The evolution of meaning and the rise of religion and ideology
Discover Psychology October 14, 2025 Seyyed Kiarash Sadat Rafiei, Mahsa Asadi Anar 4 citations
Religion, ideology, and storytelling evolved as adaptive responses to the existential vulnerabilities created by higher-order consciousness, such as awareness of mortality and uncertainty. Shared symbolic systems—from religious cosmologies to political doctrines—function as emotionally salient, neurologically embedded scaffolds that buffer existential anxiety, regulate affect, and enable large-scale cooperation. A formal two-stage account and a Selection for Existential Stabilization (SES) criterion specify that symbolic architectures persist when they reduce existential/narrative instability and scale cooperation over time. The erosion of traditional meaning frameworks in modern secular contexts is linked to rising psychological and sociopolitical instabilities. Meaning is reframed as a recursive, evolutionarily selected capacity to generate coherence and belonging.