The Evolution of Religion (Kin Altruism & Group Competition)

[arsy]

During the summer of 2016 I had an epiphany on the evolution of religion. This is what I wrote at that time: https://overyse1995.blogspot.com/201...tribalism.html



I was born in nov '95, raised irreligious and was a huge Richard Dawkins & Sam Harris fanboy from age 16-18. At the age of 16, one of the first axioms I stood behind was that the ultimate meaning of life is to propagate your genes (as over millions of years, that's the only thing an organism evolves to become better at), however, I also understood that this was merely a logical axiom that didn't make me any wiser nor had any moral implications. By the age of 17 I understood kin selection. When I started getting into politics & economics at the age of 18 I couldn't help but notice how evolutionary dead end atheists tend to behave (I found more common ground amongst libertarians instead of the left wing & open borders to Islam crowd, even the new atheists truly disappointed me when it actually comes down to politics), by the age of 20 I began to notice profound similarity between wisdom that I had built up (which had a more evolutionary reasoning to it) and religion.

I'm much more literate now than when I was when I was 20/21, nonetheless I still think it's a very interesting read and I am proud that I got that far mainly by original thinking, this step of integrating kin selective evolutionary ethics and religion opened me up to theology and from than I started making sense out of religious rhetoric and behavior (instead of denigrating it), these were the thoughts that turned me from anti-religion to pro-religion and perhaps this is what other atheists/agnosts (with a secular rationalist upbringing) need.

In the summer of 2017, after googling 'kin selection religion' I finally found a paper that makes enormously similar points, this paper itself was written in 2016. If you've read my little paper and found it interesting, certainly read this one, however it's lengthier, much more technical and x100 times better written: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view...0199397747-e-9

there is no need for cognitive dissonance between religiosity and scientific/"rational" thinking

[Andronovo]

There's quite a few inaccuracies in the blog article you wrote, but the basic ideas are spot on. Do you plan to have a future in the field of evolutionary psychology? Or anything anthropological, you've got talent for sure.

[arsy]

There's quite a few inaccuracies in the blog article you wrote, but the basic ideas are spot on. Do you plan to have a future in the field of evolutionary psychology? Or anything anthropological, you've got talent for sure.

Thank you very much. Finding Bernard Crespi's paper made me extremely excited, I told myself that once my cryptocurrency trading halted (which was extremely intense during 2017/2018), I should give academia a chance. I went to the UK in 2019 to pursue a BSc in Biological Anthropology @ Univ Kent, I'm not really digging it here. I'm hoping to do a postgraduate somewhere else. Wbu?

[Andronovo]

Thank you very much. Finding Bernard Crespi's paper made me extremely excited, I told myself that once my cryptocurrency trading halted (which was extremely intense during 2017/2018), I should give academia a chance. I went to the UK in 2019 to pursue a BSc in Biological Anthropology @ Univ Kent, I'm not really digging it here. I'm hoping to do a postgraduate somewhere else. Wbu?

I'm working on a molecular biology BS in a pretty mediocre school in a pretty mediocre town in Dixie. There's a uni with a better biology program nearby, so I may transfer to that for the last part of my bachelors. And more importantly, there's a nearby medical school of decent caliber that I can go to for postgrad.