Religious Prohibitions as Encoded Survival Wisdom: A Cross-Cultural Statistical Analysis

Background: Religious and moral systems represent universal features of human societies, yet their evolutionary origins and functional significance remain subjects of considerable debate. While traditional approaches have emphasized spiritual or social functions, emerging research suggests many religious prohibitions may encode practical survival wisdom developed over millennia.Objective: This study tests the hypothesis that religious practices systematically preserve survival-relevant knowledge across cultures through the Cultural Survival Framework, which proposes that religious systems function as sophisticated survival technologies transmitted through oral traditions.Methods: We conducted a systematic analysis of 151 religious practices from 74 cultures across six continents using a comprehensive 29-column coding framework. Each practice was classified across five survival domains (Food Safety & Nutrition, Disease Prevention & Health, Resource Conservation & Management, Social Cooperation & Stability, Environmental Adaptation) and assigned evidence levels (1-5 scale) based on documented survival benefits. Geographic distribution, cultural independence, and environmental factors were controlled to address potential confounding variables. Statistical analysis examined correlations between evidence quality and confidence assessments.Results: Religious practices demonstrated a strong positive correlation with survival benefits (r = 0.614, p < 0.001). Evidence levels were significantly skewed toward moderate to strong survival benefits, with 73.5% of practices achieving Levels 3-5 evidence and 37.8% reaching definitive or strong evidence (Levels 4-5). Social Cooperation & Stability represented the largest domain (41.7%), while Resource Conservation practices showed the highest average evidence levels. Geographic analysis revealed minimal spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I = 0.12, p = 0.23), indicating independent cultural evolution rather than diffusion from common sources.Conclusions: These findings provide compelling empirical support for the Cultural Survival Framework, demonstrating that religious prohibitions and practices systematically encode practical survival wisdom across diverse cultures. The strength and consistency of correlations suggest that survival pressures have shaped religious evolution, with practices providing genuine survival advantages being preferentially preserved and transmitted across generations. This research offers new explanations for religious universals and highlights the potential value of traditional knowledge systems for contemporary applications in public health, environmental management, and social policy.