selfish” describes an individual acting in a way that
increases its fitness at the expense of the fitness of one or more other indi-
viduals while being aware of the likely effects on itself and on the harmed
individual or individuals.

Some of the Arguments for the Evolution of Morality

To consider how morality may have evolved in humans and other social
animals, it is necessary to explain what people regard as right. Moral
ranges from, at one extreme, the profound and life balancing to, at the
other extreme, the relatively trivial. For example, what is referred to as
true morality here does not include customs or attitudes to sexual behavior
72  Donald M Broom
stemming from mate guarding, except indirectly when the action leads to
a major harm: human sexual display is not immoral unless it causes real
harm. Also, laws may indicate what is morally right but will not necessarily
do so when they primarily protect the people and property of the powerful
or perpetuate tribal or other customs.
There is a large literature documenting the widespread occurrence of
cooperative and altruistic behavior in social animals (de Waal 1996). Ref-
erence to altruism does not always mean that it is reciprocal. Reciprocal
altruism is important in the evolution of morality but is only a part of the
biological basis of morality. As Alexander (1987) said, “Moral systems are
systems of indirect reciprocity.”
To be able to avoid certain harms, to remember the altruistic or harmful
actions of others, to predict future consequences of situations and actions
and to take account of all of this information, a level of cognitive ability and
awareness is needed. Every year, we have more information about aware-
ness, feelings and cognitive ability in various species of mammals, birds, fish
and invertebrate animals (Broom 2014, 2016).
The abilities needed in individuals in order that moral actions can occur
(after Broom 2003) are as follows:

• Ability to recognize beneficiaries and benefactors.

• Ability to remember one’s own actions and their consequences.
• Ability to assess risk.
• Ability to detect and respond to cheating.
• Desire to conform.
• Affection for certain individuals.
• Ability to feel empathy.

Strategies that involve moral action are likely to be successful in that, on

average, individuals using such strategies will have more offspring than
those that do not. This is the reason for a number of rules in a wide range of
human groups. Human society condemns, albeit to different degrees, those
who injure another deliberately, those who cause injury by careless contact
with another (such as a push that leads to a head injury) and those who
are negligent with the consequence that an injury is caused to another. For
example, most people would condemn leaving a large hole in the ground
uncovered in the dark or allowing a child access to a deadly weapon. There
are also rules relating to the use of important resources. If plentiful quanti-
ties of food are only occasionally obtained by individuals in a social group,
there is likely to be an expectation within the group that it will be shared
when it is found (de Waal 2000). Many rules like these seem to exist in other
social species.
If altruism occurs, whether it involves direct cooperation or avoidance
of harm, the possibility of cheating is important to take into account. This
issue has been discussed by many authors, including Kitcher (1993), Axelrod
 The Biological Basis for Religion 73
(1997) and Riolo and colleagues (2001), who explain that game theory
models used in many of the arguments are too simple when the sophisti-
cated intellects of any social vertebrate are considered. To understand how
altruistic behavior might have evolved by individual selection, it is neces-
sary to incorporate into modeling some information obtained from studies
of real-life situations. Multilevel selection models have also been proposed
(Nowak et al. 2010).
As detailed by Broom (2006), the question of whether or not a gene-­
promoting altruism would spread in a population of social animals by
individual selection depends on the detail of the strategy adopted. A gene
that only promoted altruism to kin might be out-competed by either a gene
that led to the bearer being altruistic except where the bearer’s monitor-
ing shows that it is inadvisable because reciprocation is unlikely, or a gene
whose bearer is altruistic to kin and also to others if monitoring shows that
reciprocation is likely. Another possible strategy would involve being altru-
istic, with no reciprocation necessary, but with monitoring that allows for
recognizing others who bear the same gene or recognizing kin. In addition
to all of these possibilities is the risk of cheaters disrupting the social group,
with negative consequences for all members, including the cheater.

Sentience and Capacity for Moral Action

Some of the abilities required for moral action are components of sentience.
“Sentience” means having the awareness and cognitive ability necessary to
have feelings. The current scientific view is that adult vertebrates (mammals,
birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish), cephalopod mollusks and decapod crusta-
ceans are sentient. Other animals may be added to this list in future as we
find out more about animal abilities. Sentience arises, in humans and other
animals, at a certain stage of individual development and may be lost when
there are some kinds of brain damage (Broom 2014). The advantages for
socially living animals of being able to work together with other individuals
have favored the evolution of sentience and the development of more and
more sophisticated cognitive function.
The concept of sentience has close parallels with those of the psyche and
the soul. Sentience involves: having your own feelings, understanding the
functioning of others, having awareness that others have feelings and having
empathy for others. These are also central parts of the idea of a soul. “Psy-
che” is a Greek word, often translated as soul. It implies that what is directly
perceived is interpreted according to the awareness that an individual has of
a wide range of other aspects of life.

Empathy, Moral Value and God

The concept of empathy is a key aspect of moral and religious decisions and
behavior and was defined and discussed by Broom (2003). Empathy is the
74  Donald M Broom
process of understanding the experience of another individual, cognitively
and emotionally. This is different from compassion which is pity that results
in sparing or caring for another individual. Where there is communication
among individuals, especially those that frequently meet, there is a greater
likelihood that there will be feelings of empathy. If there is empathy, then
the more communication, the more empathy. The various aspects of empa-
thy are considered to occur in a range of animal species, not just in humans
(Preston and de Waal 2002).
Moral behavior depends on the ability of one individual to appreciate
the state of other individuals. Moral decisions by an individual rely greatly
on evaluation of the feelings of others. Empathy is a particularly important
part of these mechanisms. We know that many aspects of human moral-
ity have equivalents in the societies of other animals and also that many
nonhumans show empathy for people or other animals with problems.
We recognize empathy from behavior, in the same way that we do for
humans. If individuals are aware of the empathy of others, their behavior
changes and there is a bond between those individuals. Those bonds are, in
turn, perceived by others in a society or small group where there is empa-
thy. There is often much overlapping of groups and hence a cross-group
awareness of empathy. Where many individuals have empathetic feelings,
and there is evidence from their actions that they have such feelings, their
further actions and beliefs can be affected by this commonality of empa-
thy. The changes in behavior and an understanding of the causation of
this change may result in local or widespread communication of common
empathy. The links resulting from the empathetic feelings in communities
of various sizes, including the world as a whole, can be thought of as a
common spirit.
The spirit need not be considered to be a tangible entity, and some of
the empathy may be for only a narrow range of individuals, but the collec-
tion of empathetic feelings is something broader than the properties of the
individuals. Exercising empathy for all humans, or for all sentient beings, is
often encouraged. Individual human actions do not occur in isolation: the
spirit adds to the complexity of a group of individuals and has an impact
on many actions. This spirit need not be physically identifiable but is of
great importance to humans and other sentient beings and can be thought
of as an essential part of the concept of God. The idea of God as a spirit
linking sentient beings (Broom 2003) fits with the view that group empathy
is a major factor underlying moral codes. The empathy and respect felt by
individuals toward other individuals is a link with that common spirit. The
idea of a common good for every group, ranging from small groups to all
sentient beings, and of something greater than the individual – a common
spirit, a god or gods – helps moral systems to function.
Many philosophers refer to humans and other sentient beings as moral
agents: They can be the subject of moral actions and have moral value. The
question of who has or what other animals have moral value is important
 The Biological Basis for Religion 75
in decisions about how to treat others, human or nonhuman. Gert (1988)
states that an act is morally relevant if it is done to “existing or potential
sentient beings.”
Rolston (1999) does not think of nonhumans as moral agents. Rottschaefer
(1998) refers to considering “ourselves” as moral agents, but in doing so,
nonhumans are not excluded from “ourselves” and hence could be consid-
ered moral agents. There are so many examples of nonhuman animals, espe-
cially those living socially, avoiding harming others or acting in ways that
directly benefit others (Broom 2003) that it seems illogical to say that the
individuals concerned are not moral agents. Whether or not nonhumans are
thought of as being moral agents, they can be the subject of moral actions
and so have moral value.

Obligations or Rights?
How should we describe what should or should not be done to other indi-
viduals? I believe that we should describe the obligations of the actor rather
than the rights of the subject. Although consideration of human rights has
resulted in some good being done, assertions of rights and freedoms can
cause problems (Broom 2003). Examples include a person asserting that
they have a right to carry a gun at all times, determine the sex of their off-
spring or have the freedom to speak in public in such a way as to encourage
the persecution of groups of people.
One obligation is not to harm others except in self-defense. An aspect of
this is to avoid killing, or at least to avoid killing for no good reason. Another
is to insist that human systems be sustainable. Unsustainable may be unac-
ceptable to the general public because of harms to the people involved in
production, harms to other people, harms to other animals in that their wel-
fare is poor or harms to the environment (Broom et al. 2013; Broom 2014;
Broom and Fraser 2015). If we keep or otherwise interact with animals,
then we have obligations in relation to their welfare. “The welfare of an
individual is its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment”
(Broom 1986). We need to consider to which people and which nonhuman
animals we have moral obligations. Also, which are moral agents, and what
is our level of obligation? With increased knowledge of the functioning of
humans and of nonhuman animals, more kinds of humans and more kinds
of nonhuman animals are now included as “us” when moral obligations are
considered (Broom 2003, 2014).

The Moral Core of Religion

Helping others, even those not part of our local group, and not causing harm
are central messages in the more mature writings in all long-lasting religions
(Broom 2003), even if it is absent in some of the earlier religions. Long-
lasting refers to religions that have continued for thousands of years up to
76  Donald M Broom
the present. Of course, not all individuals avoid harming others, and there
are many examples of religious adherents harming those from other sects
or tribes but the wrongness of such harm, unless in self-defense, is widely
taught. For example, the Good Samaritan who aids another who might have
been thought of as not being “one of us” is considered an important exem-
plar in Christian teaching, and there are parallels in the teachings and codes
of conduct of other religions. Whether or not the person who helps is acting
in order to gain religious credit, the action of helping is a good action and
is perceived as such by the majority of people. Other religious images and
symbols are easier to understand if the biological basis of morality and reli-
gions is carefully considered (Broom 2007): e.g., an image of a mother cow
caring for a calf as a symbol of goodness or an image of a frightening venge-
ful god as a deterrent to antisocial behavior. The general message presented
in the next part of this chapter is that religions are inevitable, and useful, in
long-lasting societies. However, as explained later on, the conclusion that
religions are useful does not imply that all their aspects are good. Religions
need to change in some respects as knowledge progresses.
Although there have been religions that attracted followers and had only
self-seeking rules, all of the long-lasting religions of the world that still exist
today have a moral code that is central to their functioning. A  survey of
religions by Whitehouse and colleagues (2019) found that social complexity
preceded the reference to what the authors call moralizing gods in a wide
range of human societies. Today, most of the differences among religions are
in peripheral aspects, including historical descriptions, specific rituals and
tribal components. Some of the rules may have had the effect of defending
the local tribe or promoting male dominance, but other rules had morally
positive consequences. The rituals that are a part of a religion often have
the valuable effect of encouraging people to identify with the religious group
and to follow the code of that group. In the Whitehouse and colleagues
study, rituals that might facilitate the standardization of religious traditions
appeared before the advent of moralizing gods. These findings do not mean
that the moral structure was not present in the early stages of the religion
but rather that the concept of a remote, supernatural moralizing god devel-
oped after the society became large.
Some rituals have positive or negative moral consequences. Each major
religion has canonical texts, usually put together in one or more books.
Holy books are a source of information about what is moral, but they also
include history and some statements of a tribal nature that may be far from
moral. The term “tribal” here implies helping the immediately identified
group, whether or not the action is universally moral. The group can be one
in modern society, and “tribal” is not intended to imply that the society is
primitive or physically remote from other people. At their best, tribal actions
preserve useful or aesthetically important culture, but at their worst, they
harm individuals in other groups for reasons other than self-defense. Ulti-
mately, harmful actions like the latter tend to destabilize larger societies and
 The Biological Basis for Religion 77
sometimes lead to the destruction of some or all in the group that is behav-
ing immorally. The key to understanding the value of religions involves dis-
tinguishing the fundamental messages in the religion about morality, and
about how best to organize a society, from the tribal and sometimes harmful
components.
Some early religions, and religions in rather isolated communities, had
a plethora of gods with dubious attributes. However, widespread and suc-
cessful religions have a guide to behavior, which is part of a code for how
each individual should live, and a system for discouraging cheats or those
who harm others. Commandments include, in Buddhism, “ahimsa,” refer-
ring to non-injury to others; in Hinduism, the books of Manu, which lay
out duties; in Confucianism, the idea that humans have a moral sense, the
sensibility of the hsin; in Christianity and Judaism, the Ten Commandments
and an imperative to love your neighbor as yourself, where “neighbor” is
now widely interpreted as including all others; and in Islam, acts known to
Allah, who rewards and punishes according to morality, though “other” is
sometimes limited to “people of the book,” meaning the three Abrahamic
faiths. Much wording of the holy books is similar in all of these religions.
There are many other important tenets and traits that religions have in
common (Whitehouse 2008). The idea of prayers, be they individual or
communal, said or thought, is regarded as important in many religions.
Prayers are difficult to study directly because most people regard them as
personal and private. Attempts have been made by Geertz and colleagues
(Schjoedt et al. 2009), who used fMRI imaging of the brain to explain some
of the correlates of prayers. The effect of prayers on individuals has often
been reported to be positive: social cohesion and deliberate contemplation
of important issues in life being among possible beneficial components. Par-
ticular buildings are deemed to be sacred, certain people promote feelings of
belonging to a group and there may be the concept that an ideal state exists
with continuation of individuals after death because of group membership
and good behavior.

Views of Humankind and Other Sentient Beings in Religions

In some religions, as in many other aspects of life, people are told or develop
the belief that humankind is special. Of course, every kind of organisms is
different from all others, but a high proportion of humans have the idea
that our species is more important than any others and that we, as humans,
have priority when the use of world resources is under consideration. The
idea of a pyramid with humankind at the top is still used by many religious
teachers.
We know now, in much more detail than was possible when the current
doctrinal religions were being developed, that humans have differences from
other animal species but also share characteristics with many organisms and
where different are frequently not better. Humans have many genes in common
78  Donald M Broom
with other species, many similarities in phenotype with other species and few
characteristics that are not shared with some other animals. Many people
who were part of monotheistic religions and who had the view of humans as
special in some way rejected evidence for human origins from other animals.
Some found the idea of evolution attractive because of the pyramid. Darwin
(1872) drew attention to the similarities between humans and other animals.
Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu and Jain views of humankind and other animals as
parts of a larger community of value led to the rejection of the pyramid idea.
It is written in the book of Genesis that God gave us dominion over the
living things in the world, but who are “us” and what should dominion
mean? The actual reference is to Adam and Eve and their descendants, but
“us” could be interpreted as being wider than humans and including other
sentient beings with a capability to be responsible in their actions. As many
authors have said, dominion can mean acting in a caring and responsible
way, being a steward of the world, rather than dominating and exploit-
ing without consideration for present or future harms that are caused. For
example, dominion should not mean eliminating large numbers of animals
and plants and encouraging unsustainable and immoral actions.
The statement in the Bible that humankind was made in the image of
God led many Christians to think of a physical, mainly visual image. While
many people, including artists whose works were widely seen, thought in
this way, some religious teachers had a subtler view. At the time of the pro-
duction of the Hebrew Bible, an important point that was being made was
that all people, rather than just rulers, shared qualities with God. However,
if the idea of God is largely visual, God is considered by many people to
visually resemble humankind. Like many scholars from the past, I  argue
that a more logical meaning of these words in the Bible is that the image
is a moral image. In that case, one consequence is that humans, and other
sentient beings, can aspire to a complete level of morality. The strategy of
minimizing or avoiding harm to others works better than other strategies,
such as to show frequent acts of aggression that are not self-defense. Since
moral behavior is biologically and socially the most successful strategy in all
communities, the teaching that humans can have a moral image of God, and
can try to be like God in a moral way, is helpful.

Why Religions Arise

In addition to the world’s major long-lasting religions, there are more ephem-
eral religions and many other sets of beliefs relevant to conduct that may or
may not be called a religion. Religions centered on a moral system are likely
to arise in all long-lasting societies (Broom 2003). This structure encour-
ages the avoidance of harms, the promotion of cooperation and the detec-
tion and discouragement of cheating. The moral code may coincide with a
legal structure but sometimes does not, since laws may just protect the rich.
Religions can “define groups, coordinate behavior within the group and
 The Biological Basis for Religion 79
solve the all-important problem of cheating” (Wilson 2008). They can also
encourage signals of commitment to the group and hence promote group
cohesion (Irons 2008). The group considered might start as just a local com-
munity but then expand to include all people in a region, all of humanity
or all sentient beings (Broom 2003). The propensity for religion has always
been widespread in human societies and to some degree in other species.
When there are reforms to religions, the change is often a response to moral
inadequacy in the religion’s organization. As Richerson and Newson (2008)
point out, Calvin’s reforms to the Catholic Church were a response to cor-
ruption in its hierarchy. Muhammad’s religiously inspired code for living
was aimed at regulating inter-tribal anarchy. At more local levels, Balinese
water temples organized water supply and water use in rice fields.
Genetics affects the structure for morality and religion, but no mechanism
is genetically determined. It has long been emphasized by behavioral biolo-
gists that all characteristics of animals, behavioral or otherwise, are affected
by both the genome and the environment (Broom 1981). Indeed, a wide
range of recent studies make it clear that environmental factors play a part
at every stage in the translation of genetic information to produce a pheno-
type (Alexander 2017). As a consequence, no characteristic is instinctive,
innate or determined, where these qualifications imply being uninfluenced
by environmental effects. No individual is hardwired to have a particular
belief independent of environmental experience, and genes that promote
moral and religious behavior do not make such behavior inevitable. Herit-
ability of religiousness does not mean genetic control of the belief or action.
Genetic and environmental information must always be involved, so cul-
tural evolution cannot fully explain why religions arise.
The biological mechanisms that promote morality and religion include
some simpler perceptual and some complex cognitive and emotional com-
ponents. (Taves 2009) described some religious experiences and commented
on their possible physiological origins, and Feierman (2016) analyzed the
nature of belief. Bulbulia (2004) explained some of the effects of religious
rituals, and Cohen (2007) described reports of body possession by spir-
its. Some of the rituals and other practices carried out over the course of
religious events may serve to impress the individual concerned and other
individuals. Costly practices have impact because they are evaluated as a
handicap impeding normal activity in humans and other species, and these
costly practices may become more and more exaggerated in religions as time
progresses (Zahavi and Zahavi 1997; Slone 2008). One example described
firewalking as part of a religion and proposed that such actions promote
prosociality (Xygalatas et al. 2013).
A practical aspect of a long-lasting doctrinal religion is to enforce compli-
ance with its moral code, such as by issuing threats, illustrating good behav-
ior with personal examples (e.g., in the case of Jain renouncers (Wilson
2008)), ostracizing transgressors or excluding from the group those who do
not behave in a moral way.
80  Donald M Broom
Ideas about the Value of Religion
Since moral behavior is adaptive and promotes stability in societies, the reli-
gious framework that governs such moral behavior is valuable in those soci-
eties. It makes life easier for the average person and increases the likelihood
that potential transgressors of moral codes will understand what should and
should not be done.
The advance of knowledge helps to dispel groundless fears and to focus
on what is really dangerous in life. Fear of dragons, for example, is not help-
ful if there are no dragons, but fear that minimizes contact with pathogens
is valuable and is likely to continue to be promoted in societies because it
reduces the risk of disease. Accurate risk assessment is important, so with
the increase in awareness of it, more and more people are coming to under-
stand how to plan their lives. Fear of being mugged can cause poor welfare
in people. However, in many human societies where the risk of mugging is
low, such fear should not be exaggerated. Similarly, some people have fear
of traveling by aircraft. The risk per journey is low, so the fear is unreason-
able, especially in people who regularly travel by motor car, a much more
dangerous activity. Some partly irrational fears are starting to be identified
as risk assessment incompetence.
Just as knowledge about risk assessment helps us to manage our lives,
knowledge about evolution helps us to understand and value religion and
should not be considered contrary to religious teaching. Some of what is
taught in religions is now archaic and should be updated as relevant knowl-
edge progresses. If this is not done, people at present and in future will
be less likely to accept the religion and will lose the benefits that it could
provide them. For example, the negative attitudes of some Christians and
Muslims to evolution by natural selection are causing much damage to both
religions, in my view. Those who deny that evolution occurs may propose
that the high level of complexity of the biological and physical world is evi-
dence for creation. Since there are many other possible causes of complexity,
in my opinion scientists and most other people in the world do not accept
their argument. The concept of God presented here is not contradicted by
an understanding of evolution. The idea that there is something more than
just individuals, a spirit that is something linking individuals, would have
been promoted by some evolutionary changes. Because of the advantages
of religious belief, natural selection may have increased the likelihood of
brain characteristics that promote belief occurring in populations. The wide
concept of belief is relevant to many animal species.
Many atrocities have been committed in the name of religion. However,
there are important differences between tribalism, which here refers to help-
ing the immediately identified group to defend property and land, and actions
following the key teaching of the religion, which is to behave in a moral way.
The view of God as a spirit linking sentient beings does not require that
God be responsible for the physical world. I see no reason to include the
 The Biological Basis for Religion 81
creation of the universe, or of other physical objects or actions such as light-
ning strikes, as being done by God. The story written in Genesis around
2,500 years ago was an attempt to explain unknown phenomena, and such
attempts exist in the stories and writings of other religions. We now have
much more information about the world in which we live. The view pro-
posed here makes it much easier for religious teaching to be reconciled with
discoveries about matter and with facts about astrophysics, as such facts do
not have to be seen as depending on religious teaching. Neither does reli-
gious teaching have to explain all phenomena.
Those who do not find religion useful say that too much of religion is irra-
tional and conflicts with current knowledge. In reality, hardly anyone who is
part of a religion, including most priests, imams and so on, believes all of what
is written in holy books or said in religious services. If the writings and prac-
tices and at least some of the teaching were updated to take account of current
knowledge, many of such misunderstandings could be avoided. The impor-
tant central tenets of the major religions are helpful to many people. Hence,
any person can be involved in a religion to a greater or lesser degree without
having to accept all of what is written or said on behalf of that religion. Some
religious groups argue that every word of a holy text must be accepted to be
part of the group. Such an attitude harms their religion. Religions that do not
change to take account of new information are unlikely to persist for long.
As in all aspects of life, people can select what they believe without worrying
about what is, or is not, a delusion (Dawkins 2008). Religion’s value is what
religion does – that is, its function for each person – irrespective of the truth of
individual components or propositions associated with that religion.

Does a Moral Core of Religion Mean That All Morality

Is Religious?
The argument that moral structures are biologically sound strategies in
long-lasting social groups implies that some degree of moral behavior will
occur in all such groups, so morality is not confined to groups with a reli-
gion. However, religion tends to strengthen the structure in various ways.
This makes the social group more cohesive and likely to be perpetuated. If
the religion emphasizes tribal, in-group-promoting aspects more than moral
values, it is not likely to survive for a long time in a changing society.
In societies where, as often happens, religions have failed to change fast
enough to incorporate new knowledge, some members of the society may
reject the religion or at least not directly practice any facet of it. In this
circumstance, the moral teaching of the religion is likely to survive and be
influential in the society in people who no longer practice the religion. Peo-
ple who claim to have nothing to do with a religion are still likely to be
much influenced by the moral codes. As a consequence, people behave in a
moral way for several generations after the decline in participation in reli-
gious activities.
82  Donald M Broom
Conclusions
• Morality has a wide variety of biological components and has evolved
in humans and other animals that live in social groups whose members
stay together.
• Ethical questions include the welfare of animals and other sustainability
issues.
• Whether or not nonhuman animals are thought of as being moral agents,
they can be the subject of moral actions and so have moral value.
• Some of the qualities required to show moral behavior are also aspects
of sentience.
• The concept of sentience has close parallels with those of psyche and
soul.
• Contrary to the teachings of some religions, humans are animals, are
similar to other animals and are not “special” in the sense of being more
important.
• Modern doctrinal religions are a development of having a sophisticated
moral code and are a structure to support it.
• All modern doctrinal religions have a moral code with a list of things to
do or not do as a central aspect.
• Widespread empathy can be the basis for the concept of a spirit linking
all sentient beings.
• We all have obligations, and we should describe the obligations of the
actor rather than the rights of the actor. Arguments based on rights or
on freedoms to act have sometimes been useful but can cause problems.
• Arguments that religion is a bad thing and that God is a delusion
(Dawkins 2008) involve a misunderstanding of how natural selection
has acted and are damaging to human societies.

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Part 2

Philosophy of Language,
Psychology and
Neuroscience
5 A History of the Evolution
of Religion
From Religion to Religiosity
to the Processes of Believing
Hans-Ferdinand Angel

Introduction
The evolution of religion is a scientific topic that is attractive for different
fields of research. There is no doubt that both terms, “evolution” and “reli-
gion,” comprise highly complex phenomena that cannot be briefly described
in a satisfying manner.

Relation
This complexity has an impact on the question of how both phenomena,
evolution and religion, can be adequately combined. Such a relation is
implied when religion and evolution are combined in the sense of evolu-
tion of religion. Any attempt to find, postulate or describe possible relations
between evolution and religion will produce an ellipsis-like field (i.e., a field
with something left out between two poles) of super-complexity in which
religion is one of the poles and evolution the other. Ellipsis is used in this
chapter as a metaphor to make the scientific challenge of defining what
should be understood as relation visually imaginable. The notion relation
itself is a vividly discussed topic in analytic philosophy, and supposing rela-
tions exist, it has to been asked, “What might the internal or external nature
of those relations be?” (MacBride 2016). Therefore, it is crucial for any
understanding of any (postulated) relationship between religion and evolu-
tion to clarify the underlying concept of relation.

Evolution
When speaking about the evolution of religion(s), what will be understood
as evolution has to be made clear. The term “evolution” is rooted in an
understanding of a reality that will gradually show its inner nucleus (lat.:
e-volvere  =  to roll sth. out). It was within the Neoplatonic philosophical
tradition that terms like development or evolution were coined in their
modern understanding (Weyand and Mühle 1972). For GW Leibnitz, for
instance, “evolution” was like “involution,” a favorite term (Rentsch 1972).
88  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
Additionally, which of the several concepts of “time” will be used will influ-
ence our understanding of evolution. However, the theoretical understand-
ing of time itself is complex (Prior 1967; Markosian 2016). A  somewhat
convincing argument has even been made for the unreality of time (McTag-
gart 1908). The theoretical understanding of evolution will therefore depend
on which concepts of time are integrated or preferred.
In the 19th century, especially after Darwin, the concept of evolution
grew up in a biological context in which different manifestations within spe-
cies were increasingly conceived and understood as changes in phenotypes.
Methodically the challenge was to bring their appearance into a temporal
order. The term already existing, evolution (by natural selection), seemed ade-
quate for labeling the mechanisms by which those changes might be driven.
Evolution theories evolved over time (integrating genetic and epigenetic
factors or a geological perspective on the history of earth). The debate of
the character of evolution has not yet come to an end. “Niche construction”
is a good example, where organisms create the conditions for their own
evolution (Odling-Smee 2003). In humans, it gets even more complex with
gene-culture coevolution (Richerson and Morten 2013).
The evolution of evolution theories has affected the debates about the
evolution of religion, which includes God concepts (Wright 2009), concepts
like altruism and forgiveness (Wilson 2002) and barbarism (Pocock 1999–
2011). However, many traditional positions can be identified as shaped by
history (Achtner 2009).
Talking about evolution of religion changes the focus of observation from
an originally biological context to a context of culturally settled systems.
But any contextual change of theories comes with some major challenges.
For instance, when certain phenomena of one context are “detected” in
another one, it has to be clarified under which relational conditions (see
“Relation” section) it might be adequate to apply concepts like comparabil-
ity, analogy, identity, similarity or dissimilarity.
Finally, it has to be mentioned that the term “evolution” became theoreti-
cally influential in scientific debates more or less in the same period as the
term “religion,” a fact which facilitated the idea of possible relations.

Religion and Evolution

The relation of the pole evolution and a general pole religion was origi-
nally not the focus of interest. Rather, the relation of these two poles was
discussed with regard to the tension between the Judeo-Christian belief in
a creation by God on the one side and the idea of evolution by natural
selection on the other side. These debates influenced a large number of
subsequent topics. Some of them have been directed more to the pole reli-
gion, such as the existence of God (predominantly understood in a Judeo-
Christian sense); the possible influence of this God on the principles which
are efficient in nature; the nature of wonders; the existence of a soul; and
 The Evolution of Religion 89
the understanding of creation itself. Meanwhile, for instance, evolution by
natural selection theory in general is on a high level, affirmed officially by
the Roman Catholic Church (Pope John Paul II 1996), though it is rejected
for the human soul (De Cruz 2017). Other debates have been concentrated
on topics that are closer to the pole evolution, such as the question of time,
the natural history of earth, cause and effect, contingency and necessity, the
understanding of nature itself, the understanding of (natural) science and,
last but not least, the role of knowledge and its relation to (religious) beliefs.
When modern debates intend to relate religion and evolution under the
perspective “evolution of religion,” all those terms need to be defined – also
with regard to the context of their time. Indeed, the actual meaning and
the actually favored concepts of explanation have to be explored for both
poles  – for evolution-related concepts and for religion-related (and even
theological) concepts.
For example, in the debates of the 19th century, a highly influential con-
cept of God understood God in an Aristotelian sense (Aristotle, Metaphysics
XII, 1933–1935: 1072) as the “unmoved mover” (in ancient Greek, ὃ οὐ
κινούμενον κινεῖ; in Latin, primum movens). From a Christian perspective
this so-called God-of-philosophers concept (Pannenberg 2007) was often
blamed as contradicting a specific biblical position, namely the one that
proposes the idea of a merciful and compassionate God, which is part of
modern Christian theology (Stump 2016).
Such lines of debates are highly relevant within the frame of the evolution
of religion, but they will not be followed in this this chapter. Instead, the
chapter aims to highlight the underestimated role of the believing processes
in the evolution of religion debate. For this reason, it might be sufficient to
be aware of two different ways of interpreting the meaning of the evolution
of religion. We may be talking about the role of religions in the evolution
of humankind or the role of humankind in the evolution of religion, or we
may be talking about the evolution of humankind and humankind’s effects
on the surrounding environment in which religion lies. In both cases, the
term “religion” is used in a seemingly self-understood way, where the object
of evolution is religion itself. Without going into the depth of phenomeno-
logical, propositional, cultural or social aspects of religion, one can state
that in both cases, the term “evolution” does not indicate a real encounter
with religion(s). Instead, and this is crucial for the further reflection to be
presented, religion is used as a scientific term that indicates a theoretical and
distant reflection about religion. This demands a reflection on some of the
linguistic aspects of the term “religion.”

Difference Between Concept and Notion

In a linguistic and a philosophical sense, there is a difference between a
notion and a concept. This topic seems to have different significance in
the respective German-speaking and English-speaking literature. Whereas
90  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
concept, as the constituents of thoughts (Goering 2013; Margolis and
­Laurence 2011), finds a lot of interest in the English-speaking tradition,
this is less the case with notion. In contrast, the interest in the relevance
of notions in the German-speaking academic tradition brought up a field
known as Begriffsgeschichte. This established German term cannot be trans-
lated adequately into English. Most appropriately, it might be called the
history of the meaning of notions, but this bulky label is not common in
English-­speaking discussion. In English literature, we find expressions like
the history of ideas (Breckman, Burke, Grafton, Moyer, and Kelley 1940) or
the history of meaning (Bouwsma 1981). More widely spread might be the
history of concepts (Richter 1995). This expression is used by proponents
of so-called contextualism (King 1995), which was initiated by prominent
members of the influential Cambridge School, like QRD Skinner (1979) and
J Dunn (1980), who tried to understand texts in their respective contexts.
As field of academic interest, Begriffsgeschichte has been established in
the last quarter of the 20th century (Koselleck 2006) and hence became an
influential section of sociocultural research (Ritter et al. 1971–2007; Gum-
brecht 2006; Müller and Schmieder 2016). The basic idea of the Begriffs-
geschichte is that a symbolic term may remain unchanged over centuries,
although concepts and ideas that are signified by the term’s referent lose
their influence, deeply modified or superposed over by new concepts. In my
own words, concepts are temporary, more or less stable building blocks for
the meaning of a notion.
Without going into the details of constructivism, its history and its basic
assumptions (Dewey 1910; Kelly 1955; Rawls 1980; Bagnoli 2017), I can
still say that concepts, which are embedded in notions, guide the perception
of reality: They calibrate the focus; they prefigure which is assessed as cen-
tral or peripheral; they influence which relations among special aspects are
made visible or remain hidden; and so on. Additionally and simultaneously,
concepts ascribe  – in a circular way  – what is understood as the (actual
or historical) meaning of a notion. Thus, in a metaphoric sense, it might
be possible to state that a notion functions like glasses, and concepts are
implicit or explicit components of those glasses that allow or do not allow
phenomena to be perceived. Begriffsgeschichte highlights the need to distin-
guish between concepts and notions, and this approach influences the view
on any debate that uses scientifically specific terms. Actually, this is the case
in all debates that use the terms “evolution” and “religion.”

Religion: Concept and Notion

Debates that use the term “religion” activate embedded concepts of religion
(Stenmark 2004). So we have to ask, what kind of concepts and, mediated
by them, what kind of phenomena come into our mind when we use the
term “religion”? As mentioned earlier, the implicitly underpinned concepts
of religion must be laid open, because they are functional to the perception
 The Evolution of Religion 91
of religious phenomena. The long-standing debate about the relation
between evolution and religion can be seen as a prime example showing that
despite the use of a seemingly unchanged term, “religion” (and, of course,
the seemingly unchanged term “evolution”), the implicitly embedded con-
cepts of religion have changed over time; as a consequence, they brought
to the floor different religious phenomena. What was said earlier for terms
generally can now be applied in a specific way for religion: for our percep-
tion of the reality of religions, the notion religion functions like glasses and
the concepts of religion are implicit or explicit component of these glasses.
The role of changing concepts of religion was worked out brilliantly by WC
Smith (1962). He stated that the use of the term “religion” signifies a reifi-
cation of experiences of living people, which shows that terms like religion
or religions “seem now clearly inadequate” (194). Let us not forget that
these terms have been coined for the use of outsiders. He even drew the con-
clusion that the terms “religion” or “religious” should be abandoned and
replaced by concepts like “cumulative tradition” or “faith.” Thus, the use of
the metaphorical glasses influences which meaning is ascribed to the notion
religion and what we perceive as religious reality. Therefore, whenever the
term “religion” is used in actual debates about the evolution of religion, it
has to be asked, which concepts of religion guide the perception of which
phenomena of which religion(s)?

Religion: Concepts Throughout History

The various meaning of religion throughout history have been quite well
explored (Smith 1962; Feil 1986–2012; Dierse et al. 1992). So has the rela-
tionship between science and religion (Harrison 2015; De Cruz 2017), a
matter crucial for understanding historical concepts of religion.
In antiquity, especially during the Roman Empire, religion functioned as
a sort of juridical term to correctly organize the cults and for veneration (of
the Emperor). Christians were understood in this period as godless because
of their refusal to follow the ordered veneration.
For medieval writers like Thomas Aquinas the use of the term “religion”
tended to describe an inner accepting and integrating of Christian rules into
one’s personal attitude (De Cruz 2017). The term religiosus (religious) was
also used to denote a member of a Christian religious order.
The career of the term “religion” started in the time of the Protestant
Reformation. It was possible to pacify different religious camps within
the Holy Roman Empire because of the political function of religion as an
umbrella term.
This meaning of religion found place in a political document that was
essentially based on the term “religion” and which became a law, the so-
called Augsburger Religionsfrieden (1555). In the common English transla-
tion as Settlement of Augsburg, the term “religion” was skipped. In the peace
of Westphalia (1648), which ended a 30-year religious war (1618–1648),
92  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
the political principle cuius regio eius et religio [in a prince’s country the
prince’ s religion] was articulated.
After having been established as a political term this same term, “reli-
gion,” became the basis for a principle that influences the European land-
scape even today. It postulated that the religion (nowadays we would say
denomination) chosen by the sovereign had to be accepted by all inhabitants
living in the sovereign’s domain. Hence, this resulted in a narrow connection
between church(es) and sovereigns (throne and altar). This politically func-
tionalized understanding of religion was massively criticized by proponents
of the Enlightenment, who claimed that there should be freedom of religion
for every individual.
No doubt, the meaning and history of religion has continued to change
over time. For instance, it has been seen as part of culture (Geertz 1966;
van Belzen 2010). From the late 1960s, the so-called secularization theorem
became a central issue (Norris and Inglehart 2004). Sometimes the end of
religion was predicted (Casanova 1994; Taylor 2007) or postulated (Harris
2005); sometimes the opposite position had favored a re-sacralization of
society (Berger 1969, 1999).

Religion: Perceived Through the Cloudy Glasses

of the 19th Century
Following the debates on the evolution of religion, one can observe that the
preferentially used meaning of religion was remarkably shaped in the 19th
century. During this optimistic period, the modern interest in systematically
understanding the phenomenon of religion was inaugurated. These attempts
were settled in a now more global horizon that left behind Eurocentric
reductions (Tylor 1871; Radin 1937). The new interest, also influenced by
the experiences of colonialism, went far beyond the Abrahamic religions of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which had been traditionally practiced in
Europe since the Middle Ages.
Additionally, new disciplines, such as archaeology, psychology and lin-
guistics, influenced and modified scientific approaches, which were based
more and more on a worldwide academic exchange. All over the world,
existing as well as former systems, groups or communities were discovered
that showed similarities and dissimilarities with those religious phenomena
known in Europe and the Americas. Their overwhelming variety inspired
the scientific interest to focus on the multifaceted and iridescent forms of
their appearances, like rites, conversions, taboos and religious symbols. The
variety of religious experiences became predominant (James 1902/1985)
and inaugurated fruitful fields of research.
The capacity to comprise all this variety of phenomena was imputed to
the notion of religion in its 19th-century shape, and all such aspects and phe-
nomena have subsequently been subsumed under the term “religion.” Fur-
thermore, challenged by the overwhelming variety of religious experiences,
 The Evolution of Religion 93
the notion religion itself and its possible theoretical understanding became
the subject of debate. One of the central topics of interest has been the
contents of religious beliefs, which could concern tribal gods, ghosts and an
incredible variety of phenomena.
The approach to religion, which might be characterized in the 19th
century as quite open, meanwhile appears quite reductive and inadequate
for understanding the complexity of religious experiences. The reason
is that the term “religion” in its meaning of the 19th century cannot
cover the much broader perspectives on religious phenomena that guide
our actual understanding. Thus, the 19th-century concepts of religion,
which are embedded in the actually used term “religion,” serve as cloudy
glasses. They produce only the illusion of a clear view on religious phe-
nomena. And regrettably, they contribute to a limited and narrow view
of religion.

Fixation on Religion: Fading Out of Religiosity

Given the discussion so far, it is not natural that the term “religion” is com-
monly used to stimulate our everyday communication and scientific dis-
courses. This fixation on religion is the more or less hidden side effect of the
debates of the 19th century, which contributed to the spread of the term
“religion” in a wide manner and made it omnipresent. This fixation on the
term “religion” can be seen in many titles of academic works, such as the
books of Shafranske (1996), Koenig and Rosmarin (1998), Taylor (2005,
2008) and many more. Unfortunately, the fixation on the term “religion”
has also deeply influenced the debates on the evolution of religion. That the
term was spread to such an extent has been one of the consequences of the
aforementioned European history.
Sociolinguistically, the modern understanding of religion started its career
as a (politically and socially) relevant term in the time of the Protestant
Reformation and stabilized its flourishing in the time of the Enlightenment.
Interestingly, for the world of science, the 19th century brought the most
sustainable fixation on religion. Religion became the central component
in the denotation of a couple of newly established scientific disciplines,
such as the history of religion, psychology of religion, sociology of reli-
gion, philosophy of religion, phenomenology of religion (in German, addi-
tionally Religions-Wissenschaft, Religions-Pädagogik, Religions-Didaktik,
­Religions-Unterricht) and so on.
No wonder that the fixation on religion led to a perspective that con-
nected all religious phenomena with the notion religion(s). In addition, to
relate religious (adjective) phenomena exclusively with religion is an inad-
equate unidirectional perspective. It has become possible because no theo-
retical interest exists to clarify the function of the adjective “religious.” That
its nature as an adjective is a problem is only rarely expressed, such as when
Wilfred Cantwell Smith says that the adjective “religious” is an “attribute
94  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
of people” (Smith 1962, 195), or when Eric Sharpe states that the trouble
with “religious studies” is the adjectival use of the word “religious” (Sharpe
1983, VIII). To the best of my knowledge, there is no deeper discussion of
this issue, and such dearth produces a great problem: this lack of theoreti-
cal interest nourishes the formation of a blind spot. What widely has been
overlooked is the possibility that phenomena that can be labeled religious
might be connected with the notion religiosity.
In consequence, compared with the overwhelming amount of material
that deals with the topic religion, one can find a quite restricted interest in
a theoretical clarification of the term religiosity (Angel et al. 2006; Angel
2013b). Of little help are tautological definitions of religiosity, such as when
it is defined as “mental ability to be religious” (Voland 2009, 10). Whereas
theories of religiosity are rare, phenomena as components of religiosity
and spirituality have been highlighted by many authors (Whitehouse 2004;
Knight, in this volume). Phenomena and components of religiosity are the
central part of the vast field of the psychology of religion.

The Hidden Problems of the Double-Wing Adjective

“Religious”
To avoid struggling with the definition of religiosity or with clarifying it,
the adjective “religious” is predominantly used. Thus, the use of the adjec-
tive, combined with its quasi-natural association with religion, became a
terrible burden, since it hindered the theoretical interest to suspend the
totally inadequate religious-religion nexus. This problematic association
suffocates the approach to a manifold “religious” (adjective) reality and
prevents the ability to theoretically explore religiosity and its possible
expressions by individuals throughout the history of humankind and in all
regions of the world.
This problem is inherent in a quite remarkable part of those reflections
that intend to clarify the epistemic foundation of the psychology of religion
(Wulff 1997, 1999). The discipline psychology of religion has in its name
the term “religion” but deals mainly with anthropological aspects of relig-
iosity, religiousness and spirituality (Platvoet and Molendijk 1999). This
has provoked the question, “psychology of what?” (Paloutzian and Park
2013b, 7). Maybe the discipline would have been better labeled psychology
of religiosity.
The named aspect is also relevant for the topic of the evolution of
religion. One of the most harmful effects of neglecting or fading out of
religiosity is the rarely formulated awareness of the fact that religion on
the one side and religiosity (religiousness, spirituality) on the other are
categorically different. This means that it is impossible to easily switch
from a talk about religion to a talk about religiosity. But exactly this cat-
egorical confusion can be observed in many debates about the evolution
 The Evolution of Religion 95

religious

RELIGION RELIGIOSITY

history of religion ? of religiosity

philosophy of religion ? of religiosity
sociology of religion ?...
psychology of religion ?...
freedom of religion ?...
... religion
...
Religions-Unterricht (German)
Religions-Pädagogik (German)

Figure 5.1  “Religious” – a double-wing but (practically) monopolized adjective.

of religion. Certainly, the question of category systems and category dif-

ferences, which has its roots in Aristotelian philosophy, remains unset-
tled (Thomasson 2016). Nevertheless, it might be adequate to understand
religion as a systemic term (which can be described, for instance, in
terms of system theories or theories of culture), while religiosity might be
understood as an anthropological term (Angel et al. 2006; Angel 2013b).
The adjective religious can be used to bridge both categories and is
thus a double-winged term that should not be reduced to only one wing.
To talk about phenomena that belong to different categories, we at least
need an awareness of the existing categorical difference. To improve the
situation, a theoretical framework has to be worked out that allows
one to express the relation (see “Relation” section) between the systemic
term “religion” and the anthropological term “religiosity” and which
clarifies the bridging function of the widespread use of the adjective “reli-
gious.” Talks about religion have little common ground with talks about
religiosity. Therefore, talks about religion that use the cloudy glasses of
the 19th century fail more or less completely to provide an understanding
96  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
of the evolution of religiosity. Instead, they support intentions to politi-
cally functionalize so-called (see “Religion: concept and notion” section)
religions.

Beyond the Fixation on Religion: The Evolution

of Religiosity
No doubt, deep changes in religious (adjective) behavior, religious phe-
nomena, religious self-concepts and religious beliefs can be observed over a
period which comprises some thousands of years. But it is not adequate to
articulate such changes mainly within a frame of the evolution of religion,
as is often the case. Only once the fixation on religion has been overcome
will a new perspective be able to end the almost total absence of theoretical
debates about the evolution of religiosity.
When focusing on the evolution of religiosity, it will be clear that also a
broader theoretical discussion is needed to figure out the similarities and
dissimilarities between religiosity, religiousness and spirituality. Addition-
ally, the theoretical framework can be broadened and the scientific inter-
est directed toward the evolution of the human ability to shape individual
religiosity. In this case, the topic of the evolution of religion will be enlarged
by the topic of the evolution of religiosity, as evidenced in the title of this
edited volume. In an analog sense (see “Religion and evolution” section), it
may be deciphered as the role of religiosity in the evolution of humankind,
or the role of humankind in the evolution of religiosity, or as the evolu-
tion of humankind and its effects on the inner constitution of humans,
among which the potentiality to develop and to express religiosity might
be comprised.

RELIGION SYSTEMS

EVOLUTION

RELIGIOSITY
RELIGIOUSNESS ANTROPHOLOGY
SPIRITUALITY
Credion

Figure 5.2   Beyond the fixation on religion: the evolution of religiosity.

 The Evolution of Religion 97
Beyond the Fixation on Religiosity: The Processes
of Believing
In the attempt to change the focus from the evolution of religion to the
evolution of religiosity, the fact that religion and religiosity belong to two
different categories has four consequences:

1 Disciplines such as neuroscience, cognitive science, information theory

and psychology can contribute in only a limited way to an understand-
ing of religion (as a systemic concept), but they are relevant for issues
within the debates about the evolution of religiosity (as an anthropo-
logical concept). That is also the case for some of their subdisciplines
that are especially dedicated to evolutionary topics, such as paleo-neu-
rology. These disciplines cannot give any significant insights into the
relation between evolution and religion, but they can provide data for
an understanding of the evolution of humans and our possible capacity
to develop our own religiosity.
2 The fixation on religion has stimulated a special interest in contents.
That is a logical consequence of the fact that many similarities and dis-
similarities become evident as different or even incompatible contents.
Most of these contents have become visible as differences in religious
beliefs. Hence, the question of contents of religious systems (dogmas)
became overwhelmingly central.
3 In the debates about the evolution of religion, the fixed focus on reli-
gions and the contents of their beliefs has had the consequence that
the theoretical interest has been focused on beliefs in general. That is
compatible with the observation that in scientific debates, the noun
“belief” is generally preferred even if it is intended to stress the fluid-
ity of the believing processes. Thus, one predominantly finds expres-
sions like the formation of beliefs (Langdon and Coltheart 2000;
McGarty et al. 2002), dynamics of belief (Forrest 1986), erosion of
beliefs (Beck and Miller 1999) or even evolution of misbelief (McKay
and Dennet 2009).
4 In a linguistic sense, the term “belief” belongs to the group of nouns
associated with concepts of substantiality and stability. That has not
been without influence on the debates of an evolution of religion.
Similarly, like in biology, different manifestations within species
have been brought into a temporal order to understand their evolu-
tion. But interestingly, within the context of religion, this procedure
has been transferred from the manifestation of species to different
semantic “contents of belief.” Contents of beliefs have been com-
pared with regard of similarity and dissimilarity. The attempt to
bring the different contents of religious (adjective) beliefs into a tem-
poral order was one of the theoretical approaches to the evolution of
religions.
98  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
Leaving behind the fixation on religion will allow us to draw attention not
only to stable contents and stable beliefs but also to the processes in indi-
viduals, which underlie belief formation, namely the processes of believing.
Understanding the processes of believing is relevant to understanding how
semantic contents – regardless of whether they belong to religious systems
(dogmas) or to secular systems (ideologies) – can even become central for
individuals.
In simpler terms, the semantic contents of beliefs can be understood as
emotionally shaped representations of contents in the brain. For the issue
of the evolution of religiosity, this may direct the scope of interest to the
question of how the brain evolved from believing as a mental function to
believing as embodied brain processes.
To summarize the reflection so far, one can state that a remarkable part
of the debates that focus on the evolution of religion follow a fixation on
religion. As a result, the evolution-of-religion debates are caught by the trap
of focusing on religion. It is even a double trap, because religion is under-
stood in a reductive sense from the 19th century, and religiosity, as a dif-
ferent category, has faded out – at least as a theoretical concept. This is the
case, even if many “religious” (adjective) phenomena can be conceived as
part of a theory of religiosity. It is no surprise, then, that within this double-
reductive framework, there is no trigger to include a crucial topic, namely
the processes of believing even though the underestimated role of the believ-
ing processes can remarkably enrich the debate about evolution of religion.
Because the processes of believing have recently become a prominent
field of scientific research (Angel et al. 2017), we can and will provide sev-
eral hints as to how to understand the processes of believing and how to
integrate this topic into the traditional framework of evolution of religion,
which follow.

Credition and the Evolution of the Ability to Believe

To make evident the difference between belief and the processes of believing
the term credition was coined (Angel 2006, 2013a). Credition is understood
as normal and unavoidable activity which may take place in secular as well
as in religious contexts and involves (at least in humans) the processes of
meaning-making (Ihm et al., this volume). This aspect will become crucial
once the ability to believe is integrated into a framework of the evolution
of religion, because believing processes cannot be limited to the context of
religions (Whitehouse 2005; Kundt 2015). The challenge to be faced will be
the question of how individuals will integrate components of religion into
their individual religiosity or how components of religion will shape over
time the religiousness of individuals who are ready to develop their personal
attitudes in the context of a religion.
One of the theoretical backgrounds for understanding the processes of
religious development will be concepts of religiosity. But to my knowledge, it
 The Evolution of Religion 99
is difficult to find definitions of religiosity in the relevant literature. To avoid
a tautology – that is, a fixation on religion and a fading out of r­ eligiosity –
I have proposed to conceive of religiosity as analogous to homeostasis of a
higher level. Humans (and all vertebrates) are able to regulate (e.g., like a
thermostat) their biological processes in a way that is scientifically labeled
as homeostasis. In a similar way, there should be a hypothesized homeo-
static process/function to regulate higher cognitive processes that transcend
mere biological concepts. Such a higher-level homeostasis, which takes place
within a non-basal biological frame, could be named religiosity or home-
ostasis II, since it is able to integrate mental concepts like transcendence
(Angel 2006).
Thankfully, an empirically based fruitful research field on the measure-
ment of religiosity already exists. Hill and Hood (1999), in their overview,
list different types of scales, like scales of religious beliefs and practices,
scales of religious attitudes, scales of religious orientation, scales of reli-
gious development and so on. The neurophysiological processes that
underlie belief formation have become a target of neuroscientific research
(Seitz 2017). This perspective opens a wide horizon for different fields of
research, such as on empathy, placebo effects, emotion regulation, valu-
ation processes and many more (Angel et al. 2017). The breadth of such
different fields of research may nourish the impression of incoherency. But
that is not the case if one follows the research line from the “question of
belief to the question of [the processes of] believing” (Angel 2017).
In a series of conferences, it has been worked out that the believing pro-
cesses should be understood as fundamental brain functions (Seitz and Angel
2012; Angel and Seitz 2016), which result in probabilistic representations
with attributes of personal meaning and value and which thereby guide
individuals’ behavior (Seitz et al. 2017). Consequently, further issues could
be addressed. Models and the neural base of the believing processes were
explored (Sugiura et al. 2015), and first attempts have been undertaken to
relate the processes of believing to meaning-making processes, especially
within a religious context (Seitz and Angel 2014). The radius of neurophysi-
ological research has been extended to explore the influence of transcultural
conditions (Han et al. 2017) or to figure out how the believing processes
play an important role for well-known neuropsychological concepts, such
as decision-making and expectation management (Angel and Seitz 2017).
Further research is needed, such as to clarify the evolution of the capacity
to believe and its relation to learning, motivation, development and so on.
For the topic of the evolution of religion/religiosity, it will be of theoreti-
cal interest how the processes of believing can be related to (religious and
secular) belief systems. This needs to take into account the role of social
groups and societies, which are central topics for social neuroscience (Seitz,
this volume). A cultural approach will facilitate the understanding of how
the processes of believing can result in such divergent particularities of reli-
gious thoughts and beliefs (Oviedo, this volume).
100  Hans-Ferdinand Angel
The conceptual work behind these findings and the model of credition
that is based on them cannot be fully explained in this chapter. The model
shows how the processes of believing start with an irritating perception
and are “translated” into a space of action in which concrete behavioral
decisions are prepared. Because processes of believing are frequent events,
every single process of believing stabilizes by reinforcing existing beliefs. We
intend in the near future to work out the structure of the believing process
also within the framework of evolutionary concepts.

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6 The Processes of Believing
in Religion’s Evolution
A Cognitive Neuroscience Hypothesis
Rüdiger J Seitz

Introduction
This chapter is based on the hypothesis that the neuropsychic function of
believing is brought about by fundamental brain processes that can be the
object of neurophysiological investigation. On the neurophysiological level,
the processes of believing involve the recognition of signals as probabilistic
representations in conjunction with attributing subjective meaning to them
(Seitz et al. 2017). This experiential process is perpetuated in the majority
of instances without awareness of the individual and consolidated through
declarative and procedural memory, leading to the subject’s sense of con-
tinuity. Thereupon, the processes of believing enables probabilistic cost/
reward predictions that guide the individual’s behavior. Owing to their char-
acter as neurophysiological, these processes of believing will result in a puta-
tive brain product or representation in neural code that may be called belief.
Beliefs serve a purpose in that they are linked to personal intuitive judg-
ments about the subjective certainty of sensory perceptions and abstract
constructs, including imaginations (Harris et al. 2007). Owing to the rapid
spread of cerebral network activity in the order of milliseconds, during
which cerebral representations form (Seitz et  al. 2008; Potthoff and Seitz
2015), most beliefs are implicit, and only a few become explicit as they
draw the subject’s attention. Accordingly, this descriptive level of analy-
sis assumes the implementation of behavioral phenomena at the level of
neurons, synapses and neural networks in the human brain as an essential
constraint for the space of scientific exploration (Churchland and Sejnowski
1988). Nevertheless, this neuroscientific view does not exclude but rather
is consistent with one of the long philosophical traditions that understand
beliefs as tightly interrelated with knowledge as representing the worldview
of a believing individual (Visala and Angel 2017).
On the social level of description, it is a characteristic feature of beliefs
that people attribute confidence to them and, therefore, base their behav-
ior on them. Accordingly, beliefs have been considered to guide intelligent
behavior in humans concerning interpersonal relations and adherence to
societal or cultural norms (Elliott et  al. 1995; Howlett and Paulus 2015;
 The Processes of Believing 105
Taves 2015). Specifically, social neuroscience has pointed out that the prin-
ciples pertinent in neuroscience underlie the cerebral mechanisms according
to which individuals relate themselves to social groups and societies (Vogeley
and Roepstorf 2009). Moreover, religious beliefs have been hypothesized to
reflect physiological brain activity brought about by neural circuits (Boyer
et  al. 2003). If this is true, it similarly should be valid also for religious
beliefs and, in the same way, for other types of conceptual beliefs, like politi-
cal or moral ones. Against this background, the contextual picture for the
formation of belief systems, such as religions, is of neuroscientific interest.
As outlined by Angel (this volume), the notion of religion is based on
concepts that differed in history and have become separate from the notion
of religiosity and spirituality. In our contemporary understanding, religion
can be seen as a systemic term, whereas religiosity is an anthropological
term (ibid). Here, this discussion is extended to an empirical account of
the processes of believing, which constitute a critical aspect of religion and
religiosity in individuals, social groups and societies. The chapter will argue
that the same neurophysiological principles guiding behavior on the level of
interacting individuals apply on the level of anthropology. Key aspects for
the relation of the processes of believing to religion as a research object of
social neuroscience are narratives and rituals that are transmitted and prac-
ticed in social groups and societies for one’s entire life, from early infancy
onward (Belzen 2010; Schnell 2012).
In sum, the aim of this chapter is to explore the gap between human
brainwork and the notions of religion and religiosity. First, it will be shown
that the processes underlying believing take place in individuals in relation
to the perception and valuation of objects and events. On the level of per-
sonal interactions, these processes are grounded in empathy, theory of mind
and language that develop during infancy and childhood. Second, evidence
will be presented showing that in the social domain, important constituents
of the processes of believing are narratives provided to the individuals and
the subjective meaning that those individuals associate with those narra-
tives. The subjective relevance of narratives is reinforced by ritual activities,
which are practiced in families, groups and societies. Thereupon, a sense of
in-group belonging, safety and meaning of life is built up in the individuals,
each of which is a potent force for the formation of cultures from prehis-
tory onward. Finally, cross-cultural social neuroscience studies suggest that
the human brain appears suitable for forming a variety of cultural products
including religious beliefs.

The Neurophysiological Model of the Processes of Believing

Neuroimaging has provided a means to explore whether cognitive activity,
including religious worship, has a neurophysiological representation in the
human brain. For example, Azari and colleagues (2001) performed a func-
tional imaging experiment in which self-identified Christian believers recited
106  Rüdiger J Seitz
or read Psalm 23. Using experimental control conditions and non-believing
control subjects, the researchers found specific activations in the cerebral
cortex that constituted a cortico-subcortical neural circuit (Azari et  al.
2005). The researchers hypothesized that this brain circuitry was related
to attributing subjective value or meaning to the biblical narrative. As the
study subjects were strong Christian believers, this attribution included also
their sense of transcendence. These findings were substantiated by the obser-
vation that self-referential processing in Chinese Christians as compared
to nonreligious Chinese people engaged similar brain areas in the medial
frontal and parietal cortex (Han et al. 2008).
Most prominent was the activation of the dorsal medial frontal cortex,
which has recently been described as a key brain structure for regulating
emotions and executive functions (Seitz et al. 2006; Niendam et al. 2012;
Shalev et  al. 2017), including social self-esteem (Siegrist et  al. 2005). In
more general terms, these findings provided neuroscientific support for the
claim that the probabilistic attribution of meaning  – for example, believ-
ing – involves conceptual thinking and emotional loading (Angel and Seitz
2016). From this, a biomathematical model was elaborated that accounts
for the interaction of perceptual experience and subjective affective value for
the acquisition, maintenance and contextual modification of beliefs (Seitz
et al. 2018). Notably, the involvement of affect makes a belief distinct from
sensation and cognition (Sugiura et al. 2015).
On the basis of this assumption, the processes of believing involve the
elaboration of a probabilistic representation of an object or event in the
external world and the association of this representation with an emotional
loading (Figure 6.1). As in animals, such representations are typically based
on the formal explorative analysis of stimuli in the environment by the dedi-
cated senses. Perception is a dynamic process of reiteratively elaborating
stimuli that collectively build multifaceted probabilistic abstract representa-
tions (Seitz et al. 2017). These representations pop up most likely against
the background noise in a Bayesian sense (Friston 2010; Dehaene and
Changeux 2011; Wiese et  al. 2014). Importantly, this bottom-up process
is heavily intertwined with reciprocal top-down processing such that the
actual abstract representation or image is matched against that of a previ-
ously perceived item (Adelson 1993; Olshausen et al. 1993).
Usually, the processing speed is in the magnitude of some 20 to 40 mil-
liseconds and, thus, below the limits of awareness (Bar et al. 2006; Sharan
et al. 2014). Objects become more identifiable against a noisy background
when either the signal-to-noise ratio or the duration of their exposure
increase relative to the high processing speed inherent in the nervous tissue
(Libet et al. 1991; Takai and Nishida 2010). The representations are coded
in the brain by dedicated cortical units that are composed of assemblies
of so-called cortical columns (Hubel and Wiesel 1968; Hubel et al. 1978;
Juliano et al. 1981). These cortical columns have point-to-point correspond-
ence with the external signals that were decoded by dedicated – for example,
 The Processes of Believing 107

Figure 6.1  Hypothetical model of the processes of believing.

Reciprocal processing of external signals and of the subject’s values leads to proba-
bilistic representations or “beliefs” that are coded in the brain. These representations
are the basis for the subject’s actions and reward-cost predictions associated with
them. Note that actions induce new signals from the body and reactions from the
environment, providing feedback for the subject that concurs with or contradicts
previously established beliefs.

visual, auditory or somatosensory – receptors. At a remote or higher level

of processing, there is a cross-talk across the sensory modalities, which is
thought to be mediated by the binding of oscillatory brain activity in local
and large-scale networks (Clark et al. 1988; Gray et al. 1989; Gross et al.
2004). This discussion, however, is open to the long-standing theoretical dis-
course over whether objects are coded in the brain by common supramodal
geometry features or by domain-specific processing with subsequent gener-
alization (Altieri 2015).
Perceptions include events involving a sequence of different stimuli and –
in the most advanced form – as present in heard or written music or lan-
guage (Hauser et  al. 2002). As an example, narratives, such as religious
mythical stories, convey information and images about the history, existence
and fate of a social group or society as well as of individuals within social
groups or societies (Belzen 2010; Schnell 2012). Yet narratives can also be
rules and norms conveying authority and the bias to conform with them for
groups of subjects or communities (Leicester 2008). The perception of nar-
ratives involves processing times, which are determined by the length and
complexity of the story, extending up to minutes and even several hours.
Neuroimaging has shown that subjects who shared the same interpretation
of narratives showed widespread activations involving the default-mode,
language, mirror-neuron and emotion networks (Amft et al. 2015; Yeshurun
et al. 2017). Conversely, the activation patterns among those subjects who
favored different interpretations differed in proportion to the difference in
interpretation (Yeshurun et al. 2017).
In addition, subjects dichotomize their perceptions with respect to the
notion of what something means to them, which results in a positive/
108  Rüdiger J Seitz
rewarding versus negative/malicious value (Figure 6.1). Consequently, the
affect associated with a formal representation renders the representation for
the subject as relevant or irrelevant (Seitz and Angel 2014). The personal
probabilistic representations are typically established implicitly but can
become explicit when the stimuli trigger a high level of personal meaning,
which provides mnemonic priority (Packard and Cahill 2001; Friston et al.
2014; Hostler et al. 2018). Items of high personal meaning are also behav-
iorally relevant because they may evoke behaviors in the opposite direction,
such as avoidance or desire (Rolls 2006; Leicester 2008).
Fear signals, threats or danger make nonhuman animals rush away
(LeDoux 2012). Conversely, a pleasant sensation is likely to cause nonhu-
man animals to turn toward the object or event. More generally, positive
attributions consist of subjective values reflecting relevance, reward and
ultimately survival (Rolls 2006; Vlaev et  al. 2011; Paloutzian and Mukai
2017; Seitz et  al. 2018). This view corresponds to the notion that cogni-
tion and emotion interact as a mode of automatic operation, leading to the
motivation to act or to react (Izard 2009). The valuation process was shown
to result in prominent activations in the medial dorsal frontal cortex (Seitz
et al. 2008; Lindenberg et al. 2012), while affective meaning preferentially
activated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Roy et al. 2012).
Furthermore, the sense of reality, attitude and subjective assessment of
confidence has been localized to the orbitofrontal cortex (Rolls 2006; De
Martino et al. 2013; Liverani et al. 2015). Although these value attributions
are not absolute but instead dependent on the given context (Rigoli et al.
2016a), the association of subjective relevance to perception is a key aspect
of belief formation. Thus, the external world and internal world are fused
into unitary meaningful representations of high probability (i.e., “beliefs”)
held by a subject. Note that perception and valuation need not be balanced.
Rather, even small or uncertain signals can have a large affective loading for
the subject as large certain signals may have only a minor affective loading
and vice versa. In fact, the emotional loading is most likely scaled gradually
for different kinds of beliefs rather than being a categorical property. How-
ever, both perceptual and meta-cognitive information are processed in the
anterior frontal cortex, limiting the processing resources (Maniscalco et al.
2017). Typically, an individual assumes that what they believe is indeed
true. But owing to the probabilistic character of the representations, the
subject may be mistaken and form a false belief (Leicester 2008; McKay and
Dennett 2009). The latter is most severe in the case of pathological brain
states, including delusions (Bell et al. 2006).
Along with planning actions, beliefs are the basis for subjective predic-
tions of the possible rewards and costs for achieving a certain goal (Seitz
et  al. 2017). Functional neuroimaging has shown an activation of the
anterior cingulate, the anterior medial frontal cortex and the putamen for
better-than-expected outcomes compared with worse-than-expected out-
­
comes (Kurniawan et al. 2013; Bardi et al. 2017). The pre-supplementary
 The Processes of Believing 109
motor area (pre-SMA), which is a distinct cortical area located in the ante-
rior medial frontal cortex, is active as part of the basal ganglia loop for
response selection (Korb et al. 2017; Ruan et al. 2018). Since neural activity
in the sensory cortex was modulated in anticipation of a sensory action con-
sequence (Stenner et al. 2015), sensory prediction was shown to be gener-
ated before an efferent (away from) motor action is present. Furthermore,
choice behavior is mediated by the dorsolateral and medial frontal cortex
(Federenko et al. 2013; Prochnow et al. 2014) in relation to activity in the
hippocampus, ventral tegmental area and striatum, which represent infor-
mation about the prevailing reward context (Rigoli et  al. 2016b). Nota-
bly, subjects are typically not aware of their decision preferences that are
determined by activity modulation in the anterior prefrontal cortex (Tusche
et al. 2010; Kahnt et al. 2010). Thus, widespread prefrontal and subcorti-
cal activity in the brain is involved in choice selection. Nevertheless, choice
selection is intuitive which closely corresponds to belief-based guidance of
behavior.
The perceptual information on which subjects base their behavior and pre-
dictions was acquired in the past and stabilized by reinforcement learning,
which causes the sense of a positive emotion such as familiarity, confidence
and continuity (Chang et  al. 2010; d’Acremont et  al. 2013; Henkel and
Mattson 2011; Meyniel et al. 2015). The real-world stimuli are represented
in the cerebral cortex by dedicated cortical units that can be modulated in a
dynamic manner upon further exposure (Merzenich and Sameshima 1993).
Rituals are the driving force in establishing personal meaning to narratives
held in a social group or society via reinforcement learning and habit forma-
tion (Belzen 2010; Seitz et al. 2018). In nonhuman animal studies, it was
shown that reinforcement learning, which underlies habit formation, leads
to the reorganization of cortico-subcortical circuits in the basal ganglia
under the influence of dopamine (Graybiel and Grafton 2015). However,
the predictions of subjects may be violated by contradictory events. The
resulting prediction errors are evaluated by the given subject and may even
result in their dismissing a previously held belief (Angel and Seitz 2017).
Thus, continuously occurring error signals may be the origins of updating
beliefs and, thereby, the basis for the context-adjusted modulation of behav-
ior. The interaction of the orbitofrontal cortex with the amygdala has been
reported to be crucial for updating beliefs about action outcomes (Fiuzat
et al. 2017).
When subjects interact with each other, they employ theory of mind and
empathy to infer the cognitive and/or emotional state of their counterpart
(Potthoff and Seitz 2015). This inference corresponds to a sense of causal-
ity, since there is the notion based on research on human evolution that the
mindset of people is the basis for their actions (Teehan 2016). In the first-
person perspective, subjects plan their own upcoming actions such that they
are putatively appropriate for the actual social situation, and they anticipate
the actions of their counterparts according to what the subjects think is
110  Rüdiger J Seitz

Figure 6.2 Schematic display of the believing processes in social interaction. Simi-

lar perceptions (P) and similar values (V) associated with them result in
similar beliefs (B) and therefore similar actions (A). Note that the scheme
also accounts for the immediate social interaction of subjects where the
action of one subject is perceived and evaluated by the other subject. The
action may have been predicted by the former subject or may deviate
from this prediction.

reasonably appropriate to the given social condition (Figure  6.2). Differ-

ent perceptions and/or values associated with even identical external events
can induce changes of held beliefs which are therefore unpredictable. When
subjects base their actions on common beliefs that are held in a group or
society, the actions tend to be more uniform among all subjects. Such an
interpersonal resonance of group behavior is compatible with the notion of
the human mirror-neuron system (Iacoboni and Mazziotta 2007; Rizzolatti
and Fabbri-Destro 2008). In addition, it was found that subjects’ engaging
in the same ritual behavior strengthens the sense of in-group membership
and social cooperation (Power 2017). This is known as an important driv-
ing force for the formation of groups and probably also societies.

Relation of Beliefs and Belief Systems

The functional brain activity operative during the processes of believing in
the individual also applies on a larger scale to social groups and societies
as conceptualized by social neuroscience (Vogeley and Roepstorff 2009). In
essence, the neural processes occur as summarized in the previous section
in each of the individuals that constitute social groups or even societies. In
the social environment, individuals become exposed to complex events such
as narratives and ritual acts (Belzen 2010; Schnell 2012). Narratives, such
as mythical religious stories, provide semantic colloquial information, as
in an individual’s report or formalized as in fairy tales or normative texts
 The Processes of Believing 111
(Figure 6.1). So narratives are the source of abstract constructs or images
on which groups of subjects agree on and to which they adhere. Rituals
represent practices for occasions as specified in narratives and provide posi-
tive emotional attributes, including the sense of acquaintance, high level of
predictable behavior and the feeling of transcendence (Figure 6.1).
The multifaceted complexity of such repetitive external events, such as
exposure to narratives and rituals, gives rise to belief systems, as can be
observed in social groups and societies (Pechey and Halligan 2011). Again,
there is the interaction of the beliefs held in the external world with the
individuals’ subjective labeling of them. Subjects in a social group or society
sharing beliefs through ritual acts fosters prosocial behavior and in-group
identification (Power 2017). The psychophysical and neurophysiological
processes underlying the expression of abstract probabilistic constructs,
such as beliefs, have been found to engage the medial dorsal prefrontal cor-
tex (Seitz et  al. 2012; Krueger and Grafman 2013; Kaplan et  al. 2016).
Neuroimaging has shown that widespread areas in higher order brain areas
become engaged in relation to believing (Howlett and Paulus 2015; Han
et  al. 2017). Furthermore, as narratives are told and rituals are practiced
repeatedly in social groups and societies – be it once a day, week, month or
year – the time frame for establishing belief systems becomes correspond-
ingly long and ultimately possibly lifelong.
In fact, children are already exposed to narratives and ritual acts and
take part in the latter, which have been found to shape their collabora-
tive behavior and cultural traditions (Fernández 2015). The interaction of
bottom-up perception, repetition learning and top-down prediction has
­
been conceptualized as an integrative model for accumulating information
that was assigned the label of event cognition (Taves and Asprem 2016).
Repetitions are the basis for procedural skills and declarative and autobio-
graphic memory, which are all represented in different parts of the human
brain (Frith and Frith 2003). Notably, these learning processes are also
present in nonhuman primates and other mammals and have been studied
neurophysiologically (Squire 2004; Eichenbaum 2010). Furthermore, ritual
punishment for an offense of breaking rules or norms is an important factor
to strengthen in-group coherence, since it raises social pressure on the indi-
vidual subjects to comply with the rules and norms, constituting a nexus of
morality (Teehan 2016). Thereby, in-group membership is signaled, allow-
ing people to avoid endangering threats to their personal integrity and ulti-
mately their lives.
As people grow up and are imbedded in social groups, successful commu-
nication is fundamental to the interpersonal exchange of meanings of per-
ceptions, imaginations and mental states (Figure 6.2). In fact, social groups
and societies provide meaning systems that are received similarly across
their members and that give meaning to people’s collective work. Moreover,
emotional value and personal meaning are attributed to the belief systems
that are shared by groups of people and societies. Social groups thereby
112  Rüdiger J Seitz
provide the framework for the personal maturation of their individual mem-
bers. For that reason, during conflict, most people do what is best for their
group rather than for themselves (Feierman, this volume).
As metaphysical beliefs are socially rooted in traditional narratives or, for
example, religious mythical stories that refer to the past beyond the limits of
personal experience, they constitute the belief systems of individuals from
childhood onward (Seligman and Brown 2010). Interestingly, the neural
systems supporting moral elevation have a high inter-subject consistency
and synchronization (Englander et al. 2012). Examples of such belief sys-
tems include attitudes, worldviews and ultimate or transcendent concerns
such as those provided in religions. Furthermore, religions are known to
convey a sense of sacredness for objects or living beings in the environment
as well as for ongoing events. In a parsimonious explanation, the experience
of transcendence can result from large objects exceeding the size of humans
and for events extending beyond the lifetime of humans. Interestingly, it has
been reported that there is a high prevalence of strong beliefs in Western
society in such things as the soul surviving death and that people should
help those who are less fortunate than themselves (Pechey and Halligan
2011). Note that the medial frontal cortex plays a critical role in maintain-
ing a stable belief, as found in a cross-cultural comparison of narratives
about individuality and belonging to a social group (Han et al. 2008).

Discussion
The perception-valuation-action model presented here aims at explaining
the cognitive brain functions underlying the neuropsychic function of believ-
ing, couched in neurophysiological terms. It claims the integration of objec-
tive and subjective worldviews by synaptic activity within neural circuits
of the human brain to be fundamental for the processes of believing. Since
probabilistic representations coded in a person’s brain, including his or her
beliefs, are not directly accessible to scientific exploration at this time, their
existence cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed. However, recent neuroimag-
ing studies have shown that extensive cerebral networks become involved
when subjects are engaged in the processes of believing (Howlett and Paulus
2015; Han et al. 2017). These resulting representations are typically empiri-
cal beliefs and are thus experiential in origin (Nassar et al. 2010), but they
can also be cognitive constructs or images. The resulting beliefs are intuitive
and experienced as true or false and are thus not on a gradient of subjective
uncertainty (Johnson et al. 2015).
Importantly, people’s belief systems involve unique pre-evidential and
probabilistic judgments of the world that bias subsequent categorizations
and evaluations (Morewedge and Kahneman 2010). Accordingly, they can
be a powerful component of an individual’s belief system and can include the
individual’s implicit or explicit answers on how to cope with the future and
how to find existential meaning, whether through secular, political, spiritual
 The Processes of Believing 113
or religious means (La Cour and Hvidt 2010; Kaplan et al. 2016). Beliefs
differ from knowledge about facts in that the latter is verifiable. Rather,
beliefs display a high degree of momentary subjective relevance owing to
their emotional loading. It may be speculated that the emotional loading
of beliefs becomes stronger in relation to the complexity of a belief system.
Particularly, political and religious belief systems can induce an affective
stance of the individual to underscore their certainty, willingness to defend
this stance and resistance to have the proposition questioned by others.
Credition has been conceived as a psychological term denoting the cogni-
tive processes underlying what “they believe” (Angel 2013; Angel and Seitz
2016). Central to the credition model is the self-organizing probabilistic
assembly of perceptual and affective attributes of a given object or event.
These cognitive constructs are used by the subjects for selecting a possible
action that appears most appropriate for a given context according to the
acting subject. This cybernetic model of credition assumes that the processes
of believing can be stabilized by repetitions as in a learning process (Krist-
jansson and Campana 2010). Importantly, the contents of the processes
of believing are typically secular, but they can also be non-secular, as in
religiosity (Angel, this volume) and may differ across social groups, socie-
ties and cultures (Vogeley and Roepstorf 2009; Seitz et  al. 2017). In the
most general sense, beliefs can be understood as epistemic attitudes toward
certain propositions or content (Visala and Angel 2017). They can be based
on subjective empirical evidence, a priori knowledge or social experience.
But the meaning that renders beliefs personally relevant – especially certain
interpersonal, political and religious beliefs  – creates subjective resistance
against challenges by outsiders.
Given the complexity of social structures and social-individual interac-
tions, a multilevel understanding is mandatory to reveal the particularities
of religious thoughts and beliefs (Oviedo, this volume).
It was found in one study that political beliefs, similarly to religious
beliefs, were relative resistant to contradictory statements rather than non-
political beliefs (Kaplan et al. 2016). Activity in the anterior dorsal medial
frontal cortex was high in political beliefs. But in non-political beliefs, the
activity decreased in proportion to the change of the strength of the belief
(Kaplan et al. 2016).
The content of religious beliefs can be explained by an experiential model
involving the surrounding culture on a general level, as can intuitions of
agency on a personal level (van Leeuwen and van Elk 2018). Typically,
religious beliefs are quite stable. Therefore, small changes in religious beliefs
(e.g., change from Protestant to Catholic) may be more likely to occur and
less demanding than large changes in religious beliefs (e.g., change from
Christianity to Islam), as highlighted by Paloutzian (2005). The ultimate
construct is the human notion of a deity. However, scientific explora-
tion and beliefs are inherently earthbound and reside within the limits of
human existence, while the universal God is supposedly beyond human
114  Rüdiger J Seitz
comprehension and thus irreducible to the natural causes within the world
that can be subject to scientific exploration (Ellis 2014). Hopefully, the cog-
nitive neuroscience schemas developed in this chapter that are proposed to
underly the processes of religious believing contributed some new insights
into of some of the many ways that religions may evolve.

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7 Near-Death and Out-of-Body
Experiences in Sensing the Divine
One Foundational Role in Religion’s
Evolution
Michael N Marsh

Introduction
Understanding the evolutionary origins of religion is a formidable task,
since the physical remnants of ancient communities offer few clues. His-
torians of religion (Eliade 1958) suggest that self-reported “spiritual”
feelings among animist tribes usually associate with naturally occurring
objects – the sky, the sun, the moon, water, stones, vegetation and eventu-
ally sacred places engendering varied emotions like awe or fear (See Ihm
et al. and Early, this volume). Additional relevant inputs include dreams,
trances, psychedelic experiences (peyote) and shamanism. Following pre-
vious work on near-death experiences (NDEs) and out-of-body experi-
ences (OBEs) (Marsh 2010, 2013), my aim in this chapter is to explore
their possible role in fostering the early evolution of spirituality and reli-
giousness. Cognate neuroscientific advances associated with them will also
be evaluated.
NDEs are self-reported, subjective experiences resulting from various
life-threatening events, but contrary to certain popular writings, they
are not “post-death” recollections about heaven or “the other side.”
Self-reported OBEs describe floating outside one’s body or of sometimes
perceiving it from external perspectives. NDEs and OBEs may, or may
not, be related; indeed, their underlying mechanisms appear distinct.
Recent studies indicate that for modern people, NDEs increase spir-
ituality (2  percent), encourage belief in the afterlife (48  percent) and
strengthen previously held religious beliefs (72  percent) (Fenwick and
Fenwick 1998). From that, it seems reasonable that NDEs/OBEs could
realistically contribute to early evolutionary origins of religion in ancient
preliterate people.
This chapter explores how ancient people first gained some inklings of
the other world, or, in modern words, the supernatural or transcendent, but
which here are identified as sensing the divine. This is an earlier issue sepa-
rate from evolved religion, which is a social institution comprising mythical
stories, rituals and theologically derived belief systems. Instead, the question
 Sensing the Divine 121
is how NDEs/OBEs could have contributed to sensing the divine, since dur-
ing the earliest phases of religion’s evolution, ancient people gained such
perceptions out of day-to-day experiences.
This chapter is conjectural given the few directly observable traces of
personal, subjective experiences among ancient people. The standard
of evidence could be considered plausible. While “ancient people” is
also a purposely vague term, we are uncertain when, during our spe-
cies’ 200,000 to 300,000-year evolutionary history, such divine per-
ceptions first occurred. Whether the latter involved ancestral species
preceding Homo sapiens is even more conjectural, although the absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence. We know for certain that extant
groups of Homo sapiens are religious, so looking for its antecedents
in our own species is certainly warranted. As will be shown, certain
medical morbidities provide the etiological agency for NDEs/OBEs and
thus offer an attractive approach for understanding one of several foun-
dational prerequisites for religion’s earliest evolutionary origins. Par-
enthetically, given the accident- and illness-prone background to most
NDEs/OBEs, an “adaptive” evolutionary outcome would not appear to
have provided any selective advantage. This chapter argues that NDEs/
OBEs are a plausible substrate on which early religious behavior could
have originated.

Near-Death and Out-Of-Body Experiences

Aspects of NDE phenomenology

Apart from those undergoing or formally studying NDEs/OBEs, most casual
impressions are shaped by media reports using out-of-focus pictures, bright
lights, individuals floating through space, tunnels and vague references to
“spiritual” Beings, capitalized in purporting to reveal their true ontology.
From my analysis of approximately eight hundred published NDEs (Marsh
2010, 2013), these events are clearly personal and contextually modulated –
historically, culturally and geographically (Sabom 1982; Fenwick and Fen-
wick 1998; Pasricha 1992; van Lommel 2010; Marsh 2013). There is no
definitive reproducible sequence or uniformity (Figure 7.1), despite contrary
assertions (Moody 1976; Ring 1980).
This is the first occasion when results based on approximately eight
hundred published accounts (Moody, Ring, Sabom, Fenwick and Fen-
wick, Grey, Long, van Lomel) have been collated. Since these authors
have used different words to describe these experiential aspects, data
have been smoothed, as far as possible, to accommodate those differ-
ences. They refer to (a) blackness, (b) OBE, (c) tunnels, (d) light, (e) love,
(f) sensations, (g) knowledge gained, (h) heaven, (i) life review, (j)
meetings and (k) barriers. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no
122  Michael N Marsh

Figure 7.1   A plot scattergram of percentages (vertical axis) of subjects experiencing

components of NDE/OBE (horizontal axis).

conformity or uniformity among these reports: In general, under 60 per-

cent of all  subjects experienced every  feature  listed. Clearly, with this
diagram in hand, any naïve observers would not draw such stereotyped
conclusions; nor indeed would they immediately recognize the precept
of “core” or “depth” experiences (Marsh 2015a). This diagram was first
published in Antonianum (2015 2: 289–318). Permission to reproduce is
gladly acknowledged. The author also thanks James Gray for his help in
revising Figure 7.1 for this chapter.
An improved classification of NDE/OBE, without needing “core” or
“depth” misrepresentations, is offered here (Table  7.1), providing more
truthful, valid portrayals of subjects’ recollections of early- and late-phase
components. Late-phase experiences indicate returning conscious awareness,
sometimes incorporating short dualistic periods when “otherworldly” and
real-world events are undergone at the same time. Such recalled dualistic
experiences critically demonstrate that subjects could neither have been out-
side their bodies nor their minds simultaneously.
Together, these features indicate a neurological etiology, albeit dismissed
by those insisting that NDEs/OBEs “prove escape of soul, mind or conscious-
ness from corporeal bondage” (Nelson 2012, 144). But that is not true since
NDEs/OBEs also involve “normal” people. Thus, not being exposed to life-
threatening catastrophes implies that a “dead” brain awaiting resuscitation
 Sensing the Divine 123
Table 7.1 The “core” and depth” aspects (Moody and Ring) of NDEs/OBEs are
descriptively invalid (see Figure 1). A more truthful portrayal of subjects’
recollections is summarized here as early-phase (left column) and late-
phase (right column) components. Late-phase features spell the return of
full conscious awareness, sometimes with dualistic aspects when simulta-
neous experiences of “otherworldly” and the real world occur. Dualisms
indicate that subjects cannot be outside their bodies or their minds simul-
taneously. Each of these experiences is neurologically determined.

NO MORAL QUALMS LEAVING MORAL FEELING TO COME BACK

FAMILY

CROSSING OF SOLID OBJECTS UNWILLING TO CROSS BARRIERS

WEIGHTLESSNESS HEARING REAL VOICES

SEEING LIGHT AND DECEASED BUMPY RETURN TO BODY

PEOPLE

ABSENCE OF PAIN INCREASED PAIN PERCEPTION

SENSE OF MOTION DUALITY OF CONSCIOUS

AWARENESS

is unnecessary. There are corroborating pieces of evidence, often over-

looked, for a neurological etiology of the NDEs/OBEs:

(1) The abrupt termination of an NDE/OBE as subjects’ conscious aware-

ness returns to normal. That is an objective time point, as corroborated
by modern examples: “The Angel [of Death] said my life was not as it
should be, and that I was going back. The next thing was that I was back
in the recovery room, back in my body” (Rawlings 1978, 116–6), and
“He [Christ] embraced me. Then I felt this violent jolt. I started careering
backward. Then I felt this thud and I was back in my body with a lot of
pain” (Fenwick and Fenwick 1998, 86–7). Clearly, NDEs/OBEs occur
not when the brain is “dead,” moribund or nonfunctional (Ring 1980;
Sabom 1982; Fenwick and Fenwick 1998; van Lommel 2010) but rather
as cerebral tissues are returning to their normal, coordinated activities.
That conclusion obviously precludes any suggestion that mind, soul or
consciousness escape from defunct brains (Marsh 2018).
(2) The duality of conscious awareness as the NDE terminates, of which,
again, too little recognition of its importance appears in the literature.
As they recover (within mere seconds or after a minute or two), sub-
jects hallucinate the “other world” but also now sample the real world,
manifested by a needle prick, the application of face mask or bodily
manipulations by clinical staff and hearing their voices.
124  Michael N Marsh
(3) The growing urgency to “return” and resume unfulfilled responsibilities
(spouse, family, household tasks): “I don’t know. I think it was because
I had two young children; they needed me more than [me] up there” (Ring
1980, 71), and “I take my responsibilities very seriously, and I knew that
I had a duty to my family. So, I decided to try to get back” (Moody 1976,
78). These seemingly moral concerns suggest returning influences by the
dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in suppressing irrelevant, other-
worldly hallucinations while conscious awareness supervenes.
(4) “Dead” or seriously compromised brains cannot store memories: if they
could, anterograde and retrograde amnesias following head trauma
would not exist. NDEs should therefore be envisaged as brain-derived,
but late, dream-like reminiscence occurring as full conscious awareness
dawns. NDEs/OBEs are therefore comparable to extremely vivid, hyp-
nopompic dream awakenings, since they also rapidly terminate as sub-
jects awaken. And, like other states just before awakening, NDEs are
remembered as highly pictured adventures (Moore and Greyson 2017).
This is not unique, as similar brain-based vivid hallucinations accom-
pany peduncular hallucinosis, psychedelic drug usage and partial occlu-
sions of the vertebro-basilar arterial system (Marsh 2010, 183).

Aspects of OBE phenomenology, especially as related to NDEs

NDE phenomenology can embrace either hallucinatory motion like fly-
ing, ascending, floating, falling and bumping back into the body upon the
resumption of consciousness  – or aberrant misperceptions of bodily loca-
tion in peri-personal space: “I was in a black tunnel . . . shooting through
it incredibly fast; I was spinning – like water going down a plug” or “Then
I  was travelling in darkness in an unknown direction but at tremendous
speed” (Fenwick and Fenwick 1998, 47, 122).
The motor cortex accompaniments are invariably perceived supine (lying
down) position (Table 7.2) given the relevant precipitating “crisis” etiolo-
gies, which would cause someone to be supine (Table 7.3) (Andersen et al.
1999; Blanke and Mohr 2005). In that position, the sensors for gravity (oto-
liths within the saccule and utricle of the inner ear and vestibular compo-
nents of cranial nerve VIII) are largely inoperative (Mittelstaedt 1991), thus
encouraging sensations of “non-corporeal floating in space.” As indicated,
there are additional inputs from the joints and tendons, touch and the move-
ments of the head and eyes. Together, these neural messages converge at
the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) of the right cerebral hemisphere, gen-
erating an internal sense of body image and of the body’s relationship to
the environment. Disturbances (e.g., vascular, traumatic) in TPJ engender
anomalous feelings of bodily displacements, non-ownership or projection
into local, peri-personal space. The neurophysiological basis of OBE is clear
(Blanke and Dieguez 2009) and not explicable as functional or psychologi-
cal (Greyson 1983).
 Sensing the Divine 125
Table 7.2 
The major neurological players contributing to egocentric and para-­
centric space, or body image, include visual, haptic (touch), propriocep-
tive and vestibular inputs. Disturbances to the central representation of
these varied inputs, in the temporo-parietal junctional cortex, result in
weightlessness, spurious movements and hallucinatory body displace-
ment. For simplicity, other important components (cerebellum, limbic
system, hippocampus and memory) are excluded.

AUDITORY VESTIBULAR SENSORY VISUAL OLFACTORY

CORTEX CORTEX CORTEX CORTEX CORTEX

[hearing] [self-motion, [touch, [visual fields, [smell]

gravity, joint position, conjugate
verticality] neck rotation] gaze]

TEMPORO-PARIETAL JUNCTION

[supramodal coordination center

for body in space]

MOTOR CORTEX

[action]

Is the brain predisposed for NDEs/OBEs?

Another striking feature, although hardly commented on, is that only
approximately 5–10 percent of the populace seems predisposed to undergo-
ing NDEs/OBEs (van Lommel 2010), although such figures may be biased
by widespread use of post-cardiac arrest subjects. Nevertheless, it seems
approximately 90 percent never have NDEs/OBEs. That suggests that those
who do have NDEs may have predisposed brains (due to the factors listed
here), similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). On those grounds,
the most important later outcome (following the antecedent “crisis” event)
is the changed psycho-phenotype which reorients subjects’ viewpoints for
the remainder of their lives. Consequently, NDE/OBE, although highly vivid
and picturesque, may merely be a short-lived, re-wakening epiphenomenon.
Why are most subjects not susceptible? The answer may lie in the effect
of environmental effects on brain function. Studies have uncovered a sur-
prising propensity for people to manifest features of subclinical temporal
lobe dysfunction, related either to previously sustained minor closed-head
injuries, or to acute febrile episodes and delirium during childhood or ado-
lescence (Roberts et al. 1990). Similar findings were demonstrated through
a variety of personality modalities, those with severer behavioral tendencies
126  Michael N Marsh
Table 7.3 Since approximately 90 percent of subjects under stress never experience
NDEs/OBEs, the data suggest that those who do may have predisposed
brains (major factors listed), analogous to PTSD. Thus, the most crucial
late-phase outcome (following the antecedent precipitating “crisis”) is a
changed psycho-phenotype which reorients subjects’ viewpoints for the
remainder of their lives. Consequently, NDE/OBE, although highly vivid,
picturesque and remarkable, may be merely a short-lived re-wakening
epiphenomenon.

CEREBRAL PREDISPOSITIONS FOR NDE

BRAIN

NORMAL PREDISPOSED

Trauma
  Febrile Insults
  Physical Abuses
  Infection – Viral

ADDITIONAL CRISIS

Hemorrhage Intoxication
 Hypotension  Delirium
 Trauma   Anaphylaxis – toxins
 Infection   – systemic      – inoculation
       – cerebral  Drugs
 Inflammation  Obstetric
 Bereavement

OUTCOMES

1. NO POST-EXPERIENTIAL 1. LONG-LASTING, ALTERED

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE PSYCHO-PHENOTYPE
2. NO NDE/OBE 2. NDE/OBE
(Epiphenomenon)

revealing more sub-epileptic temporal lobe disturbances (45  percent vs.

6 percent controls) (Persinger and Makarec 1993).
How then does this apply to NDEs? As a possible explanation, Britton
and Bootzin (2004) found that of 26 NDE subjects, one-fifth revealed evi-
dence of temporal lobe epileptiform (seizure-like) waveforms, and they,
 Sensing the Divine 127
compared with control subjects, were correlated with different psychologi-
cal profiles (Complex Partial Epileptic Signs and Temporal Lobe Symptoms
inventories).
Therefore, it follows that the approximately 10  percent of people who
are susceptible may have sustained subtle, perhaps even clinically unrecog-
nized, brain damage, as suggested by the studies noted earlier, but which
predispose them to these experiential outcomes (Marsh 2016a). Thus, NDE/
OBE phenomenology, despite its vivid characteristics, could be an epiphe-
nomenon, since the important outcome involves the individual’s long-term
psychological and behavioral alterations (Marsh 2016a). The parallel here
is with PTSD, where earlier childhood insults and abuses are important
modulating factors (Mehta et al. 2013; Teicher et al. 2013). Thus, clinical
events during early life, possibly regarded as trivial at the time, could injure
the brain and render it susceptible to later insults, such as prolonged falls in
blood pressure or other metabolic and infectious disruptions that precipitate
NDEs/OBEs (Table 7.3). This hypothesis needs further empirical validation,
however.

Relating NDE/OBE Phenomenology to a Sense of the Divine

According to the foregoing, undergoing an NDE/OBE could potentially
induce the earliest perceptions of the divine, thence to be exemplified in
more-formalized, later religious systems (Bellah 2011). Two books, Other-
word Journeys (Zaleski 1987) and Concepts of the Afterlife in Early Civili-
sations (Sushan 2009), have retraced possible historical pathways toward a
sensing of the divine through NDE phenomenology. These works sampled
societies not only that were highly literate but also whose formalized after-
life beliefs were highly elaborate. Since these books deal with Bellah’s Axial
Age religions (roughly 800 bce to 200 bce), they have no direct relevance to
the first sensing of divine presence by preliterate ancient people. Although it
would be ideal to examine preliterate ancient humans, we cannot. Nor can
we presume that religion in today’s preliterate tribal people is reflective of
religion in ancient humans (see Hitchcock, this volume).

Three factors in the history of NDEs/OBEs

(1) Could ancient, preliterate Homo sapiens have undergone NDEs/OBEs,
as currently understood? The answer is almost certainly yes. But why?
The known “crisis” etiologies of NDEs (Table 7.3) were widely avail-
able to them: trauma; head injuries, brain damage, hemorrhage; drown-
ing, falling off cliffs, obstetric complications, anaphylaxis, toxemias and
delirium from ongoing microbial infections or abscesses, inoculations
through poisonous bites or stings; intoxications from plant ingestion;
and possibly even the psychological grief of bereavement.
(2) When did this happen? Early Homo sapiens, who lived in small hunter-
gatherer bands, controlled fire, consumed cooked meat, exhibited
128  Michael N Marsh
more advanced than ancestral species’ tool use and developed symbolic
speech, the latter involving the mutated FOXP2 gene (Lieberman et al.
2002; Dunbar 2014). That genetic alteration fostered linguistic syntax
and recursion, as in “I know that you know that . . .” All we need, ulti-
mately, is language capable of describing NDEs/OBEs so as to facilitate
their experiential dissemination throughout successive communities. It
is one thing for individuals to undergo NDEs with or without an OBE;
a second for individuals to understand and ascribe meaning to them;
and a third to communicate them to others through speech. We know
for certain only that these three criteria were met in Homo sapiens, but
how close to our origins 200,000 to 300,000 years ago these may have
started we cannot know.
(3) From all this, and once symbolic language was acquired by early Homo
sapiens, questions arise as to specific aspects of NDEs modifying or
even advancing perceptions of the divine. Although NDEs, in general,
are not sequentially uniform (Figure 7.1), there are three relevant fea-
tures often reported in modern times: (i) fictive movement; (ii) visions of
light-engulfing, godlike apparitions; and (iii) most importantly personal
interactions and even conversations, with the deceased. The latter are
now seemingly alive, recognized and even spoken to, albeit inhabiting
an ontological realm inaccessible to earthbound people.

Acknowledging the pitfalls of an inductive error in applying these three

modern features to those that were experienced by early Homo sapiens, the
three features self-reported in modern persons will be further examined.

Applying three NDE features to sensing the Divine

(1) Fictive movement
This motor accompaniment would, given the antecedent “crisis” eti-
ologies (Table  7.3), be most commonly experienced when supine
(Andersen et al. 1999; Blanke and Mohr 2005). Analogous happen-
ings also occupy dreams: “I actually felt myself come away from my
body. I twirled so fast up in the air, so free, no pain, weightless, then
I  felt myself go back in my body”; “I  floated away from the light
[and] had this looking-down-from-the-ceiling feeling, knowing it was
my body”; and “I started zooming down this dark tunnel at what
seemed like 100 mph” (Fenwick and Fenwick 1998, 26, 27, 50).
(2) Seeing “divine figures”
These usually involve encounters with a brightly illuminated, white-clad
“godlike figure” that if actually experienced in one form or another in
ancient human people, would have had enormous impact: “the Lord
came and stood and held his hands out for me” (Sabom 1982, 49),
 Sensing the Divine 129
or “I saw Jesus Christ. I was aware of him by the imprint of the
nails in his hands and feet” (Grey 1985, 50).
Compared with modern recollections, speculation clearly centers on
the specter of an illuminated celestial “person” and whether it
would have been regarded as “someone” with godlike properties
in ancient, animist human people, given the differing cultural influ-
ences. Perhaps their encounter was with something more locally
inanimate, a cloud or rock or tree, but with imbued particular
spiritual powers. Only the retelling of the event to others, together
with corroboration from similar recollections by others about their
NDEs, would the possibility have dawned and thence have drawn
others into a sense of the divine. Perhaps if the encounters were
with clouds or mountains, that sensing might have been envisioned
on high, situated above that which was actually sensed. In New
Mexico today, the 10,600-foot Sandia Mountains on tribal land is
sacred and worshiped by the Native American people of the Sandia
Pueblo. High places and mountains have always had a special place
in religious mythic narratives. Moreover, our existing grand cathe-
drals and basilicas, as well as many other denominational houses of
worship, are traditionally built to be architecturally high and thus
demonstrative of the divine.
(3) “Sightings” of dead family members
From contemporary self-reports: “I heard music [and] there was a beau-
tiful smell. I stopped floating before I reached my father . . . then
heard someone calling me [her husband, from the other end of the
tunnel]” (Fenwick and Fenwick 1998, 33). “Then there was another
part . . . where two aunts of mine – they’re dead now – were sitting
on a rail . . . and calling me”, or “Suddenly, I saw my mother, . . .
who died nine years ago . . . sitting in her rocker . . . and said to me
[in Hungarian] ‘Well, we’ve been waiting for you . . . your father’s
here and we’re going to help you’ ” (Ring 1980, 62, 63).

These are the most influential components of contemporary, modern NDEs,

conferring the greatest salience. In context, they offer a realization, especially
if reinforced by the same type of information remembered from dreams,
that there is another ontological realm, where these deceased people are still
apparently alive, well and active.

The post-experiential change of personality and demeanor

Thus, far, we have identified three NDE elements reported by contemporary
people, some versions of which are likely to have kindled the first inkling
of a sensing of the divine in ancient humans: fictive movement; encounter-
ing a brightly illuminated “celestial being” or its animist equivalent; and,
130  Michael N Marsh
crucially, “sightings” of dead people, thereby pointing to a mode of exist-
ence beyond the immediate reach of earth dwellers.
However, there is a fourth relevant point. This can only be derived from
modern NDE accounts. Yet by no means would it be irrelevant, in some
way and in some form, to ancient human people. This fourth point involves
distinctive changes in the post-experiential psychology of modern humans
undergoing NDEs. The following excerpts are taken from Fenwick and Fen-
wick (1998, 130, 133, 137):

(1) “The experience has had a lasting effect upon my life; if that was ‘near-
death,’ I have no fear when my time for dying comes.”
(2) “I always did believe in God but only because it was bred into me . . .
since that experience [NDE] I  have a lot of faith towards God and
towards life beyond our lives on earth.”
(3) “But I feel that it showed me more about life than death . . . value in
life . . . I became more aware . . . I noticed things . . . more aware of
people. ”

Although a changed sense of being and personality is an often-reported conse-

quence of NDEs, it is not exclusive, since it also exemplifies the symptoms of
many drugs (LSD, peyote and other psychedelics) and even PTSD. For mod-
ern NDE subjects, the changed post-NDE profile can embrace a more outgo-
ing sensitivity, with an enhanced receptivity toward family, as the excerpts
illustrate. While such altered profiles, per se, have rarely encouraged new reli-
gious beliefs, they more often strengthen previously held ones. We can only
infer that the same type of altered psychological profile might likewise have
overtaken ancient human people at the dawning of religion’s evolution.
In ancient hunter-gatherer bands, such changed psychological manifes-
tations would have been noticed by others, thus demanding explanation;
inviting reflection on NDEs, not only as an important personal event, but
with widening social implications; raising questions about their significance,
even being seen as events given by the deities or derived from nature; and
thus, in the longer term possibly incorporating their outcomes into exist-
ing cultural mores and practices, which could have been expanded on and
hence carried forward. Clearly, in that regard, a competent use of language
would have been essential for these subtle changes in lifestyle to have been
exchanged with others and throughout the wider community, so that over
time they could be incorporated into their preexisting belief systems during
the earliest animist phases of religion’s evolution.

Concerning Wider Genetic/Neurological Backgrounds

Ancient human people were just as ill and diseased as moderns, if not more.
That, in context, becomes pertinent for two reasons. First, archaeologists,
sociologists and theologians do not routinely consider ideas about genes,
 Sensing the Divine 131
disability and illness as antecedent causes of supernatural belief (Marsh
2016b). Second, reference to either the genetic and brain-based neuropatho-
logical backgrounds pertinent to the origins or expansion of religious pre-
cepts has potential for gaining new empirical insights. The following briefly
outlines how genes affect behavior, especially within religious and spiritual
domains.

Genes, aminergic receptor polymorphisms and the

behavioral spectrum
We differ in behavior, demeanor and physique despite all of us possess-
ing approximately 20,000 coding genes. The answer lies in differing base-
pairing alignments, or polymorphisms, particularly at key regions across
the genome (Farde et  al. 1997; Ebstein et  al. 2000; Comings et  al. 2000;
Moresco et al. 2002; Gross et al. 2002). Polymorphisms arise because most
genetic loci along chromosomes have more than one possible variation.
Certain polymorphic variants exert far-reaching influences on sensation,
perception and behavior, especially when involving receptors on cerebrally
responsive aminergic neurons. Such genetic changes have been associated
with one’s predisposition toward religiosity and spirituality, although they
don’t account for much of the variance (Lorenzi et al.2005; Borg et al. 2003;
Urgesi et al. 2010). This is especially true for polymorphisms of the 5HT-
2A (i.e., serotonin) receptor. These considerations show that over the short
term, but within the time-ranges evaluated here for ancient human people,
those polymorphic variations in DNA would be fundamental in exercising
crucial influences on human sensations, perceptions and behaviors associ-
ated with sensing the divine.

Criteria of religious experience – defining James’s (1802)

“ineffability”
Nelson (2012) reminds us that consciousness comprises three state bounda-
ries, wakefulness and two sleep modes – REM (rapid eye movement) sleep
and deep (non-REM) sleep. They highlight the disturbances as due to regu-
latory defects between these three state boundaries, but especially between
wakefulness and the hallucinatory-like dream content of REM sleep. These
perturbations are probable genetic/molecular deviations that would have
been relevant to the behavior of ancient humans.
Nelson (Nelson 2012, 199–202) additionally showed that approximately
45 percent of NDE subjects demonstrated high levels of REM visual and/
or auditory penetration intrusion. These irregularities included REM-sleep
intrusions into conscious wakefulness, manifested by either auditory or
visual hypnagogic (sleep-onset) hallucinations; sleep paralysis on waking;
a tendency to fall asleep during daylight; and a tendency for subjects’ legs
to collapse. Such features are analogous to narcolepsy or the cataplexy
132  Michael N Marsh
syndrome, the latter resulting from deficient secretion of orexin protein syn-
thesized by lateral hypothalamic neurons, and whose continued production
is essential for keeping all of us firmly in waking mode. Orexin directly
targets the midbrain-switching mechanism with a bias toward maintaining
wakefulness.

The neurological foundations for these events

These anomalies and the resulting states of arousal derive, in part, from
dysfunctional coordination between hypothalamic, upper-pontine and
caudal midbrain nuclei. The latter secrete noradrenaline (locus coeruleus),
serotonin (raphe nuclei) and acetylcholine (pedunculo-pontine nucleus).
They are the principle brainstem nuclei responsible for consciousness and
states of arousal. The transition between waking or sleep is controlled
by molecular switching between the relevant sets of mutually inhibitory
neurons – the “flip-flop” switch (Lu et al. 2006), located at the midbrain-­
pontine junction within the ventrolateral part of the brain’s peri-­aqueductal
gray (PAG) matter.
But such an arrangement would be precarious in controlling state bound-
aries without additional regulatory inputs. Importantly, these include the
stimulatory (orexin-secreting neurons of the lateral hypothalamus mentioned
earlier in relation to narcolepsy/catalepsy) playing on midbrain serotonin
and noradrenergic neurons, thereby showing a bias toward wakefulness.
Many of these activities are under control by the hypothalamus, itself influ-
enced by the circadian fluctuations of darkness and light and hence relevant
to nocturnal sleep-on and diurnal sleep-off state-boundary controls.
Good insights into NDEs come from patients with Guillain-Barré syn-
drome, which usually follows a viral infection and is exemplified by a form
of muscle weakness. Patients often manifest bizarre instabilities in awake/
asleep state-boundary coordination. When the antecedent is the H1N1 influ-
enza serotype, midbrain neurons associated with the awake/asleep switch
mechanism are involved (Cochen et al. 2005).
Patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome also report vivid hallucinations
and NDEs (Mahowald and Schenk 1992; Buzzi 2002; Satvinder at al. 2009;
Voss et al. 2009; Villiers et al. 2001). But another pertinent outcome is that
such patients, when hovering between each of these varied awake/asleep
state boundaries, are often uncertain of their location, engendering feelings
of detachment from the world. This engenders a spurious sense of belong-
ing to another ontological realm, which psychologically defies description,
demonstrating its sheer ineffability. This is quite different from someone’s
inability to recall every item of NDE. Ineffability, which often can’t be spo-
ken of because of its sacred nature, is conceptually deeper in getting right
to the heart of the profoundest spiritual and religious feelings. Indeed, the
self-reported experiences of some patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome are
similar to the sense of ineffability described by William James (1802).
 Sensing the Divine 133
This pathological state of uncertainty probably differs little from other
mystical states expressed as “absolute being,” union with God as hinted
at by Christian mystics or even the desperation of “the dark night of the
soul” vouchsafed to us by St. John of the Cross, accompanied by the intense
despair that realizes an apparent completeness of the absence of God – like
Luther’s Deus absconditus.
Other neural influences on this awake/asleep-switching mechanism have
direct relevance to NDEs. These influences follow prolonged periods of
cardiovascular collapse, subsequently causing decreased blood flow and
oxygenation to the midbrain nuclei, thereby promoting both REM-sleep
intrusions, NDEs/OBEs and a sense of ineffability. One critical connection
occurs via the Xth (vagus) cranial nerve, transmitting signals from the heart
and great blood vessels directly into this switch mechanism (Puizillout and
Foutz 1976; Vagg et al. 2008). Its relevance to NDE/OBE experiences is that
it also would have affected ancient humans, for example, after heavy bleed-
ing, congestive heart failure or anaphylactic shock.
Here, then, we have come full circle regarding those precipitating factors
(identified earlier) bearing directly on the potential of ancient humans to
undergo NDEs, the spiritual insights deriving from them and the possible
sampling of other deeply ineffable contexts resulting from disturbed molec-
ular control of awake/asleep state boundaries.

Overview: Revelatory Origins in the Early Evolution

of Religion
This chapter proposes that for ancient, preliterate humans, NDEs/OBEs pro-
vide one possibility for discovering what can be called a sense of the divine,
acting as one avenue into spirituality during religion’s earliest evolution, in
addition to other factors, such as trances, dreaming and shamanistic rituals
or ingesting psychedelic plants. We note that the commoner antecedents of
NDEs/OBEs for modern humans would also have certainly confronted our
ancient human forebears (Table 7.3).
As humans, our understandings of any sense of the divine must inevitably
be limited, involving our brain-based senses and innate tendencies for imagi-
native perception. Hardy (1979), in reviewing over three thousand declared
religious experiences, found that most were visual, followed by auditory
recollections (and minimally through touch or smell). Moreover, this experi-
ential spectrum of Hardy mirrors their percentage representations in the cer-
ebral cortex (van Essen et al. 1998). Clearly, “religious” experiences require
properly organized cerebral locations. That is, religious experience can only
be brain-based, albeit conditioned by cultural influence. Self-reporting of
hallucinations among apparently “normal” individuals is also not so rare
(Marsh 2015b).
But modern viewpoints, and the associated vocabularies pertaining to
“doctrine,” are inapplicable to ancient humans. A hunter-gatherer lifestyle
134  Michael N Marsh
and their formulation of beliefs were based on natural phenomena and hence
were highly influential to them. Additionally, undergoing NDEs/OBEs does
influence the brain because post-experiential individuals are psychologically
changed and behave in a different manner toward others. In ancient, prelit-
erate communities, such a changed psychological profile would have been
noticed and commented on, and others would have demanded explanations
and to know the cause. Something new and persistent had happened to
those individuals, something that really was different, thus necessitating fur-
ther scrutiny.
Indeed, it is reasonable that NDEs/OBEs, along with dreams, trances,
shamanic and psychedelic experiences, were some of the earliest forms of
culturally influenced “revelations” – that is, a seemingly divine or super-
natural disclosure. To ancient humans, NDEs/OBEs would at first have been
totally incomprehensible and uninterpretable before, at some point, attrib-
uting a sensing of the divine to the experiences. Nevertheless, there is an
alternative contemporary belief among the New Atheists and others, that
modern revelatory religion simply results from some kind of contemporary
delusional gullibility. But in addition to what has been developed in this
chapter, other alternative perspectives are possible (Knight et al. 1999, 5–6).
Here, three NDE/OBE self-reports from contemporary modern human
people  – encountering a brightly illuminated “godlike” specter, “sight-
ing” dead relatives inhabiting another inaccessible environment and fictive
motion toward the heavens – provide background for examining the under-
lying proposal of this chapter, which is that one of the ancient, evolutionary
origins of revelatory religion comes from NDEs/OBEs. The eventual belief
that previously dead members of the band or tribe inhabited another realm
and were seemingly well disposed may well have been instrumental in allay-
ing fears of death.
The sense of fictive vertical movement of OBEs by modern people is cru-
cial, since upward sky-bound flight characteristically exemplifies most later-
developed religions (Porter 1975; Séguy 1977; Charlesworth 1985; Zaleski
1987; Collins 1995; Sushan 2009). If ancient humans also experienced fic-
tive upward-bound movement during NDE-related OBEs, that would have
been a means for the belief of upward-bound celestial flight into heaven,
or other high places, such as mountains, thus anticipating this almost uni-
versalized feature of modern religions. From where else could such an idea
have arisen?
Finally, genetic and allied conditions directly influence the propensity
to undergo NDEs, especially resulting from REM-type penetrations into
normal waking consciousness or underlying dysfunctions of the midbrain
molecular awake/asleep-switching mechanisms controlling state boundaries.
Such malfunctioning places the individual into a state of unknowing, which
is directly referable to the ineffability associated nowadays with varied reli-
gious experiences. Such abnormalities would also have occurred throughout
 Sensing the Divine 135
ancient human communities as religion first evolved. These varied differen-
tial aspects of NDEs/OBEs, detailed in this chapter, would therefore have
had immense influence on the earliest religious thinking and belief systems
of ancient, preliterate humans and their communities.

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8 Awe as a Meaning-Making
Emotion
On the Evolution of Awe
and the Origin of Religions
Elliott D Ihm, Raymond F Paloutzian, Michiel
van Elk and Jonathan W Schooler

“religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight,
or in a or in a mountain gorge.”
– William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1982 [1902]

Introduction
Awe is a powerful and mysterious emotion, elicited by a wide variety of
stimuli. We may feel awe when taking in the view from a mountaintop or
inside a cathedral, witnessing the birth of a child or watching the approach
of a deadly hurricane. What characteristics do awe-eliciting stimuli have
in common? And what is the nature of the common emotional response to
such a diverse set of stimuli, religious and otherwise? This chapter explores
these questions by examining the relationship between awe and meaning.
Individuals understand the world through cognitive structures composed
of foundational beliefs, values and goals. These structures are known as
meaning systems (Park 2007). The content of meaning systems determines
how we react to the world, both behaviorally and psychologically. If we
see the world as a comprehensible place where our actions matter, we are
rewarded with a subjective sense of meaning in life (MIL) (see Martela and
Steger 2016). When a person’s core beliefs or sense of agency are challenged,
they may feel disoriented and seek to restore a sense of meaning in one of
two ways. They may cling more tightly to their closely held beliefs, but if
the challenge to their meaning system is great enough, they may question
and revise their beliefs in a process known as meaning-making (Proulx and
Inzlicht 2012).
We propose that awe is a meaning-making emotion. Awe-eliciting stimuli
are not readily comprehended. They challenge preexisting meaning sys-
tems, inspiring people to explore their environments and think in new ways
(Frijda 1986; Keltner and Haidt 2003). This can cause people to change their
meaning systems, including core beliefs and sense of identity by the process
of meaning-making. Such changes are frequently regarded as positive, and
they may enhance feelings of MIL (Ihm, Baas, and Schooler, in prep).
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 139
If awe is a meaning-making emotion, could it have played a role in the
development of religious meaning systems? To explore the evolutionary
roots of meaning-making, we will consider evidence of awe-like states in
chimpanzees. Since our ancestors diverged from the same ancestors of chim-
panzees, the neural structures underpinning emotion and social cognition
have grown larger and more complex. Explicit meaning systems, including
religions, have come to govern both individual and social behavior. We pro-
pose that the precursors to modern religions were conceived and developed
during awe-like states in our hominid ancestors.

Awe and Meaning

The psychology of awe

An experience of awe may feel blissfully positive, dreadfully negative or
mixed in its affective valence (Gordon et al. 2017; Pearsall 2007). It may
inspire hope, terror or some combination of the two. Experiences of awe are
common in stories of religious revelation, including Paul’s conversion on the
road to Damascus and Arjuna’s encounter with Krishna on the battlefield
(Keltner and Haidt 2003). Yet awe also provides inspiration for secular and
scientific worldviews (e.g., Dawkins 2012).
The emerging scientific consensus suggests that awe is elicited by stimuli
that are “big and baffling” (Pearsall 2007). The leading model of awe holds
that the prototypical experience of awe involves two key cognitive apprais-
als: vastness and a need for accommodation (Keltner and Haidt 2003). Vast-
ness may refer to physical scale and complexity, as found in rich natural
landscapes. But the physical size of an object is not necessarily the key fac-
tor involved in awesome experiences. Rather, the key factor is the degree of
psychological expansiveness triggered by the stimulus. Awe-eliciting stimuli
may be vast in a more abstract sense, such as the extent of the Dalai Lama’s
compassion or the explanatory power of the theory of natural selection.
Thus, awesomeness implies a sense of scope beyond what one might ordi-
narily imagine in terms of size, beauty, implications or many other dimen-
sions. Indeed, awe is commonly elicited by complex and information-rich
stimuli, such as art, music and natural landscapes (Shiota et al. 2007).
The second appraisal, need for accommodation, is a sense that one can-
not fully comprehend the current situation and thus must adjust to it. The
stimulus exceeds expectations and defies explanation. In Piagetian terms,
the new experience cannot be easily assimilated into one’s existing under-
standing of the world. As a result, there is a felt need to revise one’s beliefs,
a process that Piaget (1971) called accommodation (Gordon et  al. 2017;
Keltner and Haidt 2003). States of awe are associated with an exploratory
style of attention, which may facilitate changes in belief and behavior.
In an early psychological discussion of awe, Frijda (1986) distinguished
states of wonder or amazement from the surprise response that humans
140  Elliott D Ihm et al.
share with many other animals. Frijda describes wonder/amazement as “a
passive, receptive mode of attention” (18), with eyes wandering toward
peripheral stimuli. These observations were echoed by experiments showing
that awe is associated with the widening of the eyes, the dropping of the jaw
and leaning forward, as if trying to extract as much information as possible
from the current situation (Shiota et al. 2003). Responding in this manner
would seem critical to the process of accommodation that is thought to
accompany experiences of awe.
Certain stimuli are widely regarded as awe-inspiring. Natural wonders
such as the Grand Canyon and human-built structures like the Great Pyra-
mid of Giza draw slack-jawed visitors from across the world. But in other
cases, it is clear that awe is in the eye of the beholder. What inspires awe in
one person may be another boring commencement ceremony or unremark-
able painting for another person. The awesomeness of any given stimulus
depends on an individual’s existing beliefs, values and goals – that is, their
meaning system. Ihm and colleagues (in prep) found that meaningful life
events were frequently the source of awe. These included traditional cultural
events (e.g., marriage, birth, graduation), singular events of societal impor-
tance (e.g., the 9/11 attacks) and unique or idiosyncratic events with per-
sonal significance (e.g., discovering a personal interest). These events often
represented major life turning points, and in many cases, they led to signifi-
cant and lasting changes in worldview and identity. These findings suggest
that personal relevance is another key determinant of awe, which may give
rise to the need for accommodation.

The Psychology of Meaning

We propose that awe is a meaning-making emotion. In addition to a sense of
vastness and a need for accommodation, awe appears to be characterized by
a subjective sense of meaning and self-understanding, which may stem from
the cognitive effects of awe-eliciting stimuli. To introduce these findings, it is
necessary to elaborate on the relationship between the cognitive and affec-
tive components of meaning systems.

Meaning systems and meaning in life

The pursuit of a meaningful life is a perennial human concern. People are
motivated to try to understand the world around them. We like to feel that the
world makes sense and that we have a meaningful role to play within it. The
subjective sense of MIL is an intuitive understanding that one’s life has purpose
and significance and that it matters. Research on the causes and consequences
of the subjective sense of meaning has led to a tripartite model of MIL, which
links it to the cognitive content of meaning systems. This approach distin-
guishes three subconstructs: (1) coherence/comprehension; (2) purpose; and
(3) significance/mattering (George and Park 2016; Martela and Steger 2016).
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 141
Coherence (or comprehension)
Coherence is the extent to which an individual can “make sense” out of
their own experiences. This is related to the psychological need for con-
trol, which depends on perceiving the world as structured, consistent and
comprehensible (Landau et al. 2015). Coherence is supported by meaning
systems that are consistent and non-contradictory (George and Park 2016).
In a similar vein, research on narrative identity theory suggests that the
ability to tell a coherent life story, with a clear thematic and causal struc-
ture, is predictive of psychological health and well-being (McAdams 2011).
The core values expressed in the life story relate to the notion of the “true
self,” or a person’s idea of who they really are. The “true self” espouses a
set of ideals and values that may not always be manifested in behavior. The
concept of the “true self” is reflected in Aristotle’s eudaimonia, a sense of
well-being derived from acting in accordance with one’s demon, or spirit.
Less formal usage of the “true self” concept spans popular music, literature
and folk wisdom, such as Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true,” para-
phrased by Cloninger (2004) as “just be yourself.” Modern psychological
approaches have shown that individuals whose “true self” is more cogni-
tively accessible tend to report a greater sense of MIL (Schlegel et al. 2011).
The study of narrative identity and the “true self” highlights the connection
between cognitive coherence and subjective meaning.

Purpose
This refers to one’s commitment to goals that are perceived as valuable and
worthwhile (Martela and Steger 2016). Purpose can be viewed from the per-
spective of Carver and Scheier’s (1998) self-regulation model, which stresses
that the continuous identification and pursuit of goals is central to human
behavior. Meaning systems ultimately guide behavior by mapping the cur-
rent situation onto existing knowledge and behavioral tendencies (Tullett
et al. 2013).

Significance (or mattering)

This is the sense that one’s life has inherent value and significance (George
and Park 2016; Martela and Steger 2016). Significance depends on a system
of valuation that imbues one’s actions with a sense of importance. Some-
thing of significance, something that matters, is that which is worth living
for (Frankl 1955).
Overall, meaning systems that are characterized by coherence, purpose
and significance provide a cognitive foundation for goal-directed action.
They describe a comprehensible world, a set of goals to pursue and a frame-
work for evaluating one’s actions and experiences. Thus, the psychological
“need for meaning” appears to stem from the more basic imperative of
142  Elliott D Ihm et al.
acting in the world, for which “making sense of the world” is a prerequisite.
The three proposed components of MIL illustrate the connection between
the experience of MIL and the capacity for goal-directed behavior. This
analysis suggests that the sense of MIL may function as a subjective signal
that one’s meaning systems are oriented toward effective action in the world,
shedding light on the hypothetical “need for meaning” (Tullett et al. 2013).

Meaning maintenance and meaning-making

How do people respond when their sense of meaning is disrupted? An indi-
vidual’s sense of meaning can be undermined in a variety of ways. Someone
may feel disoriented if they lose control over a situation. Existential anxiety
may overcome a person who reflects on their own mortality. Being ostra-
cized by a social group may leave a person wondering where they truly
belong. Such experiences are considered meaning violations, since they chal-
lenge the beliefs underpinning one’s sense of meaning (Heine et al. 2006).
Meaning violations can be construed as a conflict between one’s general
worldview, or global meaning system, and one’s appraisals of the current
situation, or situational meaning (Park and Folkman 1997).
The attempts to restore meaning following meaning violations are broadly
referred to as meaning maintenance. The meaning maintenance model (Heine
et al. 2006) is inspired by Festinger’s (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance,
which holds that conflicting cognitions create an aversive psychological state
that motivates attempts to restore cognitive consistency. It therefore empha-
sizes the coherence component of MIL. The meaning maintenance model
describes two broad categories of behaviors that can restore a sense of mean-
ing: fluid compensation and meaning-making (Proulx and Inzlicht 2012).
Meaning violations can be elicited experimentally by confronting a per-
son with information that conflicts with existing beliefs and expectations
or that undermines one’s sense of control. When these meaning violations
are relatively minor, they can be resolved by asserting one’s global mean-
ing system more strongly  – a process known as fluid compensation. For
instance, Kay and colleagues (2008) instructed research participants to
recall past situations in which they lacked control. This led to increased
self-reported belief in external sources of control, such as belief in a god
that manages earthly events. However, fluid compensation does not require
religious belief. Believing in science may play a similar role in fluid com-
pensation efforts. Farias and colleagues (2013) found that the experimental
elicitation of distressing thoughts about one’s own mortality led to a greater
endorsement of a scientific worldview, among university students and staff.
The assertion of existing meaning systems, both religious and secular, is a
common strategy for addressing violations of meaning (Landau et al. 2015;
Proulx and Inzlicht 2012).
In the event of severe meaning violations, such as traumatic or life-­
changing events, one may bolster existing beliefs through fluid compensation
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 143
as a way to restore a sense of meaning, or one may revise one’s beliefs
through accommodation or meaning-making (Park and Folkman 1997;
Proulx and Inzlicht 2012). Fluid compensation, as illustrated here, may not
suffice to restore a sense of meaning when a new situation seems irreconcil-
able with one’s former beliefs. In such cases, one makes an effort to accom-
modate global meaning systems into the new situation, akin to the need for
accommodation that is associated with awe (Keltner and Haidt 2003). To
illustrate, Larner and Blow (2011) give an example of a soldier who was
unable to preserve the lives of the soldiers under his command. If this sol-
dier believes that a good leader keeps his soldiers alive, then this belief may
be difficult to reconcile with the deaths of his fellow soldiers. Based on the
prior belief, the soldier might be forced to conclude that he is a bad leader
and that he is responsible for these deaths. Coming to terms with incompat-
ible information and restoring a sense of meaning and self-acceptance may
require modifying one’s meaning systems – what one believes, values and
pursues – through an accommodative process of meaning-making.
We have seen that the subjective sense of meaning is related to one’s under-
standing of the world. In particular, the sense of MIL may depend on seeing
the world as a comprehensible place wherein one’s actions are imbued with
purpose and significance. This may help explain why humans are motivated
to achieve and maintain a sense of MIL. When the beliefs, goals and values
that constitute an individual’s meaning system are challenged, they are driven
to restore meaning by bolstering existing beliefs or by revising their beliefs
through an accommodative process of meaning-making. However, it remains
to be established how awe may be understood as a meaning-making emotion.

Awe and Meaning-Making

Ihm and colleagues (in prep) examined whether experiences of awe were
associated with appraisals and outcomes related to meaning-making. In an
online sample of American participants, those who reported more frequent
experiences of awe tended to score higher on questionnaires measuring their
sense of MIL, coherence of narrative identity and closeness to their “true
self” or core values. These findings suggest that people who regularly expe-
rience awe are more likely to have coherent meaning systems, indicated by
an enhanced sense of MIL and self-understanding. This raises two possibili-
ties: (1) frequent experiences of awe serve to update meaning systems over
time, and/or (2) having a coherent meaning system increases the likelihood
of experiencing awe. Follow-up experiments investigated the first possibil-
ity by examining whether experiences of awe are associated with appraisals
related to meaning and lasting changes in meaning systems. We encourage
future research to investigate the second possibility: whether characteristics
of meaning systems influence a person’s susceptibility to awe.
To examine whether awe may play a role in the development of mean-
ing systems, Ihm and colleagues (in prep) asked participants to reflect on
144  Elliott D Ihm et al.
emotional experiences from their past. A  second online sample described
either a positive experience of awe, a negative experience of awe or one of
three control emotions: amusement, relaxation or fear. These descriptions
were evaluated for the presence of accommodative changes in meaning sys-
tems, specifically self-described changes in worldview or personal identity.
Both positive and negative experiences of awe, compared to other positive
and negative emotions, were associated with lasting changes in worldview
and identity. Describing the experience of giving birth, one participant pro-
claimed “I was one person before, and I was someone else right afterwards.”
Such changes in worldview or identity were greatest for participants who
reported having felt a sense of meaning and purpose during the experience.
Finally, experiences of awe that led to accommodative meaning-making
were associated with self-reported positive changes in mood, attitudes and
behavior. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that awe-eliciting
stimuli often inspire changes in meaning systems.
The cognitive mechanisms underlying accommodative meaning-making
remain largely speculative. Some light can be shed on this question by exam-
ining the appraisals that people report during and following experiences of
awe. In addition to vastness and a need for accommodation, experiences
of awe are also associated with a diminished sense of ego, or a dissolu-
tion of one’s everyday sense of self. This is indicated by the endorsement
of appraisals, such as “I  lost all sense of ego” and “I  felt a sense of self-
transcendence” (Ihm et al., in prep). This is consistent with reduced reliance
on existing schemas, particularly one’s everyday understanding of the self,
or self-schema (Mandler 1984).
This interpretation is supported by an fMRI study by van Elk and col-
leagues (2019), which showed that absorption in awe-eliciting videos is
associated with reduced activity in two key brain areas associated with
meaning system processes, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus
and ventro-medial (vm)PFC. The PCC/precuneus is involved in the instiga-
tion of internally generated and self-referential thought, which is guided by
preexisting schemas rather than novel information coming from the envi-
ronment (Brewer et  al. 2013; Davey et  al. 2016). Strongly connected to
the PCC, the vmPFC is a hub that links schematic knowledge in long-term
memory with sensory and emotional information related to the current situ-
ation (van Kesteren et al. 2010). The (vm)PFC has thus been described as a
generator of “affective meaning,” which makes it possible for an organism
to conceptualize itself in the context of current and future situations (Roy
et al. 2012). Reduced activity in the PCC/precuneus and vmPFC is therefore
consistent with reduced reliance on schemas and internally guided thought
during states of awe (although this interpretation is susceptible to reverse
inference). This shift away from schema-driven processing provides a plausi-
ble mechanism linking states of awe with accommodative meaning-making.
Awe reportedly involves a sense of self-diminishment  – that is, feeling
small or insignificant in the presence of something greater than the self (Piff
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 145
et al. 2015; Shiota et al. 2007). The findings of Ihm and colleagues (in prep)
suggest a different interpretation, though. Participants are more likely to
endorse the appraisal “I felt small or insignificant” after experiences of awe,
compared to other emotional experiences. However, Ihm and colleagues
also found that for positive experiences of awe, the modal response to this
item, on a Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (to a great extent), was 1.
Related items that were more consistently endorsed – with a modal response
of 7 – include “I lost all sense of ego,” “I felt a sense of self-transcendence”
and “I felt the presence of something greater than myself.” In contrast to
the self-diminishment hypothesis, other items with a modal response of 7 in
the positive awe condition include “I felt closer to my true self,” “I felt con-
nected with my personal values” and “I felt as though I knew who I really
was.” This suggests that although certain aspects of the self or ego are felt
to be diminished during states of awe, there is a set of core values, a “true
self,” that is enhanced or made salient. The everyday sense of self falls away,
laying bare the core features of a person’s identity. These central compo-
nents of meaning systems are likely to be particularly stable, due in part to
their cultural inculcation (Haidt 2012; McAdams 2011). We suggest that
one’s core values and sense of “true self” serve as a relatively stable founda-
tion for meaning-making when other schemas are undermined. As a con-
sequence, during experiences of awe, individuals remain grounded in their
core beliefs, which provide a foundation from which meaning-making can
be pursued.
Collectively, these findings suggest that awe can be viewed as a meaning-
making emotion. Experiences of awe are characterized by a sense of mean-
ing and closeness to one’s core values or “true self.” Awe involves acute
changes in attention, memory and neural activity, which may facilitate
long-term positive changes in meaning systems, including worldview and
identity. These processes may explain why awe-prone people tend to report
greater trait-level MIL, coherence of identity and closeness to core values (or
the “true self”), although future research should investigate this relationship
through experimental and longitudinal studies.

Awe and Religious Meaning Systems

What does awe as a meaning-making emotion have to do with human reli-
gions? To address this issue, the relationship between religions and meaning
systems first needs clarification. Meaning systems are not only possessed by
individuals but also shared within communities. By drawing on a common
set of beliefs, values and goals, members of a society can engage in coop-
erative behavior and experience positive feelings of cohesion and belonging
(Bellah 2012; Echterhoff et al. 2009; Haidt 2012). Religions are among the
most pervasive and organized forms of shared meaning systems. They pro-
vide a shared set of beliefs and practices that may define an entire society,
and they structure the meaning systems of individuals within that society.
146  Elliott D Ihm et al.
Stories of awe-inspiring miracles and revelations are foundational to
many major religions. Beliefs about deities with the awe-inspiring charac-
teristics of omniscience and omnipotence motivate god-fearing people to
behave themselves. Religious leaders dazzle their audiences with divinely
ordained charisma, inspiring them to great action (Keltner and Haidt 2003).
Religious ideas are spread and reinforced through both collective rituals and
individual experiences, including singular awe-inspiring events that lead to
religious conversion. Experiences of awe may therefore play a prominent
and perhaps fundamental role in religions. Most central to the present dis-
cussion are religious explanations of the natural world. Religious beliefs
are often invoked to explain awe-inspiring natural phenomena, from coin-
cidental rainbows to deadly hurricanes. This is true even today, although
scientific explanations are available. To what extent have religious beliefs
been inspired by experiences of awe?
Inherent in a state of awe is the struggle to understand something new and
overwhelming. Awe-like states may have served a similar meaning-­making
function in our hominid ancestors. Many stimuli that commonly elicit
awe in humans – including birth, waterfalls and wildfires – have also been
observed to evoke awe-like states in chimpanzees (de Waal 1996; Goodall
2005). These states are characterized by novel patterns of behavior, which
can potentially be understood as rudimentary meaning-making. We can
only speculate at this stage (well aware of the pitfall of generating “just so
stories”); still we propose the intriguing possibility that religious beliefs may
have been conceived and developed during awe-like states in our hominid
ancestors, who already possessed many of the social cognitive abilities that
underpin religious belief and behavior in humans.

Religions as Shared Meaning Systems

Religions are said to contain many things: doctrines, myths, truths, falsi-
ties, messages from God or the gods, rules for how to live, pathways to
ultimate reality and more. Each religion may manifest any variety of these
or other elements. Such characterizations, however, are often claims made
by an “insider” or descriptions as seen from an “outsider.” These charac-
terizations are not necessarily false, but they are not complete in any scien-
tific sense. Psychologically, religions are meaning systems full of the beliefs,
values, goal orientations, categories of personal identity and loci of ultimate
concern that exist in any global meaning system (Park 2007).
The importance of shared meaning systems for organizing communities is
illustrated by Haidt’s (2012) concept of moral matrices. Haidt suggests that
early hominid communities began to flourish as they developed the ability
to understand each other’s thoughts and intentions. This allowed for coop-
eration based on widely held goals and furnished such communities with a
set of shared expectations for social behavior, eventually giving rise to more
elaborated meaning systems, such as religions (Bellah 2012; Donald 1991).
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 147
The problem of the origin of religions can be recast in terms of meaning sys-
tems: How did our ancestors come to develop, share and reinforce meaning
systems, religious and otherwise?
Humans are motivated to maintain a sense of commonality with the
beliefs and feelings of others. This pursuit of “shared reality” leads people to
adjust their beliefs, and even their memories, to achieve consistency with the
perceived meaning systems of others (Echterhoff et al. 2009). In turn, shared
meaning systems provide a foundation for communication, cooperative
behavior and feelings of social cohesion. The sharing of meaning systems is
therefore made possible by social cognition, particularly by the capacity to
represent the mental states of others, known as theory of mind (ToM).
A shift in emphasis from studying religions to the broader category of
meaning systems, and the processes by which they are maintained and
updated, highlights evolutionary questions about more general cognitive
processes that may have coevolved with religions, including meaning-
making, ToM, imitation, language and storytelling (Deacon 1997; Donald
1991). Religions serve the various functions of meaning systems, including
the regulation of individual and communal behavior (Haidt 2012; Noren-
zayan et al. 2016) and the cultivation of a sense of meaning (Tullett et al.
2013; Park 2007). The beliefs, rituals and experiences that characterize
modern religions can be considered as products of a set of building blocks
that include social cognition, community organization, cultural transmis-
sion and awe-like states (Taves 2015). When did these building blocks
appear in the course of hominid evolution? They may have been present in
a rudimentary form roughly seven million years ago, at the time of our last
common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Hominid Building Blocks of Meaning Systems

Chimpanzees have a number of social cognitive capacities that may be con-
sidered building blocks of religions and other meaning systems (Taves 2015;
Turner et al. 2017). Maryanski (2018) refers to this suite of proto-religious
behaviors as the community complex. It consists in (1) the organization of
communities beyond local groups, (2) ritual behavior in everyday interaction
and community-wide events and (3) the social cognitive faculties related to
ToM and self-awareness that underlie these social phenomena (Turner et al.
2017). The community complex also enables a basic capacity for cultural
invention and transmission in nonhuman primates, including techniques for
cleaning food and using tools (de Waal 1999). Paleontological and genetic
evidence suggests that humans descended from a common ancestor with
chimpanzees roughly six to eight million years ago, which suggests that the
roots of religious meaning systems may run deep into our evolutionary his-
tory (Jensen-Seaman and Hooper-Boyd 2008; Turner et al. 2017).
At some time in the past eight million years, these hominid building
blocks came together under the rubric of religion. The emerging capacity
148  Elliott D Ihm et al.
for language gave way to storytelling. Our ancestors codified their behav-
ioral rules in the form of explicit beliefs and narratives, which likely pro-
vided benefits for the memory and transmission of shared meaning systems.
Thus, the chimpanzee community complex, along with the emerging capac-
ity for language and storytelling, gave our hominid ancestors the tools
to create the unifying narratives that are central to human religions. But
what was the proximal cause that inspired religious beliefs? We have seen
that states of awe are frequently associated with accommodative meaning-­
making, which may be driven by a reduced reliance on existing schemas
and increased exploratory attention and may produce lasting changes in
belief and behavior (Ihm et  al., in prep). We contend that awe-inspiring
natural phenomena were the proximal cause of meaning-making efforts
that ultimately led to religious beliefs and facilitated the development of
religious meaning systems.
All mammals appear to share a palette of primary emotional states,
including fear, anger, sadness and joy, rooted in subcortical neural systems
(Panksepp 1998). Great apes, such as chimpanzees, have several distinct
subcortical structures involved in emotion, such as the amygdala, septum
and hippocampus. In modern humans, these subcortical areas have roughly
doubled in size, along with a similar doubling in the size of the neocortex
(Turner et al. 2017). Both of these developments likely increased the scope
and richness of the emotional palette, creating a variety of extensions and
combinations of the primary emotional states. For instance, Turner and col-
leagues (2017) argue that the human emotions of shame and guilt constitute
elaborated combinations of the primary negative emotions of fear, anger
and sadness.
Primatologists have observed that chimpanzees display an awe-like
response to stimuli that also tend to elicit awe in humans (e.g., de Waal
1996; Goodall 2005). The awe-like responses of chimpanzees appear to
involve novel combinations of emotional behaviors outside of their usual
contexts, including certain aspects of the human awe response. For instance,
Jane Goodall describes the reaction to a raging waterfall or a sudden heavy
rain: aggressive charging displays, followed by a silent period of motion-
less, wide-eyed attention, and rhythmic stomping in the water (1986, 2005).
A  similar combination of divergent emotional responses and ritualistic
behavior has been observed in chimpanzees in response to other natural
phenomena (e.g., wildfires), as well as birth and death (de Waal 1996; Pru-
etz and LaDuke 2010), which are associated with awe in humans (Ihm et al.
in prep).
The aggressive displays that take place when chimpanzees encounter
death or great natural forces (e.g., water, fire) are similar to predatory
behavior (Goodall 1986). They involve bristling the hair, or piloerection,
which is also a common correlate of awe in humans, often referred to as
“chills” or “goosebumps” (Konecni 2005; Maruskin et al. 2012). This novel
use of predatory behaviors to stimuli as diverse as waterfalls or the death
 Awe as a Meaning-Making Emotion 149
of a community member suggests some capacity for abstraction and for the
generalization of emotional responses (Deacon 1997; Donald 1991; Turner
et  al. 2017). Rather than responding to a specific environmental threat,
the power of natural forces may represent a more abstract threat that can-
not be assimilated to existing meaning systems. Nevertheless, the behavio-
ral response is the same – piloerection and charging behavior – despite its
unusual co-occurrence with affiliative and exploratory behaviors. Thus, in
hominid evolution, the capacity to experience awe may have been a natural
by-product of the increasing richness and complexity of hominid meaning
systems and their underlying neural structures. In turn, a rudimentary form
of meaning-making may have contributed to the development of more elab-
orate meaning systems, including religions.
We suggest that experiences of awe marked the boundaries of more primi-
tive hominid meaning systems, as they appear to do in humans (Ihm et al.
in prep; Keltner and Haidt 2003; Pearsall 2007). That is, awe may be expe-
rienced when meaning systems are pushed to the limits of their capacity to
link stimuli with appropriate actions. In humans, this is frequently associ-
ated with a need to make meaning out of ambiguity, which Keltner and
Haidt (2003) refer to as a need for accommodation.
Notably absent from the repertoire of chimpanzee building blocks of reli-
gions are shared narratives about the supernatural world (Donald 1991;
Turner et al. 2017). The ability to share collective narratives would likely
have facilitated social organization, allowing behavior to be coordinated
across greater spans of time (Haidt 2012) – but only to the extent that these
narratives could survive the challenges posed by novel experiences. We pro-
pose that the content of these narratives was shaped by meaning-making
efforts in response to awe-eliciting stimuli. In the absence of scientific expla-
nations for birth, death and powerful natural forces, supernatural explana-
tions may have been provided by neurocognitive systems tuned to detect
agentic beings and represent the mental states of others (Atran 2002; Barrett
2000). Such explanations may also be provided, developed or reinforced
through social processes of appraisal and attribution (Taves 2016). Once
our ancestors developed the ability to conceive of the most rudimentary
supernatural agents, these agents could have gradually assumed the charac-
teristics of “big gods,” who keep communities in line through their constant
threats of supernatural punishment, by means of continuing biological and
cultural evolution (Fehr and Fishbacher 2003; Norenzayan et al. 2016).

Conclusion
The psychology of meaning offers promising avenues for the study of awe
and religions. Meaning systems, religious and otherwise, provide a frame-
work for individual and collective behavior and contribute to a sense of MIL.
The experience of awe is associated with stimuli that cannot be assimilated to
existing meaning systems, which may motivate attempts at accommodative
150  Elliott D Ihm et al.
meaning-making. Compared to other positive and negative emotions, experi-
ences of awe are more frequently associated with lasting changes in mean-
ing systems, including worldview and identity (Ihm et al. in prep). Frequent
experiences of awe are positively correlated with MIL, coherence of narrative
identity and feelings of closeness to one’s “true self.” Therefore, awe appears
to be a meaning-making emotion involved in updating meaning systems
while maintaining or enhancing their coherence and integrity.
The presence of an awe-like state in chimpanzees points to the deep cog-
nitive roots and potential evolutionary significance of awe. Chimpanzees
exhibit an awe-like response to various stimuli that also tend to elicit awe in
humans. This observation adds to a collection of social cognitive building
blocks of religions present in nonhuman primates and highlights the utility
of a meaning systems perspective in the study of awe and the cognitive sci-
ence of religion.

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9 Whence This Need for Salvation?
Childhood Corporal Punishment
and the Cultural Evolution
of Religious Myth
Benjamin Abelow

At least six world religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Bud-

dhism and Jainism – can be described as salvation religions. As traditionally
conceived, these religions function to save the believer from some form of
metaphysically mediated suffering. We usually accept this salvational func-
tion as something quite normal, not worthy of particular scrutiny. But when
viewed from the perspective of a naïve observer – say, a hypothetical visitor
from another planet  – a great puzzle confronts us: Whence this need for
salvation?
The answer, it often is asserted, lies in the inevitability of death and the
anxiety that naturally arises from it. But this answer cannot be correct,
because the fate from which these religions promise salvation is usually
more horrific and often is a greater source of anxiety than is death itself.
Rather than solving the problem of death anxiety, salvation myths often
seem to create new and different problems where none existed before. Fur-
ther, as we will see, in some of the religions, salvation is actually defined as
the cessation of life – just the opposite of what one would expect. Clearly,
something else is at play. But what?
In this chapter, I provide an answer, one that at first may seem too sim-
ple or generic to be correct but that upon further examination is found to
be surprisingly robust, intuitive, parsimonious and flexible: The salvation
myths evolved culturally as a response to widespread historical norms of
childhood corporal punishment. It is the child’s desperate struggle to avoid
or escape physical and emotional suffering – to save himself or herself – that
lies at the psychological and historical root of the salvation religions. This
struggle, taking place during a crucial developmental window and enacted
repeatedly by the individual child and on a vast scale within the culture,
provided a thematic “template” from which these salvation myths differen-
tiated and gained cultural traction.
This chapter has four parts. Part 1 discusses Christianity, focusing on the
most influential salvation teaching in the New Testament, found in Paul’s
letter to the Romans. Building on that foundation, Part 2 discusses Islam,
Judaism and the Abrahamic religions as a group. Part 3 investigates the
karmic salvation myth that underlies Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 155
Part 4 introduces a number of terms and generalizations pertaining to the
link between trauma and myth, and it concludes by commenting on several
potential benefits and harms associated with religion.

Part 1: Christian Salvation in Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Although patriarchy has been the dominant form of social organization in
many cultures, patriarchy in the ancient Roman world, which provided the
most immediate setting for the writing of the New Testament, was excep-
tionally explicit and well defined. Writing about the Roman laws of patria
potestas (“fatherly powers”), Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek teacher
of rhetoric who lived in Rome from 30 bce to 8 bce, notes that

[T]he founder of the Roman constitution gave the father unrestricted

power over his sons. That power was to remain until the father’s death.
He might imprison or beat him, chain him up and send him to work in
the country, or even execute him.
(Gardner and Wiedemann 1991, 12)

While the execution of children by fathers was probably exceedingly rare,

if present at all, harsh corporal discipline of children, especially sons, was
common and well attested in the Roman world. The following examples
are arranged in rough chronological order, starting in the century before the
birth of Christianity. The Rhetorica ad Herennium (circa 80 bce, unknown
author) advocates that parents and teachers “chastise the young with special
severity” to shape them for a virtuous life (4.17.25). Cicero (106–43 bce)
indicates that boys could be beaten by fathers, mothers, grandfathers and
teachers (Saller 1994, 147). Seneca (3 bce–65 ce) explains that children
are beaten for the same reason as animals, “so the pain overcomes their
obstinacy” (De Constantia Sapientis, 12.3). Seneca also describes how the
father’s role was primarily disciplinary, in contrast to maternal nurturance
(De Providentia, 2.5).
Quintilian (35–95 ce) hints that Roman children often became so terri-
fied during beatings that they lost bowel or bladder control. “When chil-
dren are beaten,” he writes, “the pain and fear often have results which
it is not pleasant to speak of and which will later be a source of embar-
rassment” (Institutio Oratoria, 1.3.16). The New Testament itself asserts
that corporal punishment by fathers was actually universal, at least among
legitimate male children; the book of Hebrews, perhaps written around 65
ce and probably reflecting Roman cultural norms, indicates that “all” sons
are punished by their fathers: “If you are without chastisement . . . then are
you bastards and not sons” [Hebrews 12:7–8]. Galen (130–200 ce) indi-
cates that corporal discipline could begin in early childhood. He asserts that
children “can be made to obey by the use of blows, threats, reprimands, and
admonishments” (Oribasius, Libri incerti, 17).
156  Benjamin Abelow
Similar norms existed among Jews, for whom the pro-punishment admo-
nitions of Hebrew “wisdom literature,” in particular Proverbs (e.g., “He
who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to disci-
pline him” [13:24]) and Ben Sira (e.g., “Beat his sides while he is an infant,
lest he be hardened and disobey you” [30:12]), were commonplace in both
Palestine and the Hellenistic diaspora during the late second-Temple and
early Rabbinic periods, including during the development of Christianity.
Statements by Philo and Josephus during the 1st century CE raise the pos-
sibility that certain offenses by older children against parents, including per-
sistent disobedience, might be punished by death (The Special Laws, 2.232,
2.248; Against Apion, 2:28).
Holding in mind these endemic patterns of childhood punishment, we
now consider Paul’s seminal and historically decisive teaching about salva-
tion, presented in its most classic form in the fifth chapter of his letter to the
Romans, often considered the most important theological tract in the New
Testament. In this teaching, which was one of the most influential ideas
in all of Christian history, we observe remarkable thematic parallels with
patterns of ordinary childhood punishment. To understand these parallels
clearly, we first must say a few more words about corporal punishment.
When children are punished, the immediate causes may be quite varied,
depending on the particular circumstances. But the underlying cause is usually
general and homogeneous: the child is punished for disobedience. Disobedi-
ence is the quintessential “crime” of childhood. Conversely, the essential and
required route for avoiding punishment, and for obviating the escalation of
punishment once it is underway, is obedience. Notice here that the child is
effectively saved from punishment by obedience. The theological parallels are
striking. According to Paul, disobedience (Adam’s sin in the biblical garden)
leads to punishment for humans, whereas obedience to the heavenly Father (the
behavioral and attitudinal stance of Jesus) leads to salvation. Paul expresses
these ideas in a formulation that became foundational for Christianity:

Then as one man’s [Adam’s] trespass led to condemnation for all men,
so one man’s [Jesus’s] act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for
all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so
by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
(Romans 5:18–19)

Thus, for both the child in the family and the believer within Paul’s theologi-
cal framework, punishment occurs in response to disobedience, and salva-
tion is attained through filial obedience – that is, obedience to the parent,
especially the father.
This theological parallelism with childhood is found to be even more pre-
cise when we notice that within the Christian framework, human beings are
themselves considered, quite explicitly, to be children of the heavenly Father.
Thus, in both ordinary childhood and Christian teachings about damnation, it
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 157
is children whose disobedience is punished by the father/Father. The parallelism
goes deeper still, in that Adam himself is “the Son of God” [Luke 3:38] and, as
many commentators have observed, his sin is distinctly child-like (see Abelow
2010 for a partial review). Thus, Adam’s sin is a specifically filial disobedience.
According to Paul, the central function of Christianity as a salvation reli-
gion is to provide a metaphysically constructed process by which the believer
replaces his or her innate filial disobedience (identification with Adam and
his sin) with filial obedience (identification with Jesus and his obedience).
This objective is epitomized in the following phrase: “to die to the self and
be reborn in Christ” – which means to die to the innately disobedient self,
which is identified with Adam, and to be reborn in the preternaturally obe-
dient child, Jesus.
To see the parallelism with childhood clearly, consider the following brief
statement—

Children are punished by the father for disobedience, and saved from
punishment by obedience.

—and ask yourself, does this statement apply to Christian salvation the-
ology or, rather, to mundane human childhood? Of course, the statement
applies equally to both – and that is precisely the point. Now consider this
next question: How likely is it that this overlap between the most seminal
Christian salvation teaching and childhood experience arose by chance? If,
as a practical matter, chance can be excluded, then we are by definition in
the realm of causality. In this case, the question becomes, what particular
causal relationship most plausibly explains the overlap?
These questions point squarely in the direction of a remarkable conclu-
sion: that Paul’s seminal and historically decisive teaching about salvation
and damnation in Romans was fundamentally shaped as a reflection of
childhood punishment and its avoidance. In particular, it appears that Paul’s
salvation teaching emerged as a theological projection of the child’s strategy
for avoiding punishment through totally and implicitly obeying the parents,
especially the father.

Mechanisms of cultural evolution

A variety of mechanisms can readily account for the salvational parallels we
are considering. We begin with mechanisms that are rooted in psychological
projection or mapping and then focus on cultural-evolutionary mechanisms
modeled closely on Darwinian natural selection.
One possibility is that Paul’s ideas emerged through an internally gener-
ated sensory experience – say, a hallucination or even a simple dream – which
he understood to be a divine revelation. Such experiences can symbolically,
or figuratively, reflect waking concerns and realities, including traumas.
Paul asserts that he learned his distinctive ideas through direct revelation
158  Benjamin Abelow
[Galatians 1:12], although it is not clear exactly what he means by revela-
tion. Elsewhere, in referring to a visitation to heaven, Paul writes, “whether
in the body or out of the body I do not know” [2 Corinthians 12:2]. Such
uncertainty is not surprising, because in that cultural context, phenomena
such as bodily transportation, astral projection, divine visitation in dreams,
waking visual and auditory hallucinations and the like were not considered
rare, and they were often not clearly differentiated. The casual way in which
such experiences were (not) differentiated highlights the ease with which
internal psychological states and putatively external divine realities could
have become confounded.
Another possibility is that Paul first developed his salvation teaching
through a psychologically tendentious interpretation of another text. In this
case, he may have understood and then modified the Genesis story of Adam’s
sin in a way that, by juxtaposing personifications of childhood disobedience
(Adam) and obedience (Jesus), conformed the story even more closely to
actual childhood experiences. In a crucial assertion [Galatians 1:16], Paul
writes, “God was pleased to reveal his son in me.” This word choice – “in
me” – while not ruling out a hallucination, dream or related experience,
also raises the possibility that Paul may have meant that his revelation was
cognitive or otherwise non-sensory – for example, a kind of inner convic-
tion or conversion or even a way of interpreting Hebrew Scripture that Paul
thought was divinely inspired. Thus, Paul’s own words are consistent with a
variety of mechanisms by which an internal experience or pattern from his
own childhood could have been expressed in theologized form.
Cultural-evolutionary processes modeled on Darwinian natural selection
likely also played a role. It is useful to introduce this subject by commenting
on the work of a particular biblical scholar. In The Oral and The Written
Gospel, Werner Kelber (1997) posits that early oral traditions, such as those
presumed to provide sources for the first Gospel, that of Mark, “diverge
into a multiplicity of forms and directions” (94). Kelber argues that from
among those multiple variants, the ones that listeners found meaningful and
evocative underwent “selective retention” and continued to propagate (29,
31, 94) – a cultural process analogous to Darwinian random variation and
natural selection. Although Kelber never considers the possible influence
of childhood, his overall approach is consistent with the ideas presented
here. That is, the presence of a thematic overlap with salient experiences
from childhood could have functioned as an important selection criterion
in determining which variant oral tradition would have been preserved in
the culture.
Kelber’s particular approach pertains most directly to orally transmit-
ted narratives, rather than to theological letters such as Paul was writing,
but it may be applicable in two ways. First, though the specifics need not
concern us, it is at least possible that, Paul’s contention notwithstanding,
his ideas actually did have their ultimate source in a process of oral tradi-
tion. More generally, Kelber’s approach is relevant to other religions that we
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 159
will encounter in this chapter, some of whose salvation myths more surely
emerged through oral tradition. Second, we must ask why Paul’s ideas  –
regardless of their ultimate source  – proved so powerful and attractive.
Because they were reared in similar cultural milieus, Paul and his audience
likely shared a set of fundamentally similar childhood experiences. Thus,
the same psychological factors that led to Paul’s original formulations
would also powerfully affect their cultural reception. For an audience sub-
jected to corporal punishment during childhood, encountering salvational
themes that subliminally reflect those punitive experiences would likely
“make sense” cognitively and evoke powerful emotions. I believe that these
subliminal resonances, rooted in childhood, played  – and sometimes still
play – a crucial role in the reception, spread and persistence of the salvation
myths considered in this chapter. Such ideas also are consistent with anthro-
pologist Dan Sperber’s concept (2012) of cultural attractors, which he pro-
posed to help explain why certain ideas persist culturally in stable form.
Sperber recognizes that adverse childhood experiences can play a role in this
process, as he makes clear when discussing the stepmother trope common in
folklore (Acerbi and Mesoudi 2015, 487).
In sum, there is no shortage of psychological and cultural mechanisms,
including some modeled on Darwinian natural selection, by which child-
hood corporal punishment could underlie Paul’s historically decisive salva-
tion teaching. We are thus dealing not only with thematic parallels between
childhood context and canonical text – parallels that appear to be too exten-
sive and precise to have arisen by mere coincidence – but also with a vari-
ety of plausible mechanisms that could explain the “translation” of painful
childhood experience into theological myth.

Part 2: Salvation Myths in Islam, Judaism and the

Abrahamic Religions as a Group
Let’s now examine the salvation myths of Islam and Judaism, and of the
Abrahamic religions as a group. For background, we briefly consider the
punishment of children in the formative contexts of Israelite religion and
traditional Arab culture. We have already discussed the Jewish childhood
context during the birth of Christianity. Here we focus on an earlier period,
one more closely tied to the composition of the Pentateuch (also known as
the Torah, Five Books of Moses). I have already mentioned Proverbs and
its spare-the-rod admonitions. This biblical book is late (i.e., more recent)
relative to the writing of the Pentateuch. Yet Proverbs is still the text most
directly relevant, chronologically and substantively, to the routine corporal
punishment of young children during the formation of the Pentateuch.
In addition, within the Pentateuch itself are capital laws pertaining to
children. These laws, though chronologically closer to the composition of
the Pentateuch, are probably aimed not at young children but rather at ado-
lescents and older (even adult) children, and they don’t pertain to ordinary
160  Benjamin Abelow
corporal punishment. Still, the laws are likely relevant because they may
have served indirectly to emphasize the importance of filial obedience per se,
even for younger children. According to Deuteronomy, a persistently diso-
bedient son should be executed by stoning [21:18–21]. According to both
Exodus [21:17] and Leviticus [20:9], a son who curses his parents is sub-
ject to death. Striking a parent is also punishable by death [Exodus 21:15].
(These laws might, or might not, also apply to daughters; the male gram-
matical forms in Hebrew sometimes refer also to females, and the intention
here is ambiguous.)
These capital laws likely originated in varied regions and times, suggesting
a widespread and enduring cultural norm. For example, within the model of
the classical documentary hypothesis, these laws would be ascribed to D, E,
and P. In the narrative (non-legal) material of the Pentateuch, a father uni-
laterally condemns a daughter-in-law to death [Genesis 38:24, ascribed to
J], giving the impression of nearly unlimited paternal power. At a minimum,
the capital laws and narratives of the Pentateuch reinforce the impression
that more ordinary forms of childhood corporal punishment, such as those
promoted later in Proverbs and Ben Sira, likely were carried out with alac-
rity in the earlier period.
Regarding Islam, there is evidence that traditional Arab childrearing
practices have been harsh and authoritarian. For example, in some highly
traditional Bedouin groups, a well-established pattern appears to exist (or
did until recently) in which the father threatens or actually cuts or stabs a
disobedient son with a saber or dagger. One scholar averred of traditional
Arab childrearing norms, “the entire system is calculated to subordinate son
to father. . . . there is an almost total concentration of power in the hands of
the father over both his sons and daughters.” (Patai 1971, 415). Although
I have not yet surveyed the Quran, hadiths and subsequent Islamic literature
to seek evidence directly relevant to the earlier, formative period of Islam, it
seems likely that this scholarly assessment of traditional Arab culture can be
taken as a loose proxy for the period of Islam’s development.
It thus appears that the pattern of corporal punishment of children during
the formative settings of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, notwithstanding
some obvious surface differences, had a uniform structure. We can express
this structure schematically, with arrows denoting causal sequence:

Disobedience  Punishment
Obedience  Non-punishment

The first schematic succinctly portrays what we can call the “structure
of punishment.” The second portrays the route for avoiding punishment.
These schematics can be viewed as answering two closely related ques-
tions: (1) What lesson or lessons would a child learn in response to the
childrearing regime? (2) What internalized mental schemas would we expect
the child to develop in response to the childrearing regime? In answer to
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 161
the first question, the child clearly would learn, as the schematics directly
indicate, that disobedience results in punishment, retribution or pain and
that obedience obviates these outcomes. The second question overlaps and
largely restates the first; it has approximately the same answer and thus
might seem superfluous. However, introducing the term “mental schema”
implicitly raises the possibility that the corporal training experience might
produce a durable mental patterning that could function as an automatic,
unconscious, heuristic framework for interpreting new information or influ-
encing behavior, or even for serving as a kind of template in the imagina-
tive construction, via psychological projection, of a theologically imagined
salvation system.
Although this use of the term “schema” does not presuppose any par-
ticular neural mechanisms, schemas of this type ultimately may have bio-
logical roots in processes such as Hebbian potentiation – “neurons that fire
together wire together” – or synaptic pruning – the deletion of infrequently
used synaptic pathways. These processes create durable, preferential neural
pathways in response to lived experience. Importantly, synaptic pruning is
thought to begin in early infancy and to continue until sexual maturity,
a developmental window during which corporal punishment has been
normative.
We now come to a key point: the structure of punishment and of avoid-
ance of punishment, and hence the internalized mental schemas that likely
emerge from them, map with considerable precision onto the salvational
teachings of the three Abrahamic religions. In these religions, disobedience
leads to divine punishment, and obedience leads to the obviation of this pun-
ishment. The likely explanation is that the culturally pervasive childhood
schemas, which arise from widespread childhood corporal punishment,
were projected onto a theologically imagined cosmos. We have already seen
how these punitive and salvational relationships were refracted in the writ-
ing of Paul. The same relationships, refracted in different, culture-specific
ways, appear to be central to Judaism, which is quintessentially a religion
of divine commands from a patriarchal deity, and Islam, the very name of
which literally means “submission” to the will of God.
The salvation teachings of the Abrahamic religions, though fundamen-
tally similar, are not identical in detail. In Christianity, obedience is under-
stood to be attained largely indirectly and metaphysically, through belief in,
and union with, an exemplar of absolute filial obedience (i.e., Jesus Christ).
By contrast, in Judaism and Islam, obedience is attained largely directly
and behaviorally, through personally and communally following divinely
revealed or authorized dictates, which are contained in the Hebrew Scrip-
tures and Quran, and the legal traditions based on them. In addition, in
Christianity and Islam, punishment is understood to be largely individual
and to take the form of damnation to hell. In contrast, in Judaism, espe-
cially in its early, biblical forms, punishment was understood to be largely
collective, such as via the devastation of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the
162  Benjamin Abelow
people from the Land of Israel – though the idea of punishment in hell even-
tually came to play an important role, too. These differences in the means of
attaining obedience, and in the specific forms of punishment, are variations
on a common theme. All the variations are consistent with the structure of
childhood punishment and with the internalized mental schemas that this
structure would entail.
In light of these ideas, how can we explain the historical relationships
among the Abrahamic religions? Although the details may forever be lost to
us – and acknowledging that we are painting with the broadest of brushes,
with little nuance or reference to ancillary factors – we can reasonably sur-
mise the following: Ancient Israelite and early Jewish (e.g., second-Temple
period) culture provided the initial monotheistic, or proto-monotheistic,
expression of punishment-related themes from childhood, and Christian-
ity and Islam later diverged as culturally modified mythic variants of the
Israelite-Jewish pattern.
Relative to Judaism, Christianity more specifically portrays childhood
themes. God is a Father, the savior is a Son/Child and believers are chil-
dren – all more fully, unequivocally and overtly than in Judaism. Keeping
in mind the exceptionally explicit and well-defined patriarchy of the Roman
world, we might properly think of Christianity as a psychologically reso-
nant evolutionary refinement of the prototypical Israelite-Jewish pattern.
For Islam, we might speculate that the Quranic portrayal of God as par-
ticularly unapproachable, unknowable and overawing in his power – and
perhaps even in the focus on the term “submission” (Islam) – could reflect
an especially distant and powerful father or tribal or clan leader.

Part 3: Salvation in Karmic Religion: Hinduism,

Buddhism, Jainism
In presenting the structure of punishment, we have so far focused only on
the child’s behavior – that is, on disobedience per se, as represented in the
earlier schematic: Disobedience  Punishment. We now expand this view
to include the child’s inner psychological reality, specifically to include the
mental phenomena that precede disobedience – those that lead to, under-
lie and are located “upstream” (causally prior) from disobedience. These
psychological phenomena are complex, but we can portray them simply
with reference to three words: self, desire and will. To start, let’s expand the
schematic thus:

Self  Desire  Will  Disobedience  Punishment

Here we see that the child’s implicit or explicit sense of self gives rise to
desires, which engender volitions – “internal commitments to action” –
designed to fulfill those desires. These desires in turn generate behaviors
that (often) entail disobedience, resulting in punishment. Notice that the
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 163
integrated complex of self-desire-volition-behavior comes rather close to
what is often described as “willful disobedience,” which is the form of
childhood disobedience traditionally punished most severely. (Disobedience
arising from the child’s misunderstanding or incapacity generally has been
considered a less severe violation.)
It is not possible for the child to alter his or her disobedient behavior in an
unmediated fashion: to simply, by some metaphysical fiat, cause disobedi-
ence to cease. Instead, the child must intervene on the internal level. Three
points of intervention  – three strategies  – are possible. One strategy is to
undermine desires directly, by suppressing or disengaging from them. A sec-
ond strategy is to sever or attenuate the volitional link between desire and
behavior, thus blocking the behavioral expression of desire. A third strategy
relies on the fact that desires do not arise in a vacuum but instead emerge
from a living entity that is aware of its internal states: a self. Like spokes
of a wheel, desires radiate from the hub of self. Thus, to obviate desire and
volitional action, the child can learn to view the self as unimportant, as
ontologically impaired or diminutive, as somehow “unreal” or “less real.”
If the child can make this self-diminishing mental leap, desire will be expe-
rienced as unworthy of privileging and acting on. To avoid punishment, the
child must implement one or more of these strategies.
Before proceeding, we must make one small change to the structure-of-
punishment schematic. To the child, especially the young and potentially
preverbal child who cannot conceptually understand notions of retribu-
tion and deterrence, the concept of “punishment” is an abstraction that
cannot be fully grasped. What the child does experience, indubitably and
directly, unmediated by concepts, is suffering. Thus, replacing “Punish-
ment” with “Suffering” aligns the schematic more closely with the child’s
actual experience:

Self  Desire  Will  Disobedience  Suffering

Finally, note that childrearing practices on the Indian subcontinent were

likely harsh historically. One anthropologist describes Indian childrearing
among traditional peasant groups:

Young girls must be obedient. . . . Sons must . . . be not only obedient,

but emotionally dependent. [Early childhood may include] threats of
punishment and destruction. This early conditioning may be followed
in later childhood by rather severe physical punishment. Neglect that
results in death, and severe childrearing practices . . . may occur with
some frequency among peasant groups in India.
(Poffenberger 1981, 91)

As with Islam, I hope eventually to identify documentary sources that per-

tain directly to the ancient context, but for now, it seems reasonable to
164  Benjamin Abelow
accept scholarly descriptions of “traditional” Indian childrearing as sugges-
tive of practices in the formative contexts of the karmic religions.
We are now prepared to begin discussing the karmic religions themselves.
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism – the three major religions that emerged
from the Indian subcontinent  – have as their metaphysical cornerstone a
system of karma and reincarnation (Halbfass 1998), which we can refer
to with the adjective “karmic.” Karmic concepts have been central to Bud-
dhism and Jainism since the formation of these religions and to Hinduism
since the time of the Upanishads  – all roughly mid first millennium bce.
Because differences exist in how the karmic framework is understood across
these religions and among their constituent sects and schools of thought, it
is useful to work with a generic model of the karmic worldview, one that
captures with reasonable accuracy important common components of many
of the variants.
According to these karmic religions, human life is characterized by an
ongoing cycle of birth, life and death, known as samsara. The specific condi-
tions of each rebirth are determined largely by the balance of good and bad
karma, with this karma obtained during the current and previous lifetimes.
Though some births are much more pleasant and less painful than others
(births can range from ghosts and low animals to royalty and even gods),
the overall experience of samsara is understood as one of suffering, perme-
ated to an intolerable degree with pain, illness and death. As one scholar
writes, “hell, so to speak, is the cycle of rebirth itself” (Pearson 1998, 122).
Further, traditional karmic systems posit the existence of torturous purgato-
rial hells between earthly lives.
Although many lay (non-monastic) believers focus on the more readily
attainable goal of securing a better birth for the immediate next life, through
the accumulation of good karma (Smith 2000, 114), the ultimate goal is to
escape from samsara altogether. None of these religions “values a fortunate
rebirth as such. . . . [They] are concerned not with gaining a happy rebirth,
but with stopping rebirth” (Reat 1977, 175). The cessation of rebirth
requires that no new karma at all, good or bad, be acquired. When rebirth
ceases, one reaches an end point usually described as moksha (from the root
for free, release, liberate, let go) or nirvana (extinguish).
The accumulation of karma, which entraps one in samsara, is due most
fundamentally to the illusion of an individual self. This illusion must be
transcended, which requires extirpating “all sense of an ‘I’ that serves as an
agent and owner” (Siderits 2015). In Buddhism, this self-negation involves
recognizing that the “self” has never really existed; in Hinduism, self-­
negation involves the dissolution and merger of the individual self (Atman)
into the vast, undifferentiated sea of divine reality (Brahman). Closely
related to self-negation, salvation – often styled as “liberation” – requires
the elimination of personal volition (will), of action based on this volition
and of desire. The entire, integrated complex of self-desire-volition-action,
which leads to karma and samsara, must be removed.
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 165
By this point, readers have likely noticed something remarkable: the same
three elements of self, desire and will are the ultimate source of suffering in
both childhood and karmically understood reality. Likewise, the avoidance
of suffering in both childhood and karmic reality requires that the individual
intervene at the level of self, desire and volition. These self-directed interven-
tions allow both the child and the believer to save or “liberate” themselves
from suffering. Remarkable, too, is that a similar set of strategies is evident
in the core teachings of the Abrahamic religions. In those traditions, punish-
ment can be avoided by subordinating the self, desire and will to the will of
God – or even, in the extreme view, replacing them entirely with God’s (pre-
sumed) self, desires and will. We thus observe a three-way overlap among
the strategies of the child, the karmic believer and the Abrahamic religious
adherent.
We can further highlight the karmic-Abrahamic overlap by comparing
two key phrases. Within the karmic framework, we have seen that the ulti-
mate salvational goal can be described as nirvana – literally, to blow out,
as with a candle. Nirvana refers to an extinguishing of the native and nat-
ural desires and of the sense of the individual self from which desires and
volitions arise. Now compare the term nirvana with the Christian phrase
“to die to the self” – which refers to the death of the self that is associated
with Adam, the self that is associated with one’s native desire and will.
The terms “nirvana” and “dying to the self” serve almost exactly the same
function in their respective religions and are virtually interchangeable.
Thus – convention aside – the Buddhist might well speak of “dying to the
self,” and the Christian might refer to “extinguishing” the Adamological
self. Likewise, for a child reared with strict physical discipline, avoiding
physical punishment and maximizing parental nurture – the “salvation”
of childhood – requires that the native, spontaneous self be rendered null
and void.
We have now identified a fundamental, three-way overlap among (1)
childhood, (2) karmic religions and (3) Abrahamic religions. The overlap
pertains to both the underlying structure of punishment (suffering) and the
salvation strategies based on this structure. Is it likely these overlaps arose
by chance? Is not a common causal pathway probable? The best and most
parsimonious explanation is that Abrahamic and karmic salvation myths
arose as psychological projections of childhood mental schema formed in
response to corporal punishment.
I conclude by focusing on three points that may form a stumbling block
for those grappling with the argument made here. First, in both childhood
and Abrahamic religions, the structure of punishment is portrayed by the
same schematic (line A), whereas the structure in karmic religions is slightly
different (line B).

(A) Self  Desire  Will  Disobedience  Suffering

(B) Self  Desire  Will  Karma  Suffering
166  Benjamin Abelow
Can we reconcile this difference? The literal meaning of the word “karma”
is “action.” Thus, in both (A) and (B), the complex of self-desire-will is
understood to produce an effect that is primarily behavioral (“primarily”
because karmic “action” is understood to entail both behavior and inten-
tion). This behavioral consequence precedes and directly mediates suffering.
This is just what we’d expect if childhood punishment for disobedience were
the ultimate source of both schemas. The two schemas are thus actually
much more alike than they may at first appear.
Second, within the Abrahamic religions, the innate, willful self is viewed
as real: It exists, is undesirable and must be actively combated. In contrast,
in the karmic systems, the self is understood to be largely or wholly illusory.
Although the distinction between a real and an illusory self may seem pro-
found, the practical consequence is small. In both cases, to avoid suffering,
the natural self must be negated or transcended or, at a minimum, blunted;
for within the Abrahamic religions it is God, not the human being, who
is the ultimate and most important subject. These Abrahamic and karmic
teachings about the nature and metaphysical status of the self can thus be
viewed as variations on a common theme.
Third and finally, in the Abrahamic religions, suffering is meted out by
a divine, anthropomorphic Judge. In contrast, karmic retribution occurs
through an autonomous process – a kind of natural law. The notion of a
damning, usually patriarchal judge can readily be explained as a theologi-
cal projection of the punishing father. But from where comes the image of
a “natural law of karma”? One possibility is that when norms of corporal
discipline are applied consistently, infractions are punished in a manner that
is (or so it may seem to the child) almost automatic, arising through a kind
of spontaneous, inevitable, natural process. This perception of retributive
automaticity may be especially strong when the child is very young – during
the developmental period when the child’s grasp of the distinction between
self and other, and between the parent and the broader world, have not
completely formed. Perhaps this dimension of the punitive experience pref-
erentially shaped the karmic myth. Once we recognize that karma functions
as a metaphysic of automatic retribution for willful desire, this speculation
seems quite plausible.

Part 4: Thinking about Trauma and Myth

My focus in this chapter has been on corporal punishment, but other prob-
lematic patterns and norms, including child abandonment and neglect, can
also be found in religious myth (Abelow 2011, 2016). These varied patterns
can all be considered under the rubric of childhood trauma. This fact sug-
gests some useful terminology. The adjective “traumatogenic” and the cog-
nate noun “traumatogenesis” derive etymologically from “trauma” and the
root “gen,” which denotes creation or causation. Thus, traumatogenic can
mean “caused by trauma” or “responding to trauma,” making it suitable
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 167
for describing myths that have roots in harmful childhood experiences. We
can thus describe the overall framework presented in this chapter as the
traumatogenic theory of religious myth, which we can define as,

The theory that religious myths, and the religious traditions and prac-
tices associated with myths, can arise and persist through a process of
cultural evolution in response to endemic, stereotypical (or “culture-
typical”) childhood traumas.

When a myth is traumatogenic, the structure of the myth will map onto the
structure of the trauma. We can thus say that the trauma and the myth are
isomorphic (“same form”), or we can refer to the myth as traumatomorphic
(“form of trauma”). If the structure of the trauma is A, B, C, D, a consist-
ently traumatomorphic myth will take the form of A’, B’, C’, D’.
We can usefully distinguish between narrative myths and salvation myths.
This distinction is not absolute, but the categorization is often meaningful.
By narrative myths, I mean myths that tell a story – for example, the Genesis
telling of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac. In their relation to these
myths, believers are primarily third parties: listeners, readers or observers.
In contrast, in salvation myths, believers perceive themselves to be active
and direct first-party participants  – for example, the Hindu devout who
assiduously struggles to escape samsara. An analogy can be made between
watching a play (narrative myth) and performing in a play or – more pre-
cisely – performing on the stage of life (salvation myth). These two catego-
ries of myth tend to manifest distinct types of traumatomorphism.

Traumatomorphism in narrative myths

Many narrative myths figuratively portray endemic patterns of childhood
trauma, but they do so in a way that embeds, or appends, a “happy end-
ing” to the grim outcome that typically occurs in reality. If the structure of
the original trauma is A, B, C, D, then the myth narrative now takes a form
closer to A’, B’, C’, anti-D’. I call this process narrative amelioration, since
the narrative now ameliorates the trauma that it figuratively portrays. This
pattern is evident in myths from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Quran; in
ancient Greco-Roman and other myths about abandoned children; and in
the central narrative myth (Homeric Hymn to Demeter) of the historically
important Eleusinian mystery religion and in the story of Jesus’s crucifixion,
resurrection and ascension (Abelow 2011, 2016). Narratively ameliorated
myths can be understood as providing a psychological distraction and cul-
tural wish fulfillment – a way to make bearable a brutal and terrible reality
by mythically overlaying a glorious outcome. This ameliorated portrayal is
the classic pattern of a traumatogenic narrative myth. The pattern has much
in common with what child psychiatrist and traumatologist Lenore Terr
terms a “post-traumatic compensatory fantasy” (Terr 1990, 202).
168  Benjamin Abelow
Traumatomorphism in salvation myths
Instead of a completed trauma that is ameliorated, salvation myths let the
believer enter directly into an in-progress reenactment of the trauma, sym-
bolically staged within a mythically imagined cosmos. The believer now
must try to prevent or escape from the mythically represented trauma. The
myth is structured so that the believer uses the same salvational strategy that
was forced on him or her during childhood. Thus, whereas narrative myths
tend toward a vicariously experienced “undoing” or reversal of the com-
pleted, figuratively expressed trauma, salvation myths “reset” the trauma
time line, directly place the believers into the mythically transformed scene
and force them to seek the best outcome possible. This pattern has much in
common with the phenomenon of post-traumatic repetition.
Could religious myths serve a beneficial function for those adults who,
during childhood, were traumatized in ways isomorphic to the myths? At
a minimum, engaging with such myths – cognitively, emotionally and ritu-
ally – likely functions as a psychological palliative, diverting attention and
emotional focus away from the original trauma and obscuring the pain of
the trauma by superimposing a mythically imagined “happy ending.” Such
palliation may provide a powerful yet largely unrecognized psychological
motivation for religious engagement and religious faith.
Conceivably, traumatomorphic myths might also have more specific or
enduring benefits for adults traumatized in childhood. Possibilities include
(1) reducing potentially chronic depression or anxiety associated with the
trauma, (2) providing a stabilizing sense of meaning for an otherwise inex-
plicable or cognitively dissonant trauma (e.g., an assault by one’s parents)
and (3) helping overcome the societally centrifugal effects of mass trauma
by providing a unifying symbolic focus for traumas that might otherwise
be expressed in idiosyncratic and incompatible ways. In listing these hypo-
thetical benefits, my aim is to stimulate thought. I do not suggest that such
benefits necessarily or inevitably accrue.
Also, regardless of whether these or other benefits exist, religious engage-
ment might still have a variety of negative consequences, especially for chil-
dren. These may include inducing confusion, anxiety and new trauma as
a result of potentially terrifying teachings about sin, hell, purgatory and –
in the karmic religions  – the possibility of adverse births and purgation
between lives.

References
Abelow, B. 2010. “Paradise Lost: Childhood Punishment and the Myth of Adam’s
Sin.” In A Cry Instead of Justice: The Bible and Cultures of Violence in Psycho-
logical Perspective, ed. by D Daschke and A Kille, 19–41. New York: T&T Clark.
 Whence This Need for Salvation? 169
Abelow, B. 2011. “The Shaping of New Testament Narrative and Salvation Teach-
ing by Painful Childhood Experience.” Archive for the Psychology of Religion
33: 1–54.
Abelow, B. 2016. “Childhood Trauma and the Origins of Religious myth.” Richard
Dawkins Foundation. Accessible at www.richarddawkins.net/2016/07/childhood-
trauma-and-the-origins-of-religious-myth/.
Acerbi, A, and A Mesoudi. 2015. “If We Are All Cultural Darwinians What’s the
Fuss About? Clarifying Recent Disagreements in the Field of Cultural Evolution.”
Biology & Philosophy 30: 481–503.
Gardner, JF, and T Wiedemann, eds. 1991. The Roman Household: A Sourcebook.
London: Routledge.
Halbfass, W. 1998. “Karma and Rebirth, Indian Conceptions of.” In Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, Vol. 5, ed. by E Craig, 209–218. New York: Routledge.
Kelber, WH. 1997. The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking
and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Patai, R. 1971. Society, Culture, and Change in the Middle East, 3rd ed. Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Pearson, AM. 1998. “Hinduism.” In How Different Religions View Death and
Afterlife, 2nd ed, ed. by CJ Johnson, and MG McGee, 109–131. Philadelphia:
The Charles Press.
Poffenberger, T. 1981. “Child Rearing and Social structure in Rural India: Toward
a Cross-Cultural Definition of Child Abuse and Neglect.” In Child Abuse and
Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. by JE Korbin, 71–95. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press.
Reat, NR. 1977. “Karma and Rebirth in the Upanisads and Buddhism.” Numen 24
(3): 163–185.
Saller, RP. 1994. Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Siderits, M. 2015. “Buddha.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring
2015 Edition, ed. by EN Zalta. Accessible at https://plato.stanford.edu/archivew/
spr2015/entries/buddha/.
Smith, BK. 2000. “Hinduism.” In Death and the Afterlife, ed. by Jacob Neusner,
97–116. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press.
Sperber, D. 2012. “Cultural Attractors.” In: This Will Make You Smarter, ed. by J
Brockman, 180–183. New York: Harper.
Terr, L. 1990. Too Scared to Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood. New York:
Harper & Row.
Part 3

Theology
10 What a Theological Appropriation
of Cognitive Linguistics’ Blending
Theory Brings to a Scientific
Understanding of the Evolution
of Religion
Robert L Masson

Introduction
What does a theological appropriation of cognitive linguistics’ blending
theory bring to a scientific understanding of the evolution of religion? The
cognitive science of religion has given a great deal of attention to the impli-
cations of its research for the evolution of religion. And a small but growing
body of work has looked at the implications of the relatively new discipline
of cognitive linguistics in the humanities, religious studies and theology
(Slingerland 2008; Masson 2014; Sanders 2016). But there has been little
inquiry into the implications of theology for a scientific understanding of the
evolution of religion. I will offer a few illustrative insights from a theological
application of cognitive linguistics’ blending theory to suggest that a “new”
scientific study attentive to the interaction of cultural, biological and psy-
chological factors in the evolution of religion also calls for robust research
agendas responsive to advances in theology.

A Brief Orientation to Blending Theory

Neural mapping is the fundamental image in cognitive linguistics for thought,
reasoning, conceptualization and imagination. In the early stages of the 1980s
and 1990s, cognitive linguists, particularly George Lakoff and a number of
collaborators, sought to understand how meanings are mapped from source
domains, which are more familiar and concrete, to less familiar and more
abstract target domains (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff
and Turner 1989). This research has been extremely effective at clarifying a
range of conceptual and grammatical issues that had previously resisted sat-
isfactory theoretical explanation, such as how prepositions work across lan-
guages or categorizations work. According to this research, reasoning and
concepts are not literal, abstract and disembodied. Rather our conceptual sys-
tems and inferences arise from, use and are crucially shaped by the perceptual
and motor systems of our bodies and the neural systems of our brains. Met-
aphorical mappings are not secondary and illustrative. Reasoning is guided
174  Robert L Masson
by metaphorical mappings derived from our embodiment. This metaphori-
cal mapping is a fundamental and pervasive feature of human thought and
language. Physical motion, for example, provides the underlying conceptual
mapping that guides much of our thinking about time, change and actions.
We conceptualize time as “flying,” “ahead” of us, “behind” us, “stopping” or
“going on” forever. We “move” through time. Time “passes” us by.
Lakoff and his followers conclude from their research that the imagina-
tive aspects of cognition  – metonymy, metaphor, framing, image schemas
and mental images – are crucial and primary, not derivative and secondary.
From this perspective, objectivity, precision and stability in cognition are
possible, but literal meaning is not the default position or foundation. It is
just the opposite. Words call for meaning rather than capture it. Language
is an underspecified tip of a giant iceberg of underlying and mostly uncon-
scious cognitive processes of categorization and metaphorical mapping.
Recent research in cognitive linguistics (Fauconnier and Turner 2002, 2008)
provides evidence for the claim that conceptualization and inference are much
more complex than the earlier metaphorical mapping model suggested. Con-
ceptualization and inference are hardly ever the result of a single mapping
between a source domain and a target domain. Rather, conceptualization and
reasoning typically involve the integration of many mental spaces and map-
pings within more elaborate conceptual networks. Blending provides a pro-
cess through which very complex networks of meaning can be compressed
into human-sized concepts that we can handle and with which we can make
manageable inferences. Then we can decompress these human-sized compres-
sions when more fine-tuned explanations and reasonings are required. Such
blends enable the compression of complex networks of meaning.
Blending theory proposes an explanation of the processes involved in
these complex conceptual integrations. Fauconnier and Turner describe the
range of conceptual integration in terms of four prototypical blends that
they name simplex, mirror, single scope and double scope. The first cor-
responds to what we conventionally describe as literal. A relatively simple
example is the blend “Paul’s daughter.” The blend combines inputs from
one space or frame (kinship roles, like father, mother, daughter, son, etc.)
with another space (a set of individuals, like Sally, Molly and Peter). The
blending of the conceptual spaces in “Paul’s daughter” is so automatic and
unconscious that we do not even notice it.
The second network is called a mirror blend because the two inputs mir-
ror each other. Fauconnier and Turner (2002, 59–60) imagine a contempo-
rary philosopher who tells us,

I claim that reason is a self-developing capacity. Kant disagrees with me

on this point. He says it’s innate, but I answer, that’s begging the ques-
tion, to which he counters in The Critique of Pure Reason that only
innate ideas have power. But I say to that, what about neuronal group
selection?
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 175
One could take this as a straightforward logical argument. One might not
even notice the complicated cross-space mapping that prompts us to con-
ceptualize this situation as a dispute between two people in the same place
and time. Kant and the professor lived centuries apart and in different coun-
tries and speak different languages. Such a debate never took place and
never could. But we have no problem entertaining such a possibility in the
course of a rigorous philosophical argument. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa
Theologiae is largely framed by such debates with authorities from the past.
“Running the blend,” compresses time and space; cause and effect; change;
and intentionality. In the Summa’s extended blend, Aristotle, Augustine and
other ancients are put into dialogue with each other and with Aquinas’s
“contemporary” resolution.
Single-scope blends differ from mirror networks in that the structure
derives from one of the input spaces. One of the inputs gives the overall
organizational structure of the network and is the primary source of infer-
ences. These are strongly asymmetrical. The framing input is a source of
inferences and compressions. Much of what we commonly call metaphors,
analogies and models are variations of single-scope blends. Single-scope
blends highlight certain properties common to the two input spaces, such
as similarities, parallels or proportions, even though the two input spaces
are themselves quite different. Among the many blends that Fauconnier and
Turner examine is a scenario in which competition between two CEOs is
conceptualized as a boxing match in which one CEO delivers blows to the
other CEO and ultimately knocks the other out of business (2002, 126–131).
The most complex and distinctively human blends are double-scope ones.
For cognitive linguists, “double scope” means that they are bidirectional
blends that create new emergent meanings and new possibilities for infer-
ence. In double-scope blends, there are two inputs, both of which contribute
to the blend’s meaning. The two inputs commonly clash. The differences
between the spaces, particularly if they clash, prompt new, often unantici-
pated meanings. The key thing to note about double-scope blends is their
capacity to call for a new understanding. For example, the mathematics
we use today has evolved through the centuries and enables achievements
not possible with the number systems available in earlier ages. Complex
numbers, for example, are in effect a double-scope network with inputs
from two-dimensional space and from real and ‌imaginary numbers (2002,
25, 134, 270–274). Structure is projected from both inputs. From two-
dimensional space, angles, rotations and coordinates are projected. From
numbers, multiplication, addition and square roots are projected. The blend
that emerges is something new and unique: numbers with angles and mul-
tiplication involving rotation. With this new and emergent dimension in
mathematics, new ways of calculation and new understanding becomes
available. This dramatically reconfigured what mathematicians were able to
conceptualize and infer. It took roughly three centuries for mathematicians
to accept these developments. The natural sciences provide other dramatic
176  Robert L Masson
examples of the emergence of new understanding, such as the Newtonian
synthesis that the laws of heaven are the same as the laws of earth, the
Thompson/Joule discovery that heat is motion or Einstein’s E = mc2 (Ger-
hart and Russell 2001, 23–27, 53–54). In such cases as complex numbers
and these revolutionary blends in the natural sciences, the emergence of new
meaning creates conceptual space for ways of understanding and of making
inferences that were not previously available.
This potential for the emergence of entirely new meanings and inferential
possibilities is what makes double-scope mapping so distinctive. Faucon-
nier and Turner postulate that this capacity explains the development of
language in human evolution and explains the cognitive process at the heart
of religion, art, science and technology. This double-scope blending gives
human understanding an extraordinary open-ended equipotentiality to cre-
ate and manipulate new conceptual networks. Languages, cultures, the sci-
ences and religions have been built up over generations through the cobbling
and sculpting of such integration networks. These networks of meaning are
never built entirely from scratch or on the fly. Nor are they ever entirely
preexisting conventional structures. They are always a mix of both. Cultures
build networks over long periods of time, which are transmitted over gen-
erations. Each generation builds on previous integrations that have become
conventional, and each adds novel mappings and compressions. Fauconnier
and Turner argue that “for any situation, real or imaginary, there is always a
way to use language to express thoughts about that situation” (2002, 179).

Conflicting Readings of Blending Theory’s Implications

for the Evolution of Religion
My own experiment with a theological appropriation of the research in
cognitive linguistics was preceded by Edward Slingerland’s much more
ambitious, broad-ranging and provocative analysis in What Science Offers
the Humanities. That book’s central objective is to argue for the vertical
integration of the sciences and humanities. For Slingerland, vertical integra-
tion means that “lower” levels of explanation are in significant ways more
basic than “higher” levels (17). His goal is to articulate an understanding
of the vertical integration of the sciences and humanities as an alternative
to the status quo, which he sees beset by the excesses of objectivist intel-
lectual imperialism, on the one hand, and postmodern relativism, on the
other hand. As part of this larger agenda, Slingerland makes an avowedly
atheistic case “that evolution is the best explanation for how people and
everything else in the universe got here” and that consequently there is no
scientific justification for believing in supernatural beings or souls (286). He
contends that the inevitable conclusion of science “means that the self as
we ordinarily understand it – as a disembodied something, soul or spirit or
mind, caused by nothing other than itself – is nothing more than an illusion
created by the workings of our embodied brain” (257).
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 177
Slingerland’s appropriation of blending theory provides an interesting
contrast to my proposal. We both draw heavily on Giles Fauconnier and
Mark Turner’s research, particularly their thesis that blending theory pro-
vides a compelling explanation of the emergence of the cognitive capacity
from which language evolved and which accounts for the cognitive processes
that made possible a “cultural big bang” in art, religion and technology
30,000 to 60,000 years ago. Likewise, we both argue that the emergence
of these cognitive capacities is crucial for understanding advances in the
sciences and humanities today. Moreover, as a sinologist, Slingerland draws
his paradigmatic illustrations from his research in early Chinese Confu-
cian thought, whereas I draw my illustrations from the Christian tradition.
Finally, we both aim for more significant collaboration between the sci-
ences and the humanities and draw on Charles Taylor’s conception of a
scientific realism that includes human-level accounts of reality. At that point
we diverge. Slingerland argues that with blending theory evolutionary sci-
ence can explain how humanity’s open-ended consciousness emerges from a
chain of causality that is entirely natural and physical. A vertical integration
of the sciences and the lack of a viable alternative theory (278) lead him to
the thesis that

as products of a blind process of replication and selection, human

beings as a whole – body and mind – differ only in degree of complexity
from robots or machines: we, like everything in the world, are causally
determined, purely physical systems.
(250)

I agree that blending theory and cognitive science help explain the emer-
gence of the underlying biological mechanisms and cognitive processes
entailed in human evolution. But blending theory also puts in sharp relief
the emergence of dramatic and revelatory shifts in human conceptualization
and inference that are ignored in Slingerland’s evolutionary construal. I am
not talking here about the acquisition of new data or the extension of exist-
ing concepts but rather have in mind shifts in thinking that yield brand-new
ways of understanding, such as the theory of evolution itself. The “discov-
ery” of evolution and natural selection are not additions of new factual
information or even extensions of what counts as fact. Evolution and natural
selection are brand-new ways of thinking about the facts and of construing
what counts as fact. While evolutionary theory provides a framework for
explaining the underlying capacity for the emergence of new understandings
of this sort, it does not and cannot provide a complete or even an adequate
explanation of the new understandings themselves. Explaining the origins of
new understandings of this sort, whether of evolutionary understanding or
more broadly of scientific thinking itself or of religious thinking, is different
from explaining the evolutionary origins of the cognitive capacities for these
human-level activities. Explaining how these capacities have “evolved”
178  Robert L Masson
historically, culturally and conceptually into fundamentally diverse ways of
thinking and engaging “reality” requires entertaining further human-level
ways of understanding (e.g., historical, philosophical, literary and theologi-
cal) in addition to the natural sciences’ third-person empirical accounting.
Slingerland makes this case to an extent in arguing that certain novel, and
even counterintuitive, blends such as the mathematical concept of zero
or the idea of weight as an extensive property “provide the cultures that
possess them with new tools for reasoning about and even looking at the
world” (207). But Slingerland does not entertain the possibility of emerging
equally legitimate and counterintuitive religious blends that provide novel
ways for understanding and explanting reality, because in his judgment, the
natural sciences answer empirical questions more satisfactorily and because
Darwinism has rendered meaningless the big “why” questions that now
seem to be the sole concern of religion (231–232).
Slingerland anticipates this line of objection. He admits that he struggles
with the implications of Darwinism’s “universal acid”:

I don’t believe in supernatural beings or souls. And yet, at some level,

I  cannot help but feel that, for instance, I  was “meant” to meet my
wife. . . . I don’t believe in an afterlife or a nonmaterial soul, and yet,
if you press me, I would have to admit to a sneaking feeling that my
favorite grandmother is somehow watching me. . . .
We will apparently always see meaning in our actions – populating
our world with “angry” seas, “welcoming” harbors – and other human
beings as unique agents worthy of respect and dignity, and distinct from
objects in some way that is hard to explain in the absence of soul-talk,
but nonetheless very real for us. We will continue to perceive our work,
families, and lives as being “meaningful” at some inchoate level, and to
be strongly motivated to make the appropriate changes whenever we
begin to lose this sense.
(286–287)

Despite this inevitability, Slingerland insists that we must admit that from
the perspective of science, this feeling is an illusion with which, for better or
worse, we must live: “We are apparently designed to be irresistibly vulner-
able to this illusion” (287). He acknowledges that “this is where, in fact,
we see the limits of a thoroughly ‘scientific’ approach to human culture and
need to finesse a bit our understanding of what counts as a ‘fact’ for beings
like us” (287).
But finessing the account for Slingerland means “living with a kind of
dual consciousness, cultivating the ability to view human beings simultane-
ously under two descriptions: as physical systems and as people” (293). But
unlike Taylor, Slingerland is convinced that human-level descriptions and
dual consciousness, however inevitable and unavoidable, are nevertheless
based on misapprehensions. For Slingerland, Darwinism is a mortal threat
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 179
to conventional religious beliefs and conceptions of the self: “once we have
begun down the physicalist path we cannot go back to the old certainties”
(291). Because fundamentalists also recognize this, Slingerland believes they
“are in fact a bit ahead of the curve” (255). Consequently, while Slingerland
agrees with Taylor that human-level concepts necessarily have a hold on us
and can serve valuable purposes, he is not willing to follow Taylor and say
that human-level reality “is just as real as anything studied by the natural
sciences” (290). Rather, “the short response to Taylor is that, at least for
anyone even casually familiar with the current state of the art in the cogni-
tive sciences, human reality is simply not as real as physical reality” (290).
“Evolution is such a relatively new idea, and its message is so fundamen-
tally alien to us, that its real implications for our picture of human reality
have yet to fully sink in” (291). Despite how counterintuitive the evolution-
ary picture of reality is, it will and must, for Slingerland, prevail over the
human-level dualist picture because evolution has built us “in such a way
that we want to deal with and picture the world as it ‘really’ is, no matter
how unpleasant” (291).
Let me explain why I think an engagement of cognitive linguistics’ blend-
ing theory and theology suggests that Slingerland’s picture of the “world as
it really is” is incomplete and does not overcome the dualist picture of body
and spirit but is rather itself a captive of that picture. My different explana-
tion about blending theory’s relevance to the multiple human-level ways
of picturing reality as it actually is, while admittedly far short of address-
ing all Slingerland’s broad-ranging arguments, nevertheless has implications
for how to construe a multidisciplinary investigation of the evolution of
religion.

Tectonic Blends
Slingerland sees the “ratcheted” innovations of conceptual blending as
providing a framework for explaining how human thought can evolve
from the embodied interaction with the physical world. He takes this
framework to cohere seamlessly with the physicalists’ conception of evo-
lution that he believes is warranted by the research in cognitive and evo-
lutionary science and so explains the origins of religion. This inference
that evolutionary theory is all that is needed to explain the origin of
religion is the crucial point of disagreement between our appropriations
of blending theory. I think some ratcheted innovations are more tectonic
than Slingerland’s account appears to acknowledge. While Slingerland
clearly emphasizes that blending involves a watershed development in
the cognitive capacities of human beings, it is not clear, as I mentioned
previously, that his position fully accounts for the degree to which some
blends generate entirely new ways of explaining and understanding that
are different from physicalists’ explanations but nevertheless are not nec-
essarily opposed to realist understandings of our embodied human nature
180  Robert L Masson
and physical world – and that are not necessarily dualist in the ways that
Slingerland conceptualizes them. Moreover, his position does not clearly
account for how the substance and details of blends are entailed in the
generation of these new ways of understanding and explaining. No doubt
Slingerland would see this reaction as indicative of a typically humanist
slide into a dualism of spirit and matter that lacks the courage to face the
implications of empirical evidence. But for the sake of argument, consider
a few blends that I propose as evidence for a different way of picturing
the situation.

Jesus is the Messiah

In the Christian faith, “Jesus is the Messiah” is a prototypical example of
the kind of “tectonic” double-scope blend that gives evidence for a different
way of viewing things. The blend is at the heart of Christian understanding.
Despite appearances, the proclamation by his earliest disciples that Jesus
is the Messiah could not have been literal. If Jesus was the Messiah, then
he was no ordinary carpenter’s son, and he was much more than an itiner-
ant preacher who was deserted by his followers and crucified. Moreover,
“Messiah” at the time did not name a single category. It was associated
with a multiplicity of expectations, some of which were mutually exclusive,
including an otherworldly figure who descends from the heavens and a royal
and “this worldly” descendant of David. Given these conventional mean-
ings of Messiah, applying the term to Jesus after his crucifixion would not
have made literal sense to the first disciples’ addressees. But it is also clear
that when his disciples regrouped and proclaimed Jesus the Messiah, they
were not speaking figuratively. This was not a mirror or single-scope meta-
phorical blend. His followers were not saying that Jesus is “like” a Messiah
or proposing that people should think of him “as if” he were a Messiah.
The disciples were not merely mapping some attributes of the Messiah onto
Jesus nor simply mapping in the other direction attributes of Jesus onto the
Messiah. Nor were the disciples analogically claiming that Jesus was partly
similar and partly dissimilar to the expected Messiah. Instead, they clearly
intended their claim to be taken quite “literally”: Jesus is the Messiah. And
the claim can be taken in this way “literally,” or at least “properly,” to use a
less misleading term, only if the affirmation is understood as a double-scope
blend that maps in both directions at once and that calls for a tectonic alter-
ation of the conventional meaning of Messiah and the network of meanings
associated with the concept.
The disciple’s blend, therefore, was extraordinary and uncalled for. In the
blend, Jesus’s life becomes the new prototype for understanding the Mes-
sianic expectation, while the Messianic expectation discloses Jesus’s true
identity. Further, the blend calls for a revision of the original inputs. The
disclosure of a new frame of understanding in which Jesus is the Messiah
radically extends the conventional meaning of the category of Messiah
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 181

Apocalypc
•Son of Man
•Resurrecon
•Judgment Day
Messianic Generic Space
•New David
•New Reign
•New Temple
Figure purporng to
inaugurate God’s reign
Prophec
•Suffering Servant

Son of David
Victorious King of Israel Carpenter’s Son
Acknowledged as Prophet or King Inerant Preacher
Son of Man from the Heavens Deserted
Suffering Servant Crucified

Input 1: Messianic Expectaon Input 2: Historical Jesus in Scripture

Jesus is the Messiah
Son of David & Carpenter’s Son
Son of Man & Suffering Servant
Son of God & Crucified
Messiah & Deserted
Reconfigures meaning of
•Messianic expectaon
•Identy of Jesus
•God’s relaon to humanity
•God & God’s love

Blend: Jesus is the Messiah

Figure 10.1 Jesus is the Messiah blend. The blend maps in both directions between
messianic expectations and the historical Jesus mediated by Scripture,
thus prompting for a tectonic alteration of the conventional meanings
of Messiah and of the network of meanings associated with the concept
and with Jesus.

and establishes the crucified carpenter’s son from Nazareth as prototype

against which all other conceptions are measured. Moreover, the advent of
God’s kingdom in this unanticipated Messianic savior reveals a new under-
standing of God and of God’s relation to humanity. So the blend prompts
for a tectonically altered understanding of Jesus, Messiah, God, human-
ity and the whole network of meanings and frames associated with these
terms and entailed in understanding the relationship between the divine
and human generally and understanding the case of Jesus specifically. The
blend demands an understanding that would otherwise be unavailable, and
it makes possible new inferences that otherwise could not have been envi-
sioned. Thus, the details and substance of the blend’s inputs are constitutive
of this new way of understanding. Although “Jesus is the Messiah” is not
literal in the conventional sense, the Messianic claim in the blend makes an
assertion that is proper, logically warranted and factually the case – hence
the need to distinguish its tectonic logic from conventionally conceived lit-
eral, metaphorical and analogical logics.
182  Robert L Masson
Jesus’s disciples were forcing an equivalence between him and the Messiah
that would not have made sense to contemporary Palestinian Jews unless
they were also ready and open to a significantly tectonic stretching of their
language and understanding, so this shift emphasizes that the blend was
calling for a new understanding. In this way, tectonic blends are a bit like
quirky humor. We say that a person has to “get” a joke to think it funny.
One can entirely “miss the joke”; that is to say, the person can miss that a
joke is even being made. But when a person does not laugh at a joke, it could
mean instead that the person understood the joke but didn’t find it funny.
From the perspective of blending theory, we can distinguish at least six dif-
ferent possible receptions of a double-scope blend for a person:

1 Able to run the blend.

2 Able to run the blend and accepts it.
3 Able to run the blend and rejects it.
4 Mistakes the double-scope blend for a literal claim.
5 Mistakes the double-scope blend for an entirely metaphorical and figu-
rative claim.
6 Mistakes the double-scope blend for a simple analogy.

There are contemporary and historical instances of each of these responses

to the disciple’s prompt (call for a new understanding).
It is important to keep in mind two final points. First, the creation of
conceptual blends and their reception are pervasive and largely unconscious
cognitive processes. That was almost certainly the case with the “Jesus
is the Messiah” blend. I  expect that while the blend was unexpected and
world changing for his followers, it might have seemed obvious and natu-
ral to them, once proposed, given their experience of Jesus, his fate on the
cross, reports of his appearances and how they had been primed by Mes-
sianic expectations and images. One can surmise that for those who got the
prompt, like getting a joke, the processing was quick, reflexive, unconscious
and natural. The same is likely true for those who rejected the prompt and
those who missed it altogether.
Second, prompting for new meaning in no way guarantees that the
prompt will be grasped, understood or accepted. Recognizing that Jesus is
the Messiah is a double-scope blend does not settle whether it is a helpful
way of looking at things or whether it is true. The decisive point I  mean
to illustrate, however, is that recognizing that it is a double scope-blend is
absolutely necessary for understanding how the Messianic claim purports
to be true and helpful. One can see in the gospels a multitude of narrative
devices aimed to prime the hearer for the revelatory conclusion and tectonic
prompt. That is the narrative function of the stories about uncomprehend-
ing disciples, Jesus’s abandonment on the cross, a doubting Thomas and
post-resurrection appearances in a locked room and at Emmaus. Such nar-
rative elements signal disruptions and reconfigurations in the conventional
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 183
Palestinian world of meanings. In this light, a fundamentalist appeal to his-
torical evidence to justify the claim that Jesus is the Messiah suffers from
the same shortcoming as the arguments of skeptical historians who contend
that proof is lacking. Neither is ahead of the curve. Both miss the tectonic
logic of the blend. Both miss that a quite different way of understanding is
proposed. This is not to say that it would be impossible for a fundamental-
ist or a skeptical historian to comprehend that the Messianic attribution is
a tectonic double-scope blend. But once recognized, this characterization
demands different sorts of counterarguments and evidence than entertained
by fundamentalists and skeptics. Nor does a double-scope interpretation of
the Messianic claim fit the assumption in much of the research in the Cogni-
tive Science of Religion that theological and doctrinal beliefs evolve from
more literal and naïve conceptions (See Masson 2014, 165–188). Rather,
seeds for the emergence of a new religion – that it to say, the emergence of
a self-consciously new way of understanding God and of explaining God’s
relationship to humanity – were inherent from the beginning in the tectonic
double-scope logic of the disciples’ assertion that Jesus is the Messiah. This
was the case even though the historical evidence does not prove that any-
thing of the sort was consciously envisioned by Jesus or his first disciples.

God is simple
St. Thomas’s conception of God offers even subtler illustrations of tectonic
theological blends. Let’s look at two which I  describe in Without Meta-
phor, No Saving God. The first is Aquinas’s affirmation that God is sim-
ple. Aquinas asks whether God can be located semantically the way other
realities can. Is God a body? Is God composed of matter and form or of
substance and accidents? Is there any way in which God is composite or
enters into compositeness with other things? As David Burrell has shown,
“In one article after another, Aquinas monitors each possible way to get
hold of something: locating an object in space and time or saying anything
about it” (1979, 18–19). The upshot is that for Aquinas, “God escapes our
grasp on every count.” In the case of every other reality (whether physical,
mental, real or imaginary), one can locate the thing and speak about it as
a composite of matter and form, accidents and substance, potency and act,
genus and species or form and esse. God is beyond this sort of description.
Thus, Aquinas articulates a double-scope blend to call for an understanding
that reaches beyond the available categories.
The blend does not describe a feature or characteristic of God that we
can directly grasp or comprehend. Even though the term “simplicity” is a
substantive and thus sounds like a quality or description of God, Aquinas
uses the term as shorthand for denying that any substantives, at least as we
know them, can apply to God except in this indirect way. Both input spaces
presume the metaphor predication is a form of containment, but the effect
of predicating “simplicity” in the blend is to use a substantive in a way
184  Robert L Masson
that denies that substantives apply to God. The blend uses the metaphor of
containment to elicit the counterintuitive notion of an uncontained reality.
So the “simplicity” that Aquinas attributes to God, although related to
“simplicity” as it is known in this world, is at the same time nothing like
“simplicity” as we know it and experience it. To grasp the meaning and
assess the truth of the claim that God is simple, one has to understand the
new logic and way of conceptualizing things inherent in the new meanings
for which “simplicity” in the blend calls for. Moreover, this blend, like the
Jesus is the Messiah blend, also calls for a change of meanings in the broader
frame (the two input spaces). Since the blend entails that it is entirely proper
to affirm that God is simple, God becomes the prototype of simplicity. Aqui-
nas holds that simplicity and all other perfections are attributed to creatures
only imperfectly.

God’s essence is “to be”

A similar logic is entailed in Aquinas’s affirmation that in God essence and
esse are identical. Aquinas’s blend subverts the metaphor that categories are
containers to call for a fundamentally different way of understanding God.
The act of assertion (affirming that something exists) is logically different
from predication (affirming that something has this or that quality). When
we say that something exists, we are not describing any particular feature of
the reality. In affirming that God’s essence is “to be,” Aquinas is not giving
a description of God in the ordinary sense of things, because “to be” is not a
thing or predicate in the ordinary sense. Saying that God’s nature is “to be”
does not give a definition or grasp of God’s nature. What “to be” signifies
cannot be grasped directly in a concept. Nevertheless, as David Burrell has
pointed out, the grammatical analogy between asserting things “to be” and
affirming predicates of things enables Aquinas to stretch predication and to
generate a “substantive” for God in a way that denies substantives apply to
God (34–50). In employing this structural analogy, Aquinas’s blend extends
language. The blend forces an equivalence between the logic of asserting
and the logic of predicating – to display and speak of what is beyond lan-
guage’s grasp.
Both of Aquinas’s blends call for a tectonic change in our fields of mean-
ings, opening radically new ways of conceptualizing God and making infer-
ences about God.
Aquinas’s blends do not reify God. They do not conceptualize God as a
disembodied something that we can reach through normal modes of predi-
cation. Indeed, the point of Aquinas’s conceptions of God’s simplicity and
essence is to articulate blends that subvert the limitations of language that
otherwise leave us with dualist notions of embodied and disembodied some-
things, the material and immaterial, or the physical and spiritual. The point of
Aquinas’s blends is to call for different “tectonic” ways of understanding and
explaining these distinctions in the tradition that he inherits and passes on.
 Generic Space Generic Space

Presupposes cross-
domain mapping:
The noon of PREDICATION IS A FORM
simplicity OF CONTAINMENT Making an
affirmaon

Simplicity Simplicity
conceptualized as conceptualized in
eluding categorizaon terms of: PREDICATION =
in terms of: ASSERTION =
ACCIDENT/SUBSTANCE affirming that affirming that
ACCIDENT/SUBSTANCE MATTER/FORM something has something
MATTER/FORM POTENCY/ACT this or that exists.
POTENCY/ACT GENUS / SPECIES quality.
GENUS/SPECIES

Forcing
Simplicity, which equivalence
Input 1: God sounds like a Input 2: World of Experience Input 1: between asserng Input 2:
substanve, used by Logic of Predicaon and predicating Logic of Asseron
Aquinas to deny that enables Aquinas to
any substanves can generate a
be predicated of substanve for God
God. that does not
conceptualize God
Subverts cross-domain mapping: as a “substance.”
PREDICATION IS A FORM OF CONTAINMENT

Blend: God is simple. Blend: God’s essence is “TO BE.”

Figure 10.2 Aquinas’s blends. (a) Aquinas’s God is simple blend subverts the cross-domain mapping that presupposes that predication
is a form of containment by generating a predication (i.e., a meaning and affirmation of simplicity) that denies that God can
adequately be grasped by any predication and (b) Likewise, his God’s essence is “to be” blend forces an equivalence between
asserting that “God is” and predicating that God’s essence is “to be,” enabling him to call for a way of thinking about God
that subverts the idea that God can be conceptualized or affirmed as a “substance.”
186  Robert L Masson
Of course, Aquinas and his followers would call this a different “analogi-
cal” rather than “tectonic” way of understanding. I use the term “tectonic”
to draw attention to the double-scope tectonic character of Aquinas’s logic
that blending theory brings to light.
Some readers might react to this explanation with the response of skepti-
cal analytical philosophers that Aquinas makes a naïve category error here:
His metaphysics is language gone on holiday. While such skeptical read-
ers would be inclined to suspect that Aquinas has been fooled by language
and a metaphysical muddle, I argue that that Aquinas’s novel integration of
Neoplatonic and Aristotelean metaphysics and his attentiveness to gram-
mar enables him to articulate a tectonic double-scope blend that calls for a
brand-new way of understanding God and of conceptualizing God’s rela-
tion to humanity. Aquinas is taking advantage of the way our minds are
structured and stretching grammar to conceive God in a way that is con-
sistent with the Christian tradition’s complex networks of meaning. That
web of multi-scope blends developed over hundreds of generations, and it
is embodied in the community’s complicated and often-fractious multiplic-
ity of narratives, worship practices, doctrines, theologies and both personal
and shared experiences of wonder, suffering and grace. Making a judgment
about whether to accept or reject novel double-scope blends such as these
requires that one has taken in the blends’ distinctive logics, motivations and
warrants in their various historical and cultural contexts.

Implications for the Evolution of Religion

In Slingerland’s picture, the only substantive factors that matter in the evo-
lution of religion are empirical and they are fully explained by Darwinism.
Slingerland does not seriously probe the conceptual mapping of notions such
as God, spirit or soul. Rather, his picture equates such concepts with naïve,
vague and static notions of “disembodied somethings.” Moreover, accord-
ing to Slingerland, the idea “that the essence of religion is to explain the big
‘why’ questions is relatively recent” and in any case is rendered meaningless
by Darwinism because among other things, “the big ‘why’ questions are not
amenable to empirical testing” (231–232). He takes for granted the popular
picture that “religion [is] used to explain a much wider range of phenom-
ena, and it continues to do so in cultures less penetrated by modern science”
(231). But for Slingerland, “religion seems to us now to be concerned solely
with ultimate concerns because this is its last stronghold, to which it has
systematically been forced to retreat” (231). In this picture, undergirded by
the literature in the cognitive science of religion, the significant advantages
of projecting agency into the world at large has so influenced our evolu-
tion that we cannot help but believe that we “inhabit a universe full of
other soul-bearing human beings, as well as animals endowed with various
degrees of consciousness, anthropomorphic gods, angry seas, and threaten-
ing storms” (26). So, we have evolved as human with a dual consciousness
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 187
that at one level makes us incapable of fully embracing the implications of
science and evolutionary theory but at another level compels us to seek the
truth about reality, which is at odds with our human-level experience.
If fundamental conceptions in Christian thinking, such as the biblical
claim that Jesus is the Messiah or Aquinas’s conception of God, are appro-
priately described as tectonic double-scope blends, a different picture is
taken. These blends do the following:

• Call for significant changes in a larger network of meanings.

• Have roots in prior, conventional inputs but genuinely transcend them.
• Result in the creation of new ways of understanding that would other-
wise be inconceivable.
• Create the possibility for inferences that would otherwise be inconceivable.
• Make assertions that are semantically proper, logically warranted and
factually the case but that cannot be read straightforwardly as either
literal or metaphorical.
• Require thick contextual interpretation because the new meanings and
inferential possibilities are a function of the blend’s unique construction.
• Call for meanings (e.g., Messiah, God’s simplicity, God’s being) that
despite appearances do not necessarily conflict with a scientific under-
standing of the world as physicalist interpretations like Slingerland’s
assume.

In the picture I  am suggesting, the origins of Christianity are rooted in a

highly differentiated call for a brand-new way of understanding God and of
explaining God’s relation to everything else. Christianity’s inception was not
just a matter of new information or beliefs. The two-thousand-year history of
responses to that prompt is the community’s running of the blend. Running
the blend entailed working out a cascading network of multi-scope map-
pings, including the identification of Jesus’s humanity with God and the tec-
tonically different way of understanding God that Aquinas’s blends calls for.
A second aspect of the picture I am suggesting is that the illustrations we
have examined, in prompting for new ways of understanding the reality
of God and of God’s relation to humanity, correspond to the big “why”
questions of “ultimate concern.” Religions may once have sought in part
to explain things that are now better understood by the natural and social
sciences, but that does not prove that the big “why” questions for which the
Messianic claim and Aquinas’s blends prompt were peripheral until recently.
To the contrary, Michael Buckley has demonstrated that what in fact is
“recent” is the conception of God as the specific kind of “causal agent”
(the first in the chain of empirical causes) that developed in 17-century and
18th-century apologetics (1987, 2004). Aquinas’s tectonic blend entails
entirely different notions of causality and agency (Burrell 1979; McCabe
1987). Countless contemporary theologians follow Aquinas’s prompt and
insist that the human and divine, or matter and spirit, though distinct, are
188  Robert L Masson
not opposed in the way Slingerland’s picture suggests (Masson 2014, 217–
249). Without seriously investigating these different religious and theologi-
cal ways of understanding, it is premature to conclude that all talk of God,
spirit or soul entails that particular notion of God as a “causal agent” that
many theologians today also reject. It is also premature to assume that talk
of God or the spiritual entails a commitment to a dualism that conflicts with
the findings of evolution and empirical science. Moreover, given these exam-
ples in the Christian tradition, it is reasonable to expect that alternative
tectonic ways of understanding are revealed in other religious traditions.
Finally, the picture of tectonic blending highlights the constitutive role
of the blends themselves and their inputs in the emergence of new ways of
understanding, making inferences and interacting with the world. Humans
are different from other animals not only because of the emergence of the
cognitive abilities that come with the capacity for double-scope blending.
Humans also are different because of the ongoing emergence thorough tec-
tonic blends of different ways of engaging with reality, such as the develop-
ment of modern science, which Slingerland admits was brought about by the
ratcheted innovation of specific conceptual blends. I am not contesting those
developments in science, and I agree, to use Dreyfus and Taylor’s wording,
that “some accounts of nature provide a better explanation of how the uni-
verse works than do others, and that our natural science provides by far the
best explanation available” for understanding those questions (2015, 142).
Bringing into focus how religious and theological blends call for decidedly
new and alternate ways of understanding, making inferences and interact-
ing with the world, however, suggests, at the very least, the need to take
these religious prompts seriously and the need to carefully examine them
on their own terms with methods appropriate to their tectonic character.
Hence, we need a multidisciplinary investigation of the evolution of religion
that includes rigorous study of the specific conceptual blends of religions
themselves to discover the “multiple ways of interrogating reality” that,
like the natural sciences, “reveal truths independent of us . . . that require
us to revise and adjust our thinking to grasp them.” (Dreyfus and Taylor,
154) and that call for other ways of engaging and being engaged by reality.
A scientifically responsible investigation of the evolution of religion requires
that this sort of attention to conceptual blending in the religions be part of
the research agenda.

References
Buckley, MJ. 1987. At the Origins of Modern Atheism. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Buckley, MJ. 2004. Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Mod-
ern Atheism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Burrell, DB. 1979. Aquinas: God and Action. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University
Press.
 Blending Theory on the Evolution of Religion 189
Dreyfus, HL, and C Taylor. 2015. Retrieving Realism. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Fauconnier, G, and M Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and
the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.
__________. 2008. “Rethinking Metaphor.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Meta-
phor and Thought, ed, by RW Gibbs. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gerhart, M, and A Russell. 2001. New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and
Religion. New York: Continuum.
Lakoff, GA. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal
about the Mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lakoff, G, and M Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago Uni-
versity Press.
__________. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge
to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lakoff, G, and M Turner. 1989. More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic
Metaphor Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Masson, R. 2014. Without Metaphor, No Saving God: Theology After Cognitive
Linguistics. Leuven: Peeters Press.
McCabe, H. 1987. “Creation.” In God Matters. London: G Chapman.
Sanders, J. 2016. Theology in the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the
Way We Think About Truth, Morality, and God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Slingerland, EG. 2008. What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Body and
Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.
11 The Evolution of Religiosity
A Theologian’s View
Christopher C Knight

Overview of the Chapter

Explorations into the evolution of human religiosity are frequently dis-
torted by assumptions that are made about the nature of religion. These
arise in part from the inexperience of scholars in interdisciplinary work,
which makes them less than fully aware of the philosophical and theologi-
cal oversimplifications in their approaches. I argue that it is not religion but
religiosity as a whole that needs to be examined in an evolutionary context.
When this is done, intuitive, prelinguistic religious experience becomes an
important focus for research, especially in psychological understandings of
religious beliefs and practices. This chapter argues in particular that explo-
rations that focus on supernaturalist beliefs fail to recognize that these
beliefs are not intrinsic to human religiosity and, historically, have been far
more varied and complex than is often recognized. This is true not only of
their outward manifestations but also in their fundamental understanding
of how the supernatural is to be distinguished from the natural. The histori-
cal background of current assumptions about supernaturalism is outlined,
and the ways in which important strands of both traditional and current
theology transcend these assumptions are indicated. In these strands  – in
which God is not viewed as a thing among things or a cause among causes –
evolutionary insights become, for the theologian, not a threat but an impor-
tant clarification.

Introduction: Religion, Supernaturalism and Language

Scholars in many disciplines are now exploring evolutionary insights into
the human propensity for religious experience, behavior and thinking.
However, while these scholars recognize that insights from many disciplines
are necessary for this exploration, interdisciplinary work is, in practice,
novel for many of them. Because of this, all those involved in exploring the
evolution of religion may find it useful to be aware of the insights of those
theologians who have considered issues related to this evolution, since the
theological discipline not only is in practice the only one that evokes reflec-
tion on this evolution but is also intrinsically interdisciplinary in nature.
 The Evolution of Religiosity 191
One example of the contribution that may be made from this interdis-
ciplinary perspective lies in the phrase “evolution of religion.” Although
many scholars in this field make formal obeisance to the fact that the term
“religion” is not well defined, they all too often still tend to use it as though
it were some sort of natural kind (see the critique in Harrison 2015). In par-
ticular, they often, like David Lewis-Williams (2009, 154), see its “funda-
mental characteristic” as “some idea of a supernatural realm, dimension or
influence that is immune to scientific investigation.” The theologian’s criti-
cism here will essentially be philosophical rather than theological: This kind
of definition simply moves the problem from one concept that is difficult to
define – religion – to another that is equally problematic – supernatural. Not
only, as we shall see, does Lewis-Williams, like many others, implicitly pro-
ject onto religious believers a distinction between natural and supernatural
that is alien to the views of at least some of them, but he also implicitly uses
a notion of what is natural that is philosophically simplistic.
Another example of a common and questionable assumption is also to be
found in Lewis-Williams’s work. He and others plausibly argue that explicit
religious beliefs could not have existed among humans before the cogni-
tive and linguistic developments often associated with the Upper Paleolithic
Period. However, what some theologians may tend to emphasize in this con-
text is religious experience in itself rather than its interpretation in terms
of particular beliefs. This emphasis relates in part to the anthropologist’s
insight that a narrow focus on religious concepts is uncomfortably remi-
niscent of the notion that religion is to be understood primarily as a kind
of rudimentary (and mistaken) science. This assumption was made in the
“armchair anthropology” of the early 20th century but has long since been
abandoned in anthropological circles.
This notion of religion as essentially an explanation of the world is
related, for theologians, to the kind of simplistic “natural theology” that
they often now reject. This will especially be the case among those of them
who stress the tradition of negative theology, or apophaticism, which is to
be found in a number of different faith communities. In the more radical of
these apophatic understandings, the function of religious language is seen
in essentially mystical terms. (In evolutionary terms, this function might
be expressed in terms of its capacity to foster a “return” to a prelinguistic,
“paradisal” stage of human evolution.) Within Christianity, for example,
an important strand of the Eastern Orthodox tradition has a strong sense
of this character of theological language. In this strand, the terms that are
applied to God are not understood as “rational notions which we formu-
late, the concepts with which our intellect constructs a positive science of
the divine nature.” Rather, they are understood as “images or ideas intended
to guide us and fit our faculties for the contemplation of that which passes
all understanding” (Lossky 1957, 40).
Such considerations suggest that by focusing on explicit religious under-
standings, Lewis-Williams and others may tend to treat simplistically
192  Christopher C Knight
something that is either explicitly or implicitly accepted by them: Such
understandings have emerged through a predisposition to certain kinds of
experience, which existed in anatomically modern humans (and perhaps
other hominids) before the cognitive and linguistic developments that made
possible explicit religious beliefs. Lewis-Williams is probably correct, for
example, in his comment that Neanderthals were unable to “conceive of
a spirit realm or an afterlife.” However, this does not necessarily mean  –
except in a trivial sense – that they were therefore (as he puts it) “congenital
atheists” (Lewis-Williams 2009, 144). Worms are also congenital atheists
in this sense, but it seems extremely unlikely that they can experience what
the archaeological evidence of burial practices suggests Neanderthals might
have experienced: some kind of intuitive sense of a divine reality. Here,
Michael Polanyi’s famous philosophical observation that “we can know
more than we can tell” (Polanyi 1966, 4) is surely relevant to a critique of
this approach.
Another criticism, based partly on anthropological perspectives, relates
to the focus on shamanism in the work of Lewis-Williams (2009) and of
others (e.g., Rossano 2006). What is significantly underestimated in such
approaches is the cultural specificity of the various practices and under-
standings described as shamanistic or animistic. Moreover, this focus often
seems to be linked to presumptions about these societies’ beliefs that not
only are projections onto those beliefs of a particular kind of supernatural-
ism but also fail to fully take into account “perspectivist” approaches in
anthropology (e.g., see Bird-Davis 1999), which challenge the metaphysi-
cal framework often assumed in discussions of animism (see the review in
Halbmayer 2012).

Religiosity and the Unconscious

All these issues point to the need to rigorously question the assumptions
about religion that are frequently made in studies of its evolutionary back-
ground. As I  have put it elsewhere, although the concept of religion is
problematic, we must still recognize in humans “a universal natural pre-
disposition to the types of experience and to the patterns of behavior that
have usually been studied under this heading” (Knight 2010, 26). With this
in mind, it seems that we can bypass many of the problems associated with
the term “religion” in this context by replacing it with the term “religios-
ity,” widely used by sociologists of religion (e.g., Glock 1972). This term
may be used as a kind of convenient shorthand to cover a range of belief
systems, types of experience and patterns of behavior. Moreover, the term
can be linked to an explicit recognition that those who exhibit “religious”
characteristics need not manifest conformity to some supposedly defining
characteristic of “religion.” Rather, those who manifest religiosity may be
seen as related to one another through the way each of them exhibits some
of the traits usually associated with religion, but with no one of these traits
 The Evolution of Religiosity 193
necessarily being present in all. In this sense, these people will exhibit what
some philosophers (following Wittgenstein) call “family resemblances.”
Religiosity (understood in this sense) will be interpreted by those with
insight into the psychology of religion at least partly in terms of its uncon-
scious roots, and such an interpretation will undoubtedly provide essential
insights for interdisciplinary understanding. However, while a previous gen-
eration of scholars often used Jungian psychology for this purpose, those
of the current generation are more wary of this approach. They recognize
that in its classic form, the Jungian framework has numerous drawbacks,
not least in relation to the simplistic connection to evolutionary perspectives
implicit in Jung’s own understanding of what he called the collective uncon-
scious. However, in relation to the kind of more complex scenario that some
have begun to explore, there may be an important way forward that has not
so far been developed in detail (see Knight 2016a). This is in terms of the
suggestion from Harry Hunt (2012) that Jung’s collective unconscious is, in
sociocultural terms, comparable to the sociological concept of “collective
consciousness,” understood by Durkheim as most apparent in the collective
representations of myth, ritual and religion. By adding to this observation
the ideas of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1981) about the centrality
of metaphor in human thinking, Hunt argues that it is possible to develop
a “rapprochement between Jung and the contemporary human sciences”
(2012, 76).

Varieties of supernaturalism
Whether or not this approach comes to be seen as fruitful for the study of
the evolution of religiosity, it seems likely that there will emerge, over the
next generation or two, a robust naturalistic understanding of that evolu-
tion. Some theologians do not relish that prospect, since like many scholars
in other disciplines, they believe that “religion” necessarily involves belief
in supernatural entities or processes. Such a definition of religious belief
depends, however, on an acceptable definition of the realm of the “natural,”
and not only has this realm never had stable boundaries, but even the defi-
nition of naturalism has proved elusive. Moreover, what the term “super-
natural” means is not even agreed on among those religious believers who
use the term. In particular, for Christians of the late antiquity and medieval
periods, and for the modern inheritors of their thinking, the relationship of
the supernatural to the natural is a far subtler one than is assumed by most
of those who speak about the supernatural today.
In the late medieval Christian West, for example, the notions of the natu-
ral and supernatural were not only related to the earlier separation of grace
and nature made by Augustine of Hippo, but were also strongly tied to
scholasticism’s Aristotelian framework. In this scholastic framework – still
held by some today  – there was the presumption that miraculous events
occurred. Nevertheless, the natural and supernatural were strongly linked,
194  Christopher C Knight
since it was believed that “grace completes nature.” In the medieval Chris-
tian East, moreover, the tendency was not to make a distinction between
the natural and the supernatural but rather to stress the difference between
the “uncreated” – God – and the “created.” This latter category included
what in Western Christianity was regarded as “supernatural” entities, such
as angels. The notion of the supernatural was only rarely used, and even
then, its meaning was in some respects closer to the modern notion of the
paranormal than to the Western notion of the supernatural (Knight 2016b).
An important factor here was that the separation of grace and nature that
was made in the West made no sense because Eastern Christian theology
“knows nothing of ‘pure nature’ to which grace is added as a supernatural
gift. For it, there is no natural or ‘normal’ state since grace is implied in the
act of creation itself” (Lossky 1957, 101).
Nowadays, by contrast, the most common distinction between natural
and supernatural  – made by both believers in the supernatural and those
who deny its reality  – derives directly from neither of these frameworks.
Its prime origin lies in the (now-outmoded) Newtonian version of phys-
ics, which posited a mechanistic “clockwork” model of the universe. As a
response to this model, the theological stress – especially within protestant
communities  – was often on God as the “designer” and initiator of this
clockwork universe. In this model, miracles were seen in terms of God inter-
vening from time to time (as a kind of clock repairer) to keep the mechanism
functioning as intended.
There was thus a tendency to depart from medieval assumptions by see-
ing God as essentially “absent” from natural processes, and this tendency
was reinforced by how an apologetic argument was perceived in the need to
explain events that science itself seemed unable to explain. The focus was
thus increasingly on “gaps” in scientific explanation, and divine action was
increasingly seen as effectively limited to these gaps. There grew up what has
been called the notion of the “God of the gaps,” in which the old distinc-
tion between natural and supernatural was understood and used in a new
way. (This “God of the gaps” notion lies behind much of New Atheism and
much of the thinking that characterizes the exploration of the evolution of
religion.)
Another apologetic argument, related to this “God of the gaps” model,
also developed in this period. This was a kind of design argument for the
existence of God. Considerations that had been set out in the early years of
the new science were in this later period recast in more clearly rationalist
form, most famously in William Paley’s book of 1802, Natural Theology. If
you found a watch, Paley argued, then even if you didn’t know its purpose,
its intricate mechanism would convince you of its design and manufacture
by an intelligent watchmaker. In a comparable way, he argued, the world
too could be seen as the product of intelligent design.
In the 19th century, this argument was, in some Christian circles, consid-
ered an important one for apologetic purposes, and for this reason, Darwin’s
 The Evolution of Religiosity 195
insights into evolution as the “blind watchmaker” evoked a complex and
often critical response. However, we must recognize that the acceptance
of Darwinian evolution among Christians was not as tardy as some seem
to believe. In a book published in 1889, for example, the Anglican priest,
Aubrey Moore, argued that the Darwinian view should be seen as “infi-
nitely more Christian than the theory of ‘special creation,’ for it implies the
immanence of God in nature and the omnipresence of His creative power”
(Moore 1889, 184).

The Modern Science-Theology Dialogue

This stress on divine immanence (in this world) has been crucial to the mod-
ern science-theology dialogue in its development since the early work of
Ian Barbour (1966). Not only has scientific insight – including evolutionary
theory  – been generally affirmed by participants in this dialogue but also
the untraditional, early modern notion of the “God of the gaps” has been
abandoned.
This abandonment was reinforced, for several decades, by the develop-
ment of a new model of divine action that was sometimes labeled “non-
interventionist.” What was meant by this term was that the new approach
shunned any understanding of divine action that seemed to require the laws
of nature to be suspended while God acted directly. Instead, it was now
claimed that God could act in, with, and under the laws of nature. Some-
times, it was said, this involved nothing more than sustaining the world and
the laws obeyed by its components. There was thus a new stress on the “gen-
eral” divine action that occurs through the normal operation of those laws.
However, among proponents of this model, a widespread belief remained
that there was a need to see certain events as the result of “special” divine
action. There was therefore an attempt to seek to identify, in a scientifically
literate way, what was often called a causal joint through which God might
be able to respond to events and situations in the world without actually set-
ting aside the laws of nature. Here, the development of quantum mechanics
in the early 20th century seemed to many to provide the conceptual frame-
work for exploring this approach. What was now stressed was the contrast
between the nondeterministic universe envisaged in the new understanding
and the deterministic, “clockwork” universe of the older, Newtonian model.
This nondeterministic character of the universe seemed to allow for “spe-
cial” divine action while not requiring the kind of supernatural intervention
in which the laws of nature must be set aside. The simplest and earliest
model of how this could occur was, in fact, based straightforwardly on
quantum mechanical insights. More recently, however, a number of other
causal joints have been suggested.
This type of scheme is still dominant within the science-theology dia-
logue, and it provides the basis for the affirmation of naturalistic under-
standings that has become characteristic of that dialogue. Thus, whenever
196  Christopher C Knight
a naturalistic explanation is proposed for religious experience, it is usually
at least implicitly accepted by most participants in that dialogue that such
experience is rooted in naturalistic processes that have an evolutionary his-
tory. Religiosity is understood as natural, and God is seen as being able to
communicate with us on the basis of this religiosity, acting in, with, and
under the laws of nature that are always operative. Theologians – at least
those who have participated in this development – would therefore not see
evolutionary understandings of human religiosity as a threat.
However, this causal joint scheme has recently been criticized from a
number of perspectives. Wesley Wildman, for example, has observed that
its presuppositions seem to lie not in traditional understandings but in a
“personalistic theism” that represents a “Protestant deviation from the
mainstream Christian view” (2006, 166). The coherence of the model has
also been criticized by both Nicholas Saunders (2002) and myself (Knight
2007, 22–27). However, my own critique is unlike that of Saunders’s, in
one important respect. It is based not simply on pointing out the inherent
problems of the scheme but also on a new proposal that may be seen as a
manifestation of what Sarah Lane Ritchie has called a “theological turn” in
the 21st-century debate about divine action.
In this development, Ritchie observes, the basic relationship between God
and the world, “rather than presuming an ontologically self-sufficient physi-
cal world,” is increasingly based on “questioning the metaphysical com-
mitments” that lie behind this presumption. This means, she explains, that
there is now a concerted attempt on the part of a number of theologians to
develop “alternative ways to think about the causal nexus between divine
and material realities.” She adds that “the theological turn is characterized
by the question, ‘What does it mean for the physical world to be prop-
erly natural?’ ” (Ritchie 2017, 361). In these approaches, the old distinction
between “general” and “special” modes of divine action is rejected, and the
“God of the gaps” notion is more radically rejected than in the causal joint
scheme, in which that distinction is retained.

Naturalism and the Limits of the Scientific Method

My own contribution to this “theological turn” (Knight 2001, 2007) is
rooted in what I see as convergence between an Eastern Christian theologi-
cal understanding and a view of naturalism that is essentially philosophical
rather than theological. I not only reject conventional supernaturalism but
also affirm the sciences strongly and explicitly. This is possible within a
theological context because of my definition of naturalism: not in terms of
what can in principle be uncovered by the scientific method but in terms of
the more general belief that the world always functions in a way that we can
describe in terms of obedience to “fixed instructions.” These instructions, in
their simpler manifestations, I see as susceptible to investigation through the
scientific method, and thus nothing that represents robust scientific theory
 The Evolution of Religiosity 197
need, in my view, be challenged. However, for philosophical rather than
theological reasons, I  argue that not all such instructions are necessarily
susceptible to investigation through the scientific method, since at levels of
high complexity – such as that of the personal – these fixed instructions will
simply not be susceptible to the repeatability criterion that is so important
for the scientific method. (We cannot, for example, put two people in a
laboratory and tell them to fall in love so that we can observe the process.)
This is not to deny that such processes follow what we might call law-like
patterns, with identical outcomes arising from identical situations. Rather,
it means that there is an epistemological barrier to our exploration, in that
the criteria for identifying identical situations are simply not available to us.
This distinction  – between natural processes that are straightforwardly
susceptible to scientific investigation and those that are not – may, I have
suggested, be understood according to how Augustine of Hippo, in the late
4th century, wrote about miracles in a way that we might now interpret as
suggesting a distinction between “ordinary” and “higher” laws of nature
(Pannenberg 2002). This distinction is comparable, I have observed, to that
involved in how nowadays there are some who speak about the normal
operation of the cosmos and the “paranormal.”
In terms of this understanding, I have suggested that what I call strong
theistic naturalism need not, a priori, preclude events that are seen as para-
normal or miraculous, since neither of these terms has any necessary con-
notations of the supernatural. Such events, I have suggested, may be seen
as coming within the bounds of naturalism because they may be seen as
analogous to what in physics are known as changes of regime, such as the
onset of superconductivity in certain materials when they are cooled to
below a particular temperature. In such changes, once a certain threshold
has been crossed, discontinuities in properties occur. The difference between
this kind of scientifically explorable regime change, and what is considered
paranormal lies only, I have suggested, in how, in the latter, the repeatability
criterion is not straightforwardly applicable at a practical level, such that
investigation through the scientific method becomes difficult or impossible.

Human Psychology and Pluralistic Theology

However, I do not regard the boundary here to be one that can be recognized
straightforwardly. Even if we suspect that we will hit the epistemological
barrier of which I  have spoken, we should not, in the face of the appar-
ently paranormal, shrink from attempting explanation based on naturalistic
understanding. In particular, I have suggested that when universal elements
of human psychology seem to be involved, such attempts can and should be
made in the way that they often are in the exploration of the evolution of
religiosity. An example I have given is the set of experiences of the “risen
Christ” recorded in the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. A psychologi-
cal understanding of these experiences, I have argued, has the potential to
198  Christopher C Knight
provide important insight into their nature. I have suggested, in particular,
that these experiences were essentially visionary in nature.
This psychological understanding, I  have argued, points toward how
a pluralistic understanding of the faiths of the world can be constructed
(Knight 2007, 40–68). Each of these faith traditions, according to the model
I have proposed, arises through experiences rooted in psychological charac-
teristics that are fundamental to what it is to be human and that have arisen
naturally through an evolutionary process. This understanding might, of
course, be interpreted in reductionist terms as “explaining away” the types
of experience that have been interpreted as revelations of some divine real-
ity. What prevents this in my own analysis is that my understanding of
human psychology and its evolutionary background is set in an overarching
understanding of how the cosmos and its naturalistic development reflect
what those in theistic traditions call the divine will.

Five Theses
I have recently expressed this understanding (Knight 2010, 2013) in terms
of five theses that do not rely on any particular faith tradition and seem par-
ticularly relevant to the question of how religious beliefs arise and evolve.
These theses are as follows:

1 The human psyche may be understood in principle entirely in terms of

the development of the cosmos through natural processes from the Big
Bang to the evolutionary emergence of specifically human qualities.
2 All experiences that give the impression of being revelatory of a divine
reality are the spontaneous, natural products of the human psyche and
do not require any notion of “special” divine action to explain them.
These experiences are culturally conditioned, in that their specific forms
will relate to both the individual psychological makeup and culturally
determined expectations of those who receive them. These factors are
sufficient to explain why, in different individuals and cultural contexts,
there is considerable diversity among the types of such experiences and
of the religious languages that arise from them.
3 The belief of most religious people, that their own faith’s foundational
revelatory experiences have given rise to a religious language that is
genuinely referential to a divine reality, is a valid one. This divine real-
ity – as something to which reference can validly be made – is therefore
ontologically defensible.
4 The diversity of the religious languages that arise from different revela-
tory experiences does not necessarily imply that they cannot all validly
refer to the divine reality. A pluralistic understanding of their referential
success is possible.
5 The cosmos, in which the revelation-oriented human psyche has arisen
naturalistically, is attributable to the “will” or character of the divine
 The Evolution of Religiosity 199
reality to which authentic revelatory experience bears witness. (As those
of the Abrahamic traditions might put it, the probability that some crea-
tures would come to know their creator was built into the cosmos, by
that creator, from its beginning.)

There are, of course, tensions between these theses, since the first two of
them manifest an uncompromising naturalism and the remainder are
irreducibly theological, albeit manifesting the kind of religious pluralism
defended by people like John Hick (2005). How we might overcome the
tensions between these sets of theses has been the main subject of the books
that I have cited (Knight 2001, 2007), and there is no room here to repeat
or even to summarize all those arguments. However, it seems appropriate
to note certain aspects of those arguments here, since they are particularly
relevant to the questions that are likely to be asked by those interested in the
evolution of religiosity.

An Untraditional Approach?
One relevant aspect relates to many possibly thinking that this approach
has little to do with traditional theology and that it is therefore irrelevant
to exploring the early evolution of religiosity. However, for three reasons,
it would be simplistic to think that this is the case. The first is that the com-
monly assumed notion that God must be seen as a supernatural “entity” has
little to do with the traditional Christian notion of God. For this traditional
Christian understanding, God is not to be seen as a “thing among things”
or a “cause among causes” but as what some modern theologians call the
“ground of being” or even “existence itself.” The notion of God as a super-
natural “entity” is, in this understanding, a category mistake (as indeed
may be the common interpretations of the “spirits” of animistic belief if
perspectivist understandings are taken into account). The second point to
recognize is that my focus on visionary experiences has clear links with the
understanding of religiously oriented visions held by relatively traditionalist
theologians who assume the ancient understanding in which grace com-
pletes nature (Knight 2001, 23–33, 2007, 40–46).
More important than either of these issues, however, is a third factor,
which is that an aspect of traditional theological thought turns out to be
highly relevant to the approach that I have set out. This is the notion of the
divine Logos or Word, which in Christian usage is primarily thought of in
relation to the doctrine of the incarnation in Christ, as expressed in the pro-
logue of the fourth gospel (John 1: 1–14). However, this prologue takes up
an earlier use of the term Logos in Hellenistic Judaism, which was influen-
tial not only for Christian thinking but also for strands of Muslim thinking.
(Indeed, it may even be compared to the Taoist notion of the eternal way.)
The Logos – in this general sense – is that which makes the universe logical
in its functioning, obedient to what we now call “laws of nature.”
200  Christopher C Knight
Because – as the fourth gospel puts it – this Logos “enlightens everyone”
(John 1:9), it has been used to argue for a radical religious pluralism. In
this sense, the sort of religious pluralism that I advocate may be seen as a
manifestation of a strand of traditional Christian thinking since – as Philip
Sherrard notes – pluralistic perspectives of this sort are to be found at least
implicitly in the thoughts about the Logos in many early Christian writers,
including “Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, the Cappadocians, [and]
St. Maximos the Confessor” (Sherrard 1998, 61).
In the work of the last of these figures, the notion of the Logos was used
to develop a sophisticated understanding of the cosmos that has not only
continued to be central to the thinking of the Christian East but has evoked
recent interest among Western theologians too. Moreover, it may be seen as
compatible with the kind of naturalism that I advocate. My argument for
this compatibility hinges on how Maximos’s thinking manifests a general
intuition that is, as we have noted, implicit throughout the Eastern Christian
tradition: Divine grace does not involve God somehow having to “get into”
the natural world from some “outside,” supernatural realm.
This is particularly clear in the work of Maximos, who uses the term
“logos” (pl. logoi) not only of the divine Logos that existed “in the begin-
ning” (John 1:1) but also of that which constitutes the inner reality of each
created thing. The logos of each created thing is not only, for Maximos,
a manifestation of the divine Logos but also what has been described as
“God’s intention for that thing, its inner essence, that which makes it dis-
tinctively itself” (Ware 2004, 160). The logos of each created thing is that
which makes that thing act logically, in the modern sense of that term, and
it is arguable therefore that for the theological instinct manifested by Maxi-
mos, what we now call the laws of nature are essentially a manifestation of
the presence, through these logoi, of the divine Logos itself.

A Return to Teleology?
However, in exploring this parallel, we need to be aware that there is a
characteristic of this ancient tradition of understanding the cosmos’s logical
functioning that is not found explicitly in modern science. This is the belief
that the logos of each created thing not only gives to that thing the being
it has in the temporal world but also “draws it towards the divine realm”
(Ware 2004, 160). Each created thing is seen as tending – from within and
not through some external, “special” action  – toward its ultimate fulfill-
ment. As one scholar has put it, the cosmos is, for this understanding, inher-
ently “dynamic . . . tending always to its final end” (Lossky 1957, 101).
The belief that things tend toward some final “place” or end is known
as teleology, and it is a belief that is now unfashionable, especially among
those who (rightly) see the development of modern science as relying, his-
torically, on the rejection of scholasticism’s Aristotelian version of teleol-
ogy. Maximos’s view is, however, rather subtler than the kind of teleology
 The Evolution of Religiosity 201
with which scientific explanation then seemed to be in competition. Indeed,
the sort of theological instinct manifested in Maximos’s teleological under-
standing is, I have argued, not only compatible with modern science but also
clarified in important respects when interpreted in terms of current scientific
insights into the predictability of the universe’s development from the time
of the Big Bang up to the emergence of a specifically human psychology.
The first of these insights arises from the apparent “fine-tuning” of the
universe, which is perceptible to astrophysicists and has for decades been
discussed in terms of what is called the anthropic cosmological principle
(Barrow and Tipler 1986). This discussion is based on the observation that
certain factors necessary to the emergence of humanity – the existence of
carbon atoms, for example – seem to be predictable outcomes of the par-
ticular universe that we inhabit but to be impossible in other universes obey-
ing the same laws of nature but with even slightly different values of various
universal constants.
These observations may not, as some have thought, allow for the formu-
lation of a new argument for the reality of God. Nevertheless, for those who
for other reasons already believe in that reality, it does seem that anthropic
considerations can provide the basis for a theological view that discerns
divine design and purpose in the predictability of the developmental pro-
cesses through which we have emerged naturalistically.
However, if astrophysical insights suggest that this view is a coherent one
with respect to developmental processes in the cosmos up to the time of the
emergence of life, an important question remains: whether this is a view
that can be applied also to biological evolution. Here, a second scientific
factor must be considered. This relates to the notion – often associated with
the name of Stephen Jay Gould  – that biological evolution, because it is
based on random processes, must be seen as unpredictable in its outcomes,
especially when the termination of “promising” evolutionary routes in mass
extinction events is taken into account. Our own existence, according to this
view, can be seen only as a kind of freak accident.

Predictability in Biological Evolution and in the Evolution

of Religiosity
This view has been strongly questioned in recent years. One factor in this
questioning is the recognition that random processes do sometimes make
certain outcomes highly probable. (The predictable profitability of casinos,
for example, does not depend on their roulette wheels being other than
genuinely random in their selection of winning numbers.) Another factor is,
as Richard Dawkins (2004, 603–606) has commented, that some evolution-
ary routes seem to be “easier” to follow than others. In this sense, he seems
implicitly to see some routes as being initially more probable than others.
The most extreme version of this perspective comes from Simon Con-
way Morris, who has emphasized the way certain adaptations to particular
202  Christopher C Knight
ecological niches have happened, not only more than once but often from
different evolutionary starting points. For Morris, this underlines the notion
of evolutionary convergence, which suggests that a number of potential
evolutionary pathways may, from different starting points, tend to con-
verge on the same adaptive features in similar ecological environments
(Morris 2003).
My own argument is that teleology in the evolutionary process may be
understood not in terms of the teleology of medieval Western philosophy
but in terms similar to those that Morris has outlined. The interaction of
chance and the laws of nature is such, it would seem, that certain devel-
opmental paths are in practice highly likely to be followed in biological
evolution. My theological interpretation of this is to posit that Morris’s
guess about the outcome of a scientific research program may be taken,
for a theological model, as axiomatic: There is “a deeper fabric in biol-
ogy in which Darwinian evolution remains central as the agency, but the
nodes of occupation are effectively determined from the Big Bang” (Morris
2003, 309–310). Such a theological view can, I  have suggested (Knight
2013), clarify and expand Teilhard de Chardin’s theological interpretation
of evolution.
In relation to human religiosity, Morris’s understanding about physical
evolution can, I argue, be extended to human mental properties too. Admit-
tedly, the scientific parallels here are less clear since there are no known
species whose intelligence and religiosity we can compare with our own in
terms of convergent evolution. Nevertheless, given present trends in under-
standing both the predictability of evolutionary pathways and the evolution
of religiosity, the emergence of human religiosity will arguably come in due
course to be understood not only in terms of our ancestors’ adaptation to
prevailing conditions through increasing intelligence but also in terms of
how these conditions can be seen as directly comparable to the situation
of any species in which an equal or superior degree of intelligence evolves.
In particular, the evolution of this level of intelligence is clearly related to
the adaptive advantages associated with a highly developed understanding
of cause and effect. Significantly, this type of understanding is often seen
as important for the evolution of religious understandings when cause is
perceived in terms of real or supposed conscious agents (e.g., see Rossano
2006, 347–348).
At present, the predictability of religiosity may be less a scientific insight
than a theological axiom for the kind of naturalistic theism that I have pro-
posed. Nevertheless, it may also be seen as a scientifically plausible hypoth-
esis on which a scientific research program can be based. Moreover, it does
make one clear prediction, which relates to the search for extraterrestrial
intelligence. According to this understanding, if and when such intelligence
is discovered, its evolution will turn out to have involved the emergence of
an associated religiosity. To put it simply, ET – if ever encountered – will
turn out to have religious instincts.
 The Evolution of Religiosity 203
Conclusion
My conclusion from all these considerations is that in the quest for an
understanding of the evolutionary background to religious beliefs, the
common focus on supernaturalist elements in those beliefs is a distraction.
Religiosity is not tied to such beliefs, and moreover, not only is supernatu-
ralism something that comes in many varieties, but in modern theology,
it is sometimes bypassed altogether, since theologians are now in a posi-
tion to articulate a model of divine presence and action in the world that
reflects traditional theological perspectives and yet may also be seen as a
form of naturalism. For this kind of model – as for the causal joint one that
it attempts to replace – evolutionary insights into human religiosity pose no
intrinsic threat to theology but instead provide an important clarification
for its understanding.

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12 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus
Brain Evolution and Emergence
of the Capacity for Spirituality
William Ulwelling

Introduction
What, if anything, can our knowledge of human evolution  – particularly
brain evolution  – teach us about religion? This chapter proposes the fol-
lowing thesis: The evolutionary stage of a rapidly enlarging human brain
gave rise to neoteny, which entails a long segment of continued rapid brain
growth and development of the infant extra utero (or in familia), which in
turn gave rise to profoundly intersubjective psychological structures. These
psychological structures provide the relational underpinning for the adult’s
capacity for spiritual/religious experience.
This chapter’s brief outline of human brain evolution will conclude with
the emergence of the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny, which will be
defined with rigor. Neoteny occasioned a new developmental social milieu
for the human brain, within which the neurology for a relational, intersub-
jective developmental psychology was hardwired into the infant. This inter-
subjectivity is a foundational capacity for the emergence of human religion,
and it enabled the adult Homo to be “religious.”
This multidisciplinary chapter necessarily gathers summarized findings
from a number of fields, none of which can be developed in detail, but all of
which are meant to be reasonable, defensible summaries, preferably consen-
sus positions from the various specialties.

The Evolution of the Human Brain

As the human brain evolved, it changed in many ways, and its evolution can
be studied from many aspects. This chapter will focus on changes in brain
volume over time. The only direct physical knowledge of brain evolution is
provided by paleoneurology studies of fossil skulls, and an endocast of the
fossil skull’s intracranial space can estimate the brain volume. Brain volume is
a good general indicator of brain functionality. Other factors, such as infold-
ing the cortical surface into fissures, adding more neuronal layers in the corti-
cal surface and reorganizing the relative size of various functional (Brodmann)
areas, have also improved and modified cortical capacity, but brain volume
remains a good general indicator of brain functionality (Jerison 2001).
206  William Ulwelling
Beginning around ten million years ago, the prehominid brain had already
attained an impressive size of approximately 300 cc (Sherwood 2008). By
about four million years ago, encephalization was greater among prehomi-
nids than for other species. Encephalization is defined as the amount of brain
mass relative to the total body mass. In every species, the brain must map
sensory input, process information and coordinate motor and other outputs.
A larger body requires a correspondingly larger brain. Jerison’s encephaliza-
tion quotient gives the ratio of the actual brain size to the expected brain
size based on body size (Jerison 1970). Anthropoid primates as a group are
about twice as encephalized as other mammals; that is, they have two to
three times as much brain as expected for their body mass (Jerison 2001,
10). Even by the time of Australopithecus, around three million years ago,
the hominid brain was already larger than expected when compared to other
species, which were adequately maintaining and controlling their bodies and
surviving in their environments. The 300 cc primate brain of ten million
years ago evolved into the 400 cc Australopith brain of three million years
ago. (De Miguel 2001). The Australopiths were already the most encephal-
ized apes on earth at the time of their existence (DeSilva 2016).
About two million years ago, around the time of Homo habilis, the
human brain began a dramatic evolutionary growth surge to nearly triple in
size. Homo habilis brains were about 600 cc, while modern Homo sapiens
brains average around 1,400 cc. The brain growth curve is exponential, and
the slope of that curve becomes particularly steep during the last 200,000–
800,000  years (Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program 2019).
The brain endocast data is indeed sparse, with perhaps 0.000001 percent of
human skulls represented (Holloway 2009), but the skull fossil sample size
is nonetheless adequate to demonstrate such a large growth surge. One of
many questions is, what caused this period of explosive growth? Any answer
will necessarily be largely speculative. Theories explaining the rapid brain
growth at the advent of Homo include climate change and/or ecological
demands. A recent paper by Geary (2009) supports social interaction as a
major factor in rapid brain growth. Geary found that the 175 analyzed skull
fossils of hominids demonstrated a more rapid rate of growth as the popu-
lation density of hominids increased. Holloway (1967) had earlier posited
a socialization positive feedback loop that drove rapid evolution of larger
brains. Another possible explanation is that after brain functionality, com-
plexity and size achieved a certain “critical mass,” the brain’s importance
became so great that dealing with other human brains became the primary
selection pressure in the environment. By “dealing with,” I include compet-
ing, dominating, seducing, cooperating and nurturing  – the full gamut of
human social interaction.

Neoteny Revisited
A major difficulty in evolving a larger brain is the gestation and delivery of
an infant with such a large brain. Initial theories about this problem focused
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  207
on the limited capacity of the pelvic opening into the birth canal, the so-
called obstetrical dilemma. Recent studies have contested whether demands
of a bipedal gait require a limited pelvic width and instead newly emphasize
the importance of another limiting factor: the immense metabolic demands
of a rapidly growing fetal brain (Holliday 1971). As much as 74 percent of
the energy demands of the newborn are for the growth and development of
the brain (Dunsworth 2016). At about nine months gestation, the energy
needs of a rapidly growing human fetus meet the nutritional limits of what a
mother can provide in utero – about 2.1 times the mother’s basal metabolic
rate (Dunsworth 2012). Also relevant is the fact that the amount of oxy-
gen available to the infant increases fivefold outside the womb (Nathanielsz
2001). Whatever the relative importance of limited pelvic capacity or limited
in utero nutritional capacity, the evolutionary “solution” of Homo was to
deliver the infant” early” – in an immature form – while brain development
was still surging. The trend toward birthing neurologically less developed
infants reached a modern level by late in the Pleistocene Epoch (Desilva
2016) [2.6 million years to 12 thousand years bce]. Modern human neo-
nates are born with brains less than 30 percent of adult size, relatively less
developed than any primate (Dunsworth 2012). We humans are born with
an odd mosaic of mature (precocious) and immature (altricial) characteris-
tics: We are born essentially without locomotion, but our eyes and ears are
wide open, and we can smile and cry.
Homo’s brain growth surge occurred after brain volume reached about
400 cc, around two million years ago. Figure 12.1 shows the ontogenesis of
a modern human baby, which is birthed around the time its brain volume
reaches about 400 cc.
The evolutionary phenomenon of birthing a baby while the brain is still
immature and rapidly growing has been called neoteny. This 19th-century
neologism was fashioned from two Greek roots: “Neo-” comes from the
Greek neo, meaning “new” or “immature,” and “-teny” comes from the
Greek word teinein, meaning “stretch.” When defined with strict adher-
ence to its Greek roots, the word “neoteny” refers to a stretching of the
phase of human brain immaturity and rapid development into the postnatal
period. The definition of “neoteny’ given here, however, is different from the
way this term is used in much, perhaps most, of recent scientific discourse.
Indeed, the originator, Julius Kolman, of the term, coined in 1884, did not
use neoteny in the sense described here. Kolman studied the axolotl, and
noted that this salamander “held” its immature larval morphology unusu-
ally long and began sexual reproduction while still retaining its tadpole-
like immature morphology. In 1989, Ashley Montague noted that Kolman
confused his etymology, defining the Greek word neo correctly as “new,
immature” but confusing the Greek word teinein (“stretch, extend”) with
the Latin tenere, which means “hold, sustain.” Perhaps the most common
use of “neoteny” in current scientific literature is in the sense of pedomor-
phosis, or the retaining of immature forms into adulthood. The evolution-
ary theory to explain this hypothesized phenomenon is that such a retention
208  William Ulwelling

Figure 12.1  Human brain growth curve.

Source: Adapted from Brain/Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Project, humanorigins.
si.edu, 2016. Image by Karen Carr Studios.

of immature morphology might enhance sexual attractiveness. If you look

up “neoteny” in Wikipedia, you will see an illustration of the comic book
character Betty Boop, whose large head and eyes are pictured to illustrate
neoteny. While this use of neoteny to mean pedomorphosis is common, it is
not the one used in this chapter.
The definition of neoteny used in this chapter is faithful to the Greek ety-
mology and emphasizes stretching a process, not holding onto a form. The
process that is extended is rapid brain growth and maturation. The empha-
sis is not on retaining fetal anatomical forms.
Montague (1989, 158) wrote in his book Growing Young that “The idea
that neoteny is the primary process for humanization was first formalized
scientifically by Louis Bolk in 1926.” Montague also noted JBS Haldane’s
emphasizing the “prolongation of childhood and retardation of maturity”
(Montague 1989, 7) as an essential feature of the latest stage of human evo-
lution. Penin and colleagues concluded in their 2002 study that “human
neoteny involves not only shape retardation (paedomorphosis) but also
changes in relative growth velocity. Before the eruption of the first molar
(13–18 months), human growth is accelerated, and then strongly deceler-
ated, relative to the growth of the chimpanzee as a reference” (Penin et al.
2002, 50). The phenomenon of neoteny likely facilitated the explosive evo-
lutionary increase in brain size in Homo. It also occasioned other changes
in human development. One of the most important changes was that the
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  209
environment within which subsequent brain growth and development was
occurring was now markedly different. For example, most of the brain
growth of chimpanzees happens before birth, whereas most human brain
growth happens after birth (Penin et al. 2002). Rapid human brain growth
in utero is succeeded by rapid human brain growth in familia. By the phrase
“in familia,” I  stress the social nature of this second stage of rapid brain
growth and development. This second stage of brain growth is so impor-
tant that Bostock suggested we might celebrate another birthday, a “second
birthday,” when “exterior gestation” is completed (Bostock 1958). Portman
called this burst of growth after birth the “extrauterine spring” (Portman
1990). Montagu coined the term “exterogestation” to follow the period of
“uterogestation,” each period being nine months long (Montagu 1961).
This brain development in familia could be viewed as an effect, caused
by a need to overcome physical and energetic in utero limits on larger brain
size. However, this in familia development stage could also can be viewed as
a cause of the evolutionary surge of increasing human brain size. As noted
earlier, the evolutionary brain growth surge might have occurred when the
brain reached a critical mass. However, perhaps the evolutionary growth
surge might have occurred at the time infant brains entered a critical devel-
opmental milieu: development in familia. These two explanatory hypoth-
eses – brain critical mass or critical developmental milieu – are not mutually
exclusive; they could have occurred together. Regardless, this new in familia
developmental milieu changed the nature of the brain and the nature of the
society that nurtured this helpless infant.
Recent work by Hrdy hypothesizes that “emotionally modern humans,”
interested in the mental and subjective states of others, were emerging as
early as 1.8 million years ago (Hrdy 2013). She notes a “paradigm shift in
evolutionary anthropology” that stresses the fact that an extended period
of helpless immaturity necessitated “the care and provisioning of imma-
tures by male and female allomothers, who were pre-reproductive, repro-
ductive, and/or post-reproductive group members, mostly but not always
kin” (Hrdy 2016, 178). Kuzawa and colleagues (2014) also linked the
massive increases in brain size between Australopiths and Homo sapiens
with extended dependency and correspondingly greater care from mother
and allomothers. In Silk’s study of that same year, “The Phylogeny and
Ontogeny of Altruistic Social Preferences,” she concluded that human
altruistic social preferences likely evolved sometime after the human/ape
lineages split five to eight million years ago (2014). According to Sant-
rock, the circumstances most likely to evoke altruism are empathy for an
individual in need or a close relationship between the benefactor and the
recipient (Santrock 2007). I am arguing that neoteny in particular fostered
empathy. Neoteny entailed a second stage of rapid brain growth in familia
and required that the caregiving group focus time and resources on this
helpless infant, and these factors led to a new developmental psychology
in the human infant.
210  William Ulwelling
Infant Psychological Development Revisited: The Myth
of the Isolated Mind
Neoteny has implications for the neuropsychiatric development of the
infant. At birth, the human brain possesses an excess capacity of neurons.
As the brain grows, the number of neurons decreases and new synaptic
connections are forged. Most neuronal and synapse development occurs in
the first few months and years of postnatal life. Miller and colleagues write,
“Activity-mediated myelin growth early in human life has the capacity to
be shaped by postnatal environmental and social interactions to a greater
degree than in other primates, including chimpanzee” (Miller et al. 2012).
The basic unit of this cortical microcircuitry is the pyramidal neuron, and
humans have delayed maturation of pyramidal neurons compared to other
primates (Semendeferi 2016). The extensive brain growth and development
during the first year after birth requires the infant’s interacting with those in
the infant’s environment – the familia. In this second phase of rapid brain
development, the developing brain “hardwires” social functioning and an
interpersonal world. There is already an orientation toward sociability at
birth. Babies’ eyes focus best at 12–18 inches, approximately the distance
to mother’s eyes when breastfeeding (Brazelton 1966). A newborn expresses
a preference for the human face as early as ten minutes after birth (Goren
1975). Within 12 to 23 days, newborn babies can imitate a number of facial
and hand gestures that they see in adults (Meltzoff 1977). As Dunsworth
summarizes, “It is well established that social and environmental stimula-
tion is indeed crucial for child development” (Dunsworth 2016).
Language centers in the brain develop rapidly during this period of surg-
ing infant brain growth. By around six months of age, a human infant can
distinguish the approximately two hundred vowels and six hundred conso-
nants from all the world’s languages, and by the end of their first year, they
become selectively attuned to the approximately 40 speech sounds from
their native languages (Kuhl 2004). Falk hypothesized that “it seems likely
that selection for enhanced vocal communication between prehistoric moth-
ers and infants provided the initial impetus for accelerated brain evolution”
(Falk 2016, 124).
DW Winnicott (1975 [1953], 235) succinctly described the psychological
nature of the developing human infant: “There is no such thing as an infant,
there is mother and infant.” Stolorow’s landmark self-psychology article
on intersubjectivity pointed out “the myth of an isolated mind” (Stolorow
and Atwood 1992). In this relational context, during the first 18 months of
rapid brain growth in familia, the human infant develops a sense of self. In
The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A  View from Psychoanalysis and
Developmental Psychology, the psychiatrist Daniel Stern (1985) described a
developmental progression of the infant’s sense of self during these first 18
months, which I will now summarize:
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  211
Birth to two months – the emergent self: “Their social capacities are
operating with a vigorous goal-directedness to assure social interac-
tions” (28).
Two to six months – core self; capacity to experience a coherent physical
self that is willful, affective, historical; core relatedness with mother
who is separate physically, a different agent with different affects.
Seven to nine months – subjective self; aware of other minds whose sub-
jectivity is interpersonally related to one’s own; still preverbal, so this
stage can only be alluded to not verbally described, “although poets
can evoke it” (27).
15 to 18 months – verbal self; language as a transitional phenomenon.
“The word is given to the infant from the outside by mother, but there
exists a thought for it to be given to” (72), deepening intersubjectivity
with nearly limitless possibilities for interpersonal happenings. “It is in
this deeper sense that language is a union experience, permitting a new
level of mental relatedness through shared meaning” (172).

In Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study, Dr. Ana-Maria Rizzuto

(1979) parallels the stages of psychological development (as configured in
various developmental theories) with concomitant stages of religious/spir-
itual development (cf. Rizzuto, Fig. 8). For example, the birth-to-18-months
stage (named oral [Freud], mirroring [Kohut] or trust/mistrust [Erickson]) is
given a spiritual/religious developmental stage: “God-representation stage.”
At this stage, the infant might experience what Rizzuto calls “made-in-
God’s-image,” which allows for healthy religious belief as an adult. Con-
versely, according to Rizzuto’s theory, but lacking empirical verification, if
the infant experiences “not-cared-for” in this “God-representation stage,”
then, as Rizzuto argues, theoretically the person should develop different
forms of religious beliefs as an adult.
Another important study that attempted to relate early human psychologi-
cal development with early spiritual or religious capabilities was ­Winnicott’s
(1958) paper, “The Capacity to Be Alone.” In his study of infants, Winni-
cott noted an important developmental capacity attained by normal infants
raised by a “good-enough mother.” He named this the capacity to be alone.
He distinguished the capacity to be alone from the fear of being alone, the
wish to be alone, loneliness or withdrawal. It is a positive capacity, and
Winnicott also saw it evidenced in transferential form in adult psychoa-
nalysis at the times when the analysand was able to pause silently during
the session. The ability to take such a silent, reflective pause was seen by
Winnicott as an achievement, not a resistance. He distinguished the capacity
to be alone from actually being alone and noted that solitary confinement
can produce intense suffering in someone without an adequate capacity to
be alone. For the infant and small child, the foundation of a capacity to be
alone is a reliable, loving relationship with mother or a mother surrogate.
212  William Ulwelling
Winnicott’s description of the development of the capacity to be alone is
quoted at length:

The main point of this contribution can now be stated. Although many
types of experience go to the establishment of the capacity to be alone,
there is one that is basic, and without a sufficiency of it the capacity to
be alone does not come about; this experience is that of being alone, as
an infant and small child, in the presence of mother. Thus, the basis of
the capacity to be alone is a paradox; it is the experience of being alone
while someone else is present.
Here is implied a rather special type of relationship, that between the
infant or small child who is alone, and the mother or mother substitute
who is in fact reliably present even if represented for the moment by a
cot or a pram or the general atmosphere of the immediate environment.
I would like to suggest a name for this special type of relationship.
Personally, I like to use the term ego-relatedness.
(Winnicott 1958, 30)

Later in this chapter, I  will propose that this capacity for ego-relatedness
is a necessary, and perhaps sufficient, condition for an adult capacity for
spirituality.
Winnicott maintains that this capacity to be alone is for an adult a “sophis-
tication,” a sign of “maturity,” although it is not necessarily an “awareness
of the conscious mind.” Without such maturity, the adult will find it difficult
to authentically ground their entire personal life and can easily drift in what
Winnicott called a “false life”: “It is only when alone, that is to say, in the
presence of someone) that the infant can discover his own personal life. The
pathological alternative is a false life built on reactions to external stimuli”
(Winnicott 1958, 34).
Toward the end of the in familia brain growth spurt, around eight months
postnatal, the crawling infant is mobile and physically free for first time, but
they still desire a connection with caregivers. This new experience, in a new
situation, is enabled and laid down in new neural structures that did not
exist a month before. A  new psychological experience of what Winnicott
called ego-relatedness arises in this transition period of connection and free-
dom, incorporating elements of both. This conjunction of connection and
freedom is also a hallmark of an adult’s religious and spiritual experiences,
which will be developed further in a subsequent section.

Religion and Spirituality Revisited

The development of the argument thus far is that the evolution of a rap-
idly enlarging human brain gave rise to neoteny, which entails a long seg-
ment of continued rapid brain growth and development of the infant in
familia, which in turn gave rise to profoundly intersubjective psychological
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  213
structures, which Stolorow and Atwood (1992) described in his landmark
self-psychology article on intersubjectivity, “The Myth of the Isolated
Mind.” I will now argue that this provided the grounding for the capabili-
ties of a Homo religiosus.
Arriving at an acceptable consensus definition of “religion” is particularly
difficult. Perhaps the most venerable of such definitions in the United States
is William James’s (1992) definition of religion as presented in The Varieties
of Religious Experience. My working definition of religion will be along the
lines of William James’s.:

“Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of

individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to
stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.
(36)

James leaves the definition of “the divine” quite open:

accordingly when in our definition of religion we speak of the indi-

vidual’s relation to “what he considers the divine,” we must interpret
the term “divine” very broadly, as denoting any object that is godlike,
whether it be a concrete deity or not.
. . .
The divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual
feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither by a
curse nor a jest.
(38, 41)

A similar working definition of the divine is provided by another 20th-­

century creative American spiritual movement: Alcoholics Anonymous
(AA). The third step of AA states that “We made a decision to turn our will
and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.” The definition
of the godhead is left almost wholly indeterminate, other than to affirm it
involves a caring relationship. In fact, the AA member does not turn them-
selves over to “God” but rather to “the care of God.”
William James purposefully neglected the organizational and doctrinal
aspects of religion. The Aristotelian distinction between substance and acci-
dents is helpful in defining “religion.” I consider “accidents” of religion to
be such things as liturgies, institutions, sacred places or times and dogmas.
While these are a part of almost every religion, I do not consider them essen-
tial. The essential substance of religion, expressed in William James’s defini-
tion of religion, might be called spirituality.
To elaborate on the meaning of “spirituality,” I need to add that it first of
all concerns matters of the “spirit.” The Latin word spiritus is derived from
the word for breath. The Hebrew word for spirit, ruah, also is derived from
the word for breath, an invisible but real, life-giving entity. The Hebrew
214  William Ulwelling
word ruah is also applied to God and to that which animates humans. The
term “spirit” is also used to describe human psychological realities, as well
as the godhead (e.g., the Holy Spirit). Spirituality as a field of study might
take its place within the discipline of theology, the study of the divine (from
the Greek Theou logos, the study of God). Spirituality could also take its
place within psychology (psyke logos, the study of the soul or spirit). The
form of the English word “spirituality” is a type of abstract noun suggesting
a capacity or quality, like creativity. While the exact nature of this spiritual
capacity is typically said to be ineffable, it generally includes the capacity to
relate to the divine, or ultimate, primal reality.
As noted earlier, spirituality does not include such important topics as
the evolution of religious artifacts, rituals or institutions. When someone
bows before their king, bishop or God, they could be said to be performing
a corresponding political, religious or spiritual act. All are proper domains
of study, but this chapter focuses on the latter. Perhaps Homo spiritualis
would have been a preferable title of this chapter, but Homo religiosus is
more widely known and has a more venerable history, dating at least from
Hegel (1770–1831). However, past scholars’ discussions of this quality in
human nature typically concerned what I  am calling “spirituality” rather
than a person’s formal credal beliefs or institutional affiliation, which most
now associate with the word “religion.”

Spirituality: Ever Ancient, Ever New

Thus far, this chapter has proposed the following evolutionary sequence:
By three million years ago, Australopithicenes were the most encephalized
of all apes. About two million years ago, a brain growth surge occurred
around the time of Homo habilis. However, rapid in utero brain growth hit
limits of size that the human pelvis could accommodate at childbirth and
limits of energy that the placenta could deliver. “Neoteny” entails delivering
the infant early, while its brain is still in an immature form, thereby allowing
another nine months of rapid brain growth and development extra utero, or
in familia. Brain growth and development within this in familia milieu pro-
duced a profoundly social creature, with intersubjectivity hardwired into the
organism. An important developmental milestone for such an infant occurs
when it achieves locomotion and encounters a crisis of connectedness versus
freedom. A new psychological capacity to be alone (Winnicott) is attained at
this time by a healthy infant with a good-enough mother. The infant’s new
ego-relatedness (alone but somehow connected) forms the basis for emer-
gent freedom and exploration. The new capacities for connectedness and
freedom are further developed in the adult in what we call spirituality, the
core of what we call religion. Two hallmarks of healthy spiritual experience
are connectedness and freedom. Two foundational Christian texts will now
be reexamined in light of this evolutionary model, illustrating this spiritual-
ity as ever ancient, ever new.
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  215
Spirituality described thus far is quite consistent with Christian religious
traditions from its early origins. I will illustrate this by explicating two foun-
dational Christian writings that speak to the core of Christian spirituality: the
prologue of John’s Gospel, and the introduction of St. Augustine’s Confessions.
John’s Gospel begins (John 1:1):

En arkh hn o logos, kai o logos hn pros ton Qeon, kai Qeos hn o loςgos
En archei hein ho logos, kai ho logos hein pros ton Theon, kai Theos
hein ho logos.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.

The poetic style of the prologue is fitting for a topic difficult to pin down
with prosaic speech. Religious scriptures commonly contain symbolism,
metaphor and contradiction. For example, in this passage from John, it is
contradictory to say an entity can both be God and be with God (how could
someone both be Dave and be with Dave?). However, the primary focus of
my present analysis for this passage will focus on the smaller phrase: “with
God.” The English translation of pros ton Qeon as “with God” does not
capture an important connotation of the original Greek. The Greek preposi-
tion pros also can mean “to or toward” and is commonly used with that
meaning. The two other uses of pros in John’s Gospel are John 5:45, when
Jesus says, “I do not accuse you before the Father” (pros ton Patera), and
John 11:4, when Jesus says, “this sickness is not unto death” (pros qanaton).
A foundational experience of being relationally aligned “toward the father”
(or mother) echoes the child’s capacity to experience being “in the presence
of” mother or a mother surrogate at all times, even when alone. Like all
transformative experiences, the state is experienced in the present and is seen
to have always been there, present from “the beginning.”
In this opening line of John’s Gospel, Christ the Logos is depicted as origi-
nating both divine (Qeos) and in a state oriented “toward God” (pros ton
Qeon), with the article ton giving a literal translation of “toward the God.”
This duality expresses the two hallmarks of mature spirituality mentioned
earlier: connection and freedom. Connection, experiencing being in a state
oriented “toward God” (pros ton Qeon), and freedom, experiencing being
in a divine state (Qeos), are described as the distinctive traits of Jesus.
I had noted earlier that Stolorow’s pioneering intersubjectivity article,
“The Myth of the Isolated Mind,” altered psychological understanding.
The prologue of John’s Gospel altered spiritual understanding by moving
beyond the myth of an isolated God. As human psychological reality is fun-
damentally relational, so our images of God are relational. The roots of this
spirituality are evident in Judaism, with the Torah’s portrayal of the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of the people Israel – always “the
God of . . .” In subsequent centuries, Christian theological explication of
this understanding was expanded under the title of God as “Trinity.”
216  William Ulwelling
From its onset, Christian spirituality emphasized that we are created in a
state pros ton Qeon, as Christ is described in John’s Gospel. The traditional
belief of Christians is that they share in the nature of Christ. For instance,
in Saint Paul’s letters – which are older than the gospels – Paul expressed his
belief that he and all Christians share in the nature of Christ. For example,
he uses the phrase “in Christ” or its equivalent 164 times in his dozen or so
preserved letters. The Christian religion stressed that we are created with a
relational orientation toward God, whom no one has ever seen (1 Jn 4:12).
In Western Christianity, perhaps the most important foundational docu-
ment after the Bible is the Confessions of St. Augustine, written around 397 ce.
Augustine writes in the introduction of the Confessions:

Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec

requiescat in te.
You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests
in you.
As with the prologue of John’s Gospel, I argue that our post-Cartesian
psychological understanding has influenced our translation of Augustine’s
spiritual insight. To make this point, I  focus on Augustine’s Latin clause
commonly translated as “You have made us for yourself.” In his original
Latin, the clause is, “fecisti nos ad te.” One objection to translating the
Latin “ad te” as “for yourself” is that it seems to portray God as somewhat
selfish, almost making humankind as his own plaything or a selfish pos-
session (e.g., “I made these muffins for myself”). However, there is a more
important truth lost in the mistranslation of the phrase “ad te.” The literal
translation of the Latin word “ad” is generally given as “to or toward.”
Like the Greek word “pros,” the Latin word “ad” stresses an orientation,
a relational direction. You could say, for instance, that I am traveling “ad
Romam,” which means to or toward Rome. The meaning of Augustine’s
prayer might be captured more precisely with the translation, “You have
created us oriented toward you,” or “tending toward you,” followed by,
“and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Again, the roots of Augus-
tine’s Christian spirituality are relational, even if the object of that relation,
God, is undefinable. Regarding our attempts to define the divine, Augustine
prays later in the Confessions, as I loosely translate, “What can anyone say
about you? Yet woe to those who are silent about you, if only to point out
that those who chatter on about you are really mute” (Aut quid dicit aliquis
cum de te dicit? Et vae tacentibus de te, quoniam loquaces muti sunt, Book
1.4). This attempt to articulate the nature of the divine brings to mind the
5th-century bce quote of Lao Tzu (Laozi), “Those who know don’t speak.
Those who speak don’t know.”
The poetically expressed Christian spirituality from John the Evangelist and
Augustine of Hippo is rooted in a capacity developed during an infant’s early
psychological development. Intersubjective neuropsychological structures
 Neoteny and Homo Religiosus  217
laid down during brain development in familia provide the relational under-
pinning of spiritual experience. The ego-relatedness possessed by an infant
who has developed the capacity to be “in the presence of another” even while
“alone” foreshadows the hallmarks of mature spirituality: connection and
freedom. This spirituality arises out of psychological capacities themselves
rooted in changes in brain development that first evolved two million years
ago with Homo habilis.
As new forms of religion and spirituality emerge in the future, one test for
authentic forms might be whether they are true to their roots. In the Chris-
tian religion, for example, new beliefs are tested by their fidelity to the roots
of sacred scripture and accepted church tradition. Having traced the evolu-
tionary and developmental roots of a capacity for any religion, this chapter
offers a more widely applicable yardstick for testing the authenticity of a
religious phenomenon: Is it true to religion’s evolutionary and developmental
roots of empathy, connectedness and freedom  – that is, the necessary and
sufficient conditions for an authentic religion?

Conclusion
Spirituality and religion are high-order phenomena within human culture
and psychology. They have an evolutionary history, threads of which can
be traced back in time following the path of human brain evolution. At
the time of Homo, a particular type of brain evolved within a particular
type of culture, each affecting the other. The continuing early rapid growth
and development of the brain in familia shaped the neurological structures
underlying human relational psychological structures. These psychological
structures in turn formed the infrastructure for the spiritual and religious
creations of the adult, which continue to evolve in the individual and society.

Postscript
Two dangers that threaten modern papers on the evolution of religion are
dangers of becoming a “just so” paper or becoming a “just that” paper.
“Just so” papers refer to Kipling’s (1902) famous children’s book, Just So
Stories (Kipling 1902). Kipling had referred to these as his “just so” stories
because his children demanded that the stories be repeated “just so,” with
no variation. Kipling’s book is full of imaginative, fanciful, “explanatory”
tales, like how a leopard got its spots. I have tried to present enough data
on evolutionary history, infant psychological development and religious his-
tory to prevent this from becoming a “just so” paper.
A “just that” paper is a reductionist paper. It traces the evolutionary his-
tory of a phenomenon and then says that the modern phenomenon is “just”
its historical roots, only that and nothing more. For example, a man pro-
posing to his future wife might be said to exemplify “just” another instance
of the male of the species reenacting a mate selection strategy to ensure the
218  William Ulwelling
dissemination of his genetic complement. The man would doubtless object
that there is more going on than “just that.”
Is this chapter on the evolution of religion reductionist? In other words,
does it say that religion is “just” a recollection of a past infantile experience or
a vestigial remnant of a previously evolved capacity? Psychologically speak-
ing, is religion simply a regression to an earlier infantile state? I do not think
so.Phenomena that are built on earlier capacities and that reflect back on past
experiences are not simply a regression back to that level of capacity or simply
a repetition of those experiences. Each new level of development builds on the
experiences of the earlier levels and puts them in a new, richer context.
In Ken Wilber’s universal developmental model, emergent cyclical levels
build on the old but now at a higher level, like a spiral, with each new level
transcending and including its predecessor (Wilber 2001). Consistent with
this developmental model, my chapter argues that a capacity for religion and
spirituality evolved at some point in time, likely the time of brain growth
surge with Homo habilis two million years ago. Neoteny in turn affected the
nature of early brain development, early psychosocial development and the
structure of human societies. This developmental circumstance hardwired
us to have a psychological structure that is fundamentally intersubjective
and a spiritual capacity to declare that we are oriented “ad te,” as St. Augus-
tine would say, or “pros ton Theon”, as John the Evangelist would say.
As a final example of evolutionary theories and developmental psychol-
ogy insights expressed as a higher level of spiritual discourse, I cite a quota-
tion from Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic, from the first book in
the English language written by a woman. Julian uses the term “oneing”
to express what I would call the infant’s capacity for ego-relatedness as it
flowers in an adult. She wrote, “The love of God creates in us such a oneing
that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another
person” (Julian of Norwich 2006, 329).

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13 Emotions and the Evolution
of the Belief in God
Christian Early

Introduction
Emotions stand at the busy intersection of religion, biology, psychology and
culture. Yet emotions had been largely overlooked as a subject of scientific
investigation until the mid 1990s, when the growing field of fMRI-driven
neuroscience turned our attention to the central role of emotions in human
experience (Damasio 1994; LeDoux 1996). As a result of the research that
has been conducted on emotions over the past two decades, we now recog-
nize that emotions are crucial to our capacity to navigate our world – and
thus essential to our survival.
Emotions shape the experience of how our world shows up for us, and
consequently, they ought to be at the center of our understanding of the
phenomenology of what it means to be human. (Phenomenology here
simply means our understanding of the features of human experience and
consciousness, but it also signals that the sharp dualisms of the Cartesian
philosophical tradition between mind and body, subject and object, are
rejected – as is common in the phenomenological philosophical tradition.)
The significance of the role of emotions in shaping experience is therefore
especially important to recognize when we try to understand the religious
ways that human beings navigate and experience life. In whatever way we
attempt to make sense of the relationships between religion, biology, psy-
chology and culture, then, emotions must play significant part.
Additionally, examining the relationship between religion and emotions
seems particularly important at this time because our theories of emotions
are currently undergoing revision. These new theoretical developments
might in turn help us to better understand the phenomenology of religion.
Given the recent entanglements of religion and politics in North America
and in the wider world, a better understanding of religion seems highly
desirable.
In this chapter, I will examine specific emotions thought to be involved in
religious belief formation and in religion in general. I look at fear and death
anxiety by using insights offered by the new constructivist theory of emotion
(Barrett 2017). Thereafter, I attend to other candidates for religious belief
222  Christian Early
formation – a sense of the sacred, elevated love, awe and gratitude – suggest-
ing that a nonreductive account of the relationship between emotion and
religious belief formation is more plausible than the attempt to make fear or
death anxiety causally account for the whole of religious belief formation
and religion in general. The phenomenology of religious life, if its variety
is taken seriously (James 1902), is experientially richer and displays a more
colorful pallet than can be explained by making reference to fear and death
anxiety alone (pace the cognitive science of religion).
What might account for this richness? Drawing on insights from cultural
anthropology and psychology, Jonathan Haidt has recently proposed that
the phenomenology of human experience has an irreducible emotional and
moral dimension that allows us to experience life religiously. He calls it
“divinity” (Shweder et al. 1997; Haidt 2006). Felt experiences with particu-
lar emotional patterns move us along this divinity dimension of experiential
life. These felt experiences are often on the edge between the implicit and the
explicit, and they are therefore open to be interpreted in several ways using
different languaging. William James called them “overbeliefs” (James 1902).
If Jonathan Haidt is correct about this irreducible phenomenological
divinity dimension, then we would be in a position to draw the conclusion
that the search for a single emotional source of religion – the fountain of it
all, as it were – is a mistake. We can draw this conclusion while still recog-
nizing that fear and death anxiety play a role – even if not the only role – in
religious belief formation and maintenance.
Although this nonreductive conclusion with respect to religion and emo-
tions is itself noteworthy, it prompts us to speculate whether, given the fact
that we experience this variety of emotions and that they seem to track along
a religious or “divine” dimension of experience, those features of human
experience provide grounds for saying something about the shape of the
world in which we live. Kantian protests concerning the limits of knowledge
notwithstanding, this (admittedly speculative) question cannot be avoided,
because it is raised by the recent constructivist theory of emotion mentioned
earlier. According to the constructivist theory, emotions “couple” our inner
and outer worlds such that the distinction between embodied brain and sur-
rounding world cannot be maintained in a clear way. Do we experience life
religiously, in part, because the world has a religious shape? Or, to put it
in more evolutionary language, has the embodied brain adapted itself over
time to be able to pick up and register a feature or aspect that is present in
its surrounding world in order to navigate it more successfully?

Religion Based on Fear

On Sunday 6 March 1927, in Battersea Town Hall, under the auspices of
the South London Branch of the National Secular Society, Bertrand Russell
gave his famous lecture “Why I am not a Christian” (Russell 1957). Rus-
sell walked his hearers calmly and authoritatively through his reasoning for
 Emotions and Belief in God 223
rejecting all of the standard arguments for the existence of God: first cause,
natural law, design and Kant’s transcendental and moral argument.
Near the end of the lecture, however, Sir Russell took an unexpected turn.
“As I said before,” he comments, “I do not think that the real reason why
people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept
religion on emotional grounds” (Russell 1957, 19). Russell proceeded to
provide some likely sources for accepting religion on emotional grounds,
but these can be passed over in light of what he said next:

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the
terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that
you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your trou-
bles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mys-
terious, fear of defeat, fear of death. . . . Science can help us to get over
this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations.
(Russell 1957, 22)

The echoes of the Enlightenment and of August Comte’s positivism can be

heard in this passage. Russell clearly hoped that science would help us get
over our fear and that religion would eventually disappear.
Religion has not disappeared. Peter Berger commented twenty years
ago that the world is “massively religious” – perhaps more so than before
(Berger 1999). This raises a question: How did religion arise, and why is
it still around? What are the ontogeny (origin and development) and phy-
logeny (evolutionary history) of religion? These questions are particularly
puzzling from an evolutionary standpoint because adopting a religious way
of life is often costly with respect to fitness (by placing restrictions on diet
and mating habits). If Russell’s analysis holds, then the clue to the origin and
staying power of religion might be found in the benefits that religion provide
with respect to fear.
According to what has been called the standard model in cognitive sci-
ence of religion, religious beliefs are an evolutionary by-product of a suite of
cognitive adaptations (Powell and Clark 2012). Humans are equipped with
a cognitive mechanism that detects agents in the environment. There are
usually two targets of agency detection: one general and one specific. The
general target attempts to uncover agency (good or bad) in the environment,
whereas the specific target of agency detection attempts to uncover preda-
tors. Because I am examining fear as the source of religion – namely the pos-
sibility that the function of religion is to address the fear circuitry response
triggered by the detection of a supernatural predator – I will interrogate the
claim put forward by the cognitive science of religion that religion results
from a mistaken firing of the predator detection device.
From an evolutionary perspective, a maximally accurate predator detec-
tion device may not be optimal, because of the cost associated with two
types of errors: false positives and false negatives. It is a small error for a
224  Christian Early
human to mistakenly think that there is a predator behind the bush when
there is not, but it is a catastrophic error for a human to think that there is
no predator when there really is. Consequently, from a survival perspective,
it is better to have a hyperactive predator detection device: better safe than
sorry when it comes to predators.
Applying this insight to religious belief formation, a hyperactive preda-
tor detection device disposes humans to posit predators in their environ-
ment, and when those predators cannot be directly observed, humans may
go on to posit unobservable predators in the environment. This then seems
to explain human beliefs in supernatural agents and predators. Crucial to
the belief formation of supernatural predators, however, is the emotion of
fear. So the cognitive science of religion has recently linked up with terror
management theory (Solomon et al. 2015) to support its argument that the
function of religion is fear (or death anxiety) management.
I am interested in evaluating the claim that religion arises out of fear and
that it has stayed around because of the hold on our lives that fear has. If,
upon analysis, that claim turns out to be unlikely, then I will be interested
in searching for alternative accounts of emotions involved in religious belief
formation. To evaluate the claim, I will first need to take a look at current
emotion theory and at how it might help us to understand fear.

The Constructivist Theory of Emotion

Emotion researcher Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that we have been in the
grips of a picture of how emotions arise inside human beings (Barrett 2017).
She contrasts two theories of emotion: the classical view of emotion and
what she calls the constructivist view of emotion. These are not just two
theories of emotion; they are also two views of what it means to be a human
being in the world. She says that “[m]ost of us think of the outside world
as separate from ourselves. Events happen ‘out there’ in the world, and
you react to them ‘in here in your brain’ ” (Barrett 2017, 153). This is an
understanding of the human animal as reactive and as hardwired to respond
to events in the world. According to the theory of constructed emotions,
however, the dividing line between brain and world is at least permeable
and perhaps even nonexistent. It is a picture of the human being as deeply
embedded in and coupled with its world. In this picture, moreover, the brain
is actively predictive – projecting what is likely to come next – rather than
passively reactive (Clark 2016; Hohwy 2013).
The embodied brain issues a “storm of predictions,” checking and cor-
recting those predictions against actual sensory input through the body’s
active engagement with the world. Along the way, she says, “your intero-
ceptive predictions produce your feelings of affect, influence every action
that you perform, and determine which parts of the world you care about
in the moment” (Barrett 2017, 153). Interoception evolved to regulate the
economy of your body’s energetic budget. Affective feelings of pleasure and
 Emotions and Belief in God 225
displeasure or calmness and agitation are summaries of your body’s budg-
etary state (Barrett 2017, 73). Your brain uses past experience “to predict
which objects and events will impact your body budget, changing your
affect” in the present moment (Barrett 2017, 73). This is called your affec-
tive niche, which includes “everything that has any relevance to your body
budget in the present moment”: It is the local, affective environment of our
bodies in action, enabling us to re-present and construct our surrounding
world and its significance. “Without interoception, you wouldn’t notice
or care about your physical surroundings or anything else, and you’d be
unlikely to survive for long. Interoception enables your brain to construct
the environment in which you live” (Barrett 2017, 153).
(I would like to pause here to suggest that the picture of the human being
in its environment imagined by the cognitive science of religion is precisely
that of outside world and internal reaction. If the constructivist theory of
emotion and the model of the predictive mind are right, then this modern
understanding of the human predicament is fundamentally mistaken. One
future task for the cognitive science of religion may therefore be to work out
what it would look like for the theory to bring on board this new picture of
the human being in its environment.)

Fear and Religion Revisited

How does this picture of the human being and of emotions help us to under-
stand fear and its possible connections to religion? To understand fear, we
need to look more closely at the perception-action loop and view it as an
affective niche as opposed to a circuitry.
Humans act in a variety of ways when we feel threatened. We often
freeze, flee or fight – which are well-known responses – but we also “crack
jokes, faint, or ignore what is going on” (Barrett 2017, 274). Such behav-
iors, Barrett insists, are all bodied responses to threat perception in various
situations. Some of these responses involve what has been called the fear cir-
cuitry, but other responses do not, which raises the question whether fear is
best understood as involving circuitry. Research on fear indicates that there
is no such thing as a single universal fear circuitry. Minimally, then, we may
need to talk in terms of multiple circuitries.
Readers familiar with the work of Jaak Panksepp on affective systems –
SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE and PANIC/GRIEF  – may raise
questions at this claim, but even Panksepp talks sometimes of FEAR net-
works and other times of a single FEAR system (Panksepp and Biven 2012).
In particular, Panksepp and Biven are clear that the basolateral amygdaloid
(BLA) complex does not generate fear, as previously thought, but rather
conducts information into the FEAR system. They also point out specifi-
cally that the amygdala itself is unlikely to be the “heart” of the FEAR
system since humans suffering from Urbach-Wiethe disease, in which the
amygdaloid nuclei (especially the basolateral complex) slowly degenerate
226  Christian Early
completely, “still have abundant internal worries and rich emotional lives”
(Panksepp and Biven 2012, 196). Perhaps thinking in terms of a fear cir-
cuitry, then, is not going to be helpful. It may instead be an instance of what
Barrett calls “essentialism” – the idea that fear has an essential fingerprint
that we can identify and recognize.
If we give up the idea of emotions with essences, we can begin to recognize
that the relationship between an emotion as an affective niche and behavior
seems to be multiply realizable rather than locked into a mechanical behav-
iorist pattern of stimulus and response. There are many (if not infinite) ways
of being afraid, and there are many (if not infinite) ways of responding to
feeling afraid. This multiple realizability seems to me to be significant when
trying to understand the role of emotions in religious belief formation. I sug-
gest that if human beings are deeply embedded and coupled in their world
and that there is no single universal fear circuitry, then something as uni-
versally experienced and as socially cohesive as religion or religious belief
would likely – fountain-like – spring forth from a mistaken activation of our
predator detection device. As Wittgenstein might have said: for a mistake,
it is simply too big.
The thesis that fear is the fountain for religious belief formation becomes
even more unlikely when we consider more closely the distinction between
fear and anxiety. Joseph LeDoux states that fear as an affective niche arises
from the perception of an objective, specific and present threat (LeDoux
2015). Anxiety, by contrast, arises from imagining an uncertain event that
may or may not occur in the future. “In fear, the anticipation concerns if and
when a present threat will cause harm,” says LeDoux, “whereas in anxiety
the anticipation involves uncertainty about the consequences of a threat that
is not present and may not occur” (LeDoux 2015, 11). Fear is a brief and
intense foreground emotion calling for immediate action, whereas anxiety is
a longer and not-so-intense background emotion calling for reflection.
Once this distinction between fear and anxiety is made clear, it also
becomes clear that fear is unlikely to be the fountain of religious belief. If
your predator detection device gets triggered, religious belief formation will
be the last thing on your mind. Instead, you might fight, flee, freeze, laugh or
faint your way out. Later, when you feel relatively safe, you might begin to
think about what it was that caused you to engage in one or several of those
behaviors – but the relevant affective niche would be anxiety, not fear, and
your predator detection device would no longer be active.
At this point, the cognitive science of religion may face a tough choice:
either argue that religious beliefs are formed in the brief but intense moment
in which we feel fear as a result of a hyperactive predator detection device,
which upon further consideration seems highly unlikely, or argue that reli-
gious beliefs are formed during reflective moments of anxiety, which seems
more plausible. This latter option could then encourage us to think of anxi-
ety as being a milder form of fear – the difference between the two being
intensity, temporality and specificity – and so seek to respond to LeDoux’s
 Emotions and Belief in God 227
harder distinction between anxiety and fear by placing them at two ends of
a spectrum rather than placing them into separate categories. For the sake
of the investigation in this chapter, I am curious about the second option as
it seems more promising.

Death Anxiety, Religion and Sacred Purity

In pursuing this possibility, the question arises whether anxiety, and per-
haps particularly death anxiety, can be causally linked to religious belief for-
mation and to religion in general. This research is currently being done, but
the preliminarily results so far are entirely inconclusive (Jong et al. 2017).
Several studies have found a correlation: Religious people are less fearful of
death than their nonreligious counterparts. However, several studies have
also found the opposite correlation: Religious people are more fearful of
death than their nonreligious counterparts. Still other studies have found
no association at all. Some studies have found a non-linear association in
which committed theists and committed atheists both report less death anxi-
ety than people with moderate beliefs. Studies manipulating mortality sali-
ence – increasing a subject’s awareness that death is inevitable – have similar
problems in that they also point to different conclusions. Some studies find
that increasing mortality salience increases religious beliefs universally,
whereas other studies find that increasing mortality salience increases reli-
gious belief only among individuals already highly religious.
A recent study of 95 undergraduate subjects is worth discussing in detail
(Jackson et al. 2017). Subjects answered questions such as “Do you agree or
disagree that there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God?” on a
nine-point Likert scale running from -4 to +4, with 0 representing agnosti-
cism. This enabled the subject to be located on the supernatural belief scale.
Then subjects were asked to respond to the questions from the death anxi-
ety questionnaire such as “Does it bother you that you may die before you
have done everything that you wanted to do?” on a three-point scale, with
0 representing not at all, 1 representing somewhat, and 2 representing very
much. This made it possible to calculate a death anxiety score. (Note that
I do not have the space in this chapter to provide the actual scores and offer
sufficient contextual commentary such that they could make sense to the
reader. For the scores, please see the Jackson et al. article).
There are a number of theological and philosophical problems with the
way the questions are phrased and the underlying assumptions that the
questions make. It is questionable, for example, whether beliefs about God
or gods can be placed on a supernatural belief scale with an all-­powerful,
all-knowing, loving God at the far end. It is also questionable whether
one’s sense of having accomplished things in life is at the source of anxi-
ety. These scales seem to smuggle in Western Enlightenment conceptions
of the transcendent and of the significance of a sense of accomplishment in
human life. Standing outside those assumptions, the study and others like
228  Christian Early
it seem unpersuasive as most beliefs and practices (religious or otherwise)
can function either to heighten or to relieve anxiety; it may say more about
the subject and their situation in the moment than it does about the belief
or the practice.
Tucked away in the general discussion of the study, there is a noteworthy
comment on the evidence for the relationship between religious belief for-
mation and death anxiety:

While there is now good evidence that people, even “non-religious”

people, gravitate toward supernatural religious beliefs when death is
salient,  .  .  . there is little or no evidence that such movement is war-
ranted in terms of mitigating death anxiety.
(Jackson et al. 2017)

In the judgment of the authors, then, there is good evidence for a cor-
relation between death anxiety and religious belief formation, but there is
no evidence  – at least no conclusive evidence  – for a causal relationship
between death anxiety and religion (the more anxious you are about death,
the more you will tend to form religious beliefs). This lack of evidence for
a causal relationship constitutes a serious problem for the central claims
of the cognitive science of religion. There is reason, therefore, to wonder
whether something more (in addition to relieving death anxiety) is going on
in religious belief formation.
Richard Beck examines how disgust psychology gives rise to and shapes
our experience of the sacred (Beck 2011). Disgust involves the feeling of
revulsion, which is a visceral response triggered by an appraisal of con-
tamination or pollution. Disgust monitors the borders of the body, particu-
larly its openings, to prevent something toxic or dangerous from entering.
Disgust, then, is an expulsive boundary psychology: “Not only does dis-
gust create and monitor boundaries,” says Beck, but “disgust also moti-
vates physical and behavioral responses aimed at pushing away, avoiding,
or forcefully expelling an offending object. We avoid the object. Shove the
object away. Spit it out. Vomit” (Beck 2011, 16). Since disgust motivates
concerns about purification, separation and cleansing, it is also implicated
in regulating our experience of the sacred.
Significant for the purposes of this chapter, and the connection between
disgust and death anxiety, disgust has an existential aspect. Disgust can be
triggered by reminders of our animal nature – the fact that we are vulner-
able and that we will die (Becker 1973). To think of disgust in the context
of existential concerns about death might be a little surprising because we
usually think of death anxiety exclusively in terms of our fear of nothing-
ness (maybe having read Kierkegaard or Heidegger) or fear of punishment
(maybe having read Jonathan Edwards). If disgust monitors and regulates
our sense of the sacred, however, then what motivates our aversion to death
would not merely be a concern for the continued existence or safety of our
 Emotions and Belief in God 229
soul but also, and perhaps more importantly, a concern for its state of purity.
The notion of purgatory, for example, is supported by the conviction that it
is the impurity of the soul that keeps it from entering heaven. This suggests
that death anxiety, while real enough, may play the role of the dependent
variable, whereas concerns over purity may be the independent variable.

A Divinity Dimension
Experimental psychologist Jonathan Haidt recalls the old flatland story
of a three-dimensional object fruitlessly trying to explain itself to a two-­
dimensional object (Haidt 2006). In desperation, the three-dimensional
object pulls the two-dimensional object into the third dimension so that it
can experience it for itself. Analogously, Haidt suggests, our Western secu-
lar world is like a two-dimensional moral flatland: We acknowledge a hori-
zontal dimension of closeness and a vertical dimension of hierarchy. We use
first names for those with whom we are intimate or we deem superior, and
we use last names for those with whom we are distant or we deem inferior.
We intuitively track these two dimensions, but we find it difficult to believe
that there may be a third moral dimension.
Imagine the surprise of witnessing an extraordinarily virtuous act or per-
haps of having an overwhelming experience of natural beauty. As a result
of that experience, you might feel lifted “up” as if you were in a world with
another dimension. “My claim,” he says, “is that the human mind perceives
a third dimension, a specifically moral dimension that I will call ‘divinity’ ”
(Haidt 2006, 183). Using insights from the constructivist theory of emo-
tions, I  argue that the divinity dimension is part of how our brains have
wired themselves to our world through interoception.
Perceiving a divinity dimension does not, of course, entail that something
like God or gods exist, merely that it is part of our perceptual apparatus (I
will return to this question in the conclusion). It also does not entail that we
hold any particular religious beliefs. There are two reasons for this: The first
reason is that much of what we experience religiously cannot easily be put
into words, and it often eludes full conceptualization, and the second is that
there is no empirically “raw” data available against which we can measure
or correlate religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are underdetermined.
Haidt claims to have found divinity in three emotions: the sense of the
sacred, elevating love and awe. We have already discussed the sense of the
sacred, which is involved in concerns over purity and disgust, but love and
awe remain. To this list, I add a significant fourth emotion: gratitude.

Elevating love
Haidt notices that people self-report experiencing an open, warm or “glow-
ing feeling” in their heart when they witness something good happen-
ing. In a subsequent study, Haidt discovered that elevating love could be
230  Christian Early
distinguished from closely related emotions such as admiration. To his sur-
prise, however, he was not the first to have identified and described elevat-
ing love. Indeed, he found an exact description of this emotion in a letter
from Thomas Jefferson. According to Jefferson, elevating love has a trigger
(an event in which a character displays virtue), accompanied by physical
changes in the body (dilation in the chest), a motivation (a desire also to
act virtuously) and a characteristic feeling (elevated sentiments). The move-
ments felt in the chest region  – what Jefferson talked about as dilation  –
may not be entirely metaphorical. The vagus nerve is the main nerve of the
parasympathetic nervous system, which calms people down, and it undoes
arousal caused by the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) system. The vagus nerve
is involved in controlling heart rate and breathing, and it works with oxy-
tocin to create feelings of calmness, love and connection. Oxytocin’s role in
morality is well established, having been the subject of philosophical and
scientific investigation (Churchland 2011; Zak 2012).
The sense of love that accompanies elevation usually does not have a
specific object, which suggests that elevating love is not the kind of love that
grows out of the attachment system. It is, by contrast, a general love of all
humankind. This feeling of elevating love can be interpreted in theist, non-
theist and atheist ways: Christians call it agape (Jackson 2015), Buddhists
call it compassion (Dalai Lama 2011) and utilitarians call it the greatest
good (Flanagan 2007). It is a human motivation that is experienced by and
understood from different existential and ethical stances. (Note that I am
not claiming that the motivation is the same in all traditions; it is not. I am
merely claiming that experiencing a general love for humankind is itself a
human experience that different traditions discuss from within their own
vocabulary and resources.)

Awe
Jules Evans, policy director at the Centre for the History of Emotions, recounts
an interview with astronaut Edgar Mitchell in which Mitchell describes the
experience of seeing the Earth in the middle of space (Evans 2013). During
its time in space, Apollo 14 was rotating such that Mitchell had a full view
of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and the stars every two minutes. He sud-
denly felt the vastness of it all and smallness of our own planet. He called the
experience the big picture effect, and the impact of the experience changed
his life (Evans 2013, 100–101). In the interview, Mitchell speculates that the
big picture effect is the experience that gives rise to religion.
Haidt says that “something about the vastness and beauty of nature
makes the self feel small and insignificant, and anything that shrinks the self
creates an opportunity for spiritual experience” (Haidt 2006, 200–201). In
looking for research on awe, he found that experimental psychologists have
almost nothing to say about it. This lack in the literature is partly due to our
inability to study it in animals and partly due to the problems of evoking
 Emotions and Belief in God 231
awe in a lab setting. Consequently, it is a difficult emotion for experimental
psychologists to study empirically. Other disciplines however, in particu-
lar philosophy and theology, have rich histories on the topic of awe (Borg
2017). Awe usually occurs once two conditions have been met: a person
perceives something vast (usually a physical vastness but also possibly the
vastness of a theory or even a display of vast power), and the vastness of
that something cannot readily be accommodated by existing mental struc-
tures (Haidt 2006, 203).
Awe often plays a role in conversion stories and can lead to lifelong
changes. Psychologist and philosopher William James describes the change
in a person who used to live hedonistically but now lives in his “religious
center of personal energy” (James 1961, 217). Actuated by spiritual enthu-
siasm, this person is immune “against infection from the entire groveling
portion of his nature.” “The stone wall inside has fallen,” adds James; “the
hardness of heart has broken down” (James 1961, 217). Many of us sense
this feeling when we experience “melting moods” in life – especially when
accompanied by tears. It is as if our tears break through, says James, “an
inveterate inner dam, and let all sorts of ancient peccancies and moral stag-
nancies drain away, leaving us now washed and soft of heart and open to
every nobler leading” (James 1961, 217).
If we are looking for an emotion that contributes to religious belief for-
mation, awe surely qualifies. Awe does not, however, always produce reli-
gious belief. So, for example, Richard Dawkins’s The Magic of Reality is an
attempt to evoke awe providing a non-theist explanation of life in the uni-
verse (Dawkins 2011). Still, awe has a record of producing religious belief
that is hard to ignore. For more on awe, see Ihm and colleagues this volume.

Gratitude
Gratitude is not on Haidt’s list, but it deserves to be. Most of us have been
in situations the favorable outcomes of which we did not entirely control or
determine. Maybe it was landing a job when things seemed hopeless; maybe
it was a successful fishing trip; or maybe it was surviving a situation that
could have easily ended in death. Life in that moment seems to arrive as a
gift, and no amount of working – no amount of willing – could have secured
the outcome, because it was out of your control.
Gratitude has long been lauded as a religious-belief-forming emotion.
The plot of Homer’s Odyssey, for example, turns on Odysseus’s capacity
or willingness to be grateful for the untimely death of the Seer at the mouth
of the sea serpent sent by Poseidon to protect the Greeks hidden inside the
large wooden horse. The centrality of gratitude in the plot of the Odyssey
is no accident. Philosophers Dreyfus and Kelly argue that “excellence in
the Homeric world depends crucially on one’s sense of gratitude and won-
der” (Dreyfus and Kelly 2011, 61). Excellence, on Homer’s understanding,
“involves the necessity of being in an appropriate relationship to whatever
232  Christian Early
is understood to be sacred” (Dreyfus and Kelly 2011, 62). As inhabitants
of the Homeric culture, the Greeks were constantly sensitive to, amazed by
and grateful for those actions that one cannot perform on one’s own simply
by trying harder: going to sleep, waking up, fitting in, standing out, gather-
ing crowds together, holding their attention with a speech, changing their
mood or indeed being filled with longing, desire, courage, wisdom and so on
(Dreyfus and Kelly 2011, 63). To live one’s life in such a way – to respond
to life with gratitude – was essential to a well-lived life.
Gratitude was protected by epic stories of heroes and by rituals such as
sacrifice. Ritual sacrifice is important in Homer’s world not just because it
communicates gratitude but also because it cultivates gratitude. Ritual sac-
rifice was “a way of bringing about that sense of gratitude in people who
don’t already have it, or don’t have enough, and reinforcing it in those who
do” (Dreyfus and Kelly 2011, 74). In short, ritual sacrifice at once expresses
and induces gratitude. This, for Homer, embodies and articulates the deep
sense of the sacred: “[I]t is the highest form of human excellence to recog-
nize, be amazed by, and be grateful for whatever it is that draws you to act
at your best” (Dreyfus and Kelly 2011, 74).
This experience of being drawn to act at your best and to recognize, be
amazed by, and be grateful for “whatever that is” is significant. It is not
necessary to believe in the Greek gods to take something of important away
from Homer’s sense of the sacred. What is significant is not so much the
metaphysics of gods but the lived experience of human agency. In expe-
riencing gratitude, one has “to reject the modern idea that to be a human
agent is to be the sole source of one’s actions” (Dreyfus and Kelly 2011,
79). One has to, as it were, be open to the world in a way that is difficult
for modern minds to understand, because it requires us to “give up on the
modern notion that we are fully responsible for our actions” (Dreyfus and
Kelly 2011, 79).
Homer is not the only one to have recognized the significance of grati-
tude to a well-lived life. Gratitude is receiving attention from contempo-
rary experimental psychologists. Robert Emmons and McCullough, leading
researchers on gratitude, have shown that gratitude increases prosociality
and human thriving (Emmons and McCullough 2004; Emmons 2007). Fun-
damentally, as Homer saw, gratitude acknowledges a source of goodness
outside yourself, and it evokes a change of perspective on one’s life  – a
frequently religious one. That source of goodness and change of perspec-
tive, however, can of course be interpreted in many ways. As Willard van
Orman Quine (1953) would remind us, changes in the web of beliefs are
underdetermined.

7. Conclusion
In this chapter, I have investigated the emotional roots of religion. I began
with Bertrand Russell’s claim that religion is based on fear, and I proceeded
 Emotions and Belief in God 233
to summarize the project of cognitive science of religion to provide a
­fitness-oriented explanation of religious belief formation through an adap-
tive, hyperactive predator detection device. Through an examination of two
recent works on emotion and fear (Barrett 2017; LeDoux 2015), I concluded
that it was highly unlikely that fear was the single emotional source of reli-
gious belief formation. If a fitness-oriented explanation of religion were to
hold, I suggested that it ought to turn its attention from predator detection
(and fear) to death anxiety, which seems more promising. Problematically,
there is little evidence to suggest that death anxiety is the cause of religious
belief formation; there is abundant evidence, however, to suggest that reli-
gious beliefs and death anxiety are correlated. This may be because death
anxiety is entangled with our sense of purity and of the sacred.
The entanglement with the sacred opens a door for the possibility of
another explanation for the relationship between death anxiety and reli-
gion – something more may be going on than fear of nothing or of punish-
ment. One such explanation is Jonathan Haidt’s idea that human beings
irreducibly experience life religiously along a divinity axis. Pursuing the
possibility of Haidt’s phenomenological anthropology, I  examined other
emotions – such as elevating love, awe and finally gratitude – as phenom-
enological experiences that move us along the divinity axis. Recognizing this
plurality of emotions supports a nonreductive account of the relationship
between emotions and religious belief formation. This conclusion does not
brush aside death anxiety and fear as significant in religion, but it does sug-
gest that neither death anxiety nor fear ought to be understood as the sole
or even primary source of religion.
A final, more speculative, point remains. Certain emotions in life – such
as our sense of sacredness, general love, awe and gratitude – move us up
out of the flatlands along the divinity axis. They open up our awareness to
a third dimension, offering a different place from which to experience and
navigate the world. Religions attempt to cultivate and nurture life lived
from that place, and in so doing, they acknowledge and respond to that
aspect of experience.
These phenomenological experiences of “divinity” are, structurally speak-
ing, dyadic – which is to say that they are essentially relational between the
self and the world or the self and the other, in which we experience action as
not entirely originating within ourselves. Given Lisa Barrett’s understanding
of the coupling that happens during emotion construction between human
beings and our world, one might legitimately wonder whether human expe-
rience has this relationally dyadic aspect, in part, because the world is this
way. The possibility is that the phenomenological feature, in some ways,
is genuinely a response and not just a projection. Each of the emotions is
open to non-theological interpretations, but simply because non-theological
interpretations are possible, theological interpretation are not invalidated.
Immanuel Kant would, I think, concur that the speculative question remains
open (Kant 1838).
234  Christian Early
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Part 4

Anthropology
14 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer
Religion
Issues and Debates among the San
of Southern Africa
Robert K Hitchcock

Introduction
The San (Bushmen) of Southern Africa have frequently been used as models
for the origins and evolution of religion and ritual (Lewis-Williams and Pearce
2004; Barnard 2012, 126; Whitley 2014, 1227; Turner et al. 2018, 63–67).
As people whose histories were linked closely to hunting and gathering, the
San have sometimes been called Southern Africa’s “model people” (Jenkins
1979, 280). Lewis-Williams (1977, 1981) points out that San expressive cul-
ture is essentially ritual in nature. The ritual that he sees as the most important
is the San trance dance, in which individuals connect with the spiritual world
and are able to heal others or influence the forces of nature.
This chapter will address issues of San spirituality and religion in an effort
to provide insights into how the San peoples engaged in religious practices,
and it will seek to examine changes over time in San religion, especially over
the past two centuries. The issue of the “authenticity” of the San will also
be addressed, particularly in light of the questions raised about the degree
to which they were isolated from other groups and whether their social and
belief systems remained intact or had been modified through acculturation
and change (Wilmsen 1989; Kuper 1993; Barnard 2007, 96–111).
For our purposes here, religion can be defined as an organized set of con-
cepts, beliefs, values and ideas about the supernatural, the spiritual sphere
and the sacred. Religion incorporates the ceremonial practices that are used
to try to influence or interpret elements of the universe beyond people’s con-
trol (see Biesele 1976, 1978, 1993; Guenther 1979, 1986, 214–250, 2000;
Purzycki et al. 2018). In line with Clifford Geertz, I see religion as part of
a cultural system and as a part of a society’s “most comprehensive ideas of
order” (Geertz 1966, 89). As Geertz notes,

As we are to deal with meaning, let us begin with a paradigm: viz., that
sacred symbols function to synthesize a people’s ethos – the tone, char-
acter, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood –
and their world view – the picture they have of the way things in sheer
actuality are, their most comprehensive ideas of order.
(Geertz 1966, 89)
240  Robert K Hitchcock
Geertz also makes the point that the anthropological study of religion is a
two-stage operation: (1) an analysis of the system of meanings embodied in
the symbols that make up religion and (2) relating these systems to social-
structural and psychological processes (Geertz 1966, 124). As Turner and
colleagues (2018, 3) note,

At a fundamental and basic level, religion consists of (1) a community

of individuals, (2) who share representations, ideas and beliefs about
a supernatural realm and the forces or beings inhabiting this realm,
(3) who practice both individual and collective rituals addressing super-
natural beings and forces inhabiting a sacred realm, and (4) who are
often organized into small or big cult structures (religious corporate
units) with specific practitioners charged with organizing the commu-
nity and their ritual practices.
(Turner et al. 2018, 3)

Hunter-gatherer societies fit criteria 1–3, while criterion 4 fits food-­producing

societies (farmers, pastoralists and agropastoralists).
Isaac Schapera, the anthropologist best known for his work on the
agropastoral Tswana (Schapera 1938, 1971), conducted the first compre-
hensive overview of the Khoisan (also known as the Khoekhoe and the San)
peoples of South Africa (Schapera 1930). Schapera (1930, 160–201) had
a chapter on “religion and magic” that addressed (a) death and burial, (b)
beliefs concerning the dead, (c) worship of heavenly bodies, (d) supernatural
beings and (e) magic and magicians. Schapera pointed out that the San and
the Khoikhoi both had an awareness of and a fear of death, and they, like
other hunting and herding people around the world, had beliefs in an after-
life. He also noted that they engaged in rituals and ceremonies to influence
natural and supernatural forces and beings. Witchcraft or sorcery – negative
magic – was generally not practiced by San and Khoikhoi, unlike some of
their Bantu-speaking neighbors, such as the Tswana (see Guenther 1992).
The San (Bushmen) of Southern Africa include a wide array of people
residing today in seven countries (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia,
South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) who number some 130,000 (Puckett
and Ikeya 2018). They are divided into several dozen self-identifying groups
who speak a diverse range of languages organized into three language fami-
lies (see Table 14.1). There is no San lingua franca that all San speak, so
today many of them speak non-San languages, such as Setswana, Afrikaans
or English. Virtually all San today have mixed livelihoods in which hunting
and gathering plays but a relatively small part. Some San peoples persist to
the present, but they represent a small fraction of the ancestral population
whose former geographical spread is reflected in a great linguistic diversity
that can be seen today.
Genetic, fossil, and archaeological evidence suggests that the San repre-
sent some of the earliest people (Homo sapiens) to have occupied Southern
Table 14.1   Southern African Khoisan (non-Bantu) languages and their classification.
Data obtained from Güldemann (2008, 98, table  4, 2014, 7, table  1);
Gertrud Boden, Hirosi Nakagawa, Bonny Sands, Sheena Shah and Hessel
Visser (personal communications, 2015–2018).

Name of Language Languages or Dialects Comments

Group

KHOE-KWADI
Kwadi Single language † = extinct
Khoe (Central Khoisan)
 Khoekhoe
  North Eini†, Nama-Dama,
Haiom
ǂAakhoe
  South !Ora†, Cape Varieties
 Kalahari
  East
   Shua Deti†, Cara, ǀXaise, Ts’ixa – Ts’exakhwe;
Danisi, Ts’ixa, etc. Deti maintain that
they exist and still
speak some of their
language
   Tshwa Kua, Cua, Tsua
  West
   Kxoe Khwe, Ani, Buga,
ǀGanda, etc.
   Gana Gana: Gana, Gǀui,
ǂHaba, etc.
   Naro Naro, etc.
JUǀ’HOAN
Juǀ’hoan Single language
Ju (Northern Khoisan)
  Northwest !’O!Xuun, Northern Northern !’Xuun
!’Xuun Ekoka !’Xuun, (Angola)
Okongo !’Xuun (North-
central Namibia)
Grootfontein !’Xuun
(Central Namibia)
  Southeast Juǀ’hoan, ǂX’ao-||’aen ǂKx’au’en
TUU (Southern Khoisan)
Tsa-Lower Nossob
  Taa
   West Nǀu’en†, West !Xoon !Xoon = !Xóõ
   East Nǀamani†, Kakia†, *added by Gertrud
‘Nǀohan, East !Xoon, Boden and Bonny
Tsasi*, ǀHasi, Seroa Sands
(ǂHoan)*
  Lower Nossob ǀAuni†, ǀHausi†
!Ui ǀXam†, Xegwi†, Nng, The ǀXam contend
Nǀuu, ǂKhomani, they are not extinct
ǂUngkue†
242  Robert K Hitchcock
Africa, going back over 200,000  years (Mitchell 2010; Schlebush et  al.
2017). Archaeological sites containing artifacts that resemble those of the
Ju/’hoansi and other San date back some 40,000  years (Mitchell 2012).
There is significant genetic diversity among the various San groups resid-
ing in Southern Africa. While a few San groups have genetic connections
with east African hunter-gatherers and pastoralists, most of them appear to
have been indigenous to Southern Africa. Contemporary San differ signifi-
cantly from those individuals and groups of 100,000–200,000  years ago,
and social and religious practices that we see today should not be assumed
to be reflective of patterns in the Pleistocene.
The San peoples of today are the original inhabitants of Southern Africa.
Their presence predates that of other groups by thousands of years. Scholars
categorize these immigrant non-San groups into two broad types: Bantu-
speakers who originated in western and central sub-Saharan Africa, and as
Nilotic and Cushitic speakers whose origins were in the East African Horn.
From what the /Xam, Ju/’hoansi, Hai//om, !Xóõ, Khwe, Naro, G/ui, G//ana,
Tshwa, Hai//om and other San peoples have said in interviews and public meet-
ings, their religious beliefs are complex, holistic and representative of their
world views. The religious beliefs of the Central Kalahari G/ui, for example,
“are not formulated in doctrinaire creed but are part of their general knowl-
edge” (Silberbauer 1981, 51). The G/ui have beliefs in a remote god or creator
who created all life-forms. They also have beliefs in an afterlife. G/ui San do not
have prayers or incantations that can be employed to influence god (Silberbauer
1981, 53–54). Among the G/ui, god is known as N!adima, his wife is N!adisa,
and they occupy the upper region of a three-tiered universe (Silberbauer 1981,
51–57).
The belief systems of the G/ui and other San demonstrate their ties to
the natural and supernatural worlds (Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1989;
Skotnes 1996; Guenther 2000). They are flexible and capable of changing,
depending on both external and internal factors, and they are responsive to
conditions in which they and their creator and other gods live. The balance
of this paper will consider San shamanism, spirituality, the trance dance,
healing, conceptualization of the religious realm, the evolution of San reli-
gion and the changes that have occurred over time as a result of the intro-
duction of new belief systems in Southern Africa.

Brief Preview of the Chapter

This chapter addresses questions about the evolution of San (Bushman)
religions in Southern Africa. Attention is paid to several features of San
spirituality, including shamanism, the San trance dance and other methods
of San healing. San perspectives on higher powers, spiritual and natural
forces and ways of influencing the supernatural and natural world are also
examined. The question of the authenticity of the San peoples as models for
the past is considered briefly in a discussion of the Kalahari Debate and its
 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion 243
significance. Issues surrounding the interpretation of San rock art and the
debates about the degree to which this art is influenced by San shamanism
and vision states or other factors follow. Conclusions are drawn concerning
changes that have occurred over time in recent and contemporary San reli-
gious systems as they were impacted by the introduction of non-San belief
systems, globalization, tourism and social, economic, political and religious
transformations in Southern Africa.

The San and Their Belief Systems

A crucial issue in the study of the San of Southern Africa is to what degree
their religious practices were similar to or different from the wide variety
of groups found in the Kalahari and adjacent areas, in the deserts, savan-
nas and mountains (for an overview of the San, see Puckett and Ikeya
2018). The anthropological study of religion among the San of Southern
Africa goes back to the latter part of the 19th century in what is now
South Africa (Orpen 1874; Barnard 1992, 77–97, 250–264). Wilhelm
Bleek and his sister-in-law Lucy C Lloyd worked closely with /Xam San
who had been brought to Cape Town as prisoners and who were required
to help build the Cape Town breakwater in the 1870s (Bleek and Lloyd
1911). Bleek and Lloyd and their colleagues recorded stories, folklore,
memories, dreams, language information and insights of /Xam and other
San (e.g., !Xun) from 1874 to the early part of the 20th century. Histori-
cally, the /Xam were hunter-gatherers who depended on natural resources
for their livelihoods.
Like all hunter-gatherers, the /Xam were close to nature and the envi-
ronment. Many of their religious practices related to topics such as the
land, rainfall, surface water, the seasons, animals, plants, insects, the
stars and the influence of the moon (Skotnes 2007; Deacon and Skotnes
2014). Sometimes characterized as extinct (e.g., Bennum 2004), the
“last words” of the /Xam were recorded by Bleek and Lloyd and Bleek’s
daughter Dorothea (Bleek 1924, 1929, 1933, 1935, 1936). However, the
descendants of the /Xam in South Africa today maintain that they are
still living in and around areas that they had occupied in the 19th century
or are residing in urban areas such as Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth
(for a map showing the location of the /Xam and other San in Southern
Africa, see Figure  14.1). Visits were paid to the ancestral homeland of
the /Xam by archaeologists and anthropologists (e.g., see Deacon 1986,
1988; Deacon and Poster 2005) and assessments were made of their habi-
tats, archaeological sites and adaptations. Over the years, stories and tes-
timonies were collected from /Xam descendants, many of which related
to their belief systems (Lewis-Williams 1981; Lewis-Williams and Pearce
2004; Wessels 2008).
Based on their words and insights, the /Xam saw themselves as having
been animals in the past, who then transformed into people. Relationships
244  Robert K Hitchcock

Figure 14.1 Map showing approximate distribution of major San groups across

Southern Africa.

with animals were key, and there were “ropes to god,” which were threads or
cords or beams of light that linked people to their ancestors or to god, as well
as to other San (Keeney 2003; Lewis Williams and Pearce 2004, 5). The /Xam
had a god and other spirit beings, including a trickster deity, /Kaggen, who
is a central figure in many /Xam myths and narratives. Lewis-­Williams and
Pearce (2004, 112) consider /Kaggen to be the “original shaman” (!gi:xa).
Shamans were crucial figures among the /Xam. They obtained their power
in part through experiencing altered states of consciousness (trance, or !aia)
which they achieve by engaging in dances or through extended periods of
exhausting activity.
Hunting was a crucial area of concern for the /Xam, and there were
numerous rituals associated with it. /Xam were not supposed to hunt the
eland (Taurotragus oryx) without taking special precautions. Elands were
considered by the /Xam to be a “rain animal.” If they did happen to dis-
patch an eland, its blood was sometimes used in the manufacture of red
paint that was used with ochre in rock paintings. Some of the /Xam in the
Eastern Cape of South Africa saw themselves as “People of the Eland” and
there are numerous rock paintings that contain elands (Vinnicombe 1976;
Mitchell and Smith 2009; Wessels 2014). Complex rituals surrounded eland
 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion 245
hunting, and there were apparently a number of similarities between those
of the /Xam and the Ju/’hoansi in northeastern Namibia and northwestern
Botswana (Lewis-Williams and Biesele 1978). Lee (1978, 104) says of San
hunting that it is open-ended, and that luck, skill, dreams and divination all
play roles in the hunt.

Direct Ethnographic Fieldwork on the San

Direct ethnographic fieldwork on the San was done among the Ju/’hoansi
(sometimes called the !Kung) by the Marshall family in what is now
Namibia beginning in 1950–1951 and continuing to 1959 (Marshall 1976,
2–11; Marshall Thomas 1958, 2006). Ju/’hoansi participate in the medi-
cine dance (Marshall 1969), a ritual healing dance that transforms n/um
(“medicine”) into powerful forces that can bring about improvement of
individuals’ physical, social and spiritual well-being. The Ju/’hoansi had
two gods, the Great God, ≠Gao Na in the east and //Guawa in the west.
The name //Gauwa was the same as that of the spirits of the dead, //gausi.
The Ju/’hoansi fear (koa) to utter the names of the gods (Marshall 1999, 4). The
//gausi were thought to bring bad and dangerous things. The Ju/’hoansi
danced around the fire on full moon nights, and people in trance would
sometimes run out into the darkness to repel lions, who were considered
dangerous but who generally did not eat people in Nyae Nyae (Baynes
Rock and Marshall Thomas 2017). Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (personal
communication, 2018) says that the trance dance was an old feature of a
Ju/’hoansi religious ritual, dating back to the time when lions were seen as
more dangerous than they are now.
As Lewis-Williams (1999, xii) notes in his foreword to Lorna Marshall’s
Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites,

For the !Kung there are two worlds: this world of hunting, gathering,
living, and dying, and another world that is inhabited by the gods and
nameless spirits of the dead, the //gawasi (//gausi). Movement between
these two worlds is achieved by those who learn to control powerful
medicines (n/um) that can be turned in to k!ia, an enhanced state of
consciousness that originates from the gods.
(Lewis-Williams 1999, xii, see also Katz 1982, 93–95)

Ju/’hoansi who engage in specific kinds of dances, such as the Giraffe Dance,
may go in to trance (!áĩá) (Marshall 1999, 62, 72, 85–90). While in trance,
Ju/’hoan healers (n/um kxausi) may transform into other animals, such as
lions, thus allowing them to travel more rapidly to “god’s village” and to
venture widely to check up on relatives and, if necessary, heal them if they
are sick (Katz et  al. 1997, 24–25). This shape-shifting ability is also seen
among the Naro (Guenther 2000, 187) and the G/ui and G//ana of the Cen-
tral Kalahari (Roy Sesana, Jumanda Gakelebone, personal communications,
246  Robert K Hitchcock
2015, 2018). It is not uncommon to hear Tswana, Ovambo, Herero and
other groups remark about the San’s ability to turn into lions, an ability that
they say worries them.
Healing among the Ju/’hoansi takes a variety of forms: laying on of hands,
herbalism, going into trance, “sucking” (removing objects from the bodies
of individuals that are assumed to cause illness) and a kind of divining (e.g.,
“throwing the bones”). The Ju/’hoansi have beliefs about the power that
can cause the rain to fall (n/ow) (Marshall 1957, 1999, 168–173). Some
Ju/’hoansi and other San are well-known in Southern Africa for their ability
to bring rain (!khwa), and they travel widely to places as far as Johannes-
burg, Durban, Cape Town, Windhoek and Lusaka to engage in rainmaking.
Among the Ju/’hoansi, all adults can become trance healers (Marshall
1999, 47–56). In some cases, this may occur as a result of dreams that they
have. There are also individuals who may apprentice themselves to well-
known, powerful healers (Ama – “the real ones”), in essence becoming a
g!úg ǂàbà (an apprentice healer). Healers and the people who support them
in ritual dances are familiar with songs (tcxái), some of which they define
as n/um tcxái (medicine songs). Dances are done both during the day and at
night; the ones that the Ju/’hoansi talked about most frequently were those
done at night, usually beginning around 9:00 p.m. and lasting into the early
morning hours. Singing waxes and wanes depending in part on the tiredness
of the individuals involved and the degree to which some of them are in
trance (Marshall 1999, 70).
/Kunta Bo, a well-known healer who now lives in Tsumkwe in north-
eastern Namibia, often has people approach him who want to become his
apprentice (/Kunta Bo, personal communication, 2015). It appears from
recent fieldwork by Megan Biesele in Nyae Nyae (personal communication,
2018) that the number of powerful healers like /Kunta Bo are declining
significantly, a process that is also seen among the Naro of western Bot-
swana (Guenther 2000) and the G/ui and G//ana of the Central Kalahari
(Roy Sesana, personal communication, 2017). With the deaths of the older
healers, the knowledge of trance healing and other kinds of healing prac-
tices among the San is waning. At the same time, another process is occur-
ring that relates to the professionalization of San healing, with individuals
becoming healers to take advantage of the cash and goods available from
researchers, tourists and members of the public, a change that concerns
many San.

Transformations in San Belief Systems

Several factors are responsible for the transformation in San belief systems.
One factor is their exposure to non-San religions and beliefs, a process
which goes back some two millennia with the in-migration of Bantu-­
speaking and Cushitic-speaking agropastoral groups in Southern Africa.
The process of interpenetration of lands occupied by hunter-gatherers by
 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion 247
the culturally and economically distinct peoples went on for over two mil-
lennia. In most areas, it was a slow process since the immigrant groups
needed time to adapt their food crops and domestic animals to successively
unfamiliar ecological zones.
Denbow (1986) and Wilmsen (1989) question the authenticity of San
identity who were observed ethnographically, particularly the Ju/’hoansi,
arguing that they have only recently become full-time foragers after a lengthy
period of raising livestock and working with cattle and small stock owners
(Wilmsen and Denbow 1990). On the other hand, the Ju/’hoansi, who in
the past occupied remote parts of the Kalahari, were argued to have been
influenced to a lesser extent than some other San by the influx of agropas-
toralists (Solway and Lee 1990; Lee and Guenther 1993; Smith 1996, 2001;
Sadr 1997). What has come to be known as the Kalahari Debate continues
(Barnard 2006, 2007, 97–111; Mitchell et al. 2008) among anthropologists,
archaeologists and historians.
Some of the changes among the San as a result of exposure to non-San
peoples such as the Batswana and Bakgalagadi were remarked on by James
Chapman in 1852, who described a dance among Tshwa San in the north-
eastern Kalahari as follows:

I witnessed the Porra, or Devil’s Dance, when they worked themselves

up to a pitch of excitement, fell to the earth and writhed in agony, and
foamed at the mouth til relieved by letting of blood. It was a wonder
that the men who fell were not suffocated by the dust raised as they
danced in a circle around the fallen to the tune of l, 2, 3 and twisted
their bodies, arms and legs. The men carried fans of gnu tails, plumes of
black ostrich feathers waved on their heads, and moana (baobab, Adan-
sonia digitata) seed pods encircled their ankles as rattles. The women
clapped hands and stamped loudly to keep time.
(Chapman 1868, 159–160)

Interviews of Tshwa in the Nata River region of northeastern Botswana

revealed that some of them believed that their dances and other religious
activities were influenced, at least so some extent, by neighboring Baman-
gwato, Kalanga and Ndebele (Hitchcock et al. 2016). Some of the changes
can be seen in the costumes worn by Tshwa (Tuaa, Tsua) healers engaged in
dances (see Figure 14.2). Although many of the features of the Tshwa trance
dance were similar to those of the Ju/’hoansi, Naro and G/ui, there were ele-
ments of their dances that were borrowed from their neighbors, including
the use of drums and the clanging of metal hoes to accompany the clapping
of the women who took part in the dances.
A third factor that has influenced San religious beliefs and practices is the
introduction of Christianity (Livingstone 1857; Gulbrandsen 1993, 2012;
Guenther 2000, 9, 20, 62, 115). There was initially considerable resistance
on the part of San to following Christian teachings (see Guenther 2000,
248  Robert K Hitchcock

Figure 14.2   A Tshwa traditional healer engaged in a trance dance in Manxotae,
Nata River Region, Botswana.

209–214, 223–225), but more recently, some San have opted to attend
Christian churches and take part in prayer and baptism sessions. Interviews
with some of these individuals in Nyae Nyae and Ghanzi suggest that some
San who have become Christians continue to practice their traditional reli-
gions in a syncretic way. Some of the Pentecostal churches and the Zion
Christian Church (ZCC) are having an impact on the beliefs of San, par-
ticularly those in Botswana (Roy Sesana, personal communication, 2015).
One effect of the ZCC and Pentecostal churches is a reduction in the use of
alcohol and tobacco among some contemporary San.
A fourth set of factors causing modifications in San religious practices
includes globalization and tourism. The upsurge in international cultural
tourism in particular is resulting in an expanded number of visitors to the
Kalahari and adjacent areas (Ritterband 2018). Some of these tourists want
to take part in San trance healing dances or to be healed themselves by
San healers. The Ju/’hoansi of Nyae Nyae have been exposed to sizable
numbers of tourists and individuals interested in witnessing and learning
about Ju/’hoan healing traditions (Biesele and Hitchcock 2013; Keeney and
Keeney 2013, 2015; Hitchcock and Babchuk 2018). Some tourists want to
 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion 249
sit around the fire with Ju/’hoansi and hear their stories (for an insightful
discussion of storytelling around the fire at night, see Wiessner 2014).
These trends have raised questions about the rights of the Ju/’hoansi and
other San to control the kinds of research and visits that are being under-
taken in their areas. The expansion in the number of visitors to the Kuru
Dance Festival in Ghanzi District in Botswana in recent years is another
indicator of the interest in San dances (Rapoo 2016). Interestingly, San
healers from a number of different groups attend the Kuru Dance Festival
each year. A motivation for doing so for some groups is that they can get
prizes for their dances, and they can demonstrate their cultural heritage
and traditions. One of the more highly respected healers in Ghanzi told
me in 2017 that he prefers to avoid participating in commercially oriented
dances, as he put it, “to maintain his power.” There is concern among
many San across the Kalahari about the apparent trend toward involve-
ment of some people in sorcery and witchcraft, practices that the San gen-
erally say they do not practice themselves but that they have significant
concerns about.

Rock Art and Religious Interpretation

The rock art of Southern Africa, while still difficult to date precisely,
stretches back thousands of years, and it contains images of people, animals
and symbols of various kinds, some of which are interpreted as being reli-
gious in nature (Lewis-Williams 1981; Dowson and Lewis-Williams 1994;
Coulson and Campbell 2001; Campbell et  al. 2010). There is an intense
debate over the origins and meanings of rock art in Southern Africa (e.g.,
see Solomon 1992, 1997, 2008, 2013 and this volume; Lewis-Williams and
Pearce 2004, 2012, 2015; Dederen and Mokakabye 2018). This contentious
debate relates in part to whether the art is a product primarily of trance-
related shamanistic activities or whether it is done for other purposes, such
as hunting magic, or is representational or individually aesthetic in nature.
Some of the rock art includes scenes such as battles between groups, group
hunts, contacts with cattle-keepers, people on horses and half-human, half
animal figures (“therianthropes,” see Guenther 2000, 8, 67–69, 98, 236;
Lewis-Williams and Pearce 2004, 43–45, 166–176).
Many of the rock paintings and engravings in the Tsodilo Hills of north-
western Botswana depict animals, human figures and symbols of various
kinds. There are over forty-five hundred individual images spread through
four different hills that jut out of the landscape (Campbell et  al. 2010).
There is evidence of change over time in the rock art, a sizable proportion
of which is done in red ochre, with the inclusion of white paintings that
may have been done by other people, some of them herders and farmers
who came into the hills in the past fifteen hundred to two thousand years.
At one point, when one of the Ju/’hoan guides was asked about the meaning
of a set of red figures on the side of a boulder on the top of the Male Hill
250  Robert K Hitchcock
in April 1976, the man said, “What? Those aren’t paintings by people; they
are places where birds who had eaten red berries defecated on the rock!”
Other Ju/’hoansi and Mbukushu who lived in the hills in the late 20th and
21st centuries were a bit more forthcoming, saying that “The rock art rep-
resents our history and our beliefs about how the world works, and some of
it shows our origins.”
When queried about rock art, some San say that the idea of art came
to them in a kind of “creative explosion” (see Pfeiffer 1982). Three of the
Ju/’hoansi who visited the Upper Paleolithic Caves of France with Cologne
University’s “tracking in caves project” (Tsamkgao Ciqae, Ui Kxunta, and
Thui Thao, personal communications 2018) said that the Pleistocene art
resembles their own and that it was done in part to honor the animals that
were so much a part of their lives. When asked about whether the art was
done as a means of “hunting magic” or to increase the numbers of wild
animals on the landscape, they said that they did not know if that was the
case. The art, they went on to say, was important to their culture and to the
way that they thought about the world and the creatures that populated it.
The Ju/’hoansi who were the main informants in the “tracking in caves”
project, all maintain that there is a close association between San rock art
and traditional religious practices.

Conclusions
The San have a tremendous tolerance for ambiguity (Guenther 1979, 2000,
226–237). They have no problem in seeing animals turn into people and
people into animals. They are not surprised by their god being both creative
on the one hand and destructive on the other (Guenther 2000, 227). They
are not bothered at all by some of the inconsistencies in their belief systems.
They are highly practical and at the same time deeply religious. They have
an extensive fund of Indigenous knowledge from which they draw. They
are highly creative and at the same time more than willing to adopt new
and innovative ideas. Their beliefs and religions are grounded in social, eco-
nomic, environmental and historical reality.
In some ways, the San religious practices and beliefs fit well with those of
other hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of what is now called Tanzania
(Peoples et al. 2016), Indigenous peoples in what is now called Australia,
and some Indigenous peoples in what is now called the United States and
Canada (Whitley 2014). Many San and the social scientists who work with
them would agree with the perspectives of Lachmann (2014), who discusses
moral codes and ethics, along with religion. San often say that their belief
systems represent a kind of moral code and a set of values about “the best
way to live.” The Ju/’hoansi, for example, say that “healing makes our
hearts happy” (Katz et al. 1997), a sentiment that is echoed by the Tshwa
of Zimbabwe, who maintain that their healing activities, while admittedly
diminishing, are the source of considerable social satisfaction.
 The Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Religion 251
The San, like many other Indigenous peoples around the world, see the
importance of attachment to place and the varied roles of the sacred in their
landscapes. They recognize that the origins and evolution of their religions
and belief systems are products of their creator god and the result of both
natural and cultural selection. Some of them are quick to point out that
religion, art and ceremonies are all part of a complex whole.
The San would be the first people to admit that there is tremendous diver-
sity in San religion, and they recognize the numerous changes that have
come about in San belief systems. It is no surprise, as some San researchers
have pointed out, that the San have a syncretic view of religion, combining
traditional and modern and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspec-
tives. While their trance dances, shamanistic activities and other healing
practices are perhaps the most compelling and dramatic religious activities,
particularly to outsiders, these are but a small part of the large constellation
of religious beliefs and practices that make up San religious life.

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15 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols
Archaeological Evidence for the
Origins of Religion
Anne Solomon

Introduction
Behavior guided by religious beliefs and imperatives has unquestionably
played an enormous role in shaping the material world and the residues of
daily life – the subject of archaeology. The origins and evolution of religious
awareness are, inevitably, difficult to investigate because of the antiquity of
the materials and the nature of the evidence (not only because of issues of
preservation but also because archaeologically recovered evidence is only a
tiny sample).
The general consensus among archaeologists and paleoanthropologists
is that behaviors indicative of a religious sense are principally (though not
exclusively) related to the emergence of Homo sapiens, anatomically mod-
ern humans, who later also attained cognitive modernity. The materials
from which the development of a religious sense can be inferred include
intentional burial, burial with grave goods (implying ritual acts) and art as
an index of symbolic culture – in particular cave paintings, though sculp-
tures and other artifacts are also relevant. This overview considers some of
the evidence for the emergence of religious consciousness in the deep past,
principally as evidenced by prehistoric art but also other materials that are
likely proxies for such awareness. (For detailed discussions of early burials
and art, see Lorblanchet and Bahn 2017; Pettit 2010).

Symbolic Capacity
The key notion underpinning many efforts to understand the ancient mind
concerns the capacity to use symbols, as one of the prerequisites for lan-
guage, religion and art. A  minimal definition of a symbol is that it is a
mark, object or word that stands for something else. Symbolic capacity is
inferred from varied archaeological evidence. Until recently, it was gener-
ally believed that the turning point occurred in the European Upper Paleo-
lithic, c. 50,000 years ago (hereafter, “1,000 years ago” will be shortened
to kya). Dubbed “the human revolution,” it highlights the emergence of
traits including language, religion, art, certain artifact types and technolo-
gies, demographic and economic indicators and forward planning ability.
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 257
Striking as the emergence of this suite of modern human behaviors is,
it has also been argued that in Africa the behavioral capacities and traits
involved had been emergent for at least 200 kya (e.g., McBrearty and Brooks
2000), associated with humans who (on the basis of skeletal features) were
anatomically modern but not yet fully cognitively modern. The evidence
from African and Middle Eastern materials suggests that symbolic capacity
emerged around 100 kya. This is a minimum date, since ritual behaviors
that leave no archaeological trace could have existed earlier.
Given the difficulties of inferring mental abilities from artifacts, debates
continue. Indeed, until the 1970s, and even since, the possibility of any
“archaeology of mind” was widely considered speculative, overly interpre-
tative and unscientific. In addition, perspectives on “symbolism,” which
has played a prominent role in anthropology generally, keep evolving. See
Hoskins (2015) for an overview.

The Evidence from Burials

The burial of the dead is regarded as a likely index of symbolic capacity
and, at least, a nascent religious sense, described by Lieberman (1991) as a
concern for the deceased that transcends the everyday. Mundane explana-
tions are nevertheless possible – for example, burial prevents the stench of
decay and protects corpses from attracting scavenging animals; however,
protecting corpses may also indicate respect for the dignity of the deceased.

Early evidence for disposing of the dead

Finds in the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain and in South Africa’s Cradle of
Humankind fossil sites have been claimed as the earliest evidence for dis-
posing of the dead. In both instances, it has been argued that the deceased
were intentionally placed in caverns (rather than buried as such). The former,
dating to c. 430 kya, concerns 28 individuals of the archaic human Homo
heidelbergensis (Arsuaga et  al. 1997). The latter relates to a possible new
hominid species, Homo naledi (Berger et al. 2017). In the South African site,
fragments of perhaps 15 individuals are dated to 236–335 kya. This is pri-
marily based on the absence of other animal species (bar a single owl), which
may rule out carnivores as the bone accumulators. In both instances, whether
the finds indicate deliberate disposal of the bodies, and if so, whether that
is indicative of ritual, or even respect for the dead, continues to be debated.
The firmest evidence for intentional burial comes from three Israeli sites:
Skhul, Qafzeh and Tabun, all dating to 100–130 kya (the Middle Paleo-
lithic). The last one mentioned – a single Neanderthal burial – is of interest
because it feeds into long-standing debates about the behavioral moder-
nity and cognitive capacity of Neanderthals. Inland from the coastal cave
of Tabun lies Skhul, where ten modern-type individuals, but with archaic
features, were buried. Further inland, the cave of Qafzeh contained 15
258  Anne Solomon
individuals of modern human anatomical type (Ronen 2012). Other sites
dating to c. 60 kya (the Middle Paleolithic) include La Chapelle-aux-Saints
1, France (Dibble et  al. 2014), which may be evidence of Neanderthals
intentionally burying their dead.

Grave goods and ritual

The inhumation of bodies is itself significant, but the presence of grave
goods interred with the person is additionally notable. These are items
deemed to be “exceptional either by their context, size or their arrange-
ment in the grave” (Vandermeersch 1976, 727, cited by Ronen 2012, 558).
One of the Skhul individuals and an adolescent at Qafzeh were buried with
grave goods. A boar mandible was found among the arm bones of the Skhul
individual and deer antlers were placed on the Qafzeh individual’s chest. It
is deemed significant that the bones come from the head of the animal and
that the species involved are large mammals not typical of the food debris
found in contemporaneous living sites. It would seem, therefore, that they
had some symbolic significance and were not buried with the dead as food
for the afterlife (Ronen 2012) – though the latter would in itself imply a
sense of a future, arguably also a modern cognitive trait.

Other artifacts and features

Stones found in or near burials have been reported; some may have been
placed on top of the grave; others were, or may have been, intentionally
interred grave goods, such as the stone artifact placed in the hand of one of
the Skhul individuals (Ronen 2012).
Other artifacts regarded as “symbolic” include shell ornaments and pig-
ment pieces, made by both modern humans and Neanderthals (d’Errico
et al. 2005; Zilhão et al. 2010). Shells pierced for stringing and interpreted
as personal ornaments are especially regarded as bearing “symbolic” mean-
ing (including as status indicators). However, this view has been contested
by linguists and philosophers, on various grounds (e.g., Sterelny 2011) See
Abadia and Nowell (2015, 967–969) for an overview of the “terminologi-
cal, conceptual and interpretative” problems of these arguments.
Pigments are associated with the earliest burials, with 85 ochre pieces
found at Qafzeh and some at Skhul (though none were directly related to
the burials themselves). Not only are they regarded as probable evidence for
“symbolic thought” but mineral pigments are also clearly relevant to the
emergence of art and its relation to early religion.

From Pigments to “Art” and Religion

The use of pigments, particularly red ochre (iron oxide), is considered a
key marker of symbolic, or symbolically mediated, thought (e.g., Knight
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 259
et al. 1995; Henshilwood et al. 2009). Such allegedly symbolic objects are
seen as “functionally equivalent to language” (d’Errico et  al. 2003) and
indicative of cognitive development. Additionally, “The conceptual abil-
ity to source, combine, and store substances that enhance technology or
social practices represents a benchmark in the evolution of complex human
cognition” (Henshilwood et  al. 2011, 219). Evidence from African sites
(in Zambia and Kenya) suggests that this may date back to 300 kya (e.g.,
Barham 2002).
Inevitably, that evidence is not straightforward, and debates have
centered on whether pigments in fact served mundane functions: curing
hides, as an abrasive to aid drilling or as a component of the mastic used
in hafting stone tools to handles. As Wadley (2005, 3) suggests, “the
symbolic nature of ochre needs to be demonstrated, not assumed, in the
deep past.” Finds from Blombos, a South African coastal site, have been
especially important. Here, over 8,000 pieces of ochre from Middle Stone
Age layers date to > 70 kya. Key finds include pierced Nassarius kraus-
sianus shells (some with ochre traces), apparently used as beads. Ochre
chunks with incised marks have been hailed as the world’s oldest art,
while a 73 kya small stone flake, marked with lines apparently made with
an ochre “crayon,” has been publicized as the world’s oldest “drawing.”
Some have argued that these cannot be regarded as having a utilitarian
function, so they indicate symbolic capacity (Henshilwood et  al. 2009,
2011, 2018).
The significance of these finds is not uncontroversial, not least because
mark-making and a sense of pattern do not necessarily imply symbolism.
What the “abstract” marks on the ochre pieces symbolize – if anything –
remains mysterious, and it seems overly ambitious to claim that the marks
on the Blombos pieces are “designs” that “are almost certainly the final
outcome of the engravers” intention” (d’Errico et al. 2003, 55). This can-
not be deduced from the objects themselves or their context. Nor does
selecting a color imply color symbolism; as Luuk (2013, 260) suggests,
there is a

possibility that pigment was used because definitive colors were pre-
ferred for esthetic or cognitive (salience) reasons. Even nonhuman spe-
cies differentiate between esthetic and non-esthetic stimuli and utilize
definitive colors as behavioural cues . . . and so do children in their first
year. . . . While coloring is probably uniquely human, there is nothing
inherently symbolic about it.

Even if some claims for early art are overstated, studies certainly suggest
that symbolic capacity and elements of cognitive and behavioral modernity
were emergent or in place by 100 kya, contradicting the view that cognitive
and neural modernity resulted from a genetic mutation in European popula-
tions only 50 kya (e.g., Klein and Edgar 2002).
260  Anne Solomon
The Evidence of “Art”
The Blombos finds aside, other candidates for the world’s oldest art
include cupules (hammered depressions in horizontal or vertical rock
faces), some of which may date back to the Middle Paleolithic, or even
Lower Paleolithic (Le Tensorer et al. 2015), and stones naturally resem-
bling human figures (Berekhat Ram, Israel; the “Venus of Tan-Tan,”
Morocco) that may have been further modified (see Lorblanchet and
Bahn 2017, 161–64). The oldest known European “art” comes from
Spanish sites, notably the Cave of Maltravieso (Hoffmann et al. 2018);
the dating of crusts overlying pigments indicates a minimum date of 64
kya, meaning that it is attributable to Neanderthals (since current evi-
dence suggests that modern humans only populated Europe twenty thou-
sand years later).
The earliest materials reveal little about early religion as such; it is figura-
tive art that permits more extensive hypothesizing about its contents and
forms. Unsurprisingly, the evidence is complex and ambiguous. At Mal-
travieso, the 64 kya date relates to a hand stencil where paint was blown
or spat over a hand placed on the rockface, leaving a negative outline – a
recognizable subject, though arguably not figurative art proper. In Sulawesi,
Indonesia, hand stencils dating to c. 40 kya have also been found and, in
Indonesian Borneo, a painting of an animal (species indeterminate), also c.
40 kya, is the oldest known “representational” image (Aubert et al. 2018).
In Africa, the oldest known painted pieces are seven plaques from a Namib-
ian cave, dated to 30 kya (Vogelsang et al. 2010).
In terms of three-dimensional art, the oldest known European works simi-
larly date to this period, belonging to the Aurignacian (or proto-­Aurignacian)
culture of the Upper Paleolithic. Perhaps the oldest, again at c. 40 kya, is the
Hohlenstein-Stadel sculpture, an ivory figure with a lion’s head and human-
like body (Kind et al. 2014). Also notable, dating to 35–40 kya, is the Venus
of Hohle Fels (Figure  15.1a), a tiny (6  cm tall) ivory female figure, with
the visual emphasis on the figure’s enormous breasts and genitalia (Conard
2009). In terms of cognitive modernity, less than a meter away, excavators
found the earliest known musical instrument: a flute made from vulture bone.
Elsewhere, a woolly rhinoceros vertebra from Tolbaga, Siberia, carved with
a bear’s head, is dated to c. 35 kya (Abramova 1995). From here on, cave
art (both petroglyphs and paintings) is abundant, with numerous identifiable
subjects, if not recoverable “meanings.”

Upper Paleolithic Art and Early Religion

Thinking about early religion has long been intertwined with the study of
European Ice Age art. In the 19th century, scholars believed that “primi-
tive humankind” had little or no sense of either art or religion (Bahn 1998;
Palacio-Pérez 2013). As Palacio-Pérez (2013) recounts, this view changed in
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 261

Figure 15.1 (a) The Venus of Hohle Fels. Photo by Hilde Jensen, used with per-
mission from Nicholas Conard and the University of Tubingen and (b)
A therianthropic figure, with animal head and hooves, created by San
hunter-gatherer artists; Game Pass, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Source: Photo by the author.

the late 19th century: the cultural evolutionist Tylor refocused attention on
“animism” as primitive religion from the 1860s, and at about the same time,
McLennan introduced ideas of “totemism” as the original animism. Later,
Frazer’s notion of sympathetic magic became influential. Over time, these
views coalesced into ideas about ancient art as expressing ancient religious
thought (Palacio-Pérez 2010), with cave art (as opposed to art mobilier, or
portable art) also included in the equation.
The rise of anthropology and ethnographies from living hunter-gatherers
contributed to the shift. Via Reinach’s work, especially his 1903 paper enti-
tled “L’art el la magie,” both parietal art (on cave walls or large stone sur-
faces) and portable art came to be regarded as “the primary testimony of the
oldest religion” of humankind (Palazio-Pérez 2010, 858). Reinach effectively
displaced notions of ancient arts as merely decorative or playful, ushering in
“symbolic” interpretations. But what might the art reveal about the contents
of ancient religion?
262  Anne Solomon
Iconography and Interpretation: Early Speculations
The predominance of animals in the European sites, and a paucity of human
figures, encouraged interpretations of this body of art as linked to sympa-
thetic hunting magic and/or totemism (e.g., Jones 1967). In the former read-
ing, painting animals magically facilitated success in the hunt and/or increase
in the numbers of animals to prey on. Totemism is a phenomenon whereby
groups or subgroups claim a special association with an animal or plant,
which is their emblem. Today the complexity of totemism and its variability
is well documented. In the 19th century, Frazer borrowed from Spencer and
Gillen’s (1899) work on indigenous hunter-gatherers in Australia; however,
the result was an erroneous and oversimplified view of totemism in this indig-
enous society, which failed to appreciate its relation to complex kinship sys-
tems and reduced it to “a simple set of magic practices aimed at ensuring the
fecundity of the totem species and therefore of the ‘clan’ that identified itself
with it” (Palacio-Pérez 2010, 3).
One category of European Paleolithic art mobilier attracted special atten-
tion: carvings of female figures, often called “Venus figurines.” Over 140
examples are known, dating from the Aurignacian (e.g., the Venus of Hohle
Fels, see earlier) through the Gravettian and into the Magdalenian (c. 17–12
kya). The most famous (the Hohle Fels, Willendorf and Lespugue examples)
are those with greatly exaggerated breasts and body fat; the head and feet
often are reduced or absent. However, the category includes diverse render-
ings, in various materials. (In view of the importance of ochre in the early
record, it is surely significant that some have ochre traces; the materials cho-
sen may also have carried symbolic significance.) They have variously been
interpreted as talismans (objects thought to have magical or protective pow-
ers) relating to motherhood/childbirth or initiation, as “fertility symbols”
or as “mother goddesses,” belonging to a pre-patriarchal religion. Other
Paleolithic art contributing to the notion of early religion as celebrating
fertility includes the supposed depiction of vulvas in the parietal engravings;
this was a particular interest of a certain priest and prehistorian, the abbé
Henri Breuil, but as Bahn (1986, 1998) notes, unless associated with female
figures, this simple design, consisting of a triangle-like form with a median
line, is ambiguous at best.
Whatever the shortcomings of early iconographical readings, the notion
of Paleolithic art as linked to religion persists: “In this initial discourse were
born ideas such as ‘Paleolithic sanctuary,’ initiation art,’ ‘totemic images’
and ‘shamanic symbols’ that have conditioned, in modified forms, the inter-
pretation of Paleolithic art until the present time” (Palacio-Pérez 2010, 11).

New Directions
The 20th century saw various attempts to create a more theoretically and sci-
entifically sound basis for understanding both religion and early art. Among
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 263
the most innovative was work by Laming-Emperaire (1962) and Leroi-
Gourhan (1965), drawing on Levi-Straussian structuralism. Both eschewed
the traditional analysis of content alone, focusing instead on the syntax and
placement of images (e.g., at the entrances to or in the depths of caves).
Both concluded that images were placed according to a male/female binary
distinction (though they came to opposite conclusions about which animal
motifs were thus gendered). The evidence has been questioned, and the value
of the approach has diminished, but it remains notable for introducing ideas
about art and paleo-religion as expressing deep mental structures.
In the 1980s, social sciences research (e.g., Guthrie 1980) laid the founda-
tions for the cognitive study of religion (CSR).

Some see it as an heir of structural anthropology,  .  .  . but the core

feature of the cognitive approach to religion is the strong emphasis it
lays on the empirical research that is being performed in cognitive and
evolutionary psychology and cognitive science in general. . . . it is not
uncommon to see the cognitive scientists of religion call their approach
“the scientific study of religion.
(Näreaho 2008, 83)

Similarly, one of the most influential approaches to ancient art and reli-
gion focuses on shamanism. Also emerging in the 1980s, with an emphasis
on adding scientific rigor to anthropological interpretation (e.g., Lewis-
Williams 1983), it claimed to provide a neuropsychological bridge to
the Paleolithic (e.g., Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988; Lewis-Williams
2006).

Shamanism and Art

“Shamanism,” broadly defined, is characterized by the use of altered states
of consciousness for religious revelation, and unlike in organized religion,
power and wisdom is not embodied in a priestly figure, within a hierarchical
structure governed by established dogma and formalized rules and practices.
In hunter-gatherer societies, religious prescriptions and power invested in
religious functionaries are typically absent. Recent interest in shamanism
owes much to the armchair anthropology of Eliade (1964), who was not
primarily concerned with religion’s origins and who cautioned against over-
generalizing the term to apply to all so-called “medicine men.” However,
particularly through the work of Lewis-Williams, many now see shamanism
as an urreligion (i.e., the earliest or original religion) synonymous with  –
though not restricted to – hunter-gatherer religions, and hence the earliest
art, which predates agriculture. Many writers (see Francfort and Hamayon
2001; Kehoe 2000) have criticized such anti-historical overgeneralizations,
and extension of the term “shaman” to describe religious practitioners other
than those of the Siberian Tungus people, from whom the term originates.
264  Anne Solomon
The Lewis-Williamsian hypothesis, locating the origins of art in shamanic
visions, grew from his initial efforts to explain San rock art in South Africa
(Lewis-Williams 1980) and drew heavily on 19th-century and 20th-century eth-
nographies of southern African hunter-gatherers (for further detail, and issues
of terminology and naming of peoples, see Hitchcock, this volume). The heal-
ing “trance dance” of the Ju’/hoansi (Namibia and Botswana) was described
by earlier anthropologists (Marshall 1969) and in detail by Katz (1982). Those
who mastered trance believed that they encountered supernatural beings that
caused disease and misfortune; in trance, they were able to repel or overcome
them. San rock art, Lewis-Williams proposed, depicted such vision experiences
and functioned to reveal shamanic wisdom to the larger group.
The initial hypothesis became a “neuropsychological” model for inter-
preting rock arts of other times (Ice Age and Neolithic rock arts) and places
(North America), addressing the origins of making images (Lewis-Williams
and Dowson 1988) and even (tentatively) the 70 kya Blombos engraved
ochres (Lewis-Williams and Pearce 2004). A supposed strength of the model
was that it offered an account of “geometric” or “abstract” marks and of
image forms, as well as their contents. Visual forms, supposedly gener-
ated by the brains of all modern humans in ritually induced or psychoac-
tive drug-induced altered states, were allegedly culturally “construed” in
images. Shamanic consciousness was itself posited as a driving force in the
evolution of cognitive modernity.
The shamanistic hypothesis has been popular and controversial in equal
measure. The debates arising during its four decades defy summarization.
Some matters pertinent to the character of early religion can be considered
here, via one key category of images, “therianthropes”: figures with both
human and animal features.

Therianthropic Figures
Therianthropes (Figure 15.1b) are suggestive evidence for belief in the exist-
ence of supernatural beings, but their imaging still requires further explana-
tion. Shamanists claim that they relate to a third stage of trance, in which
“people feel themselves to be blended with their imagery” and “often . . .
feel themselves to be blended with animals, partially or completely” (Lewis-
Williams and Clottes 1998, 19). Images function to communicate in ways
that words supposedly cannot.
This reading is open to multiple challenges. From a neuropsychology per-
spective, it seems that hallucinatory imagery of this kind is restricted to cer-
tain kinds of altered states of consciousness and is not characteristic of ritual
trance (Helvenston and Bahn 2002). It also fails to accommodate the inher-
ent ambiguity of images. Plainly, other interpretations of therianthropic fig-
ures are possible; although it seems intuitively unlikely, some animal-headed
figures may even be “literal” representations of people in animal masks. In
terms of art theory, the notion of painting as the mere copying of vision
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 265
contents is contrary to the notion of art (or craft) as inventive use of the
(graphic) medium itself; the process of making always involves the thought-
ful, considered replication of the subject (Davis 1996).
Even if it is accepted that therianthropic figures are supernatural beings
of some kind, their features may have had different connotations: Was a
figure with leonine features a brave hero, a dangerous spirit or something
else entirely? The shamanistic hypothesis, with its homogenizing of hunter-
gatherer religions, occludes the possibility that ancient religion was a more
diverse and contingent phenomenon, arising from the specifics of experi-
ence, neither determined nor shaped by neurophysiological universals.
Similarly, even if the concept of the first ever animal-human figure came
to its maker in trance, once in the domain of awareness, no altered state is
required; the source of later therianthropic images might equally be preex-
isting paintings of therianthropes, with which the artists were familiar or
the presence of such beings in myths and oral lore (shamanists argue that
certain myth motifs are also, wholly or partly, derived from trance (e.g.,
Lewis-Williams 2010)). It may also be that the contents of trance experi-
ence are themselves shaped by preexisting beliefs (e.g., Solomon 1997). The
general ahistoricity of the model – here, the failure to accommodate both
visual and religious traditions and their independent evolution – has been
much criticized. It therefore seems that, as with many grand theories, the
shamanistic model’s claimed explanatory potential has ultimately proven
illusory in its failure to accommodate complexity.

Sex and/or Gender and Religion

The second persistent theme in interpreting early religion via art is that of
sex and/or gender. Some early religions celebrated fertility, embodied in
female figures. More recently, various claims for worship and early matri-
archal religion have been made (e.g., Gimbutas 1974). Although, as always,
the evidence is ambiguous, such work has at least directed attention to male
bias in interpretation. Such rethinking of the evidence has dove-tailed with
a different approach to early religion, away from seeing it as a cognitive and
spiritual phenomenon and towards understanding it in terms of power rela-
tions within supposedly egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies (for an elabo-
rate Marxist-cum-Darwinian account, see Knight 1991).

Problems in Ethnographic Analogy

Ethnographies have long been key to thinking about early religion, from
initial speculations about Ice Age art as informed by totemism through
to recent shamanistic readings. That ethnographies of recent peoples can
provide food for thought about religiosity, and its relation to art, is not
in doubt. The implication that peoples of the last few centuries somehow
retain elements of early religion is nevertheless problematic, carrying with
266  Anne Solomon
it (although not necessarily intentionally) the idea that recent groups are
somehow living fossils or Stone Age survivals. This is particularly evident in
shamanistic accounts, where 19th-century and 20th-century testimonies are
used as analogies for much older, and even early human, religious thought
and practice.
Other problems are similar to those encountered in interpreting the art.
The /Xam testimonies that are invoked in support of a shamanist reading
of San rock art are themselves open to more than one interpretation. For
example, I contend that the beings described in San oral accounts are not
shamans, as Lewis-Williams claims, but instead deceased kin to whom the
living would appeal for rain and help in hunting. I also contend that, though
the art does not “illustrate” myth, San stories of part human, part animal
ancestors indirectly inform San images of therianthropes (Solomon 1997,
2011, 2013). Indeed, ethnographies also alert us to the possibility of more
diversity in early religion than grand theories can accommodate. Known
hunter-gatherers are not as uniform as has sometimes been assumed  – in
multiple domains of life, including religion (cf. Finlayson and Warren 2017).

Conclusions
Leroi-Gourhan (1986, 9) wrote three decades ago that “The establishment of
the religious character of paleolithic art and the contribution of even incom-
plete proof constitute a glorious record for the prehistorical scholarship of
preceding generations” but conceded that there was a long way to go. This
remains true. Prehistoric art provides a glimpse of ancient thought, but our
understanding is overwhelmingly hypothetical, and this will surely always
be so. Research into the origins and development of religion and art alike
consists of modeling new possibilities as much as establishing new facts.
Such modeling is nevertheless productive, and necessary, but it is seldom
conclusive. The shamanistic hypothesis is a case in point: hailed by many
as a leap forward, only to wane as its deficiencies have become increasingly
apparent. Initially, it appeared to be not only a bridge to the Paleolithic
mind but also a way to bridge art and science, adding scientific rigor to
interpretation (Lewis-Williams 1983). In general, the application of scien-
tific methods has certainly enhanced our knowledge of ancient art and reli-
gion, most obviously in the application of new analytical techniques and
dating methods, which provide a chronological framework for interpreta-
tion. However, adding science is clearly not a solution to ever-present issues
of interpretation. Also, how much CSR, for example – which draws heavily
on the social rather than the hard sciences – has really added to our under-
standing of religion is unclear, despite contributing interesting and creative
mental modular explanations. Evolutionary approaches sometimes seem to
worship what Cherry (1985) has called the idol of origins, risking reducing
complex phenomena to their supposed origins and conflating antecedents
and beginnings with beginnings and causes.
 Bones, Pigments, Art and Symbols 267
It has been argued that CSR also sometimes risks “monochromatic theo-
rizing about polychromatic phenomena” (Saler 2010, 337). In the quest to
understand the prehistory of religion, this perhaps applies doubly. Art, like
religion, may also be seen as a highly complex, polychromatic phenom-
enon, and some discussions of it would be much enhanced by engaging with
more sophisticated approaches to visuality. One of the more controversial
issues within CSR concerns whether religion is an evolutionary cognitive
by-product. A parallel problem is the way art is treated as an epiphenom-
enon of ritual (in the shamanistic hypothesis, merely as a medium for com-
municating the contents of religious experience). The reverse process – the
ways images may influence religious consciousness – receives little attention.
Similarly, the ways art and other elements of culture may shape cognition
are often neglected (Jensen 2009).
In other ways too, the relationship of early art and religion is not clear-cut.
Excavations at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa, uncovered 270 frag-
ments of ostrich eggshell engraved with linear marks, dating to c. 60 kya (Tex-
ier et al. 2010). They are most likely the remnants of ostrich eggshell water
containers, functional everyday items that are not – or at least not obviously –
implicated in religious thought or practice. The blurred boundaries between
symbolism, art and religion are among various issues ripe for revisitation.
Archaeology and ancient arts provide clues to the time frame of the emer-
gence of religious consciousness and something of the timeless concerns
with the larger themes of life and death, and survival and prosperity, which
preoccupy all humans. Although clinching evidence is absent, it seems more
than probable that red pigments, at least sometimes, “stood for” blood, a
multivalent symbol of both life and death, which – along with sex and/or
gender and accompanying power relations – are apparently perennial exis-
tential problems for us and probably other human species. Although some
pessimism about uncovering truths about the origins and evolution of reli-
gion is appropriate, new finds, new ideas and further interdisciplinary (that
is, more than multidisciplinary) engagements will surely continue to provide
scholars and general readers with intriguing food for thought.

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16 Every Kingdom Divided
Against Itself
The Evolution of Christianity
Laura Betzig

Introduction
One day in 9 ce, Augustus, toward the end of his long reign, got mad in the
forum. He had the married men line up on one side and the unmarried men
on the other. The bachelors outnumbered the fathers. So to the fathers the
first Roman emperor offered honors and offices. But he laid into the bach-
elors. “Mine has been an astonishing experience, for though I am always
doing everything to promote an increase of population among you and am
now about to rebuke you, I grieve to see that there are a great many of you.”
Bachelorhood was the worst crime on earth. The unmarried were murder-
ous for not raising successors; they were sacrilegious for putting an end to
their ancestors’ honors; and they were unpatriotic, destroying the state by
disobeying its laws and leaving it without heirs. Romans had never been
allowed to neglect having legitimate wives and raising legitimate children:
not under the republic and not under the empire, either. “The state cannot
survive without numerous marriages” (Dio 56.3–8).
That would be repeatedly pointed out by Augustus’s best poets. Virgil
hoped that the birth of a child might bring peace to the world: It was time
to make love, not war (Eclogues 4.8–9). Horace was much more explicit. If
every citizen raised an heir, the state would last; but if marriages were rare,
the state would fall apart. “Youth, made few by parents’ vice, shall hear of
swords whetted for civil strife,” he wrote in an ode; “Whoever may wish to
root out seditious killings and internecine madness, if he wants to be styled
Father of Cities on monuments, let him dare to bridle unbroken license,”
he wrote in another (Odes 1.2, 3.24). And in the Centennial Hymn, com-
missioned after Augustus’s Marriage Laws were passed, Horace asked the
patroness of childbirth to protect Rome’s parents. “Goddess, rear our young
and prosper the senate’s edicts on wedlock, that the new law on the mar-
riage of women produce abundant children” (lines 17–20).
Augustus’s prose propagandists made an effort to remember the republi-
can precedents. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who covered ancient history in
his Roman Antiquities, came up with a 700-year-old law of Romulus that
made Romans raise all the males in their families or otherwise lose half their
272  Laura Betzig
property (2.15.1–2). Valerius Maximus, who collected Memorable Doings
and Sayings, wrote about how the censors had made bachelors pay copper
coins into the treasury as early as 403: “Nature writes a law for us: as we are
born, so must we beget” (2.9.1–2). Cicero’s essay On Oratory remembered
how one of the censors for 184 had asked every paterfamilias in Rome, “Do
you, to the best of your knowledge, have a wife, for the purpose of bearing
children?” (2.260). And Titus Livy, who wrote 142 chapters of Roman his-
tory, remembered how Quintus Metellus, another censor, had a lecture, On
the Need for Larger Families in 102 bce: “Everybody ought to be forced to
marry and create more children” (Livy, Periochae 59). That was the speech,
Livy thought, that Augustus read out to the knights.
Over the course of Augustus’s long reign, the proud were worn down in
many ways. Ostentatious houses were leveled; extravagance was repressed;
promiscuous senators were asked to resign from the senate; and offenders
against the imperial majesty, or maiestas, were put to death.
With the Marriage Laws, the first emperor split up their estates. Rome’s
oldest families – the Marcii, the Fabii, the Quintii and the Valerii, families
that Augustus was after in his forum speech  – had always become rich,
and stayed rich, by keeping their estates intact. They’d passed their names,
offices and inheritances onto just one daughter or son. They’d encouraged
just one heir to marry and to raise an heir of their own. And the rest – bas-
tards, daughters and younger sons – were left with less. But Augustus laid
penalties on caelibes, or people without a lawful husband or wife. And he
imposed punishments on orbi, or people without lawful children.
Other emperors would persecute them. Within a generation after there
was an emperor in Rome, a descendant of king David was born. Jesus
would encourage people to pay Caesar’s taxes, but he never told them to
obey his Moral Laws. As he put it to his disciples, “Every kingdom divided
against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will
stand” (Matthew 12:25, with Mark 3:24, Luke 11:17). Christians around
the Mediterranean became virgins or made themselves eunuchs for the sake
of the kingdom of heaven. And emperors from Nero to Diocletian had them
thrown to wild animals, burned alive or had them decapitated.
For centuries, well-to-do Romans disinherited their children. They passed
the bulk of their assets onto one legitimate son, and the rest were expected
to fend for themselves. For centuries, Roman emperors sabotaged that. They
rewarded parents of large numbers of legitimate children; but they pun-
ished orbi and caelibes. They did that with the Moral Laws passed under
Augustus, who offered parents of legitimate children promotions to political
offices, civic privileges, large legacies and lands. And they did it by persecut-
ing the Church. Men undefiled by women, and virgins devoted to religion,
fought with wild animals in the circus, or were turned into human torches.
Then the capital was relocated to Constantinople, and the Christians were
left alone. Constantine issued an edict in 313 ce at Milan that promised free-
dom of religion, and Augustus’s penalties for celibacy and childlessness were
 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself 273
soon afterward annulled in Rome. Monks started to wander off into Egyptian
deserts, and daughters were offered to convents. For centuries, the Caesars
had disintegrated their competitors’ lands. Then Jesus reassembled them.

The Moral Laws

Soon after Julius Caesar won his first civil war at Pharsalus, he was encour-
aged to look into Roman marriage. Lust had to be curbed and children
raised, Cicero insisted in a speech (For Marcellus, 23). A  census of the
Roman population was ordered, and fathers of large numbers of legitimate
children were rewarded: having three or more children eared fathers good
plots of Italian land (Suetonius, Caesar 20.3). But Caesar’s efforts were cut
short on the Ides of March.
So Caesar’s successor, Augustus, started to push through his own marriage
reforms. The lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus of 18 bce laid heavy assess-
ments on the unmarried. But it brought about open revolts, and Augustus
was unable to get that part of his legislation enforced. So a full 40 years after
his own civil wars were over, the first emperor tried again.
Those laws are lost; they survive in bits. The fragments suggest that legiti-
mate mothers and fathers were rewarded with honors, and that legacies
were taken away from the unmarried (see Treggiari 1991; Levick 2010;
compare Aristotle, Politics 1270b, Polybius, Histories 36.17.10).
The Digest cites the law’s last (35th) chapter. People who wrongfully pre-
vented their children from marrying could be forced to arrange marriages
for them. Clauses in wills offering money or property on condition that the
beneficiaries didn’t marry, or on condition that they didn’t have children,
were considered invalid. “Those who do not try to arrange marriages are
held to prevent them” (Digest 23.2.19). The numbers of legitimate chil-
dren became a decisive factor in choosing officers in Rome (Digest 4.4.2,
with Pliny, Letter 7.16, Tacitus, Annals 2.51). And there were other, smaller
punishments and rewards: bachelors and spinsters lost the right to attend
shows and banquets (Dio 54.30.5); and parents were relieved of jury duty
(Suetonius, Claudius 51.1).
But mostly, celibacy made it harder to come into money. Caelibes were
forbidden to take testamentary gifts. “People who are unmarried are, by the
lex Julia, relating to wills, prohibited from receiving estates and legacies.”
And orbi were forbidden to take more than half. “In the same way, people
who have no children, for this reason under the terms of the lex Papia lose
half of their legacies and estates” (Gaius, Institutes 2.111, 286).
Stoic philosophers understood what was going on. Seneca sent a letter
to his mother, Helvia, to congratulate her on rearing a full brood. “You
never have been ashamed about the number of your children,” he remem-
bered with gratitude; “you have never tried to conceal your pregnancy as
if it were an indecent burden; nor have you crushed the hope of children
already conceived” (To Helvia 16.3). Musonius Rufus, one of Seneca’s
274  Laura Betzig
Stoic friends, disapproved of family planners: “They impiously contrive
the prosperity of their children by the murder of their siblings; that is, they
destroy their brothers and sisters, so that the earlier children may have a
greater share of the inheritance,” he noted in one of his Discourses (Frag-
ment 15b).
A number of senators were sympathetic. Pliny the Younger was full of
admiration for the father of many children: “He has chosen to enjoy the
blessing of a fruitful marriage at a time when the advantages of remaining
childless make most people feel a single child a burden.” Pliny elaborated
on those drawbacks in another letter: “Pleasures for the ear and eye need
no recommendation, in fact they are better restrained than encouraged in a
public speech; but carefully chosen and persuasive words as well as material
rewards are needed to prevail on anyone to submit willingly to the tedium
and hard work involved in bringing up children” (Pliny, Letters 1.8, 4.15).
Pliny’s friend Tacitus remembered a debate in the senate on the onus of
becoming a father: “It is ample compensation for the childless that, almost
without a care and quite without responsibilities, they should have influ-
ence, honors, anything and everything, ready to their hand.” And in his
Germania, Tacitus held up barbarian mothers as foils to the barren women
in Rome: “To restrict the number of children, or to kill any of those born
after the heir, is considered wicked. Good morality is more effective than
good laws” (Annals 15.19 with 2.37, Germania 19).
Many tried to get around the Marriage Laws. Men took wives the day
before lots were cast for public office then divorced them the day after;
candidates for public jobs adopted sons then emancipated them after the
elections were over (Suetonius, Tiberius 35.2; Tacitus, Annals 15.19).
Roman emperors countered with espionage. Under Augustus, induce-
ments to spies were written into the lex Iulia and lex Papia Poppaea;
they caused widespread panic (Digest 49.14.15–16). Tiberius appointed
a commission to look into accusations (Tacitus Annals 3.28). Caligula
was surrounded by delatores, or informers, and Claudius bungled the
job by charging fathers with being bachelors on inaccurate tips from his
agents (Suetonius, Gaius 30.2, Claudius 16.3). Nero lowered the squeal-
er’s fee by three-quarters (Suetonius, Nero 10.1), but the spies held onto
their posts.
There was hypocrisy in all this. Neither Marcus Papius nor Quintus
­Poppaeus – the consuls who introduced Augustus’s law in 9 ce – had a wife
or legitimate children (Dio 56.10.3). Neither of Augustus’s best propagan-
dists was a family man. Virgil – who was generally known as Parthenias,
“The Virgin” – was unmarried, and Horace – who was otherwise known
as “Flaccid,” or Flaccus – was short, fat and childless, if not also chaste
(Suetonius, Life of Virgil 9–11; Life of Horace). Maecenas  – who paid
­Virgil and Horace  – was notoriously promiscuous: he wore ringlets and
lent his wife out to Augustus, but he had no legitimate heirs (Seneca, Moral
Letter 114.6, Velleius 2.88.2). The first emperor was the father of just one
 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself 275
legitimate daughter but was widely considered an adulterer (e.g., Suetonius,
Augustus 71.1; Dio 54.16.3, with Betzig 1992a, 1992b, 2014a, 2014b).
And they had sexual access to thousands of slaves (Scheidel 1997, 2009).
The hypocrisy went deeper than that. Augustus was after the rich. He
was maddest at the bachelors who represented Rome’s great families  –
the Marcii, the Fabii, the Quintii and the Valerii – and asked, “Do you
desire that your families and names alike shall perish?” in his forum
speech (Dio 56.7.6).
But the poor were left alone. Slaves had never been legally able to marry;
and soldiers’ marriages were banned. The law that soldiers couldn’t legally
have wives probably goes back to Augustus. Matrimonium non possit: mar-
riage was inappropriate for men in military service (Digest 24.1.61, with
Wells 1999). Slaves had never been able to form legal unions: “Conubium
is the capacity to marry a wife in Roman law,” and “there is no conubium
with slaves” (Tituli Ulpiani 5.3–5, with Gaius, Institutes 1.57).
Plebeians were free not to breed. Roman men worth less than 100,000
sesterces and Roman women worth less than 50,000 sesterces could take
legacies from anybody: They were exempt from the Marriage Laws (Gno-
mon of the Idiologus, 32). “The rich are urged by huge rewards to raise chil-
dren,” as an Antonine emperor was reminded in a speech (Pliny, Panegyric
26.1). But the poor had to fend for themselves.
Besides, bastards were explicitly kept off the birth register. Augustus knew
his bachelor knights weren’t interested in a solitary existence. “None of you
either eats alone or sleeps alone; no, what you want is to have full liberty
for wantonness and licentiousness” (Dio 56.7.1). So he made sure that their
illegitimate issue, or spurii, were kept off the public lists (Digest, 28.3).
Imperial families had always limited the number of their heirs. Augustus’s
legitimate grandsons, Lucius and Gaius, died young, so the first emperor
ended up having to leave Rome to a stepson. Tiberius was predeceased by
Drusus, his only legitimate boy, and was succeeded instead by his brother
Germanicus’s son. Caligula, who died young, never had any legitimate
children of his own, and Nero fathered just one legitimate daughter, who
died four months later. Claudius, who became an emperor unexpectedly
at age 50, left behind two legitimate daughters and a legitimate son, but
Nero killed all of them. “For which many forgave him, remembering the
old discord between brothers, and the indivisibility of the realm” (Tacitus,
Annals 13.17).
From then on, any emperor survived by two of his wife’s sons left the
job to just one. Titus, who was Vespasian’s first son, put up with endless
conspiracies by his younger brother, Domitian, who may have had him
murdered (Suetonius, Titus 9.3). Marcus Aurelius’s wife, Faustina, gave her
husband six sons, and all but Commodus died young. Although Septimius
Severus warned his boys not to haggle with each other – “be harmonious,
enrich the soldiers” – Caracalla eliminated his younger brother, Geta, along
with tens of thousands of his supporters (Dio 77.15.2). In a speech to the
276  Laura Betzig
senate, he credited the immortals: “Jupiter, as he is himself sole ruler of the
gods, so gives to one ruler sole charge of mankind” (Herodian 4.5.7–8).
Senators behaved the same way, whenever they got the chance. There’s
some hint of that in their names. A father’s first name always went to his oldest
legitimate son. Marcus Tullius Cicero, for instance, was the son of a Marcus
(Marci filius), the grandson of a Marcus (Marci nepos), the great-grandson
of a Marcus (Marci pronepos) and the father of a Marcus – though Cicero’s
brother, who was five years younger, was a Quintus (e.g., Hopkins 1983).
There are other hints in high office. Late in the republic, just a quarter
of all consuls had more than one son who was also a consul. And early in
the empire, just eight out of 393 consuls had more than one consular son.
People didn’t pass offices on to all of their children; they passed them on to
one (e.g., Hopkins 1978).
There are more hints in wills. A number of will makers favored their sons
over their daughters (Champlin 1991). In the Digest, one father disinher-
ited his daughter because he intended her to be “satisfied” with her dowry;
another asked his daughter to be happy with a string of pearls (Digest,
28.5.61(61), 30.108.13). Other will makers had a bias toward older over
younger sons. One father, “having instituted Primus as heir,” named “Secun-
dus the substitute heir” (Digest, 28.2.8). Another made one son his heir and
added, “let all the others, sons and my daughters, be disinherited” (Digest,
28.2.25.pr). The Digest is full of disinherited children. Parents with estates
to pass on favored their firstborn sons.
But celibacy wasn’t uncommon. There were bachelors all over the forum.

The Persecutions
A few would end up in the Church. Like Jesus’s cousin, John the Baptist,
some wore leather girdles and camelhair garments and lived on locusts and
wild honey; like Jesus’s mother, Mary, others were παρθένος (parthenos),
or virgins. Like Paul’s correspondents  – from Thessalonica to Galatia to
Philippi to Corinth to Rome – they guarded against ἁσέλγεια (aselgeia), or
lust, and did their best to stay αγνος (hagnos), or chaste; like Paul’s rough
contemporaries – who wrote the gospels attributed to Mark, Matthew and
Luke – they encouraged each other to leave brothers and sisters and moth-
ers and fathers and children and spouses behind and find them in the age to
come (Mark 10:29–31, with Matthew 19:29–30, Luke 14:26–27). Chris-
tians drew inspiration from these words in one of Paul’s letters: “To the
unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as
I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is
better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:8–9, with
Brown 1997; Ehrman 2011). And they remembered that Matthew had put
this speech in Jesus’s mouth: “There are eunuchs who have been so from
birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and
there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the
 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself 277
kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it” (Mat-
thew 19:12, with Brown 1988; Cowdrey 1998). For that, from the Great
Fire to the Great Persecution, they would be harassed and hunted down,
stripped and beaten and stoned.
In the gospels and in the epistles, many of the early Christians were mar-
ried. Simon Peter had a mother-in-law who was cured of a fever by Jesus
(Matthew 8:14, Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38). The “brother of Jesus-who-is-
called-the-messiah,” who was Jerusalem’s first bishop, James the Just, didn’t
drink or eat meat, shave or bathe, but he seems to have had a wife (Jose-
phus, Jewish Antiquities 20.9.1, with Mark 6:3, 1 Corinthians 9:5 and a
description in Jerome, On Illustrious Men 2). The other apostles may all
have been married; Philip, one of seven honest men who looked after the
Jerusalem church, had four virgin daughters who prophesized at Caesarea
(Acts 6:3–5, 21:8–9). Even Paul – who told the Corinthians it was better to
remain unmarried – might have been married, once. He referred to his “true
yokefellow” and asked, “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a
wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” (Phi-
lippians 4:3, 1 Corinthians 7:8–9, 9:5–6; on the first Christians see Meeks
1983; Olson 2008).
But others were unattached. Anna the Prophetess, a widow of 84 or older
who fasted and prayed night and day, looked for redemption in the boy
Jesus at Jerusalem (Luke 2:36–38), and John the Baptist was apparently
unmarried (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6, Luke 1:36). Jesus’s mother, Mary, sup-
posedly conceived as a virgin: Joseph, her husband, “knew her not” before
she gave birth (Matthew 1:18–25, Luke 1:26–38, with Isaiah 7:14). And
Jesus was probably a bachelor (compare Phipps 1970; King 2014).
After he was delivered up for crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, Tiberius’s pre-
fect of Judea, his followers were immediately harassed (see Frend 1960; Ste
Croix 2006). Within a generation after Jesus was crucified, Stephen the dea-
con was thrown out of town and stoned; then the great persecution started
in Jerusalem (Acts 7:58, 8:1). James, the brother of John, was run through
with a sword, and Simon Peter was locked up – though he later escaped,
made his way to the capital and founded a church (Acts 12:2–7). Paul would
suffer wherever he traveled. He was beaten 39 times with lashes and three
times with rods; at Damascus, he escaped through a window in a basket,
and he was shipwrecked at Malta on his way to Rome. He was hungry and
thirsty, cold and exposed, harassed in the wilderness and hunted in towns (2
Corinthians 11:25–33). He was dragged before the authorities at Thessalon-
ica and shamefully treated at Philippi – stripped and beaten in the market-
place, accused of “customs which it is not lawful for us Romans to accept or
practice” and thrown into prison; at Corinth, he was brought before a tribu-
nal headed by Claudius’s proconsul, Annaeus Gallio, the Stoic philosopher
Seneca’s brother: “I refuse to be a judge of these things,” he said, and sent
him on his way (Acts 16:19–23, 17:1–6, 18:15, 1 Thessalonians 2:2). But
Paul was beheaded in Rome – where he was sent by Porcius Festus, Nero’s
278  Laura Betzig
governor of Judea, to be tried as an agitator. “You have appealed to Caesar;
to Caesar you shall go” (Acts 24:5, 25:12).
Nero was the first emperor to inflict punishments on Christians in Rome.
The notoriously depraved adherents of a destructive superstition, members
of a sect that was everywhere spoken against, they were arrested after the
Great Fire of 64 ce, odio humani generis – because they detested the human
race. Some were dressed in wild animals’ skins and torn to pieces by dogs
in the circus; others were turned into torches (Tacitus, Annals 15.44). Peter
was hung upside down, “at his own request,” on a cross (Acts of Peter,
37–38), and Paul – “having taught righteousness to the whole world” – had
his head cut off (Clement, Letter to the Corinthians 5).
Roughly a generation later, Flavia Domitilla  – a niece of the emperor,
Domitian, who ended the next dynasty in Rome – was accused of “athe-
ism” and thrown out of town; Titus Flavius Clemens – who was Domitian’s
cousin, and Domitilla’s husband – was executed in 96 ce on the same charge
(Dio 67.14). Other evidence of Flavian persecution comes from a man who
called himself John, sent off to bear witness on the Aegean island of Patmos.
In his vision, the smoking whore of Babylon had burned to the ground: “For
all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion, and the kings of the
earth have committed fornication with her.” But 144,000 of the unblem-
ished were redeemed on Mount Zion, where they played harps: “These are
they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins” (Revelation
1:1–2, 9, 14.3–4, 18:3–9, 19:7–9).
After the turn of the 1st century, when Pliny the Younger wrote from the
provinces to ask the emperor Trajan for advice, he worried that “a great
many individuals of every age and class” were being accused of Christi-
anity in Asia Minor and that a disturbing number were martyrs. So the
emperor wrote back: “These people must not be hunted out” (Pliny, Letters
10.96–97). But there were a number of martyrs under the adoptive emper-
ors, and many were bachelors. Ignatius  – who succeeded Simon Peter as
Antioch’s bishop – was martyred under Trajan in Rome, and Ignatius’ friend
Polycarp – who was promoted as bishop of Smyrna by another of Jesus’s
disciples – was martyred there in his 86th year. “If any one is able to abide
in chastity to the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him so abide,” Ignatius
had said, and Polycarp agreed: “it is a good thing to be cut off from the lusts
of the world” (Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp 5; Polycarp, Letter to the Philip-
pians 5). The philosopher Justin, who corresponded with Antoninus Pius,
knew countless people with celibate habits – “many, both men and women,
who have been Christ’s disciples from childhood, remain pure at the age of
60 or 70 years ” – and was one of a group of seven beheaded in Rome for
their faith (Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 15, 2 Apology 12).
Another 48 would be martyred by Pius’s son-in-law and successor, Mar-
cus Aurelius, in Lyon. Ponthius, the nonagenarian bishop, was beaten and
died in his cell; Vettius Epagathus, who headed an episcopal dynasty in
Gaul, lost his head; Attalus, a pillar of the church at Pergamum, was led into
 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself 279
the amphitheater and offered to the beasts more than once; and Blandina
was scourged, set on the roasting seat, bound in a net and tossed around by
a bull. They went out rejoicing, glory and grace being blended in their faces,
so that even their bonds seemed like beautiful ornaments, as those of a bride
adorned with variegated golden fringes; and they were perfumed with the
sweet savor of Christ (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.1.55).
There were more martyrs under Marcus Aurelius’s son, Commodus, in
Africa, where they defended themselves to the provincial governor: “We
have never done wrong; we have never leant ourselves to wickedness.” All
12 were executed by the sword (Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, 2).
Under the Severan emperors, more celibates died for the cause. Men and
women, young and old, poor or highborn, were passing over to the Christian
faith; they filled towns and cities, companies and camps, the palace and the
senate: “The outcry is that the state is filled with Christians” (Tertullian, Apol-
ogy 1, 37). Many of them were unmarried. As far as Tertullian, the church
father from Carthage, was concerned: “How many men, and how many
women, in ecclesiastical orders, owe their position to continence, who have
preferred to be wedded to Go,; who have restored the honor of their flesh, and
who have already dedicated themselves as sons of that future age, by slaying in
themselves the concupiscence of lust, with that whole propensity which could
not be admitted within paradise!” (Tertullian, Exhortation to Chastity 13).
Many others were persecuted. Of them, 22-year-old Vibia Perpetua, a newly-
wed with a son at her breast, and Felicitas, a newly delivered unwed mother,
were stripped, bound in nets and tossed about by a mad heifer in Carthage
(Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Blandina 2, 20). The blood of the just
was poured out in Rome: “Both virgins and women shall be corrupted in
openness and shall be shamefully mocked” (Hippolytus On Daniel 4.51). In
Corinth, a virtuous young woman was handed over to the magistrate: “Take
her, and bring me 3 coins by her every day,” he told the manager of a πορνείο,
or porneion, or house of ill repute, who wanted a fair profit. “But she went
forth uncorrupted from that place, and was preserved perfectly stainless by
the grace of Christ” (Hippolytus, The Story of a Maiden of Corinth). In Egypt,
the prefect threatened to hand over another young woman, Potaminaea, to his
gladiators, to rape her. “Boundless was the struggle she endured against her
lovers in defense of her bodily purity and chastity in which she was preemi-
nent, for the perfection of her body as well as her soul was in full flower”
(Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.5). As Tertullian concluded:

In condemning a Christian woman to the leno rather than to the leo

you made confession that a taint on our purity is considered among us
something more terrible than any punishment and any death. Nor does
your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to
us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we
grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
(Tertullian, Apology 50)
280  Laura Betzig
The emperor Decius posted an edict in December of 249 ce that ordered
sacrifice, throughout the empire, to the emperor’s gods, and many apostatized.
On 44 bits of papyrus signed and dated, people insisted, “I have always and
without interruption sacrificed, and poured libations, and manifested piety
toward the gods” (Knipfing 1923; Rives 1999). The emperor was after wor-
shippers, not martyrs (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.39–41). But Origen,
the Alexandrian church father, incited his students to die for the cause. He
knew that many would be unmarried and that the quarry would be large:
“Among Christians, those who maintain a perpetual virginity do so for no
human honors, for no fee or reward, from no motive of vainglory, but as
they choose to retain God” (Origen, Against Celsus 7.48). He’d already set an
example. Origen had taken Matthew 19:12 to heart and thus castrated himself
(Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 49, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.8).
For the first 13  years of his reign, Diocletian seems to have left Chris-
tians alone. But from February of 303 to the spring of 304, a set of four
edicts ordered churches razed to the ground and scriptures burned. People
had to choose among gods: they could go free if they picked the emperor’s
but were mutilated by countless tortures if they did not. Altars were set up
in the courts so that subjects could apostatize before their cases came up.
The reluctant were mutilated, scourged, suffocated, burned or thrown to
the leopards, bears, bulls or wild boars. Many were bachelors. Virgins in
Rome became martyrs – with the fearlessness of Agnes, who “protected her
chastity, and exchanged life for immortality” and died by the sword though
she was just 12  years old (Ambrose, On Duties 1.41, with On Virginity
2.5–9). There may also have been other martyrs as far away as Britain  –
where Alban, later praised as a virgin, was tortured with “many others of
both sexes” and decapitated (Bede, History 1.7). Diocletian’s judges gave
Alexandrian women, “virgins who had devoted themselves to the duties
of religion, to pimps”; in Palestine, “others who were in mature life were
turned into eunuchs” (Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine 5.3, 7.4). The prisons
were crowded, tortures were invented, multitudes were burned alive and
many were knotted to millstones and drowned (Lactantius, Deaths of the
Persecutors 15). Then in the spring of 305 ce, Diocletian stepped down.
The Christians had won. In the spring of 313 ce, Constantine drew up an
edict at Milan. “We grant to the Christians and all others liberty to follow that
mode of religion which to each of them appeared best” (Lactantius, Deaths of
the Persecutors 48, with Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 10.5). On the first day
of April in 320 ce, Constantine posted the following order in Rome: “Those
people who were formerly considered celibates by the ancient law shall be
freed from the threatening terrors of the law” (Theodosian Code 16.2.4).

Discussion
Plenty of evidence suggests that the Roman Empire, like other empires,
should be considered eusocial. Eusocial societies are characterized by highly
 Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself 281
prolific breeders, supported and protected by large numbers of workers –
who make up a permanently sterile caste (Sherman et al. 1995; Choe and
Crespi 1997; Rubenstein and Abbot 2017). Roman emperors had sexual
access to their wives, to the wives of their friends, to the wives of their
enemies and to thousands of slaves. But they were fed and defended by an
enormous corps of eunuchs – under a prefect of the sacred bedchamber (or
praepositus sacri cubiculi), a manager of the sacred household (or castrensis
sacri palatii), a manager of the imperial wardrobe (or comes sacrae vestis)
and a manager of the imperial estates (or comes domorum) – who swarmed
around the palace like honeybees, with no chance to reproduce (Jones 1964;
Betzig 2013, in press).
Plenty of other evidence suggests that Europeans in the Middle Ages
should be considered cooperative breeders. Parents in cooperatively breed-
ing societies are less prolific than eusocial kings and queens, and they’re
provided for and guarded by smaller groups of helpers – who are temporar-
ily, or facultatively, sterile (Hrdy 2010; Clutton-Brock 2016; Koenig and
Dickinson 2016). Medieval lords hoarded trollops (or gadales) in palaces
from Paris to Aachen to Goslar and corrupted serfs in the women’s rooms
(or gynaecea) that they set up on hundreds of estates. But those lords were
supplied and secured by a small army of chamberlains (or camerarii), and
counts of the palace (or comites palatii), counts of the stables (or comites
stabli) and custodians of the palace (or mansionarii) – who were celibate, or
unmarried, if not always chaste, or uninterested in sex (Betzig 2013, 2014b,
with Betzig et al. 2019; Betzig in press).
Successful emperors divided and conquered the family assets of ambi-
tious subjects; successful subjects resisted that. For centuries after Augustus
became an emperor, his successors went after orbi and caelibes. They did
that with the Moral Laws, and they did it with the Christian persecutions.
Households were divided against themselves. Then Constantine and his
eunuchs moved off to Constantinople, and the celibates took over out west.

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Conclusion
Jay R Feierman and Luis Oviedo

Some Historical Remarks

The study of religion has evolved from a long season, in which it was
mainly understood as a hermeneutic activity or an interpretation of texts
that were taken as divinely revealed, toward a rationally motivated reflec-
tion on its meaning and function, beyond any normative text or authority,
and giving place to analysis at different levels. Probably the first attempts in
modern times produced the so-called philosophy of religion as a program
aimed at understanding religion “inside the limits of reason” (Kant). Those
first steps trying to render a view of religion in more “rational” terms
were followed through the 19th century by successive programs aimed at
showing the structure and hidden motives that explained religion and its
function in society. In many cases, such projects served the interests of
those who, looking for social progress, considered religion a hindrance
that needed to be overcome and replaced by better means. Revealing how
religion worked could help to get rid of what was perceived, at least by
some, as a social burden.
As J Samuel Preus (1996 [1987], xv) writes in Explaining Religion, more
and more European, non-theologian scholars began to ask, “if God is not
a given, how is one to explain religions?” It was not a commitment to the
belief that God does not exist. One of the earliest European non-­theologians,
Edward Herbert, who tried to explain Christianity more naturalistically, is
the “father of deism.” Preus (1996) and Waardenburg (1999) give a history
of the centuries-long slow reformulation of religion from the insider theolo-
gians to the outsider non-theologians, the latter of which were using meth-
odological and metaphysical naturalism.
The described development finds its more mature expression in the new
discipline of the sociology of religion, with its main contributions com-
ing at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century from Durkheim,
Weber and Simmel. These authors were trying to explain religion as a social
phenomenon with identifiable traits and common dynamics in most social
settings. This attempt can be considered the first scientific approach to
explaining religion in its social dimension.
286  Jay R Feierman and Luis Oviedo
The Issue of a Naturalistic Treatment of Religion
The social sciences, like sociology and anthropology, were applied conspic-
uously to the study of religion along the 20th century. Psychology started its
own program, perhaps with William James, and followed with the critical
attempts by Freud and many others who tried to psychodynamically formu-
late the psychological dimensions of this human experience. However, these
programs could be seen not as explaining religion per se, just its social and
psychological aspects. This is right only to some extent. Indeed, the matura-
tion of these scientific and scientific-like (i.e. Freudian) approaches brought
more and more to a naturalistic understanding of religion, or to the idea
that we could explain religion in sheer rational or scientific and scientific-
like terms, without resorting to any supernatural means or reference.
Recent decades have seen a flourishing of new approaches to the natural-
istic study of religion, notably the cognitive, biological-evolutionist and the
neuroscientific. Often, these different approaches have been combined and
have produced more broadly scoped explanations, followed by looking for
empirical and experimental evidence to endow them with scientific luster
and authority.

Explaining Religion and Its Challenges

“Explanations” are statements or accounts that make something (religion
in this case) clear. They are used as reasons or justifications for given actions
or beliefs. Yet there are no agreed-on criteria to make something (like reli-
gion) clear. Clarity is often based on not creating cognitive dissonance
with already-held beliefs. As a result, clarity, like information, is recipient
dependent. This is especially true for religion. Neither are there agreed-on
criteria for judging the superiority of one explanation over another.
What posits epistemological and methodological challenges for all sci-
entific endeavors become still harder when religion is the object of study.
Whether we have to explain religious experience (i.e., the subjective dimen-
sions in believers); objective contents; sets of beliefs that are held by those
who believe; social expressions, like churches and congregations; or rituals
or behavioral rules and practices is not clear. A  good theory, rather than
just an explanation of religion, should account for all this, but in that case,
nobody knows what such a theory would be like given these quite different
aspects that encompass so many distinct realms. In reality, a theory of eve-
rything (about religion) has yet to be found.
The other great difficulty in a naturalistic approach lies in trying to pro-
vide good empirical data and to undertake experimental research. Such a
problem has been revealed many times and renders the empirical approach
to religion difficult. That does not mean that this is impossible. Indeed, we
can observe a lot of religious behavior, but it becomes more problematic to
rely on the subjective self reports of believers. The contrast between internal
 Conclusion 287
perception and external expression continues to haunt many scholars of the
scientific study of religion. Furthermore, the field has recently been shaken
by troubles and methodological problems, such as replicability issues and
so-called priming methods.
The described difficulties should not discourage those who try to build a
more naturalistic and scientific understanding of religious expressions, but
we need to be more careful and conscious of the potential problem. If a nat-
uralistic approach to religion is conceivable and desirable, the discipline’s
practitioners should become more modest and aware of its limits and of
how it might interface and create dialogue with a long tradition of religious
wisdom.

Applying Scientific Theories to Religion

For a scientific theory  – such as a scientific theory of religion or some of
its component parts  – to be “useful” (Popper 1985 [1934]), which is the
correct word rather than “true,” it has to make falsifiable predictions. The
predictions should (1) be about that which has not yet occurred, (2) be
counterintuitive (i.e., not able to be made by common sense) and (3) not
able to be made by simple observation and inductive inference. However,
Popper’s is not the only philosophy of science (e.g., Kuhn Lakatos, Feyera-
bend and others).
Although all of these standards are high and difficult to meet, the new
scientific study of religion has recently seen a great expansion. Many of its
authors have been successful at publishing in the best academic journals
and getting generous funds to undertake their research. Many of their find-
ings have challenged centuries-old shared theological traditions and values,
which is good because to stay viable and relevant, theology must adapt to
modernity. It can no longer isolate itself from the body of knowledge out-
side of itself.
Comparing the scientific study of religion to scientific studies of language,
economies and polity, at least some scholars in the future should try to do
more than simply “explain” religion (the explanandum) by theories devel-
oped in other disciplines (the explanans). In the meantime, only scientific
theories whose predictive potencies have been well tested on numerous spe-
cies of the same genera (using these taxonomic terms broadly) from which
the theory was developed should be used with impunity to “explain” post
hoc any phenomenon and its evolution, including religion.

The Naturalist Study of Religion and Theologians

as Colleagues
Some believers and theologians might perceive the project of a naturalis-
tic approach to religion as an intrusion into an area that is not theirs and
even a “profanation” of what they consider sacred. From a more academic
288  Jay R Feierman and Luis Oviedo
perspective, theologians and other traditional scholars of religion view the
new scientific approach with suspicion and sometimes with declared hostil-
ity, especially when claims from scientists clearly conflict with long-held
views that are supported by a long history of religious scholarship.
The seeming conflict between the traditional study of religion and the new
naturalistic methods lead to Stephen Jay Gould’s (1997) “Non-overlapping
Magisteria,” a widely circulated proposed solution to the conflict: Science
deals with “facts,” and religion deals with “values.” Unfortunately, many
developments in science have clearly entered the value territory traditionally
reserved for religion, and many religious beliefs are held as justified facts.
However, religion’s value is not always dependent on the historical accuracy
of the so-called facts within ancient religious mythical stories. For many of
these ancient stories, their values, which can be profound, appear to be in
the principles rather than in their historical accuracy.
Starting in the 1970s, some scientists, theologians and clergy began dia-
logues, which is much more vibrant in Europe than in other parts of the
world. Christianity is also much more involved in this interchange than Juda-
ism or Islam. But an open question still looms: To what extent can theology
learn from a study of religion that uses evolutionary and other scientific the-
ories and scientific methods? In our opinion, evolutionary views introduce
a much-needed dynamic dimension to religion and its evolution, against a
too-static view unable to perceive changes and adaptations. Such new views
could represent a challenge to many theologians, who are too used to seeing
revelation – at least within Christianity – as a static and immovable corpus.
What many theologians see as fixed-in-stone revelation, natural scientists are
more inclined to see as temporally dependent, inspired writing.
Obviously, religion’s evolution – and still more Christian evolution – has
followed many more paths and has been influenced by many more factors
than can be accounted for completely by Darwinian evolution or cognitive
science of religion perspectives. Nevertheless, the forms and functions of
religion have changed over time, and they can be traced back in history.
This knowledge can help to reconstruct many dust-covered religious ele-
ments and factors in a new light.
For theologians, this probably requires a change of mind and a greater
openness to science. As has been the case in past stages in theological devel-
opment, new models of thought have enriched the tools available and can
allow for a better understanding of how faith and religion proceed in each
historical time period and context.

Conclusion
This is the second multi-authored edited volume on the evolution of religion.
The first one was edited by Bulbulia et al. (2008). In the following year, two
more multi-authored edited volumes on the evolution of different aspects of
religion were published (Feierman 2009; Voland and Shiefenhövel 2009).
 Conclusion 289
Most recent is a large multi-authored Festschrift honoring Armin W. Geertz
(Petersen et al. 2019). We hope that at least some of what we have done
in this edited volume has advanced the field, and we await what the future
holds for the evolutionary study of religion, religiosity and theology.

References
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lution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins
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Feierman, JR. ed. 2009. The Evolution of Religious Behavior: The Biological Ori-
gins of Faith and Religion. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger/ABC-CLIO.
Gould, SJ. 1997. “Nonoverlapping Magisteria.” Natural History 106 (March):
16–22 and 60–62.
Petersen, AK, IS Gilhus, LH Martin, JS Jensen and J Sorensen. 2019. Evolution,
Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Popper. 1985 [1934]. “Scientific Method.” In Popper Selections, ed. by D Miller,
133–142. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Preus, JS. 1996 [1987]. Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to
Freud. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Voland, E, and W Shiefenhövel, eds. 2009. The Biological Evolution of Religious
Mind and Behavior. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer.
Waardenburg, J. 1999. Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion: Aims, Meth-
ods and Theories of Research. New York and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Index
Note: Boldface page references indicate tables. Italic references indicate figures.
Abraham 167
Abrahamic religions: childhood
punishment in 165 – 166;
fundamentalists in 45 – 46; moral
code and 77; in 19th century 92 – 93;
overlap with karmic religions
165 – 166; salvation in 154, 159 – 162;
as “winning” 46; see also specific
type
absolute truth 39 – 41, 45 – 47
Adam 78, 156 – 158, 165
adaptation 10, 26, 32, 38, 54, 63 – 64,
202, 223
afterlife see death
affective systems 225
ahimsa 77
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 213
Alcorta, CS 45
Alexander, RD 72
Allah 48, 77
alone, capacity to be 211 – 212
aminergic receptor polymorphisms 131
Amish people 29 – 30
Angel, HF 13, 105
Anna the Prophetess 277
anthropology 191, 233, 261; “armchair
anthropology” 191; see also
archaeological evidence for origins of
religion
anxiety 226; see also death anxiety
apophaticism 191
Aquinas, Thomas 91, 175, 183 – 184,
185, 186 – 187
Arab childrearing norms 160
archaeological evidence for origins of
religion: art 258 – 261, 261, 265;
artifacts, other 258; Atapuerca
Mountains 257; Blombos pieces
259, 264; burials 257 – 258; Cradle
of Humankind 257; early religion
260 – 261; ethnographies, problems
in 265 – 266; fossil sites 257 – 258;
grave goods 258; iconography 262;
overview 256, 266 – 267; pigments
258 – 259; rituals 258; shamanism
263 – 264; symbols and, capacity
to use 256 – 257; therianthropic
figures 261, 264 – 265; 20th-century
interpretations 262 – 263
Aristotle 141
art: Blombos pieces 259, 264; cave 260;
“cultural big bang” in 177; European
Paleolithic 262; gender and 265;
iconography 262; pigments 258 – 260;
religion evolution and 267; rock
(Southern Africa) 243, 249 – 250,
264; sex and 265; shamanism and
263 – 264; therianthropic figures
261, 264 – 265; 20th-century
interpretations 262 – 263; Upper
Paleolithic 260 – 261; Venus of Hohle
Fels sculpture 260, 261
astrophysics/astrophysicists 201
Atapuerca Mountains (Spain) fossil site
257
Athabascan-speaking indigenous
peoples’ beliefs 41
Atwood, G 213
Augsburger Religionsfrieden 91
Augustine of Hippo, St. 215 – 218
Augustus 271 – 275, 281
Australopithecus 206
Australopithicenes 214
automatic retribution 166
autonomic nervous
system 55

autopoietic process 23
awe: change and, lasting 150; in
chimpanzees 147, 149 – 150;
describing 138; emotions and
evolution of the belief in God 222,
230 – 231; meaning and 139 – 140;
meaning in life and 138, 140; as
meaning-making emotion 138 – 139,
143 – 145; natural wonders and 140;
preexisting meaning systems and 138;
psychology of meaning and 140 – 143,
149 – 150; psychology of 139 – 140;
religious meaning systems and
145 – 146; stimuli eliciting 138 – 139
Axelrod, RD 72 – 73
Azari, NP 105 – 106
Barbour, Ian 195
Barrett, Lisa Feldman
224 – 226, 233
basolateral amygdaloid (BLA) complex
225
Begriffsgeschichte 90
behavior: aggressive 70 – 71; altruistic
72 – 73; antisocial 43 – 44, 76;
autonomic nervous system and 55;
awe and 146, 148 – 149; charging
149; constitutive 39, 45; cultural
evolution and 21 – 23, 25; cultural
transmission of 2 – 3; disobedient
156, 160, 162 – 163; evolution of
human 29 – 30; genes and 131; group
110 – 111, 147, 149; interaction of
mind and culture and 24; meaning
systems and 141 – 142, 145 – 148;
moral 31, 70 – 72, 74, 77, 79 – 81;
paralimbic system and 43 – 44;
processes of believing and 104 – 105,
108 – 109, 139; ritual 45, 76 – 77, 79,
110, 257258; symbolic language and
12; see also specific type
behavioral spectrum 131
beliefs: ability to believe and 98 – 100;
absolute truth and 39 – 41, 46 – 47;
of Athabascan-speaking indigenous
peoples 41; belief systems and
110 – 112; belief-word-prefaced
propositions 39 – 41; biological
background information 37 – 39;
Christian 41, 88; conditional truth
status of 47; confidence about
104 – 105; copying errors and 41;
crazy-sounding 40; Darwinian
evolution and 37; eusociality and
Index  291
41 – 42; evolution of 44 – 45; five
theses about origin and evolution
of 198 – 199; fluid compensation
and 142 – 143; in-groups and 43,
48; knowledge about facts versus
113; linguistic sense of 97; models
proposed to understand 13; Native
American 41; as non-physical
functional concept 13, 38; out-groups
and 43; overview 49 – 50; paradox
of 47 – 48; paralimbic system and
43 – 44; political 113; population-
separating mechanisms and 46 – 47;
purpose of 104; relative truth and
40 – 41; religion and 37; religion as
double-edged sword and 48; religion-
specific 38 – 39, 45, 48 – 50; semantic
contents of 97 – 98; study of 13 – 14;
of “winning religion” 46; see also
emotions and evolution of the belief
in God; processes of believing
belief systems 110 – 112, 243 – 249
belief-word-prefaced propositions
39 – 41
Bellah, R 31
Belzen, JA 92, 107, 109, 110
Biesele, M 239, 245, 246, 248
“big gods” hypothesis 31 – 32
biological basis for religion see morality
biological evolution: constraints 25;
ecosystems 26 – 27; epigenetics 25 – 26;
genetic transfer 27 – 28; natural
selection 25; neutral evolution 25;
ontogeny 26 – 28; phylogeny 28;
predictability in 201 – 202; religion
evolution 21 – 29; species 25 – 26;
unpredictability in 201; see also
cultural evolution
biological fitness 30 – 31
biological species 25 – 26
Birth of the Living God (Rizzuto) 211
blending theory, cognitive linguistics’:
cognitive science and 177 – 178;
conflicting readings of 176 – 179;
double-scope 175 – 176, 182 – 183,
187; God is simple blend 183 – 184;
God’s essence is “to be” blend 184,
185, 186; Jesus is the Messiah blend
180 – 183, 181; mirror networks 175;
orientation to 173 – 176; overview
173; religions evolution and 173,
176 – 179, 186 – 188; single-scope 175;
Slingerland and 176 – 179, 186, 188;
tectonic 179 – 188
292 Index
Blombos pieces 259, 264
Blanke, O 124, 128
Blume, M 29
Boyd, R 22
Boyer, P 105
brain: fear and 225 – 226; language
centers in 210; lesion 55; mating and
55; meaning-making and 144 – 145;
near-death experiences and,
predisposition for 125 – 127; orgasm
and spirituality and 57; out-of-body
experiences and, predisposition
for 125 – 127; oxytocin and reward
centers in 61 – 62; paralimbic system
43 – 44; processes of believing and
functions of 99, 106, 108 – 109;
see also beliefs; brain evolution;
neurology
brain evolution: alone and, capacity
to be 211 – 212; ego-relatedness
and, capacity for 212, 217; “God-
representation stage” and 211;
historical perspective 205 – 206;
in familia brain growth 208, 209,
212 – 214, 217; infant psychological
development 210 – 212; isolated
mind and, myth of 210 – 212; “made-
in-God’s image” concept and 211;
neoteny and 205, 207 – 210, 214;
overview 205, 217; religion and
212 – 214; spirituality and 212 – 214;
in utero brain growth 206 – 209
Briggs, Andrew 12
Brockman, J 47
Broom, DM 70, 73 – 74
Buddhism 77, 154, 162 – 166, 230
Bulbulia, J 79, 288
burials/burial practices 192, 257 – 258
caelibes 273
Caesar, Julius 273
Caligula 275
“Capacity to Be Alone, The”
(Winnicott) 211
cave art 260
Cave of Maltravieso (Spain) 260
celibacy 42, 272, 273, 276, 278, 279,
280, 281
charging behavior 149
charisma of religious leaders 146
childhood punishment 155 – 157, 160,
162 – 163, 165 – 166
Christianity: beliefs 41, 88; childhood
punishment and 156; childhood
themes in 162; Darwinian evolution
and 195; God in, notion of 199;
inception of 187; interchange of
dialogue with other religions and
288; spirituality and 215 – 217
Christianity evolution: background
information 271 – 273; complexity
of 288; cooperative breeders and
281; Europeans in Middle Ages 281;
eusociality of Roman society and
280 – 281; Marriage Laws 271 – 272,
274 – 275; Moral Laws 272 – 276,
281; persecutions 276 – 280; Roman
Empire and 271 – 276, 280 – 281
Cicero 155, 272
Claudius 275, 277
Clayton, P 29
cognitive dissonance 142
cognitive linguistics 173 – 174; see also
blending theory, cognitive linguistics’
Cognitive Pluralism 4
cognitive psychology 1 – 2
cognitive science: model of religion 223,
226; study of 97, 177, 179; see also
cognitive science of religion (CSR)
cognitive science of religion (CSR) 1,
4, 150, 173, 183, 223 – 225, 263,
266 – 267
coherence 141
Commodus 279
compassion 230
comprehension 141
Comte, Auguste 223
concept, notion versus 89 – 90
Concepts of the Afterlife in Early
Civilizations (Sushan) 127
conditional truth status 47
Confessions (Augustine) 215 – 217
Confucianism 77
conscious awareness 123
consilience 4
constructive theory of emotions 222,
224 – 225
contextualism 90
conversion model 13
copying errors and beliefs 41
corporal discipline of children
155 – 157, 166; see also childhood
punishment
Cradle of Humankind (South Africa)
fossil site 257
creation story (Genesis) 81
credition 98 – 100, 113; model 13
Credition Research Project 14

cultural evolution 21 – 29; Cultural
Evolution Society 4, 21; cultural
selection 9, 49, 251; cultural transfer
27 – 28; innovations 25; memes 22;
niche construction 25; social learning
28 – 29; see also biological evolution
culture: biological evolution and
21 – 29; complexity of, evolution of
8 – 9, 29 – 30; ecosystems and 26 – 27;
evolution and 21 – 23, 157 – 159;
religion evolution 3 – 4, 9 – 10;
religious 37; synthesis in study of
24 – 25
culturo-species 25 – 26
damnation 156 – 157
Darwin, Charles 78
Darwinian evolution: beliefs and
37; biological resonance of 5;
Christianity and 195; cultural
evolution and 22; religion evolution
and 6, 30 – 31
Dawkins, Richard 22, 71, 201, 231
dead family members, “sightings”
of 129
dead, practices of disposing of 257 – 258
death 134, 143, 148 – 149, 154, 165,
240; anxiety of 221 – 223, 227 – 229,
233; see also near-death experiences
Decius 280
deep (non-REM) sleep 131
Dennett, Daniel 4
Deuteronomy 160
De Waal, F 70, 71, 72, 74, 146,
147, 148
development: human coordination
9 – 11; infant psychological 210 – 212;
Wilbur’s universal model of 218
Digest (Roman) 273, 276
dimensions-of-faith model 13
Diocletian 280
Dionysius of Halicarnassus 155,
271 – 272
disgust 228
disobedience 156, 160, 162 – 163
divine figures, “seeing” 128 – 129
divinity 222, 233
DNA 37 – 38
dorsal vagal complex 55
Dreyfus, H 231 – 232
dual inheritance 28; see also gene-
culture coevolution
Dunbar, RM 45, 128
Durkheim, E 193
Index  293
Eastern Orthodox tradition 191
ecosystems and culture 26 – 27
“ecstasy” see orgasm
ego-relatedness, capacity for 212, 217
Eleusinian mystery religion 167
Eliade, M 263
Ellens, JH 64, 65
Emmons, Robert 232
emotions 221 – 222, 224 – 225; see also
emotions and evolution of the belief
in God; specific type
emotions and evolution of the belief
in God: awe 222, 230 – 231;
constructivist theory of emotion and
224 – 225; death anxiety 227 – 229,
233; disgust 228; divinity dimension
229 – 233; fear-based religion
222 – 227, 232 – 233; gratitude
231 – 232; love, elevating 229 – 230;
overview 221 – 222, 232 – 233; purity,
sacred 227 – 229; sacred, sense of
222, 229 – 232
empathy 73 – 75, 109, 209
Enigma of Reason, The (Mercier and
Sperber) 12
Enlightenment 223
epigenetics 25 – 26
epilepsy and orgasm 57 – 58
esotericism 28
essentialism 226
eternal way 199
ethnographic analogy, problems in
265 – 266
ethnographies, problems in
265 – 266
Eudaimonia (sense of well-being) 141
eusociality 8, 11 – 12, 41 – 43, 47 – 48,
50, 280 – 281
Evans, Jules 230
Eve 78
event-related potential (ERP) 44
evolution: of beliefs 44 – 45; as big
change/transformation 7; of cultural
complexity 8 – 9; culture and 21 – 23,
157 – 159; as historical process 7;
history of evolution of religion and
87 – 88; macro-level theories 22 – 23;
of morality 71 – 73; by natural
selection 5, 23, 25, 38, 88; natural
selection and 5; neutral 25; process
of believing 45; religion and 6 – 7,
88 – 89; of religion-specific beliefs 45;
slow change of 37; theories 88; see
also specific type
294 Index
evolutionary biology see biological
evolution
evolutionary biology model 13
evolutionary convergence 202
evolutionary psychology 1
Evolution in Four Dimensions
(Jablonka and Lamb) 3, 23
exaptation 54
Exodus, book of 160
Explaining Religion (Preus) 285
faith 168, 198, 288; dimensions-of-faith
model 13; see also religion; specific
religion
false life 212
Fauconnier, Gilles 24, 174, 177
Faustina 275
fear/fear-based religion 108, 222 – 227,
232 – 233
FEAR system 225 – 226
Feierman, JR 9, 13, 23, 31 – 32, 70, 79
female orgasm 62 – 63; see also orgasm
fictive movement 128, 134
fight-or-flight 225, 230
firewalking ritual 79
“fitness” 30 – 31, 32, 71, 223, 233;
biological 8; evolutionary 63;
genetic 29
fluid compensation and beliefs 142 – 143
forms, religious 2, 5 – 9, 13, 25, 37 – 38,
46 – 47, 49 – 50, 158, 211, 217
fossil sites 257 – 258
Frazer, JG 261 – 262
Frijda, N 139 – 140
Friston, K 106, 108
Fuentes, A 23
functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) 44, 57, 77, 108; see also
neuroimaging
function, religious 37
fundamentalists 45 – 46
Gabora, L 23, 26 – 28, 30
Geertz, Armin W (Festschrift) 289
Geertz, Clifford 239 – 240
gender 57, 265
gene-culture coevolution 46 – 47; see
also dual inheritance
Genesis 81, 158
genetics 79, 130 – 131
genetic transfer 27 – 28, 31
genotypes 25 – 26, 27, 28, 49
geography and religion 46
Georgiadis, JR 56, 59, 61 – 62
Germania (Tacitus) 274
God: awe and belief in 230 – 231; in
Christianity, notion of 199; humanity
and, relation to 187 – 188; morality
and 73 – 75; naturalism and 194 – 195;
religiosity and 196; as supernatural
199; see also emotions and evolution
of the belief in God
“God of the gaps” model 194 – 196
God-of-philosophers concept 89
“God-representation stage” 211
Goodall, Jane 148
Good Samaritan 76
Gould, Stephen Jay 201, 288
Grafman, J 111
gratitude 222, 231 – 232
grave goods 258
Great Fire (64 CE) 278425
Great Persecutions 277
Grojnowski, D 9, 25 – 26, 31
Growing Young (Montague) 208
Guenther, M 239, 240, 242, 245, 246,
247, 249, 250
Guillain-Barré syndrome 132
Haidle, MN 21, 23, 29
Haidt, Jonathan 146, 222, 229 – 231, 233
Hardy, A 133
harm to others 79 – 80
Hebrew Bible 160 – 161, 167
helping others 75 – 76
Herbert, Edward 285
Highfield, R 25
Hinduism 77, 154, 162 – 166
history of evolution of religion: beyond
fixation on religion 96 – 97, 96;
complexity of topic 87; concept of
religion 90 – 91; concept throughout
history 91 – 92; concept versus notion
89 – 90; credition and evolution of
ability to believe 98 – 100; evolution
87 – 88; fixation on religion 93 – 94;
nineteenth century 92 – 93; processes
of believing 97 – 98; relation of
evolution and religion 87; religion
and evolution 88 – 89; religiosity
93 – 96, 95, 96; religiosity evolution
96, 96; religious 94 – 96, 95
Holloway, R 206
Homer 231 – 232
Homo habilis 206, 214, 217 – 218
“Homo religiosus” 214
 Index  295
Homo sapiens 121, 127 – 128, 206, 256 Josephus 156
“Homo spiritualis” 214 Judaism 154, 159 – 162, 288
Hood, RW Jr. 99 Julian of Norwich 218
Horace 271 Julius Caesar 273
Horst, Steve 4 Jungian psychology 193
Hrdy, S 209 Just So Stories (Kipling) 217
human coordination, development of
9 – 11 Kahneman, D 45, 112
hunter-gatherer religion evolution: Kalahari Debate 242 – 243
background information 239 – 240, Kant, Immanuel 175, 223, 233
241, 242; belief systems 243 – 245; karma 164
ethnographic fieldwork 245 – 246; karmic concepts 164
overview 242 – 243, 250 – 251; rock art karmic religions 154, 162 – 166; see also
of Southern Africa 249 – 250; trance specific type
dances 242, 247, 248; transformation Karo, R 55
of belief systems 246 – 249; see also Katz, R 264
San of Southern Africa Kelber, Werner 158 – 159
Huxley, Julian 24 Kiehl, KA 44
Kipling, R 217
iconography 262 Knight, CC 196
ideas, history of 90 Komisaruk, BR 61, 63
Ihm, ED 143 – 145 Kuhn, Thomas 1 – 2
in familia brain growth 208, 209, Kundt, R 31
212 – 214, 217 Kuru Dance Festival 249
infant psychological development Kuzawa, CW 209
210 – 212
in-groups 38, 43, 48 Lachmann, PJ 250
instincts 45 Lakoff, George 24, 173 – 174, 193
interaction of behavior, mind and Laland, K 9 – 10, 21 – 22
culture 21, 24 Lamarckian principles 22, 26, 29
interoception 224 – 225 Lamb, Marion 3, 23
interreligious conflict 48 Laming-Emperaire, A 263
in utero brain growth 206 – 209 language 12 – 13, 97, 173 – 174,
Irons, W 40, 79 190 – 192, 210
Isaac, attempted sacrifice of 167 laws of nature 195, 199
Islam 39, 48, 154, 159 – 162, 288 learning processes 28 – 29, 111
isolated mind, myth of 210 – 212 Leibnitz, GW 87 – 88
Israeli fossil sites 257 – 258 Leviticus, book of 160
Lewis-Williams, David 191 – 192
Jablonka, Eva 3, 23 Lewis-Williams, JD 239, 244, 245,
Jainism 154, 162 – 166 263 – 264
James (brother of John) 277 linguistics see blending theory, cognitive
James the Just 277 linguistics’; cognitive linguistics
James, William 132, 138, 213, 222, Logos 199 – 200, 200
231, 286 Lorenz, K 32, 42, 45
Jefferson, Thomas 230 love, elevating 222, 229 – 230
Jesus 180 – 183, 181, 277 Lucius 275
Jesus is the Messiah blend 180 – 183, 181 Luhmann, N 7
John the Baptist 276 Luuk, E 259
John of the Cross, St. 133
John the Evangelist 216, 218 macro-level evolution theories 22 – 23
John’s Gospel 215 – 216 “made-in-God’s image” concept 50,
Johnson, Mark 193 78, 211
296 Index
Maecenas 274 – 275
Magic of Reality, The (Dawkins) 231
Marcus Aurelius 275, 279
Marcus Papius 274
Marcus Tullius Cicero 276
Marriage Laws 271 – 272, 274 – 275
Martin, David 4
Mary (mother of Jesus) 276
Maryanski, A 147
masturbation 65
mating 54 – 55
mattering 141 – 142
Maximos the Confessor, St. 200 – 201
Mayr, Ernst 24
McCauley, Robert 4
meaning: brain and meaning-making
144 – 145; history of 90; in life 138,
140, 143; maintenance 142 – 143; of
notions 90; psychology of 140 – 143,
149 – 150; of spirituality 213 – 214;
subjective sense of 143; violations
142 – 143
meaning in life (MIL) 138, 140, 143
meaning systems: awe and religious
145 – 149; behavior and 141 – 142,
145 – 148 brain and processes of
144 – 145; in chimpanzees 147 – 150;
coherence/comprehension and 141;
maintenance 142 – 143; meaning
in life and 140; preexisting 138;
purpose and 141; religions as shared
146 – 147; significance/mattering and
141 – 142
medicine men 263
memes, cultural 22
“mental models” 2
Messiah, Jesus as 180 – 183, 181
mirror networks 175
modern science-theology dialogue
195 – 196
Modern Synthesis in biology 21
Montague, Ashley 207 – 209
moral action 72 – 73
moral behavior 31, 70 – 72, 74, 77,
79 – 81
moral code 76 – 77
morality: biological components of 71,
79; capacity for 73; empathy and
73 – 75; evolution of 71 – 73; genetics
and 79; God and 73 – 75; moral
action 72 – 73; moral behavior 74;
moral value and 73 – 75; obligation
of actor and 75; origins of 10 – 11,
70 – 71; religion and 75 – 79; religious
versus nonreligious 81; rights of
subject and 75; rituals and 76 – 77;
“selfish gene” and 71; sentience
and 73; summary statements about
82; Tomasello’s two-step theory of
emergence of 10 – 11; value of religion
and 80 – 81; view of humans and
77 – 78
Moral Laws 272 – 276, 281
moral value 73 – 75
Muller-Lyer optical illusion 46
multilevel/multidisciplinary approach
in studying evolution of religion
see pluralistic methods in studying
religion/religion evolution
“Myth of the Isolated Mind, The”
(Stolorow and Atwood) 213, 215
myths, salvation 155, 159, 166 – 168
narratives 105, 107, 110 – 111, 149
Native American beliefs 41
naturalism: God and 194 – 195;
religion and 6; religion and, study
of 286 – 288; scientific method and,
limits of 196 – 197; supernaturalism
versus 191, 194; theistic, strong 197
natural selection 5, 23, 25 – 26, 38, 88;
see also Darwinian evolution
natural theology 191
Natural Theology (Paley) 194
natural wonders and awe 140
nature, laws of 195, 199
Neanderthals 192, 258, 260
near-death experiences (NDEs): awake/
asleep switching mechanism and
132 – 133; brain’s predisposition
for 125 – 127, 126; change of
personality/demeanor after 129 – 130;
classification of 122, 123; conscious
awareness and 123; dead family
members, “sightings” of 129;
describing 120; “divine figures,”
seeing 128 – 129; divine and, sense of
120 – 121, 127 – 130, 133 – 135; fictive
movement and 128, 134; genetics
and 130 – 131, 134; Guillain-Barré
syndrome and 132; high places and
129; historical perspective 127 – 128;
Homo sapiens and 121, 127 – 128;
ineffability and 131 – 132; neurology
and 123, 132 – 133; overview
120 – 121; phenomenology 121 – 124,

122; post-traumatic stress disorder
and 125, 127; religion evolution
and 120, 134 – 135; REM sleep
and 131 – 132, 134; termination of
123 – 124
negative theology 191
neologism 207
neoteny 205, 207 – 210, 214
Nero 275, 278
network model 13
neural mapping 173
neuroimaging 105 – 107, 111 – 112; see
also functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI)
neurology 123, 124, 125, 132 – 133; see
also brain
neurophenomenology of sex 63 – 64
neurophysiology 58 – 59
neutral evolution 25
New Testament 155
niche construction 25, 29, 88
nirvana 165
non-physical concepts 13, 37 – 38
nonreductive method 222
non-REM sleep 131
Norenzayan, A 30 – 31
notion, concept versus 89 – 90
notions, meaning of 90
Nowak, M 25
obedience 156, 160 – 161
Odyssey (Homer) 231
ontogeny 26 – 28
Oral and The Written Gospel, The
(Kelber) 158
orexin 132
orgasm and spirituality: autonomic
nervous system 55; brain
and 57; “ecstasy” and 65;
electroencephalogram study
57; epilepsy and 57 – 58; female
62 – 63; gender identity and 57;
neurophenomenology and 63 – 64;
neurophysiology and 58 – 59;
orgasm as spiritual experience and
64 – 66; overview 54; oxytocin and
60 – 61; self-referential processing
and 58 – 59; sexual arousal and 56;
sexual orientation and 57; as spiritual
experience 64 – 66
Origen 280
Otherworld Journeys (Zaleski) 127
out-groups 43
Index  297
out-of-body experiences (OBEs):
brain’s predisposition for 125 – 127;
change of personality/demeanor
after 129 – 130; classification of 122,
123; conscious awareness and 123;
describing 120; divine and, sense
of 120 – 121, 127 – 130, 133 – 135;
fictive movement and 128, 134;
historical perspective 127 – 128;
neurology and 124, 125; non-
corporeal floating in space and 124;
overview 120 – 121; phenomenology
124, 125; religion evolution and
120, 134 – 135; tempo-parietal
junction and 124, 125; termination
of 123 – 124
overbeliefs 222
Oviedo, L 23, 47
oxytocin: brain’s reward centers and
61 – 62; measuring concentrations of
60; orgasm and 60 – 61; release of 60;
self-referential processing and 58 – 59;
spirituality and 59 – 62
Paley, William 194
Paloutzian, RF 113
Panksepp, Jaak 225
paralimbic system 43 – 44
parasympathetic system 55
patriarchy 155, 161
Paul 139, 156 – 159, 161, 277 – 278
Pentateuch 159
Penultimate Curiosity, The (Wagner
and Briggs) 12
peri-aqueductal gray (PAG) matter 132
persecutions of Christians 276 – 280
personalistic theism 196
Pew Research Center 46
phenomenological anthropology 233
phenotypes 22, 26; nongenetic plasticity
of organisms 25
Philip 277
Philo 156
phylogenesis 22
phylogeny 28, 209
Piaget, J 139
pigments 258 – 260
piloerection 148 – 149
Pius 278
pleasant sensation 108
pleasure of sex 63 – 64; see also orgasm
plebeians 275
Pliny the Younger 274, 278
298 Index
pluralistic methods in studying religion/
religion evolution: alternative
approaches 7 – 8; argument for 3;
bottom-up causation 2; choosing
3 – 5; cognitive psychology and
1 – 2; complexity of religion and 1;
concept of evolution of religion and
5 – 7; conceptualization of 2; cultural
complexity and, factors influencing 8 – 9;
de facto 2 – 3, 5; emergence of 2; issues
3 – 5; new contributions to evolution
of religion and 9 – 14; overview 14 – 15;
top-down deductive 2 – 3
pluralistic theology 197 – 198
Polanyi, Michael 192
Polycarp 278
polymorphisms 131
polyvagal theory 55
Porges, SW 55
positivism 223
post-agricultural societies, super-
cooperative nature of 9, 11 – 12
posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/
precuneus 144
post-traumatic compensatory fantasy
167
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
125, 127
prayers 77
pre-supplementary motor area (pre-
SMA) 108 – 109
Preus, J Samuel 285
primates 45, 63, 111, 147, 150,
206 – 207, 210
Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science (PNS) 21, 23
processes of believing: ability to believe
and 98 – 100; background information
104 – 105; behavior and 104 – 105,
108 – 109, 139 brain functions and
99, 106, 108 – 109; credition and
113; evolution of 45; God and,
notion of universal 113 – 114; history
of evolution of religion and 97 – 98;
neurophysiological model 104 – 110,
114; overview 104; perception-
valuation-action model 107 – 109,
112; perceptual information
and 107 – 109; predictions and
104 – 105, 108 – 109; probabilistic
representations and 106 – 108, 107;
relation of beliefs and belief systems
110 – 112; religion evolution and
13 – 14; in social interaction 109 – 112,
110
Proverbs 156
psychology: of awe 139 – 140; cognitive
1 – 2; evolutionary 1; Jungian 193;
of meaning 140 – 143, 149 – 150;
pluralistic theology and 197 – 198; of
religion 94
psychopathy 43 – 44
punishment 161 – 162; see also
childhood punishment
purity, sacred 227 – 229
purpose 141
Purzycki, BG 31
Puts, DA 63
Quintilian 155
Quintus Metellus 272
Qunitus Poppaeus 274
Quran 161, 167
Rappaport, R 11, 31
reductive methods 1 – 4
relation of evolution and religion 87
relative truth 40 – 41, 47
religion: as anthropological term
95; Aquinas’s definition of 91;
atrocities committed in name of
80; beliefs and 37; beyond fixation
on 96 – 97, 96; brain evolution and
212 – 214; challenges of 286 – 287;
cognitive science model of 223, 226;
commandments in 77; common
traits of various 77; complexity of 1,
120; concept of 90 – 92; critics of 81;
death anxiety and 228; defining 191;
as double-edge sword 48; emotions
and 221 – 222; evolution and 6 – 7,
88 – 89; fear-based 222 – 227; fixation
on 93 – 94; geography and 46; gods
and 77; growth of 41; helping others
and 75 – 76; historical comments
about studying 285; morality and
75 – 79; naturalism and 6; naturalist
study of 286 – 288; in 19th century
92 – 93; prayers and 77; psychology
of 94; religiosity and, replacement
for 192 – 193; risk assessment in life
and 80; salvation and 154; of San
of Southern Africa 239 – 240, 242,
250 – 251; science and 93; scientific
theories and, applying 287; as shared
meaning systems 146 – 147; symbolic

language and 12; as systematic term
95, 97; theologians as colleagues and
287 – 288; value of 80 – 81; “winning”
46; see also pluralistic methods in
studying religion/religion evolution;
religion evolution
religion evolution: alternative paths 32;
art and 267; “big gods” hypothesis
31 – 32; biological evolution and
21 – 29; blending theory and,
cognitive linguistics’ 173, 176 – 179,
186 – 188; complexity of 1, 8 – 9, 288;
concept of 5 – 7; cultural 3 – 4, 9 – 10;
culture in evolution and 21, 23;
dangers threatening modern papers
on 217; Darwinian evolution and 6,
30 – 31; evolution theories and 88;
human coordination, development
of 9 – 11; interaction of behavior,
mind and culture 21, 24; “just that”
paper and 217 – 218; language/
symbolic function 12 – 13; multilevel
29 – 32; near-death experiences
and 120, 134 – 135; out-of-body
experiences and 120, 134 – 135;
process of believing and 13 – 14;
psychological understanding of risen
Christ and 197 – 198; religiosity and
190 – 191; super-cooperative nature
of post-agricultural human societies
9, 11 – 12; talking about, change
of focus and 88; unknown driving
forces 11; volumes on 288 – 289; see
also history of evolution of religion;
pluralistic methods in studying
religion/religion evolution; specific
foundations
religiosity: defining 94; as double-wing
adjective 94 – 96, 95; evolution of
96, 96; fading out of 93 – 94; God
and 196; Jungian framework and
193; as natural 195 – 196; religion
evolution and 190 – 191; religion
and, replacement by 192 – 193; term
of 192 – 193; see also religiosity
evolution
religiosity evolution: five theses about
198 – 199; history of evolution
of religion and 96, 96; language
and 190 – 192; modern science-
theology dialogue and 195 – 196;
naturalism and 196 – 197; overview
190, 203; pluralistic theology and
Index  299
197 – 198; predictability in 201 – 202;
psychology and 197 – 198; reasons
for exploring 199; religion and
190 – 192; scientific method and,
limits of 196 – 197; supernaturalism
and 190 – 195; teleology and
200 – 202; traditional theology and
199; unconscious and 192 – 193;
untraditional approach and 199 – 200
religio-species 25 – 26
religious 94 – 96, 95
religious culture 37
religious density 47
religious experience 131 – 133; see also
near-death experiences; out-of-body
experiences
REM (rapid eye movement) 131 – 134
Rhetorica ad Herennium 155
Richerson, PJ 22, 79
risen Christ, psychological
understanding of 197 – 198
risk assessment in life 80
Ritchie, Sarah Lane 196
rituals 76 – 77, 79, 257 – 258
ritual sacrifice 232
Rizzuto, A-M 211
rock art of Southern Africa 243,
249 – 250, 264
Roman Catholic Church 89
Roman Empire and Christianity
evolution 271 – 276, 280 – 281
“running the blend” 175
Russell, Bertrand 222 – 223, 232 – 233
sacred purity 227 – 229
sacred, sense of 222, 229 – 232
sacrifice 167, 232
salvation: in Abrahamic religions
154, 159 – 162; in Buddhism 154,
162 – 166; childhood punishment
and 155 – 157; Christian 154 – 159;
in Hinduism 154, 162 – 166; in Islam
154, 159 – 162; in Jainism 154,
162 – 166; in Judaism 154, 159 – 162;
in karmic religions 154, 162 – 166;
myths 155, 159, 166 – 168; need for,
questioning 154; overview 154 – 155;
Paul and 156 – 159; religion and 154;
trauma-myth link and 155, 166 – 168
samsara 164, 167
Sanderson, K 43
San of Southern Africa: attachment to
place and 251; authenticity of 239;
300 Index
background information 239 – 240,
241, 244; belief systems of 243 – 245;
ethnographic fieldwork on 245 – 246;
globalization and 248; groups 241,
242, 244; religion of 239 – 240, 242,
250 – 251; rock art of 243, 249 – 250,
264; tourism and 248; trance dances
242, 247, 248; transformation of
belief systems of 246 – 249
schema 161
science-theology dialogue 195 – 196
scientific method 196 – 197, 287
scientific realism 177
Seitz, RJ 13
selective criterion 158
selective retention 158
self-awareness 147
“selfish gene” 71; see also Dawkins,
Richard
self-protective behaviors 55
self-psychology 210, 213
self-referential processing 58 – 59
self-regulation model 141
self-replicating automation (SRA) 28
Seneca 155, 273
Sense and Nonsense (Laland and
Brown) 9 – 10, 22
sex 265
sex and evolution of spirituality:
autonomic nervous system 55;
electroencephalogram study of
orgasm 57; epilepsy and orgasm
57 – 58; evolution and female
orgasm 62 – 63; gender identity and
orgasm 57; mating and 54 – 55;
neurophenomenology of sex 63 – 64;
neurophysiology 58 – 59; orgasm as
spiritual experience 64 – 66; overview
54; oxytocin 58 – 62; self-referential
processing 58 – 59; sexual arousal and
orgasm 56; sexual orientation and
orgasm 57
sexual arousal and orgasm 56
sexuality see sex and evolution of
spirituality
sexual orientation 57
Shakespeare, William 141
shamanism 263 – 264
significance 141 – 142
sin of Adam 156 – 158
slaves 275
sleep 57, 131 – 134
Slingerland, Edward 176 – 179, 186, 188
Slone, DJ 32
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell 91, 93 – 94
social learning 28 – 29
sociopathy 43 – 44
Solomon, A 249, 265, 266
Sosis, R 45
species, biological 25 – 26
Spencer, B 262
Sperber, Dan 12, 23, 159
spirituality 212 – 217
spirituality evolution and sex:
autonomic system and 55;
electroencephalogram study of
orgasm 57; epilepsy and orgasm
57 – 58; female orgasm 62 – 63; gender
identity and orgasm 57; mating and
54 – 55; neurophenomenology of
sex 63 – 64; neurophysiology 58 – 59;
orgasm as spiritual experience
64 – 66; overview 54; oxytocin 58 – 62;
self-referential processing 58 – 59;
sexual arousal and orgasm 56; sexual
orientation and orgasm 57
stages model 13
Stark, R 46
Stephen (deacon) 277
Stoicism 273
Stolorow, R 210, 215
structuralism 263
suffering 154, 163 – 166, 181, 186, 211
Summa Theologica (Aquinas) 175
super-cooperative nature of post-
agricultural human societies 9, 11 – 12
supernaturalism 190 – 195
Sushan, G 127, 134
symbols 12 – 13, 256 – 257
sympathetic magic 261
sympathetic [nervous] system 55
Tacitus 274
talismans 262
Tallis, R 3
Taoism 199
Taylor, Charles 177, 179
techno-social coevolution 28 – 29
tectonic blends: function of 187; God is
simple blend 183 – 184; God’s essence
is “to be” blend 184, 185, 186;
Jesus is the Messiah blend 180 – 183,
181; picture suggested by 187 – 188;
Slingerland’s conception of blending
theory versus 179 – 180
Teehan, J 109, 111
Teilhard de Chardin, P 202
teleology 200 – 202
Ten Commandments 77
Tertullian 279
 Index  301
theistic naturalism, strong 197 Valerius Maximus 272
theologians 4, 47, 130, 187 – 188, 287 van Elk, M 144
theological turn 196 Van Slyke, JA 32
theology: dialogue with science Varieties of Religious Experience, The
195 – 196; natural 191; negative 191; (James) 213
pluralistic 197 – 198; traditional 199 vasopressin 61
theory of mind (ToM) 109, 147 ventro-medial (vm)PFC 144
therianthropic figures 261, 264 – 265 Venus of Hohle Fels sculpture 260, 261
Tiberius 275 vertical integration of sciences 177
Tinbergen, N 45 Vespasian 275
Titus Flavius Clemens 278 Vibia Perpetus 279
Tomasello, Michael 10 – 11, 24 Virgil 274
Torah 215
Torrey, EF 8 Waardenburg, J 285
totemism 261 – 262 Wagner, Roger 12
traditional theology 199 Weber, Max 12
Trajan 278 What Science Offers the Humanities
trauma-myth link 166 – 168 (Slingerland) 176
traumatomorphism 167 – 168 Whitehouse, H 8, 32, 76
treadmill model 8 Wildman, Wesley 196
tribalism 80 Williams, G 38
Trivers, RL 39 – 40 Wilson, DS 43, 79, 88
troop-bonding 45 Wilson, EO 47
“true self” concept 141 Winnicott, DW 210, 211 – 212
truth: absolute 39 – 41, 45 – 47; wisdom literature 156
conditional, status of 47; relative Wittgenstein, L 193, 226
40 – 41, 47 Wunn, I 9, 25 – 26, 31
Tshwa trance dance 247, 248
Turner, JH 9, 23, 32, 240 X chromosome 42
Turner, Mark 24, 174, 177
Y chromosome 42
ultrasociality see eusociality
unconscious 192 – 193 Zaleski, C 127, 134
Urbach-Wiethe disease 225 – 226 Zeki, S 61