Over at HuffPo Religion, a well meaning Matthew Anderson suggests that all American junior-senior high school students should be required to take a minimum of two classes on world religions so as to be exposed to something other than their parents’ religion. He supposes that these courses would foster tolerance and lead to a more [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Neolithic Religions'
Theology of Religions v. History of Religions
August 18th, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Definitions of Religion, Evolution and Selection, Neolithic Religions, Shamans and Shamanism
Tags:believing versus thinking·Buddhism·Christianity·ecumenical·essentialized categories·essentializing·genealogy of religions·high school curriculum·Hinduism·History of Religions·history of world religions·Islam·Judaism·junior high curriculum·Mathew Anderson·paleolithic supernaturalism·religious classes·religious teaching·rise of organized religions·The Case for Blending Church and State·theology·tolerance
Genealogy of the “Traditional” Family
August 12th, 2010 · No Comments · Cultural Evolution of Religion, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Neolithic Religions
Over at HuffPo Religion, John Whitehead has penned a high-minded piece taking Christians to task for failing to understand they are major contributors — given their high divorce rates — to the perceived breakdown of the “traditional” family. I have bracketed “traditional” in the same manner that we should bracket “natural” — these are historical [...]
Tags:Christians·D.H. Lawrence·democracy·divorce·epochs·extended family·family·foragers·freedom·human history·John Whitehead·kinship·marriage bond·mystification·Naturalization·Neolithic Revolution·nuclear family·pair bonding·pre-state societies·Roman history·social construction·The Breakdown of the Traditional Family·traditional family
Stephen Hawking on Religion: “Science Will Win”
July 19th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Archaeology and Religion, Axial Age Religions, Cognition and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Neolithic Religions, Power and Religion
Over at ABC News, Ki Mae Heussner reports on a Diane Sawyer interview of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking with this contentious headline: “Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win.” This is an unfortunate banner. During the interview, Sawyer asked if religion and science could be reconciled. Hawking’s response was profoundly unhelpful:
“There is a fundamental [...]
Tags:animism·anthropomorphic·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian high god·city-states·Diane Sawyer·earthly kings·gods·Hebrews·hunter-gatherers·Judaism·Ki Mae Heussner·Levant·Mesopotamia·Neolithic Religions·Neolithic Revolution·religion·Roy Rosenberg·science·spirits·spiritual kings·Stephen Hawking·supernatural thinking·Yahweh·Yahweh Becomes King
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 [...]
Tags:aggression·Blackfoot·Cheyenne·chimpanzees·chimps·city-states·cohesion·Comanche·cooperation·Cree·Crow·David Sloan Wilson·ecology·Egypt·Flathead·foragers·Gros Ventre·group level selection·Kibale National Park·kinship·Kiowa·Lakota·Levant·Matt Rossano·Mesopotamia·Nicholas Wade·Plains Indians·power·religion·religious warfare·Sarsi·shamans·Shoshoni·territoriality·The Faith Instinct·war
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 [...]
Tags:Akkad·Akkadian·anthropomorphic deities·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian·Christianity·city-states·cosmology·earliest religion·Enlil·heavenly order·Iraq·Islam·Judaic·Judaism·Mesopotamia·Mesopotamian·monotheism·Muslim·polytheism·Samuel Noah Kramer·Sumer·Sumerian·Sumerian pantheon·temples·The Sumerians·Ubaid·Ubaidian·Ur·ziggurats
Sex in the Temples: Fertility Cults in Antiquity
March 27th, 2010 · No Comments · Archaeology and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Neolithic Religions
As I noted in a previous post, the domestication of plants and animals — a process that began in the Old World approximately 12,000 years ago — led to a seismic shift in the way humans live. Although this process is often described as the “Neolithic Revolution,” this phrase incorrectly suggests there was a sudden [...]
Why “Neolithic Religions”?
February 12th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Neolithic Religions
Perhaps the single most important development in the history of humanity was the domestication of plants and animals. This process began approximately 12,000 years ago and is sometimes referred to as the “Neolithic Revolution.” Other than hominid evolution itself, no process has so profoundly influenced human history and culture. The shift from food gathering to [...]