# Is a God belief an adaptive advantage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 15, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468 "2005-04-15T13:06:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/1 "2005-04-15T13:06:22Z")
Inspired by a bit on NPR about faith and health I ask: Whether or not there is/are a God/gods/etc., is a belief in God or gods adaptive? … Let’s be more precise- Is the capacity and the tendency to believe an evolutionary advantage to the genes that result in such a capacity? (That is, will those who have such faith be more likely to pass survive and help their progeny survive, passing on such a capacity?) Is the belief itself an advantage to a society that holds it? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/2 "2005-04-15T13:37:49Z")
First of all, the ability to believe _in general_ (not in gods in particular) is an important element in how the brain works in the first place: We hold _beliefs_ that there is a predator in the vicinity, that that ground is hazardous, that the rainy season is imminent, and the like. Indeed, _animal_ brains can be said to hold similar “beliefs” if one views them as a kind of cognitive “output”. Areas of mammal brains such as the parahippocampal gyrus are associated with a “significance judgement output” necessary to form these beliefs. And so what about _divine_ belief? This, clearly, is a ‘higher level’ _abtract_ cognitive entity that, presumably, only humans attain. It appears that religious experience might be explained by a kind of [hyperactivity](http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=132) in the areas of the brain which judge significance. (Ramachandran is keen to point out that this does not prove that such hyperactivity isn’t _caused_ by God, incidentally.) To answer your OP, might there be something evolutionarily advantageous about such experiences of overwhelming significance caused by that hyperactivity? After all, we don’t occasionally have episodes in which everything seems _more colourful_ or _deafeningly loud_, say. Perhaps so. Evidence suggests that early tribes of humans often had one or more members who were responsible for the “spiritual” welfare of the tribe: the ones who could convince the others that they _really were_ in contact with unseen forces which could bring about some positive consequence or avert a negative one. These duties often gave the shamen or cave painter or whatever a bye in terms of other, more dangerous work such as hunting, and ensured that he and his family received a portion from the others who would be nervous of allowing the shamen to die and sever their links with the gods/ancestors etc. In short, maybe these epiphanic experiences made one less likely to starve or die hunting. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/3 "2005-04-15T13:45:07Z")
Well, IMHO, any characteristic or behavior that exacts such a high energy expenditure and is seen in the majority of the population must have been at some point: a) adaptive in and of itself, or b) a necessary consequence of a trait that is adaptive. But: - It may be that only one aspect or consequence of a belief in God is adaptive, while the other consequences could be neutral or even maladaptive. I can think of a few dozen possible adaptive consequences of a belief in a god off-hand. And about an equal number of maladaptive consequences. - It may be that religious belief was once adaptive and currently is not. - It may be that belief in God is just a side effect of a our big brains. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/4 "2005-04-15T14:00:23Z")
Incidentally, I should make it clear that this glitch in the parahippocampal gyrus is not _only_ experienced by temporal lobe epileptics. We **all** have little ones now and again. They’re called [deja vu](http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/6). ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/5 "2005-04-15T14:35:54Z")
Just in my personal opinion, the concept of gods did not come unto the playing feld until evolution was pretty much reached it’s current state. (Note that I said **pretty much** , not finished, for it is not understood to have an end point.) My opinion is that after mankind became sentinent, god’s were propossed as a kind of “Just-So Story” Or as Robert Green Ingersoll put it: > [@](#): > > Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or though gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. He endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezing and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, salified him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power – that they were not all alike malevolent – that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice. These ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/6 "2005-04-15T14:47:59Z")
I think there’s a social adaptive advantage to a society with a structured belief system. It saves time and effort and angst from having to make moral and ethical decisions yourself if they are already made for you. This could be an advantage over a society with no such mental labor saving device. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/7 "2005-04-15T15:58:34Z")
Since for large parts of history you would be killed for not believing in the current god-myth, I’d say yes. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/8 "2005-04-15T16:20:44Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Since for large parts of history you would be killed for not believing in the current god-myth, I’d say yes. Strongly disagree. In these circumstances, if you have the tendency/predisposition to have strong beliefs, you have a chance of having those beliefs in something that’s NOT toeing the party line. On the other hand, if you have no tendency to “believe”, then you’re perfectly capable of lying to the people who DO have that tendency in order to keep your head attached to the rest of you. So historical circumstances could just as easily selected for good liars with no principles. =P ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/9 "2005-04-15T16:55:12Z")
[QUOTESo historical circumstances could just as easily selected for good liars with no principles. =P[/QUOTE] Well, that explains Congress. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/10 "2005-04-15T18:23:16Z")
**SM** , are beliefs such as “there is a predator nearby” really comparable to faith in a god-concept? I would posit that there are distinct differences beyond the level of abstraction required. Most conscious beliefs, especially abstract ones, are held on probation, held until such a point that experience tells us that it not so, and we are open to such evidence. Religious faith is exemplified by faith held in spite of evidence to the contrary. A Jobian type faith. **UglyBeech** makes a good point- the fact that virtually every society has at least had a god-concept at some point, and that most still do, the fact that most individuals profess some god belief, argues that such is adaptive at some level. The other argument would be, BTW, that such endemic belief argues that there is some kind of God that all are experiencing on some level and trying to interpret, just like the ability of all cultures to experience the color red provides evidence that red is a real entity. To answer that argument- even if so, we detect red because we have evolved perceptual processes to experience it, because it is adaptive to do so. If God exists, then it still follows that our ability to experience God would only occur if it was evolutionarily advantageous to do so. And a false belief can still be advantagous (if God does not exist.) My own take is similar to most here. Early Man was a social creature and our brains’ growth were driven to no small extent by the needs of these complex social interactions. As individuals and from the POV of our genes we were well served by being part of a cohesive social group that included our kinships. Having a shared belief system to provide the basis of rules and predictable behaviors allowed us to function cohesively with the social group. Not being open to such a belief would not prohibit us from learning the rules and the consequences of violations, but it did save the mental resources from more explicit conscious calculations of cost-benefit. From the POV of the group, which was generally made up of extended kinships, having a religious system allowed for a group identity and more self-sacrifice from the individual members for the good of the societal organism. An extended kinship/tribe with a god belief would be expected to function more smoothly than one that had no basis for rules other than possible immediate consequences. The group would grow, the kinship would grow, and another group that did not have the concpt already would either take it on or whither away in failure to compete. Of course such a belief system also played into the human drive to understand how things worked and how to thereby influence future outcomes, which was independently serving us quite well. Those “Just-So” stories were just as much an effort to understand, predict, and influence the world as String Theory is today. They fit the available data and the available cognitive models. But since they were intertwined with the beliefs that provided the basis for the rules and for societal cohesion/group membership they more resistent to change then other sorts of beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/11 "2005-04-15T18:32:01Z")
I don’t think I could provide a more concise, yet comprehensive, statement on the subject than **Sentient Meat** has already done. I’ll simply add that we have a talent and predilection for pattern recognition that may far outstrip even our nearest primate cousins. For obvious reasons, this gives us an enourmous advantage in a vast array of situations where rapid apprehension, processing, and effective response to stimuli are important. Part of what makes our ability to recognize patters so wonderful is the ability to make well-formulated _predictive judgements_ and other sorts of inferences based upon relatively limited data, utilizing our ability to draw connections from within our pool of previously aquired data, and apply those connections judiciously to present circumstances, to effectively choose the next action. This talent isn’t flawless however. Of course, we sometimes miss meaningful associations and patterns that are there; we also see meaningful associations and patterns that simply _aren’t_ there. Whether it be faces in ripples on a lake, castles in clouds, animorphic shapes carved into rock formations by erosion, and so on, we clearly infer signal, at times, from complete noise. It’s been hypothesized that we often connect otherwise completely unrelated events (e.g. I killed my neighbor, and now drought has killed my crops; so I am being punished for wrongdoing) and assign to them some grander meaning than randomness, because we’re simply evolved to do so. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/12 "2005-04-15T23:43:36Z")
**DSeid** , I like your point very much re: the contradiction between “faith” and clearly adaptive belief systems which allow for revision based on experience. And it’s illuminating. Let me digress a bit in explaining why: At first I was a bit frustrated by your question because - as I pointed out before - I think it’s too easy to come up with a multitude reasons (both facile ones and thoughtful ones like yours) why religious belief might be adaptive. Unfortunately you can just as easily come up with counterexamples of maladaptive characteristics of religion. Let me quote the master on the dangers of engaging in evolutionary explanations of behavior: [“by a similar application of logic, it seems to me, we might just as plausibly conclude that the reason our hair is brown (most people, anyway) is that it enabled our monkey ancestors to hide amongst the coconuts.”](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_317b.html) The other frustrating aspect of your question is that religion is that religion is \*vast \* and varied - it encompasses social, behavioral and psychological facets which impact how we interpret our environment, how we predict the future, how we prioritize our behavior, how we relate to our neighbors, how we regulate our mood, how we encourage social behavior, how we prevent antisocial behavior, how we cope with death and loss. ad infinitum. I thought that all you’re left with is the realization that religion does exist - nearly universally - and therefore the math must somehow work out that religion is adaptive on balance. Which is more or less what I said. But back to your point about faith. Hmmm. Wouldn’t it have been perfectly possible for “evolution” to have selected for religion without faith? Do the positive aspects of religion require the negative facets of religion? If those negative facets are nearly universal as well - well then they too must be somehow adaptive. So faith (which for me appears to be at first glance just a maladaptive side effect of religion) must itself be adaptive. OR a necessary consequence of religious belief as a whole. (That is if faith is in fact highly prevalent). So maybe the most illuminating thing you can do is leave off asking if religion is adaptive (it’s too easy a question) and start picking out those characteristics of religion which should from all appearances be \*maladaptive \* and asking 1) is this a prevalent aspect of religion and 2) must this then be in and of itself adaptive? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/13 "2005-04-16T00:48:41Z")
I think a belief in god or gods helped people cope with the sorry state their lives were for a large portion of human history; that it helped them bear the misery of their political state, the brutal lives they endured, the power structure they were subject to and helpless to change. It gave them a sense of justice where none was found around them. I don’t know whether it is a biological advantage, spirit molecule notwithstanding, but I believe it is certainly an adaptive social trait. What it has become since then is a different story, but I feel that’s why it came about. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/14 "2005-04-16T00:55:30Z")
With my last post I thought better of adding an additional thought, fearing a hijack, but I think I’ll reverse that choice: To what extent is this complex of traits we call spirituality adaptive, or an incidental consequence of adaptations shaped by, and hence more obviously related to, very material forces that threatened human survival? IOW, is this a chicken-and-egg issue? Were humans subject to selective pressures that would lead more-or-less directly to spiritual belief, or is it more of an “accident”, if you see my meaning. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/15 "2005-04-16T01:11:33Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > It may be that belief in God is just a side effect of a our big brains. This seems to make the most sense. Our brains are adapted to look for cause and effect. Where no cause is discernable, we fill in the blanks. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/16 "2005-04-16T09:25:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > SM, are beliefs such as “there is a predator nearby” really comparable to faith in a god-concept? I would posit that there are distinct differences beyond the level of abstraction required. Most conscious beliefs, especially abstract ones, are held on probation, held until such a point that experience tells us that it not so, and we are open to such evidence. Religious faith is exemplified by faith held in spite of evidence to the contrary. A Jobian type faith. Hmm, I’d say that that _is_ a very subtle difference, perhaps capable only of being made by a cognitive apparatus which had already been immersed in an advanced language and society from birth. When we speak of evolutionary advantages, we are talking about a process lasting tens or hundreds of _millennia_, not just something which might have been helpful in the Bronze Age. I think we might be talking at rather cross purposes: me of cognitive science and neuropsychology of an animal, and you rather more of [memetics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics). I’m happy to accept that a coalitional psychology of “them and us” will almost inevitably arise on _some_ kind of basis, however arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/17 "2005-04-16T12:06:06Z")
Actually **SM** cognitive neuroscience is my thing. Undergrad degrees in both psych and bio and still working on an article about the neural dynamics of autistic behaviors. I don’t especially like the whole meme thing as I believe the analogy to genes is way too contrived. But the social milieu was and is a highly significant part of the environment to which the human brain was evolving for and it changed as the brains changed and as social constructs changed. Something can be a gene effect by having its effect on the extended kinship rather than the individual and his/her direct children. And ideas can cause a cultural evolution faster than genes can. I do believe that my two inital questions are interrelated but different. To refresh: > [@](#): > > Is the capacity and the tendency to believe an evolutionary advantage to the genes that result in such a capacity? (That is, will those who have such faith be more likely to pass survive and help their progeny survive, passing on such a capacity?) > > Is the belief itself an advantage to a society that holds it? Part of the intent of my question was generate discussion at both levels and how they be at the same or at cross-purposes. ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/18 "2005-04-16T12:09:52Z")
Can I propose another way to look at the situation: AFAIK, there is no evolutionary advantage to being susceptible to viral infection, yet a very large percentage of the population is. The reason, of course, is that the virii have evolved to best take advantage of our weaknesses. The same could be said of religion. Over time, various religions have competed for a limited resource. The less successful ones have died out, and the ones that were able to adapt best to exploit our social interactions and cognitive processes have survived and flourished. Whether it is mutualistic or parasitic symbiosis, I’ll leave for another debate. ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/19 "2005-04-16T12:16:07Z")
oops, should have read the whole thread. **DSeid** , I presume this is what you meant by “the whole meme thing”. Can I ask why you see it as contrived. It seems self evident to me that ideas such as these compete and propagate in much the same way as organisms. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468/20 "2005-04-16T16:20:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually SM cognitive neuroscience is my thing. Undergrad degrees in both psych and bio and still working on an article about the neural dynamics of autistic behaviors. I don’t especially like the whole meme thing as I believe the analogy to genes is way too contrived. Great, glad to hear there’s an expert here who can either expand upon or correct my reckless amateurisms! If you could clarify now: are you suggesting that belief in God requires some difference in the _cognitive apparatus_, some _detectable neuroscientific variable_, which distinguishes it from the mere ideas and beliefs which are the ambit of the field of memetics which you dislike so? I’m struggling to see what aspect of the idea of a god can be evolutionarily selected for in the proper Darwinian sense which does _not_ apply to, say, the idea of adding tin to copper to make bronze (which I would assume we both agree is memetics through and through.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-god-belief-an-adaptive-advantage/299468.md?page=2)