Over at The Stone, the primatologist Frans de Waal asks whether we can act “morally” without being “religious.” I quote-bracket these terms because they are not without complication, and we should be careful about using them in the context of such discussions. Regardless, de Waal poses some questions for which we have historical answers. For [...]
Tags:altruistic·Bart Ehrman·chimpanzees·Christianity·ethics·ethnohistory·evolution of morality·Frans de Waal·implicit ethics·Islam·Judaism·Misquoting Jesus·monotheism·Morals Without God·Native Americans·norms·polytheism·primates·primatologist·prosocial·religions of the book·right conduct
Many of the recent books and articles about the evolutionary origins of religion claim that natural selection targeted “moral” behaviors and that these behaviors coalesced into “religion.” This is a story told primarily by group level selectionists (who have the bad habit of confusing biological evolution with something they call “cultural evolution”) and evolutionary psychologists [...]
Tags:David Sloan Wilson·Edward Tylor·Frans de Waal·Marc Hauser·Matt Rossano·morality·morals·Nicholas Wade·Rodney Stark·shamanism
While there is little doubt that many historically recent religions (i.e., those that have appeared in the last 2,000 years) are heavily invested in morality, it does not follow that earlier forms of religion — which might be called proto-religions – were grounded in morality. This is a logical and historical fallacy that afflicts much [...]
Tags:Barbara King·Frans de Waal·morality·Paleolithic religions·prosocial behavior·Stephen Pinker
