A genetic tendency to religion, adaptive?
by "Amergain", Evangelical Atheist, of County Donegal, Ireland
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The hypothesis that theism and/or religion were a Darwinian survival trait or survival advantage has much merit. I am an Atheist. But I know that worldwide I am only 20%-30% of the World's population and only 5%-10% in America. That must mean something. In centuries past, such as the Middle Ages, Atheism was extremely rare as far as we know. Religion pervaded society.
. . I have postulated before, that religion is brain based. It occurs mainly in those humans whose brains are hard wired to process religious concepts unquestioningly. Atheists by contrast have circuits that reject religious concepts and magical thinking. We are incapable of believing in gods or invisible pink unicorns because of our brain structure as well as early programming perhaps. We now know that our brain structure is 95% determined by genetic codes in the Human Genome, while about 5% may be experience or programming altered synaptic connections. Therefore, a nucleotide code ultimately determines whether you or I will be likely believers or resistant sceptics.
. . As in all biological models there are the 'in betweens' who have part of the gene complex but an incomplete expression of it. These are people who are somewhat sceptical and if they think hard enough they reject religion, but it family and peer pressure pushes on them they may bend toward religion. The scepticism is not efficient enough to reject the whole mindset.
. . Why would 70%- 80% of all humans have such a gene? As a Neo-Darwinian molecular geneticist and neuroscientist, the answer seems obvious. The "religion gene" must have given the ancestors of modern humans a survival advantage. Early humans who possessed the genes survived while most of those who didn't possess it perished or failed to pass on a "sceptical gene". What advantages did the religious prone gene confer?
. . First we must look at religion and religious behaviour. Religion today provides a worldview, but it is also a restrictive and exclusive worldview. It sets those with the same view apart from others. This gives the group an identity, and makes others who differ, unwelcome if not dangerous. We have seen that religion is associated with suspicion of others, and quite often homicidal violence against "wrong believers". Each group creates its gods. The group members fear and hate those who reject their gods and vice versa. Religion is associated with hyper sexuality (or perverted to hyper homosexuality) that usually results in higher birth rates.
. . OK, so we have some early humans who have their own protective gods. They are militant and aggressive toward unbeliever tribes. They have strong group identity. The identity is as much kinship as religious. Even tribe members who are kin are banished or killed for heresy and unbelief. Religion is almost always a mind control system as well. That imposes discipline. Underlings follow orders from the shaman or the god appointed chieftain.
. . So, a religious tribe has identity, discipline, aggressiveness, prolific reproduction, paranoid fear and hatred toward those who are different in belief, a tendency to violence, and may be easily propelled toward attacking an unbeliever tribe by a shaman or a chieftain who also covets the extra land and female slaves taken in a war.
. . Suppose the tribe nearby is unreligious or weakly religious. Those people would be like modern atheists. They would be argumentative, resistant to orders (i.e. undisciplined), uninterested in risking their lives for hypothetical gods. They sadly would be under-prolific with fewer children and eventually fewer warriors.
. . So in a war between the two tribes, who would triumph? Obviously the disciplined, more aggressive, mutually supportive, paranoid, violence prone, warriors who believe the gods protect them would win. The result would be that the genes of the religious tribe would be passed down. The sceptical tribe's sceptic gene would be exterminated or nearly so.
. . The gene that programs for religious belief essentially programs a set of behaviors, not just belief in gods. The gene's effect in programming the limbic lobe of the brain produced all of the behaviors that we see today in religion: intolerance, hate, discipline, submission to leaders, willingness to risk life and limb for tribe's god (promising Heaven or Valhalla), gullibility (which makes them pawns of their chief and shaman), and hyper sexuality.
. . In patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Marcel Mesulam has noted traits of hyper-sexuality, violence, seeing or hearing god or gods, and hyper religiosity. The behaviours are very closely linked anatomically in the limbic (temporal) circuits, perhaps the same circuits. Observations of religious charismatic experiences have shown autonomic phenomena similar to sexual orgasm, (pelvic thrusting movements, penile erections in males, submissive sexual postures and flushing in women Pentecostal ecstatic states.) I have seen nearly identical behaviours in non-Christian African tribal fertility rituals. I suspect American Pentecostals resulted because of cultural diffusion from Black African slaves in the American South.
. . Therefore, humans with the religion gene passed it on along with its constellation of behaviours. It was a survival advantage because it facilitated the development of disciplined groups of aggressive, violent, paranoid, relatively fearless of death, gullible followers of leaders, which was a successful formula.
. . Those with the more recessive skeptical genetic codes have only prospered in modern times with Enlightenment influenced constitutions. Yet, even then they remain a minority in all but a handful of West European and East Asian countries. And perhaps the smaller minority of sceptical gene carriers have been allowed to survive in very religious countries like the USA is because they are useful to the society in providing nearly all of their scientists, physicians, psychologists, and inventers. In those professions the sceptical gene provides an adaptive advantage that religious gene carriers lack.
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Biography: Scottish physician, neurologist, and research neuroscientist. Atheist, interest in Celtic Mythology, History, Palaeontology, Religion.
. . Interests: Palaeontology, poetry, evolution discussion and explanation.
. . Occupation: Clinical Neurologist/Physician part-time neurogenetics research.
. . Yahoo Instant Messaging: Amhairghine7
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