Community | October 11, 2009 | 28 comments

Did Evolution of Human Imagination 50,000 Years Ago Trigger Belief in God?

source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/10/did-development-of-human-imagination-50000-year...

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Quiggles
French-British anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, of the London School of Economics believes that humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination. The development of imagination occurred at the time of the Upper Palaeolithic 'revolution' 40-50,000 years ago. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists (Image is prehistoric rock painting from south of Spain).

According to Bloch's theory, initially humans had to develop the essential brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't exist physically, and the possibility that people somehow survive on after their death.

Once this was acquired, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Exclusively, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unite with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. He explained that the transcendental social also permits humans to follow the idealized codes of conduct linked with religion.

"What the transcendental social requires is the ability to live very largely in the imagination," New Scientist magazine quoted him, as saying.

"One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even though one never comes in contact with the other members of it. Moreover, the composition of such groups, whether they are clans or nations, may equally include the living and the dead," he added.

He argues that no animals, not even our nearest relatives the chimpanzees, can do this. Instead, he says, they're restricted to the routine and Machiavellian social interactions of everyday life.

The reason for this, he says, is that they can't imagine beyond this immediate social circle, or backwards and forwards in time, in the same way that humans can.

Bloch believes our ancestors evolved the essential neural architecture to imagine before or around a time called the Upper Palaeological Revolution, the final sub-division of the Stone Age.

"The transcendental network can, with no problem, include the dead, ancestors and gods, as well as living role holders and members of essentialised groups," he said.

"Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words transcendental," he added.But Bloch argues that religion is only one expression of this exceptional ability to form bonds with non-existent or distant people or value-systems.

"Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society," he said.

"Once we realize this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion," he added.
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28 comments // Did Evolution of Human Imagination 50,000 Years Ago Trigger Belief in God?

  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  

    • Humans have an imagination because we evolved, or just have, a pre-frontal cortex. This cortex is something only a few animals have and enables conscious, imaginative, and self-reflective thinking (Homo-sapiens, dolphins, and a couple breeds of apes).
      Also Maurice Bloch is only hypothesizing, not proving, these statements. Meaning that what she is saying is a mere theory and not fact.
      What I personally beleive is religion is a institution, not imagination, brought upon us because of spirituality. Spirituality is a inner beleif that there are unseen and unfelt things that we will only experience past death in the form of our spirit. So spirituality is something we "sense" but can't prove to exist, and religion is a institution made to try and prove or spread this wisdom of spirituality.
      In other words we didn't imagine religion or spirituality, we constructed religion to cope with the supernatural thoughts of spirituality.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • If religions are the only trace of humanity's relation with God; then it can be argued that the mere concept of God is the greatest intellectual fraud in history.

      Proof of concept

      Although 95% of people claim to believe in a loving caring God, most of humanity can't even live by the 101 of harmony which is the "Golden Rule" also know as the "Ethic of Reciprocity
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity

      We don’t ask a fish to explain the molecular structure of water and anyone who says he knows what happens after death is a pathological liar about to ask for a deductible donation.

      Why is it so hard to admit that we don’t know what happens after life without having to retort to myths & fairy tales ?

      So yeah, believe in what you want at home & church but please leave your personal rationalization of your limits to understand the universe out of school and government apparatus for these should be ruled by facts not faith.

      Religious wars between factions all claming to be all about peace & love only bring dividedness & intolerance of the other, not to mention keeping the rabble at bay & obedient to man made powers that be ;)

      "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side" - Aristotle

      It is exactly this line of thought that brought us the obscurantism & anti-science stance that give us the rapture crowd & the dinosaurs that lived happily alongside humans 6000 thousand years ago delusion… Come on ! We’ve left the middle –ages a long time ago & I have no intention of reverting to witch burning and flat earth discussions as we seem to be heading for ;)

      Humanism is quite enough to bring us all under the same roof. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

      Just practice what your preach & let your all mighty God take care of the rest won’t you ? I’m sure he’ll get by without your two cents & pardon my slightly agnostic view in the same breath ;)

      So I’ll refrain from faith posturing & stand by these basic facts…

      "The three monotheisms, animated by the same genealogical death instinct, share a series of identical contempt: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name the one & only; hatred of life; hatred of sexuality, of women and pleasure; hatred of feminity; hatred of the body, of desires & impulses. Instead of all that, Judaism, Christianity and Islam defend: faith and belief, obedience and submission, a taste for death and a passion for the beyond, asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamic fidelity, the wife and the mother, the soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and celebrated nothingness" – Michel Onfray

      "Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." -Frank Zappa

    • 2 years ago
  • joyrexj5
    • 0
      joyrexj5  

    • uhm "Trigger" what a ludicrous word, God, Is Real and He was always here. Jesus came and hmm, Physically him being here informing others is what caused, or, "triggered" them to write the book,' the Bible. God is all there is and was and what will be. Peace

    • 2 years ago
  • Chod77
  • rodstradamus
    • 0
      rodstradamus  

    • Absolutely false. Man started to believe in Gods, or the Planets, after witnessing major catastrophes in the sky or heavens, which also caused major catastrophes on Earth (more than once almost wiping out Man completely). Those who remained, through fear and reverence started to track their every movement, and soon their stories evolved into allegories and metaphors that eventually became religions. Actually, almost all ancient religions are the same, manifested differently through cultural separation of thousands of years. I can go on for hours about this stuff, but ultimately, Darwin and this clown are wrong and Velikovsky is more or less right. Reality is truly stranger than fiction.

    • 2 years ago
  • mcwally
  • Ares
  • Follow_me
  • TypeMemeHere
  • bailey78
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  
    • TypeMemeHere:

      The boogey (from Buginese) are actually a people of the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. They gave up being pirates long ago, and are a peaceful people. However, I get the picture and agree.

    • 2 years ago
  • RojoGatto
  • currentlyreading
  • Valence
  • reallybigname
    • 0
      reallybigname  

    • Since God is a human concept, this whole line of reasoning is flawed. Modern research suggests that, contrary to this article, many animals do indeed reflect on the past and plan for the future. And, many animals dream, so isn't that a function of imagination? To your dog or cat, you are a God. To humans, aliens could be considered Gods. But, aliens might not consider us to have a "true" imagination. So, isn't it just a matter of perspective, and not imagination?

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • god created evolution to combat the lords of chaos. we are not individuals, dna is one and evolves toward greater complexity against the pressures of entropy. life itself is a ually transmitted disease. when god created dna he also created evolution in the same stroke and as the master of evolution he is evolved. from primeordial slime to george h bush not much has changed, man is still an idiot.
      hope you enjoyed the ride.

    • 2 years ago
  • Tikbalang
    • 0
      Tikbalang  

    • Belief in God started with the Sun. Ancients figured out that there would be no life without the sun. Suppose this, the Earth was surrounded by some sort of cosmic haze so that there was daylight but no visible Sun or stars. I think then that the first God would not have been the Sun but might have been Water. Is this imagination? I think it is just seeing a relationship.

    • 2 years ago
  • quanta
    • 0
      quanta  

    • God forbid that one of you should ever get in touch with your spiritual side. You are products of your environment, think you own thoughts, creat your own world, THAT"S your God given right.

    • 2 years ago
  • Quiggles
    • 0
      Quiggles  
    • quanta:

      Oh I do believe in quantum mechanics, that we are connected at the most basic state and that everything is connected in some way. What I do not believe in is praising a God that is man made along with the problems that arise out of religion. "Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings"

    • 2 years ago
  • Quiggles
    • 0
      Quiggles  

    • People want to feel safe in times of uncertainty. They want to believe that their loved ones are going to be taken care of and that they are going to a sacred place. People want to feel that they are here for a reason and part of a bigger scheme. The mind is a powerful thing and people can convince themselves to believe anything especially when they follow religious leaders who claim they know about God and everything in the Universe. "Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings"

    • 2 years ago
  • broy_01
    • 0
      broy_01  
    • Quiggles:

      Does no one think it interesting that we do have some desire for something bigger, to feel safe, to know there's something else out there? And it's not just a recent development. Civilizations throughout history have felt it as well...

    • 2 years ago
  • unimatrix0
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  

    • well iirc that's contemporary with animal domestication so perhaps it merely triggered in a belief in dog. You can't expect them to spell that well after all.

    • 2 years ago
  • pandaman2105
    • 0
      pandaman2105  

    • finally, some truthful insight into this purely "human" concept.

      thanks for the imagination, but we should've stopped there. religion fucked us up.

    • 2 years ago
  • Quiggles
  • neonbunny
  • Valence
  • dsidney
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