''Religion grew from some tiny awakening of abstract thought, probably well before our latest environmental stage, Homo sapien sapien. Now the argument might then go, was it us who invented it or did we tap into some other-worldliness and simply become aware of it?''
Why is it more complicated than the given explanation that religion/creation myths was a way of explaining what was an incomprehensible world, the sun, moon, stars, the wind, rivers, the ocean....a world thought to be populated by gods and spirits?
Religion did not create or awaken our capacity for abstract thought, that evolved for other reasons, environmental, genetic, etc, and religion as with tool making, construction, social and political organization became an expression of the human capacity to think and plan.
Rather than being the driver, religion was but one of the many expressions of brain development.
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