For French-British anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics, religion is a product of imagination. Moreover, the reason why humans possess the concept of religion and practice it is because ‘they’re the only creatures to have evolved imagination.’ This capacity for imagination which began to develop 40-50,000 years ago, or during the final stage of the Stone Age, came about as man developed the necessary ‘brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don’t exist physically.’

According to Bloch, man’s imagination makes him grasp a way to bond with ‘non-existent or distant people or value-systems.’ These include the mysterious, invisible, dead, ancestors, and gods. However, religion is just one expression of this bond.

Bloch adds that religion is a mechanism of adaptation for man, most especially in his capacity to ‘imagine other worlds.’ He says, “Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society.”

The ability to grasp the imaginary in everyday lives is what makes religion clearer and more accessible to man. True enough, religion thrives on the concept that it gets stronger with faith. Faith, as everyone who has it knows, rests primarily in the realm of imagination.

Via The Daily Galaxy