Becoming Religious

I'm starting to become religious, but just not Christian.  I've believed for a long time that we've evolved the capacity for religion, and if that's the case, then religion must somehow provide something for us.  I've recently read a book called "The Faith Instinct" by Nicholas Wade, and it's provided a lot of substance to that belief.  In terms of a selective advantage, I think the benefits we got from religion are now largely replaced by television and propaganda, but we still have an internal need for the aspects of religion, and that is what I'm now trying to satisfy.

One of the relevant points the book makes is that music and dance derive from a kind of proto-religion, possibly from before we even evolved speech, that provided a mechanism to improve cohesion within a group, allowing larger groups to be more stable, and allowing the group to work together more effectively.  When you think about it, music and dance affect you on a sub-conscious level.  I used to think that the appeal of music came from a repetitive firing of the same neurons in your brain in a kind of resonating frequency that just felt nice, and maybe that's how it works on a mechanistic level, but I now think that the fact that it feels so nice is the result of natural selection, not just an accidental byproduct of evolution.

Another aspect of religion, and I can't remember if Nicholas brings this up in his book, is a sense of the mystique.  When I was younger, I wanted to believe in ghosts, ESP, and all kinds of stuff, and it was only as I became more rational that I gave all of this up.  I still don't believe in any of that kind of stuff, but I'm trying to find some kind of fine line between believing and not believing.  Something like the way you feel when watching a movie.  You know it isn't true, but you let yourself get sucked into it for the moment so that you can more fully feel the feelings that the movie trying to inspire.  In this same way, I'm trying to reconnect with my sense of the mystique by allowing myself to periodically believe in something on a nearly subconscious level while still allowing my more rational self to know that it's all a bunch of hooie.

Another aspect of religion that I'm exploring is the possibility that religion is somehow more consistent with the way our brain works.  Our brains weren't directly evolved to understand the truth, they were evolved to help us survive better and to pass our genes on to the next generation.  Understanding what was going on in our environment, and being able to respond appropriately, helped us to survive better, but other thoughts may have helped us as well.

Since Christianity was derived in the Middle East, and since I come from northern Europe, Christianity didn't derive from my ancestor's minds, nor did my ancestors minds evolve much under the yoke of Christianity.  Therefore, if I really want to examine how a religion might somehow map to my own mind, I should start with the religion of my ancestors, not the religion of my parents, which was foisted on my ancestors just a thousand years ago or so.  This is why I am currently looking at the Celtic religion as a source of mystical inspiration.

Now, the Celtic religion is seeing a bit of revival right now, in the guises of Wicca, NeoDruidism, and a host of other branches, but I'm not ready to follow in any of their footsteps just yet.  In my opinion, they're allowing themselves to believe in this stuff just a little too much.  Also, since not much is known about the old Celtic religion, these groups are making a lot of stuff up just to fill in the gaps.  Sure, a real religion evolves in just this way, with people making stuff up, and the stuff that really resonates with people will stick around, while that which doesn't will fade away.  I might decide to allow myself to get deeper into one of these movements at some point, but right now I'm still trying to "find out who I am" in this new world, and I don't want undo influence from the outside until I know who I am just a little bit better.