Recently, a scientist at the University of New Mexico developed a hypothesis regarding the evolution of religion. He suggests that one of the reasons for its evolution is that the emphasis many religions place on hygiene, coupled with the exclusion common to religions, made religious groups less susceptible to disease, and therefore more likely to survive.

This hypothesis is merely one study in a long line of research conducted by scientists desperate to find some reason why humans have religion, but in doing so they fail to realize what religion truly is: a worldview that is developed and accepted because it allows people to find meaning in the world.

This is not to say that scientific explorations of the evolution of religion are not worthwhile. However, in many respects they seem to ignore the forest, not just in favor of the trees, but in favor of the trees’ DNA. This overly reductive examination misses the fact that religion is not some type of special idea. It is simply a type of philosophy: an ideological worldview of how the universe works and what role a person has in it. This religious worldview can, and has, taken many forms: from Buddhism to Shinto to Christianity to the Gods of Olympus. All of these teachings are regarded as religions, but all of them are profoundly different. The one strain running through them all, though, is a sense of purpose for human existence.

One distinction between human beings and other animals–maybe the distinction–is the asking of a simple question, “Why?” It’s ingrained in our nature. Hang around any five year old long enough and you’ll see that. Children are constantly asking “why”? This is because humans are the only animals on Earth that are truly self-aware. Aware of ourselves and of the world around us. Aware of the past, and aware of mortality. It is this awareness that is at the heart of religion.

Religion is not merely a means of building social solidarity, a set of rituals, or a supplier of ethics, although it is all of those things. It is not merely a way of explaining the natural world, although in different times and places it has done that, too. At it’s heart is is a series of answers to the most profoundest of “Whys.” Why is there suffering in the world? Why does the world exist? Why should I act a certain way? Why should I think a certain way?

There are as many answers to these questions as there are religions, but it’s important to realize that without understanding religion’s focus on purpose and meaning; this focus on the “why” of things, no scientist will ever explain why people are religious. A life of better hygiene does not explain why a person would devote themselves to a life of celibacy, or strap a bomb to themselves to blow up their enemies. Researching primate sociology will not explain why, as Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

This is because the quest for meaning is not some accidental evolutionary or sociological adaptation. If it were, it is doubtful that it would be so universal. Every human society, no matter what its environment or surroundings, has a founding myth, god, or idea. Human beings do not form social groups just by instinct–they always tell themselves a story as to why they are forming this group. As far as I know, there are no exceptions to this rule. Other social animals, by contrast, do not.

The universality of meaning, then, must be a product of the evolution of the human mind itself–the natural consequence of consciousness. Thus, the only answers as to why we seek meaning in our lives can be found in determining that evolution.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, psychologist Viktor Frankl said that “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” It is this search for meaning, this choice to look beyond ourselves, that separates humans from all other animals. Until we fully grasp this fact about ourselves, we will never truly understand what drives us to struggle and succeed in this life.

So when sociological researchers take overly reductive views of religion, they do more than just miss the boat on what makes humans tick. They are missing the very essence of the human condition. Scientists aren’t going to find the origin of religion when they discover the patterns of hominid behavior. They are going to discover the origin of religion when they figure out why a five-year old can’t stop asking “Why?”