Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Economy and Religion'

Critical Social Theory & Religion

August 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Atheism and Religion, Cognition and Religion, Economy and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Religion as Evolutionary Byproduct

As most social and critical theorists know, Karl Marx asserted that the “criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism” (Critique of Hegel, 1843).  This is a startling foundational statement coming from Marx, who also thought that the criticism of religion was complete — a key accomplishment which enabled him to proceed with his [...]

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Death of a Pastoral Salesman

August 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Cultural Evolution of Religion, Economy and Religion, Globalization and Religion, Recent and New Religions, Ritual and Religion

In a curiously titled (“Congregations Gone Wild“) op-ed piece for the New York Times, pastor Jeffrey MacDonald bemoans the pressures that now assail the American clergy.  What are these pressures?  Entertaining the flock.  Selling religion as a commodity for comfortable consumers-parishioners.
Despite the title tease alluding to a sophomoric video series in which college-aged women bare [...]

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Power Co-opts Religion: China to Support Buddhism

August 1st, 2010 · No Comments · Atheism and Religion, Axial Age Religions, Civil Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Power and Religion

The story is a familiar one: a new religion is founded — or, as the sociologist Rodney Stark would say, a new sect is born from an older tradition — and over time it becomes successful.  By success, I mean that it grows, becomes popular, and shows few signs of slowing down.
At some point during [...]

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Religious Wars and Nationalism

July 18th, 2010 · No Comments · Cultural Evolution of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Power and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Religion as Evolutionary Byproduct

Over at HuffPo Religion, Matt Rossano has written a thought provoking piece — which some may find surprising — on the relationship between war and religion.   In Why Religion Does Not Equal War, Rossano begins with the common knowledge that religious differences often lead to war, or that religious differences are often used to justify [...]

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The “Sin” of Sodomy and Demographic Imperatives

July 13th, 2010 · No Comments · Ecology of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Power and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Ritual and Religion

When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method.  So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality.  We can therefore trace the history of the [...]

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Are Eastern Religions More Science-Friendly?

July 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Classifications of Religion, Definitions of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Recent and New Religions

This is the question asked by Philip Goldberg in a recent article in which he boldly answers yes: “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws. The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.”
Setting aside for a [...]

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The Prayer Trade in Iran

July 1st, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Economy and Religion, Magic and Religion, Ritual and Religion

Reuters reports that “specialists” in prayer writing and ritual are doing a booming business in Iran.  The whole business — or commodification of prayer — reminds one of the prayer and dispensation trade that existed in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, and which so incensed Martin Luther:
In Islamic Iran where clerics rule, [...]

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Religious Reinforcement for Social Stratification

June 29th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Archaeology and Religion, Daily Devolutions, Economy and Religion, Power and Religion, Ritual and Religion

In a recent report at Discovery News, Zahra Hirji discusses some exciting Aztec archaeological finds:
Aztec archaeologists can almost taste the jack pot. None of the empire’s royal burial sites have ever been found, but researchers participating in the Templo Mayor excavation project in downtown Mexico City think an emperor’s tomb is just around the corner.
In [...]

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Non-Religious Chimpanzees Cooperate and War for Territory

June 28th, 2010 · No Comments · Cultural Evolution of Religion, Ecology of Religion, Economy and Religion, Evolution and Selection, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Neolithic Religions, Power and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Religion as Evolutionary Byproduct, Shamans and Shamanism

There have been many articles over the past week reporting that an unusually large group (150 members) of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda has been engaging in systematic territorial expansion by attacking and killing neighboring groups.  The Nature article notes that this is “cooperative behavior” and then quotes from the New York Times story:
These [...]

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Sumerian Spiritualism: The Earliest Organized Religion

June 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Archaeology and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Ecology of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Neolithic Religions, Pagans and Polytheism, Power and Religion

It was with great sadness that I read a recent article in the New York Times documenting the pillaging and destruction of Mesopotamian archaeological sites in Iraq.  Although these Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian sites — and previous excavations — receive scant attention outside small groups of antiquities scholars, they are of critical importance to our [...]

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