It is a well known fact that in many pre-state or small-scale societies where shamanic practices prevail, shamans are expert storytellers and keepers of traditional knowledge. As I noted in a previous post on the evolution of narrative, stories contain information critical for survival.
While reading an article on Inuit shamanism yesterday, this passage offered confirmation:
Shamanic [...]
Tags:animals·arctic·cosmology·foraging·hunter-gatherers·Inuit·Jarich Oosten·narrative·shamanic·shamanism·shamans·social knowledge·storytelling
There are a number of scholars who claim that “religion” evolved as an adaptation. What kind of adaptation? A group level adaptation. The story usually goes like this: at some unknown time during the middle or upper Paleolithic, certain groups of hominins developed proto-religious beliefs. These beliefs, which are rarely if ever specified, somehow gave [...]
Tags:altruism·baboons·chimpanzees·cohesion·competition·cooperation·David Sloan Wilson·ecology·evolution of religion·foraging unit·group agonism·group level selection·group size·hominids·hominins·hunter-gatherers·inclusive fitness·intergroup competition·Joseph Bulbulia·kinship·language·Matt Rossano·Nicholas Wade·Paleolithic·primates·Richard Sosis·ritual·technology·tools
We should thank Tom Rees over at Epiphenom for posting a much needed “rant on the evolution of religion.” What has Tom so worked up? The claim — first made by Michael Blume and now accepted by Jesse Bering — that “religion” evolved because it promotes fertility. Although the press loves the story, Tom correctly [...]
Tags:differential fitness·evolution of religion·fertility·historical error·hunter-gatherers·Jesse Bering·Jonathan Leake·logical fallacy·Michael Blume·Nick Spencer·Paleolithic·reproduction·social construction·Tom Rees
There has been much chatter over the past few weeks about what appears to be a general lack of religious knowledge among Americans. Although I have not seen any surveys or studies from outside the United States, I think it safe to say this ignorance is not limited to America — it most likely is [...]
Tags:brain-mind·Breaking the Spell·curriculum·Daniel Dennett·Diane Winston·hunter-gatherers·metaphysics·neolithic·Paleolithic·Purpose Driven Life·religious ignorance·religious knowledge·religious naturalism·Rick Warren·shamanisms·social construction·supernaturalism·truth·truth correspondence
Incredibly, there are three articles over at HuffPo Religion that I have recently bookmarked for brief discussion here. There are of course about ten others which reflect the liberal, progressive, ecumenical, and mystical view of religion adhered to by a tiny minority of people, and which will be of interest mostly to the highly educated [...]
Tags:Buddhist history·Christianity as state religion·Constantine·Constantine's conversion·Darwinism and the Moral Argument for God·Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche·early Christianity·empire·evolved morality·foragers·Fran de Waal·hunter-gatherers·Is Buddhism a Religion·Marc Hauser·Michael Ruse·moral code·morality·natural morality·non-religious morality·Paul Wagler·primates·privatization of religious belief·proto-morality·Rodney Stark·secular·Siddhartha·Talal Asad·westernized Buddhism
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·Neolithic Revolution·religion·Roy Rosenberg·science·spirits·spiritual kings·Stephen Hawking·supernatural thinking·Yahweh·Yahweh Becomes King
By my reading of history, the turning (or tipping) point for humanity was the domestication of plants and animals, otherwise known as the Neolithic Revolution. Before this occurred — at different places in the world at different times, beginning approximately 12,000 years ago and largely the dominant mode of production by 5,000 years ago — [...]
Tags:agriculture·civilization·demography·disease·domestication of plants and animals·environmental destruction·foragers·hunter-gatherers·Lakota·Marshall Sahlins·Native Americans·Neolithic Revolution·Original Affluent Society·Paleoterrific·Pandora's Seed·Paul Rincon·population explosion·sedentism·sickness·specialization·Spencer Wells·Stone Age Economics·stratification·surplus
I recently found an excellent blog, Homo religiosus — The Natural History of Religion, written by the German scholar Dr. Michael Blume. After I linked to his blog, Michael came over here for some reading. He also had a question, which I answered, and he responded. The issue we are discussing — higher fertility rates [...]
Tags:adaptive assumptions·cultural evolution·earliest religions·fertility·group level selection·Homo religiosus·hunter-gatherers·Michael Blume·Neolithic Revolution·Panglossian Paradigm·religion as adaptation·religion as byproduct·reproductive fitness·Richard Lewontin·Sarah Hrdy·shamanisms·shamans·spandrels·Stephen Jay Gould
Anyone who surveys the “religious” beliefs of hunter-gatherers (or foragers) will almost immediately discover that many of them do not have a word that translates as “religion” and do not understand the Western concept of “religion,” as explained to them by ethnographers and others. Anyone who engages in such a survey will also soon discover [...]
