The problem with religions: There is an evolutionary origin of spirituality but only social for religions

In order to understand the real underlying problem with religions, we need to start with the reason they exist.

This reason is evolutionary.

It all starts with the innate need of people to understand the world and be able to explain it.

This need is driven by the fact, that humankind does not have any other competitive advantage over other species in the never-ending competition for resources. We humans do not have horns, big-enough fangs, sharp strong claws, or thick skin to withstand potentially deadly attacks.

Our evolutionary ‘weapon’ is the intellect – the ability to understand reality, to connect in our minds past, present, and future, to establish cause and effect, to make inter-relations between phenomena, to create fictional images in our minds, and to use those images to predict outcomes and to potentially plan for them.  Basically – to use understanding to our advantage.

This differentiates us from almost all other species, which depend for their survival on either instinct (automatic impulses for action), feelings (serving as an indicator of what’s good and what’s bad for survival ‘here and now’) and in rare occasions – cause-and-effect relations between simple things (making connections between different phenomenon and their consequences).

This predisposes people to always be looking for answers.

This leads us to the main topic – the difference between religion and spirituality:

◦ Spirituality is about questions (mentioned above search for answers) – such as “What is consciousness?’’, or “What is the meaning of life?’’, “Who am I?’’, or “What is good and what is bad?’’ or “What is free will?’’. It leads people on a quest for those and many other existential answers.

◦ Religion on the other hand is about answers – it is when somebody comes and says “This is the answer, you must believe that, and if you don’t, you will burn in hell, or we will burn you’’. Historically, It was always about one or a few people imposing their answers on the group, via persuasion, manipulation, aggression, and/or persecution.

And for a long time, this worked. Simply because there were no better answers.

But the problem is, that these – the religious answers, were provided by uneducated people. Or to be precise – they weren’t so uneducated for their time. It’s just that back then science was not so developed and was not able to provide all the needed answers...yet.

And here comes the problem. Nowadays, the reality is different. Now science does exist, does explain most of it, and what does not yet, has a huge, well-demonstrated potential to do so.

So basically that means that science is the better source of answers for spirituality.

This means that religions are becoming more and more useless.

To be fair, there are a lot of good things religions had brought to the world...

In unenlightened times religion served as a major source of knowledge, corrective and moral compass. Helped regulate societies, interpersonal and inter-group relations (for better or worse), and have been a strong promoter of art.

But if we think about that, nowadays, we have separate fields for each of those phenomena, which basically shows how little religions actually have to offer once a society develops after a certain point.

The only argument to be made ‘FOR’ religions seems to be the emotional one – they provide comfort.

But we need to be very careful using emotional arguments in a rational discussion…

Let’s not forget how we started our thesis – evolution gave us intellect so that we are able to survive as a species, and that intellect came to help us deal with challenges regarding the past, the future, and the inter-relations between phenomena as opposed to emotions which serve us only to deal with immediate challenges ‘here and now’, as most of the other species do. So betting on emotions, to deal with rational challenges, such as searching for answers, is quite maladaptive.

This leaves us only the negative functions of religions:

Nowadays religions have two very detrimental effects on people’s lives:

1.     Religions are preventing people to get deeper into science since they provide seemingly satisfying answers in a much easier and emotionally accessible way, that does not present an intellectual challenge to people and ergo Is better accepted by the masses.

2.     Religions support tribalism and divide societies (sometimes intentionally, sometimes as an indirect result) based on their religious beliefs since we all know that the single easiest way to get into an argument with someone is when you ‘’attack’’ their beliefs. This in turn prevents all the possible human collaborations that could’ve been possible without such division. Not to mention all the political agendas religions serve and all the wars and military conflicts, justified by religious arguments and reasoning.

The second effect mentioned above is the same reason, why many will hate what’s written in this post. Since it is attacking directly their beliefs.

And that could be very problematic!

After all our entire identity is built upon our beliefs and ‘God forbid’ something is treating our identity – we will fight it with teeth and claws and we will persuade, manipulate, show aggression, and will persecute, just so that we are able to keep our identity intact...