Discussion

According to theorists such as professor of Religion Michael H. Barnes (2003), a tremendously wide range of different religious beliefs and thought on religion (both across contemporaneous cultures as well as among cultures existing at different historical periods) is exceptionally useful for evaluating the literal truth of specific beliefs in any particular society. On the other hand, it may be possible to strip away those differences that are impossible to reconcile to reveal a more general fundamental religious perspective or tendency that exists as a common natural theme throughout humanity, with specific societal differences more akin to harmonics on the same chord rather than to different chords altogether (Barnes, 2003).

That view is sharply contradicted by several renowned authorities in so-called "hard" sciences, including neurobiological theorist Daniel Dennet, the late paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, Stephen J. Gould, and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. According to their view, any similarity among distant societies with respect to the belief in gods and with respect to a religious perspective is strictly a function of two elements: (1) the natural tendency of all primitive human societies to create fictitious explanations for that which they could not understand, and (2) the exceptionally powerful influence of social learning, especially in connection with anything taught directly by parents to young children (Dawkins, 2006 p84; Dennet, 1996 p 126; Marantz-Henig, 2007 p62).

Furthermore, contemporary research has documented that a fundamental moral impulse and a desire for shared communal values exists in human beings completely apart from any supposed specific inherent desire for a theistic religious perspective (Dawkins, 2006 p 87; Pinker, 2008 p35-6). Likewise, primate research demonstrates that this impulse and the ability to fine shared moral rules is hardly even limited to human beings (Pinker, 2008 p36), and that to the extent human evolution is the source of any common impulse in this regard, it is the only the impulse to establish meaning (even from apparent randomness) rather than a...

This strongly suggests that the persistence of religious beliefs in contemporary society is primarily attributable to parental teaching and social learning rather than to any inherent natural evolutionary tendency in that regard.
Conclusion

The evidence suggests that primitive human beings had no other way to answer questions about the universe, their existence, or to explain natural phenomena they encountered. Modern experimental research has established that human beings strongly prefer explanations to admissions of ignorance so much so that fabricated explanations are more satisfactory than none. Similarly, neurological data suggests that what is shared at a biological level is a fundamental need to find order and causality and not necessarily anything in the way of a need for any specific explanation (such as theism). Moreover, even non-human primates share our need for social norms and values within their communities. Finally, documented evidence of the relative rarity of religious conversion among individuals raised without exposure to or encouragement toward a religious perspective makes it much more plausible to conclude that religion does not have any basis in human evolution.

Works Cited

Barnes, Michael H. In The Presence Of Mystery: An Introduction to the Story of Human Religiousness. Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications (2003).

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin (2006).

Dennet, Daniel. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness. New York:

Basic Books (1996).

Marantz-Henig, Robin. "Darwin's God." The New York Times Magazine, March 4, 2007:

36-43, 58, 62, 77-78, 85.

Pinker, Steven. "The Moral Instinct." The New York Times Magazine,…