How religion evolved and why it endures, with Robin Dunbar | Humanists UK Convention 2023

Humanists UK
Humanists UK
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Published 2023-08-04
When did humans develop ‘spiritual’ thought? What is religion’s evolutionary purpose? And in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured? Every society in the history of humanity has lived with religion. Evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar tracks its origins back to what he terms the ‘mystical stance’ – the aspect of human psychology that predisposes us to believe in a transcendent world, and which makes an encounter with the spiritual possible. Dunbar argues that this instinct is not a peculiar human quirk, an aberration on our otherwise efficient evolutionary journey. Rather, religion confers an advantage: it can benefit our individual health and wellbeing, but, more importantly, it fosters social bonding at large scale, helping to hold fractious societies together. Dunbar suggests these dimensions might provide the basis for an overarching theory for why and how humans are religious, and so help unify the myriad strands that currently populate this field.
All Comments (21)
  • @erfan74ir
    very fascinating and informative lecture. However, why does the camera just show the speakers but not the slides which contain all the info about the lecturer's notes?
  • @scambammer6102
    why humans developed religion: 1. Agency attribution (the noise in the bushes.) 2. Fear of the unknown, particularly death 3. Grief over the loss of loved ones 4. Promotes social cohesion, including parent and mate bonding and hierarchies. That's no different now from 10,000 BC. Only the details have changed to reflect changes in science and social structure.
  • @mukeshsharma-iq8dp
    Prof Dunbar, i have an alternative reasoning why hunter gatherers were living in groups 20-50 people. Its a lot to do with food & sheltering resources that limits the range of how far they could forage. Only with the advent of agriculture 8-9K years back that they could build villages & and raise the carrying capacity of the group into the hundreds and later into the thousands which led to towns & cities in Mesopotamia, Uruk, Aztecs, Mohenjo daro-Harappa & even at the Yellow River, China. For your kind reconsideration. But to i support your hypothesis of >50 member hunter gatherer groups disintergrating becoz of social stress...that stress was the food & shelter limitations that were above the 'Carrying Capacity' of that population.🙏
  • @NickHewlettTHATCHIT
    Just Watched. Absolutely Brilliant !!! Talk .I . learned SO Much!!!! Very Funny at times as Well. Thankyou. Mr.R.Dunbar!!!
  • @globalvillage423
    He is right when he says that social life can be stressful, people can be really nasty and horrible.
  • @DoorknobHead
    Dunbar's number, and all the rest of it. Very interesting. So glad this topic is being explored more scientifically. Maybe the benefits of it can be incorporated into secular communities.
  • @Odonanmarg
    An extremely informative lecture. I learned a lot. But WHY did it evolve ? Being a student of history myself, I was waiting for Professor Dunbar to describe the moment💥in time when an ancestor of ours suddenly realized that they themselves were going to die someday. That all life had a limited time-span. Then they realized that they didn’t want to leave it all behind - leave the experience of living. They were not able to accept that. Don’t worry though, there is an afterlife.
  • @Gregorovitch144
    Prof. Dunbar: you mentioned in this excellent talk that the cults/groups that last the longest are the ones that forbid the most things that people tend to like doing. Do you have any data on why that is?
  • @sharonhearne5014
    Maybe the point is “opting to make a firm commitment” gives peace — taking away many stresses — to the uncertainties humans face; it allows constant worries to take a nap, so to speak. Events may come along to revive the uncertainties but can be calmed again.
  • @toni4729
    Don't tell me, the families finally ran out of plates.
  • @stuartgraca
    The earliest and most lasting bonding agent is sport, a form of competition watched and participated by large groups .
  • @luizr.5599
    It'd have been good to see the slides
  • @derekyoung4729
    Fascinating talk. Thank you. And as evolution is an ongoing process.. all this nuggets of info are particles of evolutionary atoms as building blocks for whats to come..
  • @robertsouth6971
    Religion emerges in deep jungles and on desert islands. Maybe its a response to something real in nature. But the reason people turn to religion in civilization is that the secular society is somehow inadequate or intolerable. That's why the secularization hypothesis holds true only in some modernized places and not others. When the secular society is so well run that people don't need anything else they don't need religion. So do it in the right order.
  • @ivtch51
    One omission in this great presentation was the place religion has played in the development of society beyond the simple village. Up until the 1800s a religious class (clerics) in tandem with the ruling order has regulated society. Not only has religion instructed individuals in how to behave ethically and morally but it has justified a ruling class order as being part of a divine order. For example, the mystique of King Charles's coronation in his holy oil anointing. I consider religion as an essential ingredient in the evolution of human society and civilization. The big question is whether we have superseded it and got rid of it. When I see the rise of authoritarian governments and extreme ideologies I do wonder. As people seek an all-encompassing cosmology (life's grand purpose & meaning) I do wonder if we should look deeper into humanity's religious impulse. Is it easy to live without this ultimate meaning and purpose? Dunbar's picture is partial. His intent is verifiable-data limited. Other fascinating dimensions werte not discussed.