The Reproductive Benefits of Religious Affiliation

As the brain of early humans expanded, they gained increasing abilities of considering cooperative tasks – finally including reproduction. The subsequent, probably convergent evolution of religious beliefs and related behaviors such as burials and offerings among Homo sapiens and among Homo neanderthalensis illustrates that religious abilities evolved as a logical consequence: perceived supernatural agents like ancestors or Gods are experienced as observing streams of tradition conferring values and communal trust, rewarding cooperative adherents and punishing transgressors. They advocate reproductive motivation as well as marriage. Believers may signal their trustworthiness to each other by costly obligations and rituals dedicated to the supernatural agents. Religion-related genetic dispositions as well as demographically successful traditions are thus favoured by direct and kin selection and by sexual selection, as shown by the Swiss Census 2000 and international demographic data. 8.1 Old Game with New Rules: Pondering Reproduction In 1838, a young man took a paper, titled it with “That’s the question” and drew a line on it. Then he assembled arguments regarding marriage. In doing so, he noted, he would lose liberties to choose his whereabouts and friends. He would probably never be able to visit America and learn French and he would have to carry the financial costs of children. The list of arguments favouring marriage was started with “Children (if it’s God’s will)”, having a “nice woman” around when enjoying books and music and not being alone when old. His decisive thoughts initiated by a written “My god” he finally concluded, “Marry, Marry, Marry”. But of course, the young man needed a cooperative partner to fulfil his plans. So he visited his cousin, Emma Wedgwood. They talked, but although the young man M. Blume (B) University of Heidelberg, Institut für Religionswissenschaft, Akademiestraße 4-8, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] 117 E. Voland, W. Schiefenhövel (eds.), The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, The Frontiers Collection, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-00128-4_8, C © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009