New Jersey Institute of Technology

Religion and Culture HSS 405

Spring 2014






The Biology of Religion
Walter Mulvany






Professor Charles Brooks
May 14, 2014

To talk about the biology of religion 100 years ago would have been a sacrilege and probably a
reason to have been accused of witchcraft, but today with so much advance and technology we are
starting to have a more open minded view of religion, we can explore other avenues of thinking and let
our curiosity run free(er) of taboo and superstition and probably capture de real essence of what religion
is about and not what the invested powers want us to believe.
One of the most important questions I asked myself during the preparation of this paper was if
feral children were religious at all; from the stand point of finding the origin of religion, the answer to that
question could be a key component to find out the truth. When the Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques
Rousseau said that Man is born pure and society corrupts him, he meant it in a sociological way, but it is
important to know if that precept applies to its religiosity as well in order to exclude those factors that
have no impact in the outcome; my opinion to this question when I started writing this paper was that
religiosity in humans is a biologic response but as I thought more about it and compared ideas. lets not
get ahead of ourselves and continue.
If we accept to some degree the theory of evolution, and assume that we are an evolved primate
that comes from a line of hominids (as science seems to defend), we have to accept the fact that some
vestigial traits and behaviors will come along the evolutionary line that brought us here. DNA must be
able to get imprinted with biological changes and pass it along the next generation in order to adapt and
evolve; since hominids are not completely visceral and they have social organization as well as individual
rituals and customs, some of those behaviors must also be perpetuated in the evolutionary process.
As we know, atavism is a term that refers to the tendency to revert to ancestral type [1] and while is
mainly used for biological purposes, some writers, psychologists and psychiatrists use it to refer to
aptitudes and conducts that have tendencies rooted in our ancestors.
One way to look at this approach is to refer to a book that it is in my ignorant opinion a great
attempt to demystify human kind, The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris.
This very original book has an interesting approach to explain the religious activities of the late
ape known as man. For Morris, the religiosity of man is the result of a change in circumstances during the
evolutionary process, where the not yet evolved ape would have a social structure that revolved around a
leader, a dominant individual that was in charge of the group and in a way was also feared in order to be
properly respected. As the ape evolved, the need for a more active participation of all the group members
in the hunting process along with the participation of the leader, its authority was strictly limited because
he was now one of them. This social transformation according to Morris left a gap that, along with the
increasing of our brain capacity, and our increasing ability to understand our surroundings and (probably)
our inner self, was replaced by the invention of a God, an omnipotent figure that could keep the control of
the group while the members of the group try to appease him with submissive displays.
At first sight, it is surprising that religion has been so successful, but its extreme potency is simply a
measure of the strength of our fundamental biological tendency, inherited directly from our monkey and
ape ancestors, to submit ourselves to an all-powerful, dominant member of the group[2].
This extraordinary social and psychological change has led to a number of byproducts such as the belief
in another life[3]. But, is religious behavior just the byproduct of an evolutionary transformation?
One very interesting approach to that idea is if we consider ourselves as a very complex robot. If we
analyze our body, we can certainly see the resemblance of our neurological system to a computer system,
where we have wires (nerves), hydraulic system (muscles), frame (bones), very specific hardware
components (liver, kidneys, etc.) and software to run it all (chemically induced electric impulses
transported via neurons). If we are willing to remotely consider this idea (does not sound too farfetched
right?), then we must acknowledge that every system in the universe has flaws, and one of those flaws can
be what we know in the computer world (most specifically in the software area) as a bug, and if so, what
Desmond Morris was trying to explain as religious conduct is nothing more than a bug in the software of
a very advanced self-adapting robot (A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro-
mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry). I know that it sounds a
bit extreme, but as I implied in the beginning, lets wonder off and see where it takes us.
Another biological approach that can be used to try to explain religiosity is instinct. Innate
behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular complex behavior [4]. In the
same way that some animals can perceive danger, or can feel when an earthquake is imminent and react,
we might have the ability to tune into some force or energy superior to us that we cannot explain and that
we have no proof of. This particular scenario gives rise to another important part of religious conduct call
faith, the belief that is not based on proof. In our daily lives, most of our behavior and responses are
controlled by our Ego (Freuds Id, Ego, and Superego) and we let our rational persona answer the
question about religion and God, but when real danger accosts our life and we FEAR for our life or the
life of a loved one, our most immediate primal impulse is to commend ourselves to that higher energy or
force. In my opinion, that irrational instantaneous act is mere instinct; of course, it might not be cataloged
as the same instinct as the sea turtle running to the sea seconds after it hatched, but that is because we are
more evolved and our patterns of conduct and responses are more complex but of the same nature.
As I tried to organize my thoughts and find reasons to dispute the biological approach, I started
thinking if religiosity is an acquired concept during the development of our psyche from ape to man.
As we started to be aware (in an existential way) of our world around us, things and events started to have
a different meaning to us, and because of the lack of knowledge, the only possible explanation was the
supernatural, something that we do not see or understand but is making things happen out there. With the
passing of the millennia, that belief was imprinted in our DNA the same way any other learned or attained
comportment would have in order to contribute to our successful evolution. If we try to envision for a
minute what our ancestors felt when they felt awareness for the first time, it must have been similar to a
kid realizing that exists but without mummy there to help him understand what is happening (that might
be frightening).
Rationalism is our biggest gift as specie, one that has guaranteed our survival, but when most of
the world is willing to believe in something blindly, without any shred of proof, worse yet, to make up
stories to help support that needed mirage, it makes me think back about my previous approach that
maybe we sense something that we cannot yet define.
In our evolutionary journey in this world we have discovered fear because we value our life and
others, and we do that because we are aware, because we are conscious of our existence in a way that
other species cannot, but to survive with the fear that it is out of our control we need to believe in
something mighty, powerful, supernatural and that is where religiosity comes into play.
Is God then a defense mechanism that allows us to cope?
But if it is a defense mechanism, shouldnt it biological in nature?
In conclusion, I believe that while religious behavior is not exclusively a biological response, and
psychological and cultural factors affect our perspective and approach to the way we interpret and
practice it, the biology is the essence of its origin and to answer the question of whether feral kids are
religious or not, I believe that they are.