Kinship is a stronger and far more primal tool for social cohesion in our human evolution. Our Paleolithic ancestors lived in small-scale communities—an extended family sharing a shelter. Their sense of solidarity was engendered first and foremost by birth and blood, not by symbols and rituals. To argue that religion arose in human evolution because it gave “believing” communities an adaptive advantage over “nonbelieving” communities would require the existence in religion of some uniquely cohesive power that it simply does not possess. There can be no doubt that its communal properties have
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