A wealthier
population could mean the end of religion. The group of academics suggest that
the world’s major religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism
and Buddhism, emerged as an evolutionary emerged as an evolutionary response to
the differences in lifestyle between wealthy elites and other poorer
communities. Affluence and wealth caused humans to have a “slower” lifestyle. Absolute
affluence has predictable effects on human motivation and reward systems,
moving individuals away from ‘fast life’ strategies (resources acquisition and
coercive interactions) and toward ‘slow life’ strategies (self-control
techniques and cooperative interactions).
The study
says living a ‘slow life’ put the elite at an evolutionary disadvantages, as
they may have had fewer children, had less to eat and reproduced later in life.
In order to offset this disadvantage, the wealthy introduced moralizing religions
to the poor as a way to introduce them to ‘slow life’ strategies, therefore
offsetting the evolutionary disadvantages the elite faced in being less
motivated by acquisition, greed and procreation.
The study
said religious practice itself had been around since before a clear divide in
wealth emerged. As affluence become more widespread, moralizing religion could
be on its way out. Living a ‘slow’ lifestyle was becoming more common among the
general population, with people motivated to cooperate with each other and
focus on fulfillment in areas of life that are not just physical – which means
there is less need for moralizing religions to control the behavior of a large
poor population.
