Anthropology Articles

Most art is religious art. For thousands of years, we sculpted deities, sung hymns, and performed ritual dances. Religion and art also have much in common. They are evocative, skilfully crafted, attention-grabbing ideas that communicate a message, represent a hidden meaning, and embellish reality. So did they co-evolve as the same behaviour? Or did religion parasitize art?

Without the Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra, the story of Noah would be absent or unrecognizable. However, if Judaism and Christianity hadn’t borrowed from earlier religions, they wouldn’t be here today. Others that “borrowed better” would be instead. Tapping into what people find plausible, desirable, and intrinsically captivating is what successful religions do.

The most obvious answer—to provision the dead on their journey—may be correct. A recent study suggested that humans reason "implicitly" (unconsciously) as if death is not the end. With time to reflect, atheists override this implicit tendency by "explicitly" (consciously) reasoning about the lack of evidence for an afterlife.