“We Got Tired”

Function, Dysfunction, and the Invisible Host of Religious Failures

Abstract

In this commentary, I raise the issue of how well we can distinguish between religious systems and those presided over by messianic “quasi-divine” leaders. This problematizes the degree to which all such systems can be described as ecologically functional when they can also be directed by the idiosyncratic whims of unstable charismatic individuals. Aside from such issues, I also raise the issue of how we can be sure that the “religious system” is reliably adaptive, if we may not have an accurate tally of such systems in the first place, particularly given the fact that religious studies scholars are incapable of providing a distinction between a “cult” that may contain but a few individuals and quickly “fail” due to its esoteric demands, and millennia-old traditions commanding millions of adherents and enforcing prosocial norms. I also raise two issues that have long bedevilled functionalist approaches but that do not make much of an appearance in Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics (Purzycki & Sosis 2022): the boundary problem and the Pangloss problem. Despite these reservations, I applaud the book both for its rigour and for providing a sorely needed template for analyzing religious systems within the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion (CESR). I close by tentatively suggesting that religion’s ubiquity lies not with its adaptiveness per se, but with its capacity to accelerate cultural evolution by causing societies to lock in values that may either be adaptive or maladaptive, making sacralization ubiquitous even when its outcomes can be destructive.