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AS AN EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION, RELIGION HAS BENEFITS FOR BELIEVERS
If religious belief is an evolutionary adaptiaon, it provides the believer with significant benefits:
- Helps protect adherents (the overwhelming majority of humankind) from depression, anxiety, and suicide—although some adherents use suicide as a ticket to “paradise,” such as the 9/11 terrorists and countless suicide bombers.
- Provides a sense of well-being by“answering” profound questions. The human species made it to the top of the food chain by understanding cause-and-effect. Where no cause-and-effect evidence exists, religious faith stands in. Believers report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, compared with non-religious peers.
- Provides adherents with membership in a powerful group, and all the survival advantages that go with such affiliation.
The hypothesis that religion is an adaptation would also predict that religious faith would be prevalent in all societies, regardless of level of technological advancement, in nations such as India as well as in nations such as America.