I like to think that, in a world before law enforcement, religion is a way clever people trick strong people into not killing them and taking all their stuff.
What is law enforcement and when has it ever not been a threat to have someone come knock your teeth in if you piss off enough or the wrong person?
I think the more likely answer is indeed in the picture: baby’s first philosophy. There is a lot of wisdom and behavior grooming in it, but I’d argue the reason is the other way around: It was to try and tell leaders and fathers (in patriarchy, anyways) how to not get their teeth kicked in and how to teach and deal with bad people.
It’s an instruction set that has been combined with simple history telling, and then corrupted by thousands of years of dogma and constant revision from the selfish and rich.
It’s silly to anchor your moral axioms in systems that require obedience to authority or belief without evidence, and that is the only true difference between philosophy and religion.
I’m talking more than just getting your teeth knocked in. I’m talking getting murdered, your wife getting raped, and your property getting stolen. With no state protection, what is to prevent that from happening?
In the same way that the threat of future punishment by getting thrown in jail stops people from doing those things now, the threat of punishment by God or Gods would serve the same purpose.
You are thinking wrong tho. Religion started out as a benign thing that has been twisted by authorities later on to justify their actions.
Don’t be an edgelord giving us a bad name
It was actually the other way, religion was the ideological superstructure for the first class societies and states forming. Originally, as observed in the ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia religion gain power as communities were formed around common labour and consumption. The first organised cults were the fertility and agriculture gods, first temples were granaries and the priestly class started as granary managers, and that position allowed them to gather and increase their power. Especially visible in case of Mesopotamia where those origins stayed visible way into the written history period.
That is, religion was justification for the strong to become stronger and rule over weaker, and a way for rich to trick poor into not killing them and not taking stuff that was stolen back. Note that even thousands years later even nominally secular state power still had supernatural justification, divine right, mandate of heavens and so on.
Human intelligence has not materially changed since the Advent of religion.
Human intelligence has not progressed since the Advent of atheism.
Human understanding and human culture have changed.
I wouldn’t rule out that we’ve become smarter since then. Iirc the average IQ did increase over time. We may not have changed genetically, but many explanations think we can foster higher IQs in our modern environment compared to a 100 years ago.
You’re referring to the Flynn effect. But the Flynn effect is a 20th century (post-WWII) phenomenon that describes an increase in the average intelligence test performance (and similar abilities like memory span). There are a number of explanations that have been proposed for this effect, the most convincing ones being improved nutrition and schooling. Either way, this effect does not apply on an evolutionary scale (or even a larger historical one) and it also represents a fairly narrow, gradual change rather than the broad, drastic change suggested in the OP. Also, in recent years, the Flynn effect appears to have reached a ceiling and is even reversing in some countries.
I don’t see how this could be true. It would be analogous to observing a species of bone-thin weaklings that becomes interested in body building over the course of a few hundred years, gaining more muscle mass on average with each passing year, and making the claim that the strength of this species has not changed. Maybe if one of the early weaklings decided to take up their own interest in body building, they may have reached a similar strength to that of their descendants (though even that is debatable since that specific individual wouldn’t have access to all the training techniques and diets developed over the course of its species’ future); however, it seems like an awkward interpretation to say therefore the strength of the species has not changed.
This is similar to the situation we find ourselves regarding intelligence in the human species. Humans gain intelligence by exercising their brains and engaging in mental activity, and humans today are far more occupied by these activities than our ancestors were. This, in my view, makes it accurate to claim that human intelligence has changed significantly since the advent of religion. Individual capacity for intelligence may not have changed much, but the intelligence of humans as a whole has changed.
Note that my argument does not conclude that human knowledge or understanding has changed over time. These attributes certainly have changed - I’m sure not many would doubt that. It also doesn’t conclude that every modern human is more intelligent than every ancient human. Instead, it concludes that human intelligence as a whole has changed as a result of changes in our culture that influence us to spend more time training our intelligence than our ancestors.
I am struggling to understand what you are saying. If you don’t mind, let’s start with “mass psychology”, I think that might be the key for me.
I don’t see how this could be true.
And even if it were possible, are we smart enough to meaningfully assess and quantify the differences? What if the blueprint is missing a layer?
If you haven’t already read it, I think you might really appreciate “Other Minds” by Peter Godfrey-Smith.
To use your analogy: intelligence is not the size of your muscles, it is the amount of muscle you can have. Just like intelligence the total amount of muscle your body can support is bounded maximally by your genetics. When you bulk up and become stronger you don’t increase your quantity of muscle, you change the quality of it. Body building does not create new muscle cells, it rearranges them into stronger configurations.
Similarly learning and intelligence. Intelligence is not changed by learning, learning is your ability to exercise your intelligence. Learning is the strength to intelligence’s muscle cell number.
Genetically very little has changed for humans since the Advent of organized religion, which was only 11000 years ago. There have been no major selective pressures and while humans are not in a steady state (obviously) they are still very slow to change.
Humans from 11k years ago would be most likely indistinguishable from the rest of us today genetically.
You’re taking my analogy too far. Learning isn’t your ability to exercise intelligence. It’s simply the acquisition of knowledge or skills usually through study or training. You’re going to have to provide an argument or a source to back up the claim that intelligence is innate and that it can’t be changed by adjusting our behavior. You’re going to have to show that intelligence is nearly 100% determined by genetics. Those are the types of claims that eugenicists make regarding intelligence by the way, and I’m pretty sure that would make you uncomfortable given your other comment on IQ tests.
Pound sign deep
There is no proof that humanity will ever transition out of that phase. Just because science advances doesn’t mean that religious people will stop existing. There is a sucker born every minute. Unless we start enforcing eugenics in the future and breed out stupidity, people will keep searching for answers trough religion.
When your idea is so good you gotta bring in the big ghost to sell it
