The God Instinct : Elements of an evolutionary theory of religion

Abstract

The thesis ‚the God Instinct' attempts to offer insights into an understanding of the psychological domains underlying religious behaviour and to attribute an evolutionary status to these domains and to inquire into their contribution to evolutionary fitness, or rather into their development of selection. These questions are pursued with the aid of the heuristics of evolutionary psychology. The study aims to discover those data processing mechanisms (here also understood as "instincts" or "Darwinian algorithms") on which religious behaviour is based. To achieve this, the study must (1.) prove the universality of a behavioral pattern, (2.) reconstruct the problems for which religious behavior would offer and still offers solution mechanisms, and (3.) place religiosity into an evolutionary category.
     The results of this study shows that every religion is constituted by the interaction of four evolved domains, namely: mysticism, ethics, myths and rituals. Even if the individual content, accents, and implementations differ in each specific religion, they nevertheless derive from evolved Darwinian algorithms that are species-specific adaptations of homo sapiens.
     Mysticism. Intuitive ontologies are the basis for mystical experiences. Usually they serve to classify reality into animate and inanimate objects, animals or plants, for example. For a variety of psychological reasons, a mixture of different ontological categories are categorisied as supernatural experiences.
     Ethics. The basis for ethics lies in the concept of social exchange ("social-contract algorithm") with its ideas about reciprocity, fairness, justice, cheater detection, in-group/out-group differentiation, etc.
     Myths. The basis for myths is the "language instinct". Myths are interpreted as the verbal expression of the cognitive content of individual modules that constitute the belief system.
     Rituals. Rituals are based on the handicap principle. By making certain symbols and acts more expensive, they signal commitment for a reliable in-group morale.
      The study concludes that the mystics based on intuitive ontologies can be attributed to the evolutionary status of an exaptation, whereas the other three domains can be understood as differentations of adaptations that still exist. On the whole, religiosity is based on psychological domains that have each passed through their own selection history and that can be summarized in the concept of the "God-Instinct".