Category: Religion
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November 30, 2023
Moral Rigidity Evolved to Strengthen Bonds Within Groups
Moral rigidity and its intimate link to in-group boundaries may have evolved so as to make us behave, and be seen, as trustworthy yet cautious team members in social environments mired by intergroup competition.
November 14, 2023
Why Religious Extremism is Maladaptive
Religious systems that lose their adaptability become dangerous to the societies in which they exist, and to themselves, because they absolutize the relative.
January 12, 2018
Religious Epigenetics
How can conservative and progressive Christian denominations churches be so different from each other, despite sharing the same sacred text? For the same reason that skin and liver cells can be so different, despite sharing the same DNA.
July 25, 2017
Teaching Evolution Requires More Than Evidence, It Takes Empathy
It is possible for people to be highly knowledgeable and reject evolution for reasons beyond evidence. When that happens, it is important to listen in order to understand why so we can bridge those gaps.
July 21, 2016
Religion through an Evolutionary Lens: A Conversation about Dominic Johnson’s “God is Watching You”
Dominic Johnson's new book present an new look at religion by suggesting that the same underlying scientific perspective—evolution and natural selection—can lead to a very different stance on religion from Richard Dawkins and other New Atheists.
February 1, 2016
The New Atheism as a Stealth Religion: Five Years Later
The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement, which burst upon the scene about five years ago with the so-called Four Horsemen: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens.
November 24, 2015
Baba Brinkman: Rapping Up Evolutionary Theories of Religion
In his recent release The Rap Guide to Religion, the rapper Baba Brinkman presents a lyrical précis of the major contemporary theories of the evolution of religion: from theory of mind to cultural evolution.
November 18, 2015
God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human
Read an excerpt from Dominic Johnson's new book 'God is Watching You' where he presents a new theory of the origins and evolution of not only religion, but also human cooperation and society, and explores how fear of supernatural punishment exists within and outside of religious contexts.
December 19, 2013
Reproductive vs. Cooperative Theories In The Evolutionary Studies Of Religion
Religious passion for traditions concerning sexual mores and family turns out to be a product of the finer workings of biological and cultural evolution.Ever wondered why many religious people seem to be especially passionate about traditions concerning sexual mores and family? Somewhat ironically, this turns out to be a product of the finer workings of biological and cultural evolution.
June 13, 2013
Here He Goes Again: Sam Harris’s Falsehoods
An intellectual debate about the nature of religious belief and violence. Anthropologist Scott Atran responds to New Atheist Sam Harris.Harris’s views on religion ignore the considerable progress in cognitive studies on the subject over the last two decades, which show that core religious beliefs do not have fixed propositional content .
June 8, 2013
The Evolutionary Power Of Ritual
Religious rituals are effective because they are seemingly defying rationality!In 2003, Richard Sosis and Eric Bressler achieved a breakthrough by applying the “costly signaling theory”. According to this theory, religious rituals are able to promote intragroup cooperation exactly by bringing up purely or partially non-rational behaviors – signaling to onlookers that true believers are at hand.
March 18, 2013
Is Religion Useful? A Test Involving Common Pool Resource Groups
Far from “poisoning everything”, religions often plays an integral role in regulating the practical aspects of life.Religion puzzles the nonbeliever in part because it seems to lack utility. How can belief in supernatural agents and costly practices such as ritual sacrifice produce practical benefits?
July 16, 2012
Evolutionary Studies of Atheism on the Rise
Scientists and philosophers subject atheism to an evolutionary analysis. In recent years, we have witnessed one of the most exciting scientific developments of the modern era: the evolutionary study of the belief in supernatural agents and transcendent experiences. In fact, it was Charles Darwin himself, a learned theologian, who founded the evolutionary study of religion and spirituality.
March 5, 2012
When Richard Dawkins Is Not An Evolutionist
"Dawkins is not an evolutionist in part because no one is keeping him within bounds. One objective of <em>This View of Life</em> is to set a new standard for science journalism......"Dawkins is not an evolutionist in part because no one is keeping him within bounds. One objective of <em>This View oF Life</em> is to set a new standard for science journalism that brings it closer to the standard of the scientific peer review process.
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