with a great interest in our behavior, are widespread the world over,
and other possible religious concepts are very rare. It also explains
why the concepts are so persuasive, as we will see presently.^6
EMOTIVE SCENARIOS:
RELIGION PROVIDES COMFORTMany people think there is a simple explanation for religion: we need
it for emotional reasons. The human psyche is thus built that it longs
for the reassurance or comfort that supernatural ideas seem to pro- [19]
vide. Here are two versions of this widespread account:
- Religious explanations make mortality less unbearable. Humans are all
aware that they are all destined to die. Like most animals they have
developed various ways of reacting to life-threatening situations:
fleeing, freezing, fighting. However, they may be unique in being
able to reflect on the fact that come what may, they will die. This
is one concern for which most religious systems propose some
palliative, however feeble. People's notions of gods and ancestors
and ghosts stem from this need to explain mortality and make it
more palatable. - Religion allays anxiety and makes for a comfortable world. It is in the
nature of things that life is for most people nasty, brutish and short.
It certainly was so in those Dark Ages when religious concepts were
first created by human beings. Religious concepts allay anxiety by
providing a context in which these conditions are either explained
or offset by the promise of a better life or of salvation.
Like the intellectualist scenarios, these suggestions may well seem
plausible enough as they stand, but we must go a bit further. Do they
do the intended job? That is, do they explain why we have religious
concepts and why we have the ones we have?
There are several serious problems with accounts based on emo-
tions. First, as anthropologists have pointed out for some time, some
facts of life are mysterious or awe-inspiring only in places where a
local theory provides a solution to the mystery or a cure for the angst.
For instance, there are places in Melanesia where people perform an
extraordinary number of rituals to protect themselves from witchcraft.
Indeed, people think they live under a permanent threat from these
WHATISTHEORIGIN?