1. Gergen argues that situations which human beings didn’t understand or deal with appropriately would inflict painful lessons – providing a conditioning or predisposition for learning. “In the Darwinian sense, the ability to conceptualize has survival value. To be more specific, concepts are valuable tools in problem solving.” (p.23) “In essence, there may be a strong learned need for persons to conceptualize phenomena; when they are unable to do so they become anxious or fearful. Perhaps events for which there were no available categories, necessitated developing the concept of God.” (p.24)

2. Paloutzian and Park contend, “religion and spirituality are more or less coherent, culturally elaborated meaning systems embedded in and acquired through social relationships and institutions situated in complex natural and built environments.” In principle – in light of the fact that there is a consensus among scientists that above all human beings are “social animals – then, relationships would be the main and primary “characteristics” of humanity, as it were. The concept of “meaning systems” integrating “social relationships” is in line with much research into early human societies – for instance, Erica Hill’s focus on the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits as “human relationships with the animal world.”

6. Lastly, the evolutionary adaptive traits question boils down to the question of whether the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits for instance perform a function of any sort. In principle in light of the fact that throughout human history countless spiritual beliefs, religious beliefs as well as religions