How did people become believers? VEDANTAM: Now, of course, this view of religion - comparing ancient hunter-gatherer tribes with modern societies or measuring which gods produce what behavior - this kind of thinking can seem completely upside down to you if you're a person of faith. In the time of Genesis, religion was an integral part of life, but it was nothing like the religious world we know today.
And we got a hold of some captured Islamic State fighters. And so a couple of studies have used that as the cue. And so it's something that does precede religion. If you're a believer, this is not the way you think about religion.
VEDANTAM: But of course, religions can also be the source of conflict and war. He's saying that natural selection doesn't really care about being socially desirable. You are showing in a costly way indications that you're a believer. Our in-house design team have created loads of great resources for everyone to enjoy. When it comes to trust, you know, it - you and I don't have to belong to the same religion anymore. VEDANTAM: In another study, researcher Eric Durham gave money to shopkeepers in Morocco and told him they could either keep the money for themselves or donate it to charity. SHARIFF: Now you have trustable cues, credibility-enhancing displays of people's genuine religiosity which indicates that you actually can trust them. SHARIFF: So if you look both at the archaeological record, as well as modern hunter-gatherer tribes - so modern tribes that still live in ways that were similar to how we lived prior to 12,000 years when there was the agricultural revolution, we started settling in large groups - those types of small societies where you don't have those anonymous stranger challenges tend not to have these large, punitive gods. To begin with, the creation account tells us who we are, but you’re unlikely to notice it without an appreciation of the ancient context. And I would argue that this, again, is - I think it's no accident why the most successful religions have been - and I mean successful in terms of just sheer numbers. It simply is Allahu akbar; Allahu akbar; Allahu akbar. Now, of course, most religious people who make such sacrifices don't see what they're doing as costly signaling. So, yes, religion does contribute to our warlike nature, but it does so in a very adaptive - culturally adaptive way.
He argues that we should consider religion from a Darwinian perspective, as an innovation that helped human societies to thrive and flourish. And so you tend to see that those large gods, the punitive gods, only emerge when it's necessary to have that cooperation spread.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. VEDANTAM: Azim's point is not that religion always has positive effects on people. It's something that we see shared with our closest cousins, the chimpanzees. VEDANTAM: Critics of religion sometimes point to such fanatical behavior and say, look; this is evidence that there's something wrong with religious faith. VEDANTAM: And wearing a veil or headscarf in Islam. UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #3: (Singing) God is love. UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: To the flag of the United States of America. God is great. SHARIFF: Yeah. And each year, they observe a holiday called Paryushan.
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