Excerpt #23 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
The vast majority of our wars were provoked by religion.
If we could eliminate religion, we would remove the emotional and “moral” impetus for war.
Removing religion is not easy.
Even in the face of utterly conclusive evidence against old belief systems, one wonders why people do not give up on religion.
Religion discharges anxiety by connecting isolated individuals to a tribe.
It makes them feel the power of the entire group.
This power becomes part of them.
The evolutionary function of religion has been to increase in-group cohesion in order to enhance competition with out-groups: Israelites vs. Hivites, or Catholic Croatians vs. Orthodox Serbs vs. Muslim Bosnians.
It provides a means for reduction of anxiety caused by autonomy.
Religion evolved as a means of inducing and channeling hypnosis to increase group cohesion and to weld weak individuals into mighty super-organisms readied to exterminate genetic competition.
It does this through hypnotic preaching, rhythmic singing, dancing, clapping, monotonous chanting, or drumming — and gives us a clue to the evolutionary ‘purpose’ of music.
Because hypnosis can function at a preverbal level, it can evade the radar of the rational mind.
It can produce warriors that know no fear despite the most fearful of circumstances.
It can create the bright illusion of a better world on another plane — an illusion so powerful that warriors will not hesitate to fight for it no matter how frightful the real world.
There should be no perception of paradox in that religion and war go together so frequently.
The facilitation of war was the reason for religion in the first place. (Excerpted from the lecture, “Why is Religiosity so Hard to Cure?” by Frank R. Zindler, former professor of biology, psychobiology, and geology.)