French-British anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, of the London School of Economics believes that humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination. The development of imagination occurred at the time of the Upper Palaeolithic 'revolution' 40-50,000 years ago. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists (Image is prehistoric rock paintings from south of Spain).
According to Bloch's theory, initially humans had to develop the
essential brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't
exist physically, and the possibility that people somehow survive on
after their death.
Once this was acquired, we had access to a form of social interaction
unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Exclusively, humans
could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unite with
groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such
as the dead. He explained that the transcendental social also permits
humans to follow the idealized codes of conduct linked with religion.
"What the transcendental social requires is the ability to live very
largely in the imagination," New Scientist magazine quoted him, as
saying.
"One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even
though one never comes in contact with the other members of it.
Moreover, the composition of such groups, whether they are clans or
nations, may equally include the living and the dead," he added.
He argues that no animals, not even our nearest relatives the
chimpanzees, can do this. Instead, he says, they're restricted to the
routine and Machiavellian social interactions of everyday life.
The reason for this, he says, is that they can't imagine beyond this
immediate social circle, or backwards and forwards in time, in the same
way that humans can.
Bloch believes our ancestors evolved the essential neural architecture
to imagine before or around a time called the
Upper Palaeological Revolution, the final sub-division of the Stone Age.
"The transcendental network can, with no problem, include the dead,
ancestors and gods, as well as living role holders and members of
essentialised groups," he said.
"Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of
nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words
transcendental," he added.But Bloch argues that religion is only one
expression of this exceptional ability to form bonds with non-existent
or distant people or value-systems.
"Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key
adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine
other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the
sociality of modern human society," he said.
"Once we realize this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday,
nothing special is left to explain concerning religion," he added.
Posted by Casey Kazan.
Related Galaxy posts:
Cosmic "X" or God? -Religion vs Science
Origin of Religion -Human Brain as a "Belief Engine"
Darwin's God -The Legacy of the HMS Beagle
Neurotheology -Is God Hardwired in the Human Brain
The Biology of Awe
Source Links:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13782-religion-a-figment-of-human-imagination.html
Bloch has detailed his findings in the journal of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
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