Evaluating the Evolutionary Status of Religiosity and Religiousnessreligiousness

Abstract

Adaptations must meet three criteria: they are inherited, are the product of historical selective processes and thus show a special-purpose design, and they solve an adaptive problem or solved an adaptive problem at least at the time of their evolution. Central components of human religiosityreligiosity (spiritualityspirituality, group bonding, forming a personal identity, communication by honest signalshonest signals and morals) meet these criteria. The exceptions are religious cognitioncognition and its product, religious metaphysics, which has to be understood as a non-functional by-product byproduct of mundane cognitive machinery, so that in summary, religious life and practice (mysticismmysticism, rituals ritual, mythsmyths, ceremonies and taboos, fear of God, spiritsspirits or ancestors ancestor ) are shaped to a very significant degree by biological adaptations.