Really? How could you use the words “never” and “always”? Can you not think of several examples where a person “tapped” into a power outside themself and used it for good? What you just said would take a very convincing argument to convince any open-minded person, whether religous or not. For example, I must be missing the logical connection between tapping into, or worshiping, or following, a “greater power” (normally defined as perfect and good) and using that for evil. Look around you; there are enough examples of people doing good deeds in the name of their god.
Furthermore, why are we speculating about cavepaintings and possible evolutionary reasons for religious benefits to a clan? Religion is all around us: why not do an analysis of it based on what we know and can see?
According to one Christian viewpoint, humans are natually evil and need to tap into God’s grace to become people capable of doing good. I don’t really agree with that, but many people do. And it probably works for the good for many of these people.
I say never for good; because when god was conceived of it was as a force that could be untilized like we think of nuclear power today… How often have people prayed for their own virtue, and how often was that for virtue as the prize??? With God we have the prize of heaven, and the curse of hell, and we find ourselves between them… Are we??? Or is the metaphysical map we have drawn for ourselves only so many pot holes??? Since we piss away so much of resources supporting religion, we have to look long and hard to find any benfit…What were they???The beginning of medicine in finding out what did not work???The beginning of astronomy in the search for portents??? The beginning of class division as we know it???These were secondary, and small beside the curse of mindless irrationality…Something good has come out of spirituality, though we might better say that spiritualism was the beginning of good; because the ability to form a mental conception of reality…
Look at what all religions have in common: Ritual… With ritual we attempt to reproduce a certain reality… We go through a certain motions, say a certain prayer, make a certain sacrifice; and when it is over the earth is made to turn on its cycle once again bringing the company back to the same point at another year… Again, it is for power and not for good… Good may be a secondary consideration…But evil is the result…Control people and you can make them act against heir own best interest… Do you conceive of people as evil…That is false…People are everywhere the same, neither good nor evil, but good or evil in relation to each other… But the quest for power is never the power of wisdom, of self control for the good that always does, but is power over others, the worst sort of power… And what other power does God have but to contol men’s minds and hold them in ignorance and awe… Has he dug a single tunnel??? Has he ever put a train back on the tracks???
I think rape is a good comparison to religion (byproduct) If rape is not an adaptation that is. ( I don’t think it is) for example when women cheat according to the logic of sperm competition they should avoid sex (for some time with partner) to avoid having partner’s sperm out competing those of the affair, or her husband’s penis displacing it. (women do avoid sex after affair.)
Men on the other side in suspected infidelty engage in thrusting hypothesized (correctly) to displace sperm and a huge desire to immediately sleep with the chick. Anyway the chick 's/husbands differing/conflicting desires is a recipe for rape.
Anyway religion, byproducts of adaptations we do have, while we’d die without them it really is a lot of human psychological baggage to carry around in a lot of situations. Agency detection is good for detecting agents, so good it sees them when they aren’t even there.