Southstar,
Haha, a simple caveman responsible for all the world's religions.. Absurd!
What's so absurd about it?
You've heard of Mitochondrial Eve? Well, there are those who say that this religious mutation that occurred, possibly in as few as a
single individual, also had a number of survival benefits. Mankind was small back then. This was before the diaspora of man throughout the globe. Man traveled and took the seed with him as he went.
Religion is much more easily spread than mitochandria and other genetic factors. It doesn't require a direct biological link. Memes are spread culturally and culture can spread quite quickly and effectively. Especially a successful one.
I think there's a predisposition to spirituality however because some people get 'sucked into religion' more easily than others. Call it a 'survival mechanism' if you will but it is a part of their nature.
As I said, it's part of our pattern-finding abilities. We create a web of correlations to establish order in a chaotic world.
And, consider that this thing called religion (and language as well which is it's carrier and comrade) can be considered an organism of its own. It mutated from near random processes until it achieved a state where it could effectively transmit itself amongst its host population. Over succeeding generations it has only become more efficient in transmitting itself.
Social factors only help to repress or bring out the disposition, sometimes via religion.
The social is the means that this organism/parasite religion transmits and reproduces itself. Without the social there could be no religion.
Without being instilled with the religion and beliefs of one's fathers then the odds of one coming up with something even remotely like religion are a million to one. It's not that a seed is being repressed or 'brought out' by the social. You could say that it is being fertilized by it, in a way. THe social gives one a ready-made construct with which to adapt to one's own life. Without this construct one would have to start from scratch and has been shown by the feral children they aren't spiritual or superstitious.
Consider language as a correllary to relgion. It's known that children raised in the utter absence of language (feral children) do not create their own language. They do possess methods of communication but a true language is not one of them. But, give them something to work with, a pidgin language, and they'll turn it into a full-fledged language in as few as one generation. And a new creole language is born. But, the predecessor to this langauge
must be present. Something to work with.
Now, this is all imperfect knowledge as I don't recall any feral children
groups. It would require a group to need language and it would be interesting to see what would happen in such a setting. Maybe someday when life is not so precious the forbidden experiment will be performed and we can know for sure.
But will they develop spirituality on their own initiative after "they've exhausted the usual techniques for the causation of success?"
What does this mean? "Exhausted the usual techniqes for the causation of success." What are the 'usual techniqes' and what is the 'causation of success'?
And as for whether or not a caveman was responsible for changing the genes of all humankind and making us either indifferent, averse, or thirsty for spirituality I don't know..
You're bringing in 'responsibility' where such doesn't apply.
For one, I'll agree that it very likely wasn't a 'caveman' who introduced mystical thinking into the culture, but rather the ancient humans that moved from the dwindling forests to the savannah. They didn't live in caves.
For two, there is no real scientific evidence that correlates spirituality with some 'God gene'. That article you linked to is sensationalistic crap which could only be called science in this era of George Bush worshippers. The 'God gene' does not mandate creation of a god, but rather a spiritual feeling. But, one can utilize that spiritual feeling in any way, from worshipping Satan to putting puzzles together. It's a feel good gene. And calling it a 'God gene' begs the question.
Perhaps it could be called a 'gulllibility gene'. It predisposes people to the ecstatic fervor which finds an easy outlet in religious ritual. But, it doesn't follow that this gene, in the absence of a previous religious structure, would urge one to create that structure from whole cloth.
They give an example in the article and I quote,
"When tribes living in remote areas come up with a concept of God as readily as nations living shoulder to shoulder, it's a fairly strong indication that the idea is preloaded in the genome rather than picked up on the fly."
Now that's just ridiculous. This would have you believe that these city-folk and the primitive tribesman came out of a vacuum. That each don't have common roots buried somewhere in the past. That the traditions of the city-folk are purely of the city and the traditions of the tribe are purely of the tribe.
Preposterous.
A better comparison would be between people that grew up in an environment in which religious ideas are taught or at least made available for assimilation and one in which they are non-existant. If this 'god gene' mandated the creation of spiritual structure then the latter would form spiritual belief structures every time, given the presence of the 'god gene'. And since religion and mystical thinking is so wide-spread, it's fairly obvious that it is widely represented in the entire population of the earth and therefore the odds of gene pool not containing this gene are fairly low.
And yet,
feral children are not spiritual. Are not superstitious. Do not dwell in the abstract.
This 'god gene' (a misnomer and simplisticly conceived) merely gives the social mechanism of religion a fertile ground in which to take root. It's not real science as there is only
one means to answer this question as well as certain other questions regarding human cognition.
The forbidden experiment.
Raising humans in a controlled environment deprived of their social heritage.
Raising a race of true primitive humans. Cut off from all the thousands and thousands of years of cultural evolution to which all humans are heir to.
Anyway, the topic isn't a genetic predisposition to certain modes of thought. Such obviously exists, if not so simplisticly as this 'god gene' would have it. Our brains are built from genetic guidelines, there is no disputing that. The topic is a specific region of the brain which when stimulated would cause one to 'see god' or some such. Or so I presume. And, as I said earlier, temporal lobe epilepsy is known to cause this phenomenon. But it's not a specific spot, it's a widespread redundant network.
Edit: One last thought on that 'god gene'. It would be funny if this 'god gene' turns out to be one that we have in common with our animal brothers, wouldn't it?