Ask An Atheist: How come every society has a religion?

Because we humans crave explaining things, and we are naturally drawn to inventing supernatural explanations for things we didn’t understand.  British psychologist Bruce Hood’s 2009 “Supersense” book goes into the cognitive systems underlying our religious urge.

That the religions we make up vary so widely is difficult to understand if only one particular religion is true.  This is even more implausible as we look back in time to see how religious beliefs have evolved and adapted over time.

Remember our species is a couple of hundred thousand years old, and most of the popular religions in the world today have roots going back less than a tenth of that time.  Whether our hominid ancestors had religions of a sort is not known, though it’s arguable that our close cousins (and occasional mating partners) the Neanderthals may have had beliefs we’d call religious.

Early religions tended to worship spectacular natural features or forces, from rock formations to powerful animals.  They were concerned with getting on the gods’ good side to keep harvests going or avoid disease.  It appears that only later did religions try to accommodate higher philosophical issues like afterlives and morality.

Knowing what we do about how the mind naturally attributes purpose to things and sees patterns whether or not they are real, it would be surprising if people didn’t make up religions along with all the other pattern organizers we’ve concocted.  Astrology is an obvious example that remains very popular, believed in especially by people in risky careers (entertainers Nancy Reagan and Bill Maher come to mind).  Even card games can be coopted in the quest for supernatural explanation, such as tarot cards.