Belief Is a Feature of Religion But Not Its Purpose or Function
Belief is a fundamental cognitive trait that transcends religion.
In my previous article, Winnowing a Cognitive Science of Religion, I listed three postulates or assumptions necessary to establish the origins, and hence purpose, of religion. Part of that effort was to eliminate aspects that, while certainly religious, were not relevant to why religion first arose. Because institutional, hierachical religions and their written doctrines didn’t arrive until, at best, six thousand years ago following the advent of agriculture, they were omitted from the inquest. Rudimentary religion developed much earlier in hunter-gatherers, which is where we have to think about the conditions in which religion evolved.
Religion is often defined as beliefs in the existence of entities or forces with powers that can impact human lives. Beliefs in supernatural agents (gods) is clearly important to religion and prevalent in most of them. However, using belief to define religion, especially its origins, is problematic and incurs two drawbacks, which undermine its significance to the purpose of religion.
First, humans have beliefs about everything, not just religion. People have social beliefs, political beliefs, even scientific beliefs. Certainly scientists…
