Religious people are better off in terms of their physical or mental elth. But i don't think those personal benefits are the reasons that evolution has driven a religion to occur. The reasoned religiosity and therefore religions have evolved in the course of human evolution, relate much more explicitly to the social functions of community. It's actually your view that this is social things, an evolutionarily adapt to think.
Robin Dunbar has been hailed as one of the most insightful and creative evolutionary thinkers of our time, famed for his work on human networks and communities (he came up with the Dunbar number, the idea that humans can have no more than 150 meaningful relationships). Now he turns his attention to religion, the subject of his recent book, How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures. Joining Robin in conversation on the podcast is Stuart Ritchie, Psychologist at King's College London, and author of Science Fictions.
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