As a nearly universal practice, religion has played an especially prominent role in human history, thought, and behavior. Despite this prominence, thoroughgoing attempts to explain and account for religion are lacking. Although there has been a recent burst of scholarly (and popular) research and writing devoted to the origins of religion, few of these efforts attempt to locate supernatural thinking in deep evolutionary time and methodically trace such thinking to the present. Any such genealogy will culminate in what we today understand to be “religion.”
No single approach or discipline is able to present a convincing account of religion’s origins and development over time. Evolutionary approaches to religion are a good start, but they must be grounded in archaeology and ethnography. Most importantly, any attempt to explain religion must be chronologically based. History, in other words, is essential to understanding religion and testing theories of religion.
As the Categories contained in this blog suggest, tracing the genealogy of religion entails the consideration of many subjects from multiple disciplines. Each Category contains an initial post explaining why this Category is relevant to the origins and development of religion. Subsequent posts in each Category will develop these subjects, usually by discussing (and linking) a particular article, book, study, or news item. Given the large number of books recently published that purport to account for the origins of religion, the blog will contain a fair number of reviews.
This blog will specifically explore the following questions: (1) is there something about the evolved brain-mind that inclines humans towards supernatural thinking or religious belief; (2) can individual or group level selection account for any such features of brain-mind; (3) can we discern supernatural-religious activities or beliefs from the archaeological record (and if so, what kinds); (4) how have supernatural-religious activities and beliefs changed over time; and (5) what might explain such changes?
I am not allowing general comments to posts; however, if I have posted something about your work and you wish to respond, please let me know and I’ll provide access. Also if you are a scholar of religion and wish to provide regular comments or contributions, please let me know so we can discuss the best way to provide input. You can reach me here: cris at genealogyreligion dot net.