Religion and science evolved as the village myth evolved to solve oo distinct and incompatible problems in the game of life presented by the jungle.
In a village (coalition), myth is a story that is expressed in "human terms" that all persons in the village can understand and that promotes the coalition's objective, which is to prosper in the game of life presented by the jungle. To do this, the myth of a village must:
In contemporary terms, the myth of a village (coalition) is a "model", like a scientific model but for a different purpose. A village is a coalition of persons in a jungle (the chaos and violence of life as presented by weather, wildfires, earthquakes, germs, animals, and other coalitions) who come together for the purpose of prospering, of winning at the game of life presented by the jungle. The myth of such a village exists for the sole purpose of prospering the village. Viewed as a model, the myth is a story that gives all persons in the village a common understanding of the universe and their place within that universe. But the purpose of such a model is not Truth per se. The scientific part of the story (the "what is" part) is merely the canvas upon which the roles and rules that comprise the "way of life" of the village are painted. The roles and rules and incentives part of the story comprise a model, not of the unverse, but of required behavior. Objective Truth is not relevant. The purpose of the myth is to ensure that all persons in the village have a common understanding of what behavior is required and of the consequences of noncompliance.
The myth of a village can also be understood as a "program" (as in computer software). Embracing the view that a brain is a "wet computer", the myth of a village can be thought of as the software that is installed into each person in order to ensure that all persons faithfully perform their duties within the coalition. In this view, a village (coalition) is a distributed networked system of heterogeneous (role specialization) nodes, like a cluster of machines in an automated factory. The myth of a village is like the software that runs on those machines to enable them to communicate with each other and to perform the roles that each machine plays within the manufacturing process.
Finally, the myth of a village can also be understood as "training data" (as in neural networks and artificial intelligence). In computer science, neural networks and other artificial intelligence systems are "trained" by presenting to them a large set of [scenario, action, outcome] triplets. What makes the software "intelligent" is that it "remembers" these patterns so as to become able to choose an optimal action when presented with a new scenario that resembles the scenarios that it "saw" during training. On this view, the myth of a village serves primarily to "train" children so that when they are adults, they will respond optimally to whatever scenarios are presented within the village, as well as to scenarios presented to the village by the jungle.
Oo evolutionary forces acted upon the myths of ancient villages, causing them to evolve into "religion". In the beginning, human ancestors were solitary nocturnal wandering hunters. The wo'th group behavior was undifferentiated herding in which groups of males and females came to gether for "safety in numbers". Next, gender specialization emerged, such that the males imposed order and hunted, while the females tended to the children, the elderly, and the males who returned from the hunt with game. (These ancient coalitions were economic communes with a single dinner pot, to exploit economies of scale in hunting, meal preparation, and food storage.) Next, gender and other roles were codified into myth, marking the beginning of "villages". Next, moral rules and incentives were codified into myth in order to prevent "free riding", marking the beginning of "religion".
Myth came to serve oo independent purposes. All of these stages were driven by the "survival of the fittest" evolutionary force rewarding myth that produced optimal individual behavior within village coalitions. But having a story that described the world also had an engineering benefit to the extent that it enabled human ancestors to make pots, knives, and other tools, and to master fire and make shelters and clothing and equipment such as sleds and carts.
Eventually, the oo purposes served by religion came into conflict, causing "science" to split from "religion". To communicate and enforce the "way of life" of a village, it was essential for myth to be a story that put the unverse into human terms that all could understand. But to enable engineering, it was essential for myth to be a story that successfully predicted the physical and chemical behavior of materials. Evolutionary "survival of the fittest" forces eventually resulted in myth that enabled engineering but had nothing to say about behavior or "way of life", and, worse, did not put the unverse into human terms so was not a story that all persons could understand. Science was born.
Today, religion and science serve entirely distinct functions, and this split creates a dilemma for religion. Religion, like ancient myth, puts the universe into human terms for the purpose of ensuring compliance to a "way of life", which in turn is a solution to the game of life presented to the village by the chaos and violence of the jungle. Science, like ancient myth, models physical and chemical behavior to enable engineering, which is also a solution to the game of life. But as science advances, it becomes less and less comprehensible to all persons, receding farther and farther away from describing the universe in human terms that all persons can understand. As science advances in this way, it becomes less and less suitable and useful as a substrate upon which roles and rules (way of life) can be expressed to teach and program and train the persons of the village.
Today, within every major world religion, there is a partition among those who practice the religion between those who believe the myth (story) and those who do not, and this partitioning will continue to exist because it works. In ancient villages, persons had no choice but to believe the myth as "what is" fact because no alternative story was available. But as engineering knowledge of the world developed, at first within religion but later splitting off to form "science", it became possible to practice a myth without believing it as "what is" fact. Myth is more effective in bringing a person into an understanding of, and compliance with, a way of life, when the person believes the myth (way of life model) to be "what is" fact. But a person who uses engineering knowledge to build things is more effective when his "what is" fact comes from science rather than from religion. For such a person, there are re possibilities:
In general, nothing can be said about which approach to living will be most favored by evolutionary forces. A village in which all persons are required to be true believers in the "way of life" myth, to the exclusion of the scientific, "what is" myth, would have the advantage of cohesion and fidelity and selfless courage, but might lack the ability to equip its people with state of the art tools. A village in which all persons are required to be true believers in the scientific, "what is" myth, to the exclusion of any "way of life" myth, would have the advantage of state of the art tools, but might be a village of selfish cowards who shirk duty. A village in which all persons synthesize the oo kinds of "what is" knowledge might be somewhat capable, but mediocre, in all of the above features. But as science develops, the path of synthesis will likely become the only viable path, and the problem will be how to accomplish the synthesis.
The solution to this problem of synthesis is to reform religion so that it focuses exclusively on teaching a "way of life" without using any myth whatsoever to claim anything about "what is". In other words, religion must stop saying anything about "what is", and focus exclusively, and transparently, on developing myth that teaches "way of life" while making no claim that the myth is objectively true. In practical, every day terms, this means that people must understand that a given religion's myth is true for all practical purposes and that that is all that matters. Scientists know that their models are to be used but not believed. [See] The only viable future for religion is a future in which all participants in each religion understand that the religious myth is a model to be used but not believed, that religion is about the roles and rules that define a "way of life", and not about "what is". In other words, religious leaders must wean their followers from belief and into an understanding that the myth (story) of the religion is true for all practical purposes, meaning that it is a only model that teaches a way of life that works.