is not a simple process of "downloading" notions from one brain to
another. People's minds are constantly busy reconstructing, distorting,
changing and developing the information communicated by others.
This process naturally creates all sorts of variants of religious con-
cepts, as it creates variants of all other concepts. But then not all of
these variants have the same fate. Most of them are not entertained by
the mind for more than an instant. A small number have more staying
power but are not easily formulated or communicated to others. An
even smaller number of variants remain in memory, are communi-
cated to other people, but then these people do not recall them very
well. An extremely small number remain in memory, are communi- [33]
cated to other people, are recalled by these people and communicated
to others in a way that more or less preserves the original concepts.
These are the ones we can observe in human cultures.
So we should abandon the search for ahistoricalorigin of religion in
the sense of a point in time (however long ago) when people created
religion where there was none. All scenarios that describe people sit-
ting around and inventing religion are dubious. Even the ones that see
religion as slowly emerging out of confused thoughts have this prob-
lem. In the following chapters I will show how religion emerges (has its
origins, if you want) in the selection of concepts and the selection of
memories. Does this mean that at some point in history people had lots
of possible versions of religion and that somehow one of them proved
more successful? Not at all. What it means is that, at all times and all the
time,indefinitely many variants of religious notions were and are cre-
ated inside individual minds. Not all these variants are equally success-
ful in cultural transmission. What we call a cultural phenomenon is the
result of a selection that is taking place all the time and everywhere.
This may seem a bit counterintuitive. After all, if you are a Protes-
tant you went to Sunday school and that was your main source of for-
mal religious education. Similarly, the teachings of the madrasafor
Muslims and the Talmud-Torah for Jews seem to provide people with
oneversion of religion. It does not seem to us that we are shopping in a
religious supermarket where the shelves are bursting with alternative
religious concepts. But the selection I am talking about happens mostly
inside each individual mind. In the following chapters I describe how
variants of religious concepts are created and constantly eliminated.
This process goes on, completely unnoticed, in parts of our mind that
conscious introspection will not reach. This cannot be observed or
explained without the experimental resources of cognitive science.
WHATISTHEORIGIN?