An Evolution of Human Spiritual Awareness in Four Stages

Across the globe, in 19 Eastern European countries, 25 Muslim countries and in Israel, low belief in evolution was linked to higher biases within a person’s group, prejudicial attitudes toward people in different groups, and less support for conflict resolution.

The researchers theorized that belief in evolution would tend to increase people’s identification with all humanity, due to the common ancestry, and would lead to less prejudicial attitudes.

In eight studies of different areas of the world, researchers analyzed data from the American General Social Survey (GSS), the Pew Research Center and three online crowdsourced samples testing their hypothesis about the associations of different levels of belief in evolution, they accounted for education, political ideology, religiosity, cultural identity and scientific knowledge.

“We found the same results each time, which is basically that believing in evolution relates to less prejudice, regardless of the group you’re in, and controlling for all of these alternative explanations,” Syropoulos says.

The following essay helps open-minded religious people understand why belief in evolution and in religion is synergistic. Prior to this time humans believed in the local world of spirits. They invoked the spirits of their dead ancestors. The oldest Homo sapiens skulls-160, 000 year-old fossil bones-were polished after death by continuous handling. The earliest examples of ritual burials are from 2 sites in northern Israel dated 90-100,000 years ago.

The research examined 17 Neanderthal and 15 Homo sapiens burials from various archaeological sites, revealed both similarities and differences in how these two species treated their dead, including differences in burial location, body posture and specific grave goods. The Levant, is of particular interest due to the co-existence of two hominin species at this time.

While Homo sapiens first arrived in the region between 170,000 and 90,000 years ago and re-entered the region 55,000 years ago from Africa, Neanderthals came into the Levant from Europe around 120,000 to 55,000 years ago. The two species are easily distinguishable based on their biology and morphology, with nearly every bone in the body being unique to either species. Neanderthal infant burials were more common than Homo sapiens infants.

Homo sapiens burials were very uniform, usually laid out in a flexed (fetal-like) posture. This contrasts with the Neanderthal burials, which were more varied and included individuals buried in flexed, extended (straight), and semi-flexed positions while lying on their left, back, or right. Similarly, some aspects of burial were practiced by Homo sapiens but not by Neanderthals, such as having burials associated with red ocher and marine shells, which were completely absent in Neanderthal contexts.

The researchers also noted a burial outburst during this time. Not only did burials suddenly appear, but they occurred at a very high rate in an equally condensed region, especially compared to later burials in Africa and Europe, of which there are only three in all of Africa and 27, albeit very spatially and temporarily separated for Neanderthals in all of Europe.

This trend of increased burials continued in the region until they suddenly stopped around 50,000 years ago; according to Prof. Been, “The most striking thing is that in later periods, humans in the Levant did not continue the practice of burials. Red ochre is frequently associated with ritual burials.

Qafzeh Cave in Israel is a remarkable site that contains many skeletons of humans who lived there about 100,000 years ago. Archaeologists have recently discovered 71 fragments of red ochre – a form of iron oxide that yields a pigment when heated alongside bones in the cave. The ochre was only found alongside the bones.

Early humans worshiped spirits in trees, springs and other natural phenomena. They invoked many different animal spirits. Shamans and medicine women fought the many demon spirits that caused illness and misfortune. A feline-headed human figure from Germany, thought to be 32,000 to 34,000 years old, might be evidence of a belief system in which shamans were thought to have supernatural powers. Most cave art from 15-25,000 years ago features animal figures and probably reflects Shamanistic rituals.

Every human band or tribal community had dozens of names for spirits. In some societies hundreds of Gods could be called upon by name. This universal pagan nature religion remained widespread in the Americas, Africa, the Pacific Islands and Europe even after the generation of Enosh. There was little overall order or structure in this spiritual world. There was no awareness of a unified creation, plan, purpose or destiny.

Then in the generation of Enosh, whose uncle built the first town (Genesis 4:17), humans began to invoke YHVH by name i.e. they formed a hierarchy of Gods with a creator God or high God at the top. Often this high God was remote and later generations of Gods were more important. Rarely was this creator God an ethical lawgiver.

This became the religious view of the urbanized polytheistic religions of the Far and Middle East as well as parts of Africa and Mesoamerica. This attempt to perceive an order and system among the spirit forces moved humans closer to the Divine reality: YHVH.

With Abraham (and later Akhenaten) the perception of monotheism begins to take root but that is only part of the whole. The Torah tells us that not until the generation of the Exodus from Egypt, was the one God YHVH known as the lawgiver of sacred scripture. “I am YHVH. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai but I did not let myself be known to them by my name YHVH.” (Exodus 6:3) El Shaddai is the God of the breast or the chest.

This signifies the divine spirit within each individual, or the maternal nurturing mystical soul that is invoked in most Indian and some East Asian religions; the mystical religions of inner enlightenment and personal rebirth or escape from the corruption of the material world. This is an advance beyond invoking spirits and the hierarchy of sky Gods or a remote high God.

However, YHVH is a God of history and society; a God of human society’s spiritual and moral growth. YHVH isn’t fully realized until Israel’s covenant with the Divine lawgiver, who is the source of Western society’s ethics and morality. “AT THAT TIME HUMANS BEGAN TO INVOKE YHVH BY NAME” (Genesis 4:26)

Before the end of the Biblical period Jews stopped audibly invoking the name YHVH (today we say simply HaShem- the name) because they feared some people would make an idol of this name; demanding belief only in their own verbal definition of the one God.

In the final stage (the Messianic Age) YHVH, the unpronounceable HaShem; the one and only God, who should not be represented by any image or incarnation; will be invoked by all humanity, even while each people still retains its own religion and its own name for God. “In days to come…All peoples will walk, each in the name of their God, and we will walk in the name of YHVH our God for ever and ever.” (Micah 4:5)

So does faith in God affect your ability to trust other people? And can religion help build trust in your community and with other people? A new study explores the connection between religion and trust, especially at a time when trust in political leaders and institutions in general, at least in the United States, is on the decline. “AT THAT TIME HUMANS BEGAN TO INVOKE YHVH BY NAME” (Genesis 4:26)

Using data from the General Social Survey, Rubia Valente, assistant professor at Baruch College, and Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn of Rutgers University isolated two aspects of religion: individual religiosity, with a focus on prayer and belief in God, versus community religiosity, measured by attendance at services or membership in a religious group.

They found higher levels of belief predicted less trust, while higher levels of belonging predicted more trust. They also found that those who belong to religious groups or attend services have a lower level of misanthropy, or dislike of other people.

“People that are socially religious , what we classify as belonging, they’re more likely to like people and have a lower misanthropy level,” said Valente.