The Origins of Religion

Here, we'll examine the evolutionary and social origins of religious belief. We'll examine especially two views:
- That religious beliefs developed to encourage group cohesion (E.O. Wilson)
- That religious beliefs are the side-product of the behaviour of our brain (Reza Aslan)

[@TS-lt9tb]

This is all very interesting, though I would like the video to dig just a little deeper into those theories about the mind and the evolutionary advantage of a common belief system. It all goes about a little too quickly. Later on in this series you argue that monotheism somehow is a natural development of religious beliefs, yet nothing is said about religions that can hold different deities alongside each other and still be part of modern society. I'm not really criticizing, only trying to understand.
Great work, by the way!

[@YoungMommy14]

I don't see why the two theories need to be mutually exclusive. I think in the early epochs of our Species' existence the first explanation sounds more than fair.
After millenia. After, we learned how to make effective weapons, and protective shelters and learned about agriculture, the ominous threat of 'Non Human' predators became nonexistent.
At that point, it makes sense that we would organically start theorizing about matters of a 'larger scope.
We've become very curious.
Obviously, when you're constantly in fear of the very realistic prospect that you'll be killed by some predator (Hippos kill more humans every year than.any other mammal, but they are so f'n cute... hard to reconcile), you don't have the capacity to wonder about the myriad mysteries and wonders of our Universe. Once, we became 'top of the food chain, people were able to relax a bit and wondering about 'stuff was inevitable.

[@KillsAll.]

Here’s my leading theory for man-made systems to help us physically and/or mentally including religion, which I believe in The Creator but not as a God in a heaven but rather Creator only, so with that said: once humans had down-time when we started actively cooking our food we began our modern-man contemplation both from the concentration necessary to focus on observing the cooking process of the meal along with timing for “contact” to the flame coupled with the subsequent(?) calmness warm meals induce. This mental exercise improved our brains to begin envisioning because cooking is a very predictable practice and we know the outcome, which is our primary goal with culinary arts. Compared to Neanderthals still eating bugs which kept them competitive even with canines, our ancestors “waste” from cooking was a delicious free meal to canines who stayed on the fringe and away from the fire thus leading to domestication over time 40,000 years ago giving Homo-sapiens an advantage and also a direct relationship with another species. I digress, but it is these scenarios that allowed ancient humans to think and develop more specific language to communicate cooking in groups. Religion developed from trying to understand our feelings, intangible yet absolutely felt; temporary but remembered. I’m only referring to our beginnings tens of thousands of years ago, not the organized form religion became in recorded history. Please reply if I’m not sounding crazy, because just like my Harvard science doctorate educated parents(?) I’m critical of my own theory in order to better support it. Ur video was thought provoking and thank you.