Evolutionary Religion

Last weekend, being Easter, I was called by several of my family members to wish me tidings on the holiday. More than once I was asked if I went to church, which made me think why they would ask that. I myself am not an avid church goer, nor do I really believe in the gospels and words of God that most religions teach, and my family is pretty aware of this. But, that isn't to say I don't have faith in a transcendent being or beings. It makes me wonder how many other people feel this way. Spirituality and organized religion often go hand in hand, but they're not the same thing. 

Religion, in my eyes, is in fact a whole other thing. There are a lot more people who are "religious," than there are people who are spiritual. Most people that I personally know claim to be religious, but only turn to their religion in times of need. In the article "Born believers: How your brain creates God," Michael Brooks explains the phenomenon of the rise of religion in times of global crisis. As the article states, "Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world." 

If we all think back to times that we've encountered something complicated, we've probably looked to some higher power and asked for help wether it be on the SATs, or for patience. It's not wrong, nor is it uncommon in any way. Though it's arguable about whether the presence of a God is real or fabricated, it's not undeniable that we embrace religion and the unexplainable more readily when we're in distress. Brooks points out that this belief in God(s) is connected to our need to thrive. Religion and it's foundations, in recent times, have been believed to be "an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation."  

It's ironic to think about these two ideas in conjunction with one another, religion being a facet of the evolutionary process. Seth McFarland's short video about Monkeys talking about religion satirizes.

The two sides had argued against each other for years, but now scientists are now linking the two as one justifying the advancement of the other. The more you look at it, the more it seems fesible. If we look at how far both we as a species and we as a society have advanced, it makes sense to link evolutionary progress to religious progress. The further we move along in development, the more religion changes and morphs to conform to our societal needs. Could it be that in fact evolution and religion can't exist separately from one another?