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I have always wondered what the evolutionary benefits are of any kind of ritual.

I could imagine that building social relationships, and identifying with a group, are beneficial for survival. I could also guess that a ritualistic killing of genes other than your own could reduce competition for resources.

In nature, animals often have complex rituals, particularly mating rituals. What is most fascinating is that human rituals are learned rather than instinctive.

I have always supposed that the rituals we see today are detrimental to society. I guess it can't always be so clear cut, since occasionally religious people do act altrustically, even outside their clique, and our ancestors MUST have derived some benefit from this kind of behaviour otherwise the behaviour would not have been selected.

Ultimately, it only matters to our genes THAT we behave in a certain way, not WHY we do it. Since we are intelligent, our genes must manipulate us via our beliefs rather than our instincts. I know I certainly have a lot of irrational beliefs, for example I love my parents more than other people, but at least I understand this process better, and am hopefully less likely to act absurdly.

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