Was the idea of ​​’god’ necessary for man to exist? And are societies with a god more successful?

Answer

As for the first part of the question, our species (Homo sapiens) evolved about 100,000 – 200,000 years ago from an older species (Homo erectus) that lived as hunter-gatherers in small groups in Africa. There are no indications that our ancestors worshiped one or more gods in that long history of hundreds of thousands of years. It is more likely that, as is still the case today among certain “savage” hunter-gatherer tribes, they worshiped animals as well as other natural elements such as rocks, springs, rivers, trees, celestial bodies, etc. It is it was only after people switched to agriculture and organized themselves into larger and larger communities that we find evidence of the worship of gods with human characteristics (sometimes half human, half animal). This is therefore less than 10,000 years ago, which is very little in relation to the evolutionary period of our species.

The monotheistic religions of Jews, Christians and Muslims, who worship one god, have their source somewhere 3000-4000 years ago. Such institutionalized religions were useful in getting large communities of people who don’t even know each other to work together, wage wars, etc. But they emerged relatively recently and were therefore of no importance to the evolution of our biological species. They were very important for the development of our societies and cultures.

As for the second part of your question, I still doubt that societies with a god would be more successful. Objectively speaking, the most successful society in the making seems to be the Chinese one, and religion is of little importance there. The societies where religion does play an important role in people’s daily lives can be found in the Middle East and North Africa, and they are not at all successful (bad economic situation, no technological input, civil war…) . Human success has everything to do with the development of science and technology. Both in the west (N-America and Europe) and in the east (China, for example) we see that this goes hand in hand with a diminished importance of religion in society.

I strongly doubt that societies where people fight “for god”, like IS, mean “more victories” and success for society. In the military field, the United States is still the absolute number 1, and there you have a professional army.