Evolution of Religion

Our smart brains are a gift of nature, but a curse, at the same time. Millions of years evolved the nerve system into complex, huge amount of data processed and stored bionic computers, and beyond. At one point, smarter meant more likely to survive, and this impulsed the need of complexity, in order to think more critically and evaluate your own actions and the environment. This worked perfectly, and enabled us security, resiliency, adaptability to every condition, adaptability to change, transform and rule the environment. However, complex brains did not bring us happiness. The more knowledge you will have, more sad you will be. Now we know more, much more than the other animals. But this automatically brings us more responsibilities, disappointments and melancholia, in short, a harder and more complex life to live and to think about. Many primitive animals have a simple life, they eat, sleep, reproduce and die. More complex animals have somehow concerns, always being aware not to be eaten, developing strategies to hunt, or being attractive to find a mate. This causes stress and somehow damages the brain and the body, eventually. Homo sapiens have amazingly much more concerns about the life. We have too much complex brains and psychology. Without support, each of us literally would go mad in a very short time, having mental illnesses, and commit suicide at the end, if not, having a heart attack because of over stress. Even though some of us are experiencing these scenarios inevitably.

So what kind of support helps us to cool down our brains, all the time? The list is pretty long; Having sex, collecting stamps, chatting with family members, with friends, visiting new places, consuming alcohol, smoking weed... In short, anything gives us happiness and psychological support no matter what. But there is one more thing that surpass all in most ways; having a faith.

Karl Marx once said; "Religion is the opium of masses.'' This statement is in fact literally true and demonstrates the evolutionary importance of religion for human beings. Despite of all the side effects and harms, we do use drugs, because it makes us feel good. So does religion. Religion provides psychological security and undisputed, unchangeable, certain knowledge about everything we need to know. For centuries, according to many people, it was good to know that there were god(s), or spirits, who are more powerful and more knowing than us, and in many cases, they were ready to protect us, provide a better life, with less pain and danger, even in some cases, promising an eternal life with infinite happiness and joy. This made us happy, and enabled a psychological and mental support. This support is actually very important for our health. Homo sapiens evolved to be religious, because of the evolutionary advantages of having a faith.

In ancient times the basic knowledge about the environment and about how things work was limited. We observed the good and bad things in our lives. For example, many people understood sun was good. When there was  no sun, it was night. Night was dark and cold. And many predator animals, our enemies were active during the night, they were disappearing every time the sun was rose again. Many thought sun was protecting all of us from danger, therefore, it was a living being, a spirit, and it was good. Some of us thought we should be grateful against it, not to be rude, so that it won't stop protecting us. We can say that the superstitions drove the first religions. When we go hunting, sometimes we were successful, sometimes not. Many people thought we should pray to the spirits, the unseen driven power of nature, so that would please them and we could be successful most of the time. Sometimes, simple prays did not work, so instead of giving up, people thought spirits - god(s) needed more, like sacrifices.

When we were alone, it was hard for us to maintain psychological support, because we needed to talk someone. We always wished someone or something understands our feelings the best, apart from ourselves, and supports us at all time. Because even with words, it is impossible to express the actual feelings no matter what. Religion provided unlimited protection and care, blessings and invisible friends. It gave us eternal fathers and mothers, who continued living with us, even after our actual father and mother passed away.

Soon after, the human leaders, chiefs of tribes, kings, emperors perceived another importance of religion and how to rule their people better by using it. Many leader became divine, living gods,  who is responsible of good things, should be worshiped and being obeyed; or became a power who represents the invisible god(s), having divine rights to rule, should be obeyed at all time. This immense power enabled leaders and dynasties to create large empires. When ruler captured new lands, they wanted the new people living on those lands should also being submitted to their order, so the concept of being converted gained importance.Before the american and french revolutions and rise of the idea of nationalism, religion was the primary factor to stick the peoples together as nations.

By time the human life became more complicated, so did the religion. With agricultural revolution, people became settled, so the temples were built. With the invention of writing, religions became in written forms. Writing enabled humanity communicate each other better and faster, and spread the ideas. This also enabled spreading the religions and conversions, as well as enabled plagiarism, and mixing the religions, in many cases. When Alexander the Great conquered most of the near east, the ancient greek religion mixed up with many local religions in ancient egypt, mesopotamia and persia, and those with each other. Greek language became lingua franca in those regions, so that many scolars could understand each other and could share the knowledge and culture, as well as the religion. 

Religions did affected and plagiarized each other mostly, in same regions when they presented closely. However, geographical barriers caused religions evolve different to one another. The content and structure of religions born in the Middle East and Europe are way quite different than the ones of India and all those to the ones originated in China. For example, the Abrahamic religions and the Dharmic religions are disputed about what happens after the death. The common belief in Islam and Christianity of the Abrahamic religions, as well as in Zoroastrianism which all were originated in closer areas, the soul leaves the body and enters the afterlife, where being judged by an authority based on the deeds he or she was committed on earth, and eventually, being sent to heaven for rewarding or to hell for punishment where stays eternally and never goes back to the earth. On the other hand, in Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism of Dharmic religions, of India, the soul never goes to somewhere else but stay on the earth, and enters within a different newborn human, or another life form, based on his or her actions in previous life, the reincarnation, which lasts forever. Another difference is deciding how to please the god(s). In western polytheistic religions and judaism, animal sacrifice is an important ritual, however, in many eastern religions, not to harm any creature and protecting the life is considered the right way to do so. One problem with the Religion itself is despite of the claim that the rules and statements are directly come from a divine authority, and because that authority is invisible and unable to contact directly with its followers, the comments and meanings of statements differs from person to person, and this causes separation of the actual religion into countless of different sects, in  most cases.

Today, we have much knowledge than that in the past. We have much more confidence and less need being cared of a superior being, than anytime in the human history. We have much more freedom of speech and expression of our ideas. In fact, there were always lots of people who had lack of faith, but could not speak up because of the pressure of the others. Atheism and Agnosticism are gaining popularity among the people, but religion is still ruling over the mankind, deciding our actions and the way we live. The concept of religion continued being shaped by the technology and progress humanity gained. Ancient Greeks believed gods were living on the top of Mount Olympus. Jews in prehistoric times believed Yahweh was somewhere on the top of the clouds, where he sent rain to flood the earth during the big flood. Now, the religious people do believe the God is present beyond time and space, as we reached top of the mountains, clouds and started discovering the space. As the religion continues to exist, God(s) will always be somewhere beyond our reach, where we cannot see them and interact with them.