The Abeokuta Diocese of The African Church, Ogun Province, Ogun State, Nigeria 
I have always maintained that organised religion has taken exceptionally deep root in Sub-saharan Africa compared to any other continent (or among non-black people), because Africans developed a genetic affinity for prayer by the constant application of it in the daily lives of specifically ancient African ancestors.
Let me explain what I mean here.
There was a time in the evolution of the black "race" when prayer took on such an importance that it became a central feature of life in the community. The practice of praying was carried out so frequently and persistently, over a period that was prolonged enough for the need for prayer to indirectly affect the genes. This means that the beings themselves started seeing prayer as an essential part of life so that they felt naked without it. They developed a need for being deeply religious with a root in their very physical beings that they could as such pass on to successive generations.
What I have outlined above may seem to go against the priciples of Behaviour genetics, also called psychogenetics, the study of the influence of an organism's genetic composition on its behaviour that asserts that there is in fact an interaction of heredity and environment that affects behaviour without this implying behaviour itself is inherited. The behaviour is a by product of the combination of genetic inheritance and environment, which is exactly what I am also saying.
Here is my simple rationale behind something that's not natural becoming a genetic propensity the way being deeply religious is an easy state to trigger in a Sub-saharan African.
If you placed children in the wild some place that's isolated from normal human society, without introducing them to the culture of clothing or dressing up, i.e. you allowed them to run around butt naked, and allowed them to breed and create their own communities and ensure they remain isolated from yours, there is no doubt that the progeny will run around butt naked like their progenitors because dressing up isn't genetic. But then because they come from a history of people who dressed up for millennia, the need to cover their bodies will be dormant in them. I am not implying that they will have genes that want them to dress up, but given clothes do have a real effect on the body that can cause real biological changes in the long term that are adaptational in nature, such as the loss of body hair over time, including changes that are subdermal, the need to dress up can be evoked by these biological factors with a genetic base provided that there is a trigger. In the case of the children who grow up without clothes, it would just take exposure to a culture that dresses up for the group that stopped dressing up to take the practice up again, with a zeal that's only determined by how long and to what extent their ancestors took the dressing culture. If their ancestors only hid their private parts like some hunter gatherers do then they will not be as enthusiastic for clothes because the biological adaptations to clothing will not be far-reaching. But if their ancestors dressed to kill, then the whole experience of taking to the culture of dressing will be much more intense because there will be a biological catalyst for it.
According to a professor of psychology and academic program director at the National University in the USA, Brenda Shook, using singing as an example, someone could be an excellent singer, but is that talent genetic or was it learned? “It’s both,” she says. Maybe this person doesn’t necessarily have a good singing voice, but her brain is wired to be able to learn and remember. So her genetics might have made voice lessons more effective.
We do know that ethicities do come with special talents so it can be said here that what she is really describing are propensities that exist due to historical genetic exposure. It wouldn't otherwise make sense that a group of people display a preponderance of a specific talent if it isn't dependent on genetic factors that are inherited from groups of people in whom the stored genetic changes were a byproduct of exposure to a specific reality.
The fact ancestors of modern day Africans were extremely prayerful cannot be disputed. It is documented and some of the prayers have in fact been preserved in writing from as long ago as 5000 years. The Ancient Egyptians are a good example of an advanced African group who were very prayerful, and some of their prayers survive and are in use to this day.
I will share below one such prayer but, before doing so I would advise you to first understand the general meaning of the word "prayer". It shouldn't only apply to organised religion. In fact even atheists pray and use the word, sometimes as often as the devout. I know this because I am what you can consider an atheist but I use the term regularly and also accept that others use it. Christians pray and have a right to their prayers and so too do Muslims. The fact I am not either one of these doesn't make the activity less of a prayer compared to mine.
Prayer is merely a private or communal communication with what's perceived as a higher, usually supernatural being ... be this a spirit, a demon believed to have powers, a river God, in fact any supernatural entity one ascribes supernatural powers to, including an idol or one that's considered to dwell within the body, that one believes can hear and react to their prayer.
This is a Prayer to Osiris found in the Book of the Dead, originally known by the kemetians (Ancient Egyptians) as The Book of Coming Forth by Day.
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"Wash away my sins, Lord of Truth; destroy my transgressions, wickedness and iniquity, O God of Truth. May this god be at peace with me. Destroy the things that are obstacles between us. Give me peace, and remove all dissatisfaction from thy heart in respect of me."
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If the prayer sounds familiar then it is because the template upon which it is based is the same that the catholic church uses in its prayers. In fact this very prayer is also used by Catholics. This prayer is thousands of years old. It was used at a time when the kemetians recited the 42 Laws of Maat 5 times a day. That's a whole lot of praying and recitation of sacred texts for that period of history, don't you agree? And they had already been doing this for thousands of years? Bear in mind that this civilization lasted for millennia and the same culture was maintained almost continuously. Is it a surprise that the legitimate descendants of these people who still continue some cultural practices from old would be prone to become highly devout once reintroduced to prayer?
It isn't to me ...
