Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Methodology'

Bible “Ignorance” as Interpretation

February 5th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Axial Age, Methodology

As a native Nebraskan, I was a bit surprised to see this headline in the Lincoln newspaper: “Minister’s Lecture to Examine How Ignorance of Scripture Hurts America.” I’m naturally interested in any story which connects ignorance with pain. I soon discovered the minister wasn’t talking about the ignorance of not knowing at all (which is [...]

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Searching for the Elusive God Effect

December 16th, 2011 · 10 Comments · Methodology

Physicists may soon confirm the actual existence of the Higgs boson or God particle. It must exist or their models don’t work and the math is all wrong, which can’t possibly be the case. Or perhaps it can. Stranger things have happened. The elusiveness of the God particle, which is needed for mass to exist, [...]

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“Theological Anthropology”

December 8th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Definitions, Evolutionary Adaptation, Methodology

What is the meaning of this dubious concatenation? I’m not sure but am sure that it should be bracketed with scare quotes at all times.
I first became aware of “theological anthropology” while browsing the Evolution of Religion website, which is a Templeton funded project devoted to finding God’s plan in evolution. Here is the announcement [...]

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Known and Unknown

December 5th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Methodology, Paranormal

Jerry Coyne has been on a tear lately; even if I don’t agree with everything he says I admire his willingness to tackle the big issues and talk straight. He recently posted on free will and made a case for strict determinism, along with these assertions:
Therefore, even if determinism reigns (and, if it does, there’s [...]

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Seeing Catholic: Design, Adaptation & Teleology

October 31st, 2011 · 9 Comments · Evolutionary Adaptation, Evolutionary Byproduct, Methodology

If I understand my Catholic friends and scholars correctly, God created the cosmos, earth, and life. This God sparked the original organism and designed an evolutionary process that has resulted in endless forms most beautiful and wonderful. But of all these forms, one stands out and one was the goal from the beginning: humans. When [...]

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Smashing Daniel Dennett’s Spell

September 7th, 2011 · 19 Comments · Cognition, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Methodology, Philosophy

Several years ago I read Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006). It wasn’t easy. This is not because Dennett’s ideas and arguments are difficult (they aren’t). It is because I don’t care for Dennett’s style. While I can overlook stylistic deficiencies if the substance is solid, in this case I [...]

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Marines Teach “True” Islam in Afghanistan

August 30th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Methodology, Philosophy

It is always a sign of war going badly when the US mounts a “winning hearts and minds” campaign to go alongside conventional military operations. It surely is a worse sign when US Marines teach Afghanis to read the Koran so they can “help people understand Islam’s true nature.” When Devil Dogs are tasked with [...]

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Methodology & “Evolution of Religion”

August 21st, 2011 · 2 Comments · Evolution, Evolutionary Adaptation, Evolutionary Byproduct, Methodology

Over the past decade several books and articles have appeared which purport to explain the “evolution of religion” as an adaptation, usually invoking group level selection as the source. These explanations nearly always depend on the fallacious assumption that if something evolved, it must be have been selected and therefore is adaptive. These explanations also [...]

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Twisted Saga of “World’s Oldest Ritual”

June 30th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Archaeology, Methodology, Ritual, Shamanism

In 2006, University of Oslo archaeologist Sheila Coulson gave an open lecture about her work at a small cave in the Tsodilo Hills of northern Botswana. Although her lecture focused on Middle Stone Age tools recovered from the cave and an unusual rock formation that looked to her like a snake or python, she also [...]

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World’s Oldest Temple & Rorschach Rock

June 27th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Archaeology, Methodology, Ritual

“It has long been recognized that any interpretation of prehistoric religious behavior should be based on concrete archaeological evidence. Yet evidence for Paleolithic belief systems is extremely scanty, and that which does exist is usually enigmatic — or as [Mircea] Eliade has expressed it, semantically opaque” (Freeman & Echegaray 1981).
Three lines of evidence are typically [...]

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