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

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.