The Origins of Religious Belief

To understand where religion comes from, it is first necessary to understand what religion is, what forms it can take, and what purposes it serves in human life. According to D. Bruce Dickson, religion can be identified as “those social institutions, cultural patterns, and individual behavior which [can be observed] to be organized around the sacred” (8). Dickson also breaks down the types of religious manifestations into four distinct forms, all of which still can be found in spiritual practice today. The first form of religion is what Dickson describes as the ‘individualistic cult’, in which every practitioner is his or her own religious specialist with personalized beliefs and rituals. The second form is the ‘shamanistic cult’, which has a part-time religious specialist overseeing the spiritual needs of his or her community. The ‘communal cult’, as the third level of religious practice, has much in common with the shamanistic form, but includes members of the community as vital role-bearers in ceremonies and rituals. The final type of religion is the ‘ecclesiastical cult’, which are far more complex than the other forms and usually employ an active clergy of full-time religious specialists (12-13). No matter the form it takes, religion exists to do a set number of things for its adherents- it must explain the world around the community and individual, including the origins of all things, the reasons behind natural phenomena, the why of good and evil, and the cause of strange occurrences like dreams. It also must provide comfort to believers by giving them reassurance about death and uncomfortable or frightening situations. Lastly, religion provides a basis for social order, by giving the community rules for social behavior and laying the groundwork for the community’s perception of morality (Boyer 5).

There are numerous biological, social, and environmental factors that go into the development of religious thought. As humans began living in larger groups, social skills became more important to survival. Individuals who were better able to adapt to these living arrangements were better equipped to survival in the long run, with the community looking out for them and their offspring. This social weeding out, as a form of natural selection, encouraged cognitive growth and sharper mental perception. This aided in tactical planning, technological growth, and increased cooperation in group dynamics, and had a noticeable impact on the development of the subjective consciousness, which allowed early humans to perceive the ‘self’ as an autonomous entity (Leakey 303-304). As human intelligence developed, predicting natural behavior such as seasonal changes, herd migration, and wild plant production became more intrinsic to human life. These environmental factors that influenced human life were beyond human control, and the ability to conceive of the ‘self’ probably led into a perception of ‘other’- the gods, spirits, and ghosts who populated the world around the community and who played tricks or did favors for people, depending on the nature of the ‘other’ and the treatment it received at the hands of humans. These beliefs, though supernatural in nature, are based on careful observations of the natural world and the recognition of the regularity and predictability of many natural forces, as well as the fear and uncertainty of new and unusual phenomena (Malinowski 18).

Indeed, religion is possible because of the human capacity to understand abstract ideas in addition to observable phenomena, since the two tended to become one and the same in early religious philosophies (Fiske 18). Conception of religious ideas and beliefs were directly related to the environmental and social issues faced in every day life, from harsh weather to good hunting to wanting a family. As populations grew, split off, and expanded their territory, the beliefs held by previous generations were passed along and began to spread into new areas, where they would come into contact with other belief systems and change from the contact, either incorporating the new mythology into itself or inserting its own mythos into the other belief system. As there is possible evidence of human spirituality, or at least imagination, tracing all the way back to the days of Neanderthal burials, it is easy to see through this theory of mythological migration how so many cultures later exhibited similar mythologies and folktales (Boyer 38-39). Of course, as the earliest decipherable recordings of religious beliefs date back only to the Sumerians in 2000 B.C., it is impossible to track with any certainty the spread of certain strains of mythology (Wolkstein 123). Still, the similarities of many components of different ancient and modern mythologies are mind-boggling, especially in the creation of gods. Gods are symbols, and can represent everything from fertility, vengeance, and warfare to childbirth, sexual fidelity and death. The creation of gods is the “ultimate expression of anthroporphism”, used as a means of projecting understandable, human-like qualities onto mysterious, inhuman events and objects (Leaky 309).

Human spirituality and religion is a convoluted, complex realm of possibilities and relatively few facts. Men drew on cave walls long before any written language came into being which could explain the meanings of the painted figures. Only through conjecture and careful analysis of modern faith and what few recordings of ancient beliefs have been found is it possible to form an idea of what religion was like for modern human’s distant ancestors.

Works Cited
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Dickson, D. Bruce. The Dawn of Belief: Religion in the Upper Paleolithic of Southwestern Europe. New York: University of Arizona P, 1992.

Fiske, John. Myths and Myth Makers. London: Senate, 1996.

Leakey, Richard E. Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human. New York: Anchor, 1993.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. Magic, Science and Religion. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1954.

Wolkstein, Diane. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York: Harper Perennial, 1983.