Groups and Evolution

In evolution, natural selection is applied to both individuals in groups, and between groups, just as evolution works on biology as well as culture in a feedback loop. Individuals do not successfully survive without a group, and so the evolution of groups become paramount in selection. Ethics largely grew out of this arrangement, advancing the behavior that helped the group survive, such as mutual love and even self-sacrifice. This is all part of human nature developed long ago during the Hunter-Gatherer period of human history (and before ). We still retain this very same human nature. Social organizations that deny or try to go against this basic human nature do not last for long. Survival and lack of survival are sure signs of success and failure.

The attitude of Theoevolutionary Church toward the evolution of individuals and groups is like a benevolent, libertarian guide, affirming the idea of groups developing with their own independence and personalities, for example, living in small independent localities and states, with the Church available to help and guide the variety of people, as the whole moves toward Godhood in evolution. All available research and knowledge from sociobiology, genetics, religion etc. are utilized.

As it turns out the original Constitution of the United States can be applied here because it gives great independence to small states and localities while protecting the whole with a light federalism. The protecting of the whole keeps in check any actual war breaking out within what Cattell called healthy “cooperative competition” between the groups. War is not evolutionary, it is a halt in evolution. This political set up could work with Europe of a thousand states, or a China of two thousand states, which has been suggested. This harmonizes with human nature rather than trying to fight against it, or block it. The religion of Theoevolutionary Church makes sacred the evolution which has brought us from the simple to the complex, as we all evolve to Godhood, all groups, all races, all states, in natural variety. This is the religion of the future.