Religion a figment of human imagination

April 28, 2008 | Source: New Scientist news service

Humans alone practice religion because they’re the only creatures to have evolved imagination, not because it promoted social bonding, says anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics.

Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don’t physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they’ve died.

Uniquely, humans could use what Bloch calls the “transcendental social” to unify with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. The transcendental social also allows humans to follow the idealized codes of conduct associated with religion.

“Once we realise this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion,” he says.