A Socioevolutionary Approach to Religious Change

Abstract

Abstract A number of scholars have suggested that religion may be explained using evolutionary theory and, in particular, natural selection. Much of this research suggests that behaviors encouraged by religions are beneficial while failing to illustrate a causal relationship between religiosity and these behaviors. This chapter challenges these approaches, arguing that religion is primarily a social phenomenon and that any health or evolutionary benefits that might indirectly derive from religions are actually attributable to the behaviors themselves: Religions have simply co-opted those behaviors. Additionally, it argues that natural selection alone is a problematic approach to understanding religion and suggests that Darwin’s notion of artificial selection be integrated into any attempts to use evolution to explain religion. We use examples from a variety of religions to illustrate how a socioevolutionary theory of religion that incorporates natural and artificial selection is preferable to approaches that rely exclusively on natural selection.