French-British anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, of the London School of Economics believes that humans alone practice religion because they’re the only creatures to have evolved imagination. The development of imagination occurred at the time of the Upper Palaeolithic ‘revolution’ 40-50,000 years ago. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists (Image is prehistoric rock painting from south of Spain). According to Bloch’s theory, initially humans had to develop the essential brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don’t exist physically, and the possibility that people somehow survive on after their death. (via Did Evolution of Human Imagination 50,000 Years Ago Trigger Belief in God? (A Weekend Feature))
