Afterlife Beliefs as Evolutionary Byproduct
Part 2 of my series on evolutionary explanations for afterlife beliefs
This is the second part of a three-part series on the origins of belief in an afterlife. The series explores the topic from an evolutionary perspective. You can access all three parts here.
In this part, we’ll explore the byproduct approach to afterlife beliefs. Note that the full post is available only to paid subscribers. Check out the other benefits of a paid subscription here.
II. Afterlife as Byproduct
The most popular approach to religious beliefs among evolution-minded scholars is the byproduct approach, also known as the spandrel approach. The classic example of a byproduct is the bellybutton; it’s not an adaptation in and of itself, but rather a byproduct of something that is: the placenta. Applied to afterlife beliefs, the hypothesis would be that belief in post-mortem survival is not itself an adaptation, but is instead a side effect of other psychological traits that are. Which traits might these be? Let’s look at the three main contenders.
Death Anxiety
Animals learn death first at the moment of death... man approaches death with the knowledge it is closer every hour, and this creates a feeling of uncertainty over his life, even for him who forgets in the business of life that annihilation is awaiting him. It is for this reason chiefly that we have philosophy and religion.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
The most widely touted byproduct explanation for afterlife beliefs has its roots in one of the best-known theories of religion: the idea that religion is a product of wishful thinking. More precisely, it’s a response to our natural dread of death and extinction. This dread is in turn a byproduct of the sophisticated intellectual talents that enable our species, uniquely among the animals, to understand that one day, probably sooner than we hope, we will die. Afterlife beliefs are a cultural antidote to this anxiety-inducing insight: a byproduct of a byproduct.
The wishful thinking approach has a long and distinguished history in psychology. Sigmund Freud, for instance, wrote that