According to the 20th century philosopher, Ernst Cassirer, 'religion' is a 'symbolic form', which means that it represents a fundamental symbol system through which human beings gain meaning and thereby, survive. Other symbolic forms include language, mathematics, science, and mythology. Cassirer suggests that human beings are 'symbolic animals', we survive and thrive only through our ability to create and maniupulate symbol systems and symbolic forms. Religion as a symblic form takes individual spiritual impulses and organizes them in such a way that they provide meaning and promote further creative 'work' in the universe.

I think the key word is "meaning." Religion is about the meaning of life. How life can be meaningful, while there is so much random destruction in the world. But people cannot leave without the meaning, this is why all cultures always have had religions.

I think that questions about the meaning of life are a backwards projection of a minority of people in highly developed societies, beginning with Sumerian culture, e.g. the Gilgamesh Epic. I have never read that hunters & gatherers asked for the meaning of life.

What do you mean by "cognitive function"? in simple terms, spirituality has a human function. It allows us to be ourselves, access our imagination, and relate well to others and the wider universe. That will have a cognitive element if you mean "knowing" or "understanding" (e.g. what is good or true or beautiful), but I wouldn't want to restrict it to that. (I have to say the word 'cognitive' seems to bring me out in a rash these days: but I accept that is my problem!)

Marc, I'm not quire sure I understand what is being 'projected backward'. I suppose that from one perspective, hunters & gatherers did not have to question what the meaning of life was for them, because they already knew, or at the least, found the question irrelevant in the context of their lives; the meaning of life was to find food or kill it, eat it, and otherwise, survive the 'wilds' of nature. However, with the development of cities and more complex civilizations, and thus, life became 'easier' in the sense that food, shelter, and basic survival were assured, the question became more relevant as people had more time on their hands to do other things and to reflect upon life and nature. So I suppose, one could say that the 'more developed' could project their 'meanings' onto the 'backward' hunters and gatherers. But that raises other questions. From what it is known about human existence in the past, from paleolithic drawings and other imaginative, artistic drawings, even the most 'primitive' cultures had accepted understandings about life and nature: how one should live one's life, the nature of the world, etc. . . . But in part I would reject the 'developed' - 'non-developed' dualism in terms of our conceptions of spirituality. As an experiential phenomenon, spirituality deals with what is yet, 'mysterious', and whether one was living as a hunter-gatherer or is an urban life-deweller, life is still 'mysterious' in some basic ways.

Marc,

You are right in your statement, but wrong in its meaning. Animals do not think about the meaning of life. It does not mean they do not need it. Animal's life is unified and every perception-cognition-action is unified with the meaning given to them by their instincts, mostly survival and procreation.

Human psyche lost its autonomous unity with emergence of language. Language split psyche in many "pieces" and humans had to unify it by cognitive-psychological mechanisms. The primary mechanism is religion. ALL human societies have religions. For long peoples could not formulate consciously that the goal of religions was to maintain the meaning despite multiplicity of knowledge.

Today many people read scientific books or at least heard about science, and decided that they are smarter than people used to be before science. But only few people can consciously understand today what most of people could not consciously understand few centuries ago. And it does not mean that we "project" on them our ideas. They were not "stupid" and the fact that we can understand scientifically what they have not does not mean that they did not "know" what they were doing. In many ways today people are less smart, especially when they use their simplified and incomplete scientific understanding in place of millennial truths.

Warren,

Of course "cognitive function" is a human function. I mean by this a role in the functioning of the mind. It is not equivalent to "knowing" in that a cognitive function could be unconscious (as it usually is).

I would suggest that "good" is very ambiguous, because usually people mean good to them (not to the one who does the action of being good). "True" is a scientific term meaning that some knowledge corresponds to actual laws of nature. "Beautiful" - according to Kant - is related to an emotion of understanding what is the meaning of life, I wrote few papers on this. Religion in Kantian and my understanding is most close to the emotion of sublime, which is related to ACTION (not just understanding) of realizing the highest meanings in one's life.

Does it make sense?

Robert,

I agree with you, but I think you simplify hunter-gatherers. Of course they had (have) to understand the spiritual meaning of their lives. Otherwise one cannot allocate attention and energy to what is the most important. There is a lot of people in our society today who thinks that money are most important. This does not mean they do not "understand" their spiritual goals, in most cases they are just unconscious about their spiritual purpose. Many people take specific religious rituals for the essence of religion and consciously people could be confused by these rituals invented long ago for different type of consciousness and life circumstances. Nevertheless, most of people in our society (often unconsciously) benefit from the monotheistic idea about spiritual meaning of life.

I would not say that the question about the meaning became more "relevant as people had more time on their hands." I would think just the opposite, this most important question for survival is less relevant, but there is more time to think consciously about this question.

I completely agree that "spirituality deals with what is yet, 'mysterious', and whether one was living as a hunter-gatherer or is an urban life-deweller, life is still 'mysterious' in some basic ways."

Leonid,

Thanks for clarifying and moderating my remarks. Indeed, if anything, I think that many people in contemporary society are becoming more unconscious about the spiritual dimensions of the decisions they make just because the distinctions between 'religion' and 'spirituality' have been purposely blurred by relious doctrine and legitimated belief. . . In terms of your comments about the cognitive functions of animals and their ability to 'understand', I would like to leave as an open question, whether animals may possess conscious, meaning-making abilities. There was a German biologist, Jacob von Uexkill, writing in the early 20th century who sought to explore the various 'umwelts' of different biological organisms. We do not have enough phenomenological data to exclude the possibilities that different organisms consciously exercise self-understood meanings of their lives within their own contextual worlds.

Robert,

I agree. You are right, we do not have enough phenomenological data about other organisms. Still we do not need to be completely pessimistic about limits of science. We cannot subjectively feel the gravity pool the SAME way as a stone does. Still we can predict the way the stone will fall to earth. Validation of this prediction tells us that we understand gravity. Consciousness is more complex, still we know how to approach it scientifically.

As far as the developed/non-developed duality that was referred to above, I think it's worth pondering whether the hunter/gatherer people's weren't even more spiritual than thier modern day counterparts. . . . There's a difference between 'spirituality' and 'religion'. Spirituality refers to one's basic stance toward the universe, toward one's life, toward the great and awesome mysteries that our existence on this planet evokes within us, and spiritual revelations are relatively fluid and temporary. Religion, on the other hand, is an attempt to 'codify' or 'objectivy' particular spiritual 'revelations' into formulas that make those highly personal and fluid spiritual revelations 'accessible' to others. Religion is the priviledging of some sets of spritual revelations over others, and there is a power dimension to religion that does not directly attend spirituality.

Robert,

I agree with you.

It's like an open more light door, easy look for truth, truth put light in all, and understanding and wisdom are instantaneous.

"What is the cognitive function of religion... (credo, sublime)", I feel first that this question is no nice, but now I feel that nice or not, is truth that exist a cognitive concequence of "believe".