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Author: Matt Rossano Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199798788 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
In 2006, scientist Richard Dawkins published a blockbuster bestseller, The God Delusion. This atheist manifesto sparked a furious reaction from believers, who have responded with numerous books of their own. By pitting science against religion, however, this debate overlooks what science can tell us about religion. According to evolutionary psychologist Matt J. Rossano, what science reveals is that religion made us human. In Supernatural Selection, Rossano presents an evolutionary history of religion. Neither an apologist for religion nor a religion-basher, he draws together evidence from a wide range of disciplines to show the valuable--even essential--adaptive purpose served by systematic belief in the supernatural. The roots of religion stretch as far back as half a million years, when our ancestors developed the motor control to engage in social rituals--that is, to sing and dance together. Then, about 70,000 years ago, a global ecological crisis drove humanity to the edge of extinction. It forced the survivors to create new strategies for survival, and religious rituals were foremost among them. Fundamentally, Rossano writes, religion is a way for humans to relate to each other and the world around them--and, in the grim struggles of prehistory, it offered significant survival and reproductive advantages. It emerged as our ancestors' first health care system, and a critical part of that health care system was social support. Religious groups tended to be far more cohesive, which gave them a competitive advantage over non-religious groups, and enabled them to conquer the globe. Rather than focusing on one aspect of religion, as many theorists do, Rossano offers an all-encompassing approach that is rich with surprises, insights, and provocative conclusions.
Author: Matt Rossano Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199798788 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
In 2006, scientist Richard Dawkins published a blockbuster bestseller, The God Delusion. This atheist manifesto sparked a furious reaction from believers, who have responded with numerous books of their own. By pitting science against religion, however, this debate overlooks what science can tell us about religion. According to evolutionary psychologist Matt J. Rossano, what science reveals is that religion made us human. In Supernatural Selection, Rossano presents an evolutionary history of religion. Neither an apologist for religion nor a religion-basher, he draws together evidence from a wide range of disciplines to show the valuable--even essential--adaptive purpose served by systematic belief in the supernatural. The roots of religion stretch as far back as half a million years, when our ancestors developed the motor control to engage in social rituals--that is, to sing and dance together. Then, about 70,000 years ago, a global ecological crisis drove humanity to the edge of extinction. It forced the survivors to create new strategies for survival, and religious rituals were foremost among them. Fundamentally, Rossano writes, religion is a way for humans to relate to each other and the world around them--and, in the grim struggles of prehistory, it offered significant survival and reproductive advantages. It emerged as our ancestors' first health care system, and a critical part of that health care system was social support. Religious groups tended to be far more cohesive, which gave them a competitive advantage over non-religious groups, and enabled them to conquer the globe. Rather than focusing on one aspect of religion, as many theorists do, Rossano offers an all-encompassing approach that is rich with surprises, insights, and provocative conclusions.
Author: Michael Winkelman Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317343735 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 378
Book Description
This book provides a general introduction to the biological and evolutionary bases of religion and is suitable for introductory level courses in the anthropology and psychology of religion and comparative religion. Why did human ancestors everywhere adopt religious beliefs and customs? The presence and persistence of many religious features across the globe and time suggests that it is natural for humans to believe in the supernatural. In this new text, the authors explore both the biological and cultural dimensions of religion and the evolutionary origins of religious features.
Author: Erika Engstrom Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 0739184768 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 167
Book Description
This book examines the text of the CW network television series Supernatural, a program based in the horror genre that offers viewers myriad religious-based antagonists, through the portrayals of monsters which its two main characters “hunt” and destroy, as well as storylines based in the Bible. Even as the series’ producers claim a non-religious perspective, we contend that story arcs and outcomes of episodes actually forward a hegemonic portrayal of Christianity that portrays a good-versus-evil motif regarding the superiority of Christianity. The depiction of its protagonist brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester of Lawrence, Kansas, forwards a pro-American perspective to a more generalized fight against evil in contemporary times.
Author: Lyle B. Steadman Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317251156 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
Spanning many different epochs and varieties of religious experience, this book develops a new approach to religion and its role in human history. The authors look across a range of religious phenomena-from ancestor worship to totemism, shamanism, and worldwide modern religions-to offer a new explanation of the evolutionary success of religious behaviors. Their book is more empirical and verifiable than most previous books on evolution and religion because they develop an approach that removes guesswork about beliefs in the supernatural, focusing instead on the behaviors of individuals. The result is a pioneering look at how and why natural selection has favored religious behaviors throughout history.
Author: Gábor Klaniczay Publisher: ISBN: 9780691073774 Category : Brujería - Europa Central - Historia Languages : en Pages : 259
Book Description
This book of essays is concerned with aspects of religion, magic, and witchcraft in medieval and early-modern Europe, with particular reference to Central Europe. Drawing on a range of theoretical and methodological work including that of Elias, Geertz, Bakhtin, and Turner, the author gives special attention to the history of the body and of gesture, of symbolism and representation, and shows how these dimensions can be related to religious and mystical beliefs and practices. Among the topics discussed are conflicts in twelfth-century Christianity and the tensions between popular religion and learned urban Christianity; heretical and nonconformist behavior in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the celestial courts of holy princesses in thirteenth-century Central Europe; shamanistic elements in Central European witchcraft; witch-beliefs and witch- hunting in Hungary in the early-modern period; and the decline of beliefs in witches and the rise of beliefs about vampires in the eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy.
Author: Daniel Maria Klimek Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190679220 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 393
Book Description
In June 1981, six young Croatians in the village of Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia, reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them. The Medjugorje visionaries say that Mary has returned every day since then, bringing them important messages from heaven to convey to the world. Throughout history, people have reported encountering extraordinary religious experiences-apparitions of the Virgin Mary, visions of Jesus Christ, weeping statues and icons, the stigmata, physical healings and miracles, and experiences of the afterlife-and interpreted them as supernatural in origin. Scholars have often tried to reinterpret such experiences, including those described by the great mystics like Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Avila, into natural or psychopathological categories, such as hysteria, hallucination, delusion, epileptic seizures, psychosis, the workings of the unconscious mind, or fraud. Are such reductionist explanations valid? Over the past three decades the Medjugorje visionaries have been subjected to extensive medical, psychological, and scientific examination, even while undergoing their visionary experiences. Daniel Klimek argues that the case of Medjugorje affords a rare opportunity to understand a deeper dimension of extraordinary religious phenomena. Presenting and analyzing the scientific studies on the visionaries in juxtaposition with the major scholars and debates surrounding religious experience, Klimek concludes that a multidisciplinary approach grants a more holistic and deeper understanding of such extraordinary religious experiences.
Author: Matt Rossano
Author: Matt Rossano
Author: Michael Winkelman
Author: Erika Engstrom
Author: Lyle B. Steadman
Author: Walter Richard Cassels
Author: Gábor Klaniczay
Author: Walter Richard Cassels
Author: Daniel Maria Klimek
Author: James Morris Whiton
Author: Walter Richard Cassels