The Significance of Religious Belief in Society

The significance of religion throughout history in direct connection to a behavior that keeps communities in a form of strong group cohesion is quite evident, even from a brief read through the history of Homo Sapien. Religion has been beneficial to our species and has survived the trials attributed to the program of natural selection. Being that humans have been cultural animals since the rise of more elaborate descriptions in language (communication); a logical next step in the evolution of culture would be to find a form that would create a stronger feeling of belongingness in the community. It would follow that a program in promotion of prosocial behaviors developed; otherwise known as religious belief.

Religious belief and cultural lifestyles go hand in hand together. A strong cultural life has had strong evolutionary benefits for our species; both for the individuals and collectivities. A cultural life requires such things as self-restraint, curbing of aggressive impulses, resisting temptations, and to align overall behaviors to society's standards, rules, and laws. Being that such restraints would complicate the natural selfish nature of our species (on the whole selfish), would require a sophisticated form of action control over these impulses.

Religious belief emphasizes the importance of free will in its doctrines (basic western doctrines), and is important to an enactment of moral restraints attributed to them. On the other hand, it also stands "that the capacity to exercise free will evolved as an adaptation to meet the requirements of cultural life (Baumeister, Bauer, & Lloyd, 2010)." To enforce prosocial behaviors and promote the belief in free will fell to the responsibility of religious institutions (i.e. churches, masques, synagogues, etc.). These institutions "placed constraints on the moral behaviors and choices that facilitate cultural life (Baumeister, Bauer, &Lloyd, 2010)."

Religions serve as an efficient and pragmatic approach to promoting prosocial behaviors in society. "It can bolster self-control and buffer against its imminent failures by encouraging people to monitor their behaviors through increased self-awareness, by creating ample opportunities to exercise and build self-control strength, and by promoting long-term time perspectives that support self-control (Baumeister, Bauer, & Lloyd, 2010)." A final significant reason why religion evolved in human cultural life would be its potential to fulfill peoples need to belong, and can also be "stemmed in the self-control that social influences would have on one by approving and disapproving of certain behaviors (Baumeister, Bauer, &Lloyd, 2010)." In general, religion has been the most adaptable form in culture to promote the construction of societies throughout history, and advancements in scientific discoveries that come from a structured society.

In contemporary society (just as any other thus far), religions still continue to play an important role in influencing societies beliefs, values, and attitudes on different social and politic issues in life. Issues like what kinds of contraceptive methods are acceptable for Roman Catholics come from papal authority in Vatican (Bottum, 2009), or the issue of state religion in Ireland (Lorenz, 2008). Such moral decision making is very stress relieving for individuals who prescribe to one religion or another.

An extensive survey in the United States has mapped out the variety of religious beliefs held by its citizens. According to the findings the dominant religion held by adults is Christianity at 78.4% of the population, with a sub category showing that 51.3% are Protestant (with another subsection of Evangelical churches at 26.3%, Mainline churches at 18.1%, and Hist. Black churches with a 6.9%), 23.9% are Catholic, 1.7% Mormon, 0.7% Jehovah's Witness, 0.6% Orthodox, and 0.3% as other Christian; while other religions overall, possess a complete percentage of 4.7% (with 1.7% Jewish, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.6% Muslim, 0.4% Hindu, 0.4% new age, and 0.3% Native American religion); and under the unaffiliated is a 16.1% with the sub-percentages of 1.6% atheist, 2.4% agnostic, and 12.1% nothing in particular (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007). As we can see, religious beliefs are diverse (also many schisms within each one have occurred, of course excluding agnosticism and atheism) and important to cultural identity (and this is only the United States). But to better understand religion as a whole, it would be important to look at the diversifying beliefs, thought processes, and histories involved.

To start, religion found important roots in the hunter gather societies of our ancestors. The rituals and beliefs of these are widespread concerning the small bands of communes that traveled throughout the world before and after the last ice age. The species Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and our neighbor ancestors the Neanderthals (which branched off from either Homo Habilis or Homo Erectus) were scattered throughout the world playing nature's game of survival of the fittest. The discovery and hype over the control of fire was at an all time high during this period, and along with this advancement was the convenient invention of attaching pointy rocks onto sticks known as spears (methods of how these spears were carved and attached are very diverse). Our knowledge of these Hominids and whether they practiced religious rituals are basically none (considering anthropology is a very tough science), except for some ceremonial burial sites uncovered from skeletal remains of the Neanderthals (which is curious considering they aren't in direct lineage to us, but are branched off from an earlier Hominid). The early modern Homo Sapien (better known as Cro-Magnon) performed the usual hunter/gatherer role around the same time and was also very much a part of the "fire" revolution.

From these hunter/gatherer societies followed spiritual beliefs (better known now as our modern indigenous beliefs in the complete modern form of Homo Sapiens). A common theme in indigenous religions is ancestor worship. These can be found in some Native American, Australian Aborigines, and certain African societies. A common leader in these rituals (very similar to a pastor in some ways) was the Shaman, who was the village's main interpreter between dead ancestors (or spirits) and the living (McClenon, 2002). He would also performs rituals to ensure a successful hunt, and during a long drought would perform rain dances to ensure that water was available for the community (this belief in rain dances stems from our species tendency to detect false positives in events with no known cause at the time; another example would be individuals who have auditory hallucinations and attributes them to a bizarre cause like aliens