We (that is the Nontheist Friends Network) say, under our Aims, that we ‘regard religion as a human creation’. But is it?

Humans have created many things – culture, science, technology, music, literature, architecture, society and so on.  There is also a developing view that we have socially created language/s.

One thing we did not create, except in the sense of ‘making babies’, is ourselves. Humans were created, if not by God then by evolution.

A fascinating story on the BBC ‘futures’ website, based in part on the work of the Dutch-American primatologist Frans de Waal, suggests that religion itself ‘evolved’ in co-evolution with biology so that its beginnings can be traced back many millions of years to a time long before humans or even primates appeared. (Much further back than Robert Wright’s sociological perspective in his ‘Evolution of God‘).

It’s quite a long read but worth the effort I think as another contribution to our reflections on matters theological.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190418-how-and-why-did-religion-evolve?ocid=ww.social.link.email