The Origins Of Religion: How Did It Appear And Why?
Throughout history, faith and religion have been an important part of society, worrying about offering an explanation for the unknown. Today Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are the five major religions, although there are many other religious professions.
And many more have appeared and disappeared over time. But the different religions have not emerged from nowhere, but at some point in history human beings began to have and structure this type of beliefs. In this article we are going to try to make a brief reflection regarding the possible origins of religious faith.
We understand by religion everything organized and structured set of beliefs, generally mystical and spiritual in nature that allow human beings to seek and develop an explanation of the world and reality and that is expressed in rituals.
Religion offers an explanation of the world and a framework for interpreting reality based on faith, often using numerous symbolisms to try to make its precepts understandable. They generally include, in addition, a series of rules or precepts that govern behavior and facilitate the creation and maintenance of a community.
They tend to be linked to or make use of supernatural elements and facts that cannot be explained from the empirical knowledge of the moment. It is also common for them to try to explain complex phenomena, such as the reason for our existence and our appearance in the world, and one of the themes common to almost all of them is the concern about what happens at the moment and after we die. Faith usually stands on its own being resistant to modifications and falsification.
Some religions also have the notion of the existence of deities, whether one (monotheistic religion) or multiple (polytheistic religion), although not all religions consider the existence of a superior being capable of ruling us or with the capacity to influence our fate or destination.
Religion throughout evolution
It is difficult to determine at what point in human evolution religious beliefs began to emerge, and at the moment it is not possible to determine when the first organized religions emerged given that the origin dates back to prehistory (there being no written records in this regard).
What we can determine is that there are strong indications that make it evident that religion predates even Homo Sapiens, with the first religious beliefs prior to the expansion of our species.
Specifically we know that Our relatives, the Neanderthals, already carried out ritual burials, something that reveals the existence of a sense of death and a concern about what happens after it. Likewise, in the remains of settlements of some tribes or clans, some type of cult of some animals, such as bears, seems to be observed.
Evolution of the psyche
Another aspect to highlight is the consideration of What enables the emergence of religious thought. In this sense, it is necessary to have a series of basic mental capacities: the capacity for abstraction is necessary, the existence of a theory of mind (which allows the subject to realize that others have their own perspective and objectives and wills separate from their own). ), the detection of causal agents and the ability to make complex associations.
It is considered that faith may have emerged either as an advantageous adaptation that has remained by natural selection (since it allows group creation and cohesion, facilitating survival and reproduction) or as a by-product of the appearance of cognitive abilities such as the previous ones. .
The first type of religious beliefs
Another aspect to consider is the fact that religions often include different types of beliefs, with some types of beliefs surely emerging before others.
In this sense different hunter-gatherer societies have been analyzed and the different types of beliefs they have, an example of this being the one carried out in 2016 by Peoples, Duda and Marlowe in which animism, belief in gods, belief in the afterlife, worship of ancestors and shamanism were valued.
The results of the study show that animism, the belief in the existence of a vital force or soul in all animals, plants or even geological accidents and natural phenomena, possessing a will of their own, It is the most widespread and oldest type of religious belief. This type of belief serves as the basis for the subsequent development of belief in the supernatural or mystical.
Right after it is the belief in the afterlife or life after death, which is considered one of the most common and ancient aspects of religions. For this, the concept of a soul or something that exists beyond death is necessary, precisely because animism must have existed previously.
After this, the idea of someone who is an expert can be developed who generates norms that allow access or contact with the afterlife. From there the shaman would emerge, and later the clerical institution. This would become an expert in the communication and management of religious events. Belief in ancestor worship may also arise.
Finally, belief in gods is something that can derive from the belief in higher entities that can look at us and affect our lives, but that seems to arise from a reflection of the way a society or tribe is organized.
