The story is familiar and follows a similar trajectory wherever people have made the transition from foraging to agriculture: surpluses enable social stratification that is legitimized as part of the ritual order. Elites claim the cosmological sanction of the supernatural.
In a recent study of mortuary practices at Chaco Canyon that appears in PNAS, Stephen Plog [...]
Tags:Amerindians·Anasazi·ancestors·Carrie Heitman·Chaco Canyon·cosmology·elites·grave goods·In the Hands of the Great Spirit·Jake Page·mortuary practices·Pueblos·ritual order·Southwestern archaeology·Stephen Plog·stratification·surplus·theocracies·theocracy
Just the other day, I commented on the origin of ritual and noted that Jonathan Z. Smith sees “the thrill of coincidence” as at least a partial explanation. Before rationalists dismiss this thrill as mere superstition, Smith also notes that the same kind of coincidence resides at the heart of scholarship:
The discovery that two events, [...]
Tags:Africa·Assembly of God·Catholics·charismatics·charms·coincidence·evangelicals·exorcism·Foursquare Gospel·Geoffrey MacDonald·Glimpses of African Belief·indigenous beliefs·Johann Hari·Jonathan Z. Smith·Massachusetts·mediums·pagans·Pentecostals·possession·psychics·ritual·rituals·rosaries·saints·Salem·secret interconnection·spells·spiritual tourism·spiritualism·superstitition·The Gathering·The Masque of Africa·The Vault·transubstantiation·V.S. Naipaul·voodoo·Wicca·witchcraft
As I noted in A Tale of Two Religion Scholars, Dr. Michael Blume’s research (which you can find at Homo religious) shows that religious groups out-reproduce their secular counterparts. The data are solid and correspond to the commandments of most religions: “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Given that religious people make more babies than secular people, Blume [...]
Tags:agnosticism·atheism·carrying capacity·confirmation bias·Darwin·extended lactation·fertility·fitness benefits·Freud·group level selection·group size·ideological causation·infanticide·John Hawks·Marx·Michael Blume·Nietzsche·Paleolithic shamanism·religious·reproduction·Rodney Stark·secular·secularism
This tale begins with Dr. Michael Blume, an evolutionary biologist who writes Homo religiosus — The Natural History of Religion. His early studies focused on “neurotheology,” or the myriad ways in which naturally evolved aspects of brain-mind give rise to supernatural beliefs. His current studies focus on the second pillar of evolutionary success — reproductive [...]
Tags:Bristol University·Craig James·Damascus Road Conversion·Daniel Dennett·Explaining Religion Conference·fertility·Homo religiosus·memes·memetics·Michael Blume·mind virus·neurotheology·Pauline moment·Ralph Tanner·reproduction·reproductive fitness·Richard Dawkins·Sue Blackmore·The Biology of Religion·The Meme Machine·The Religion Virus·The Social Ecology of Religion·Vernon Reynolds·virus of the mind
Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of visiting The Wild Animal Sanctuary, which is the biggest and certainly most impressive large carnivore rescue sanctuary in North America. It is located about 40 miles from Denver, near Hudson, and well worth visiting — certainly better than any cramped and crowded zoo. The facility itself is huge [...]
Tags:bears·Colorado·guardian spirit·hominids·Hudson·hyenas·jaguars·large carnivores·leopards·lions·Pat Craig·predators·pumas·saber-toothed cats·The Wild Animal Sanctuary·tigers·vision quest·wolves
Over at the Guardian, the archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones has written an enigmatic article asking “What Can We Learn from Our Hunter-Gatherer Ancestors.” While I think there is a great deal to be learned from our foraging ancestors, the existential and ontological lessons I have in mind are quite different from those Wickham-Jones proposes.
She begins by [...]
Tags:Caroline Wickham-Jones·farming·foraging·Levant·Malthus·Marshall Sahlins·megafauna extinction·Natufian·Neolithic Revolution·non-sustainability·Paleoterrific·sustainability·The Original Affluent Society·What Can We Learn from Our Hunter-Gatherer Ancestors·world population
In The Religions of the American Indians, Ake Hultkrantz is clearly interested in reconstructing the supernatural beliefs and practices that the First Americans would have carried with them to the New World. Because Hultkrantz wrote the majority of the book (in Swedish) in 1967 and updated it for the English translation in 1979, the “Clovis [...]
Tags:Adena·Ake Hultkrantz·Amerindians·Bering Land Bridge·Beringia·Clovis first·David Meltzer·diffusion·First Americans·guardian spirit complex·high god concept·Hopewell·Meadowcroft Rock Shelter·Mesopotamia·Mircea Eliade·Mississippian cultures·Monte Verde·Mound Builders·Neolithic Revolution·peopling of americas·Peopling of North America·Piers Vitebsky·Plains Indians·Siberian hunter-gatherers·soul flight·Sumer·Sun Dance·The Religions of the American Indians·Urmonotheismus
Although it seems odd on the surface, coyotes play a major role in Native American ceremonies, mythology, legend, and cosmology. Of all the magnificent animals from which they could choose — wolf, bear, bison, eagle — why the coyote?
Given that Native Americans were renowned for their knowledge of animal behaviors, one thing is certain: there [...]
Tags:Amerindian ethnohistory·Apache·Carol Kaesuk Yoon·Cheyenne outbreak·Comanche·cosmology·coyote·Coyote at the Kitchen Door·coyotes·Crazy Horse·Creator·Dull Knife·First Americans·Ft. Robinson·Mysteries that Howl and Hunt·mythology·Native Americans·Trickster
In a recent study published in Biology Letters, Tobler and colleagues found that an indigenous religious ritual has caused genetic change in a local fish population. During an annual fertility ritual, the Zoque people of Mexico use a plant poison to stun and harvest fish from a section of nearby river; unsurprisingly, the fish in [...]
Tags:ancient urbanization·disease resistance·Egypt·fertility ritual·Ian Barnes·indigenous religious ritual·leprosy·M. Tobler·Mesopotamia·Mexico·pathogen resistance·pathogens·poisons·tuberculosis·Zoque
At their best, moral philosophers force us to think long and hard about our actions and responsibilities; at their worst, moral philosophers are incomprehensible or outrageous. I am not quite sure how to judge The Meat Eaters, by Jeff McMahan from Rutgers, but he raises many provocative points, my favorite being this:
Wherever there is animal [...]
Tags:ethics·Hobbesian·Jeff McMahan·just God·moral philosophy·nature red in tooth and claw·predation·predators·problem of evil·Schopenhauer·suffering·The Meat Eaters·theodicy·theology
