Religion as a Large-Scale Justification System Does the Justification Hypothesis Explain

ABSTRACT. One important goal in Henriques ’ (2003) Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System is to develop a theory of the emergence of culture. The Justification Hypothesis (JH), which is offered as the missing joint point connecting the cultural sciences to the other sciences, is hoped to be the key to understanding how the evolution of the human mind led to the emergence of cultures conceived as large-scale justification systems. This essay sug-gests that the origins of religion are connected to human evolution through the development of a Theory of Mind (ToM) and the looking-glass self (Shaffer, 2005). Since ToM is dependent upon the ability to perceive the intentions behind the actions of others, a capacity known as ‘mind-reading’ (Bering, 2002), the JH suggests that religion will emerge as humans turn their mind-reading capacities toward naturally occurring events and engage in animistic attribution (Shaffer, 1984). Religion produces moral codes to help individuals justify themselves, but also produces theodicies which seek to justify the actions of the gods. Since cultural institutions differentiate themselves from each other by pursuing distinct ideological goals, religion also emerges as a separate cultural institution by pursuing the goal of find-ing meaning in life experiences