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 [...]
Tags:analogy·Armin Geertz·atheism·biological evolution·Breaking the Spell·cultural evolution·Daniel Dennett·Daniel Hart·Darwinian monism·David Sloan Wilson·E.O. Wilson·Leon Wieseltier·memes·meta-theory·metaphor·skepticism·Snark·The God Genome·theory of everything
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 [...]
Tags:Afghanistan·Allah·authenticity error·Brian Mockenhaupt·Devil Dogs·Enlisting Allah·essentializing·hearts and minds·Is There a Text In This Class·Islam·Koran·Marines·Mullah Omar·Muslims·Navy·reader response theory·social construction·Stanley Fish
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 [...]
Tags:accident·adaptation·byproduct·Charles Darwin·confirmation bias·design·evolutionary psychology·fitness·group level selection·hypothesis·Matt Rossano·methodology·Michael Ghiselin·natural selection·Panglossian·pleiotropy·storytelling·testing·theory
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 [...]
Tags:Africa·Alec Campbell·Botswana·Bushmen·cupules·George Brook·Larry Robbins·Michael Murphy·Middle Stone Age·Nyame Akuma·oldest religion·oldest ritual·python·Python Cave·Rhino Cave·sacrifice·San·Sheila Coulson·snake·Stanley Ambrose·Tsodilo Hills·worship
“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 [...]
Tags:Cantabria·cave·dualism·El Juyo·El Juyo face·figurine·J. Gonzalez Echegaray·L.G. Freeman·Magdalenian·mask·methodology·Mircea Eliade·mobiliary·Orc·overinterpretation·Paleolithic·parietal·parsimony·ritual·Rorschach·sanctuary·Spain·temple
In a rare moment of clarity, Immanuel Kant penned these unforgettable words:
Time was, when she (Metaphysics) was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honor. Now, it is the fashion of [...]
Tags:agenda·empiricism·evolution of religion·Hume·Jack Templeton·John Templeton·John Templeton Foundation·Kant·metaphysics·research funding·research grants·Sunny Bains·Templeton Foundation
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
– Marcel Proust
This morning I recalled the taste of a bit of madeleine dunked in a linden-flower tea which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know why this memory made me so happy). What [...]
Tags:archival·Daniel Engber·data·evolutionary religious studies·history·Marcel·memory·originality·Proust·publication·rediscovery·repetition·research·science·synthesis
In a recent essay on the cult of David Foster Wallace, Nathan Heller notes that DFW’s mature work deals with the crisis of contemporary pluralism: “how to think intelligently and truthfully about the world when that world is full of intelligent and truthful people who adhere to irreconcilable schools of thought.” While Heller [...]
Tags:Alan Sokal·Catholic·confirmation bias·David Foster Wallace·evolutionary psychologist·fantasy·group level selection·group size·Jesus·language·Matt Rossano·Nathan Heller·natural law·Panglossian·parsimony·pluralism·Pope Benedict·postmodernism·resurrection·science·storytelling·supernatural selection·technology·truth·wish fulfillment
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s piece on America’s ancient cave art has prompted some thinking — always the sign of good writing. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. Here are some of the things that have me cogitating:
Simek the Scientist v. Reilly the Symbolist
This is not a lawsuit — it is the tension Sullivan establishes [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·art·ASC·birds·caves·complex societies·dark zone·data·emic·etic·F. Kent Reilly·Jan Simek·John Jeremiah Sullivan·meaning·Mircea Eliade·Mississippian cultures·Mound Builders·Piers Vitebsky·Plains Indians·pre-state societies·shamans·soul flights·Southeastern Ceremonial Complex·Southern Death Cult·survivals·symbols·unknown caves
Craig Martin is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He has published several articles (links below) and a recent book, Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere. Craig is also active in the blogging community and is editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion.
I [...]
Tags:Anderson University·Anthony Giddens·authenticity·authority·binary·Bruce Lincoln·Bulletin for the Study of Religion·Craig Martin·discourse·disparity·domination·essentializing·Foucault·functionalism·legitimation·Marxist·Masking Hegemony·Pierre Bourdieu·Platonic forms·power·private·public·religious studies·Russell McCutcheon·social construction·St. Thomas Aquinas College·stratification·Syracuse University
