Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Mesopotamia'

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 [...]

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The “Sin” of Sodomy and Demographic Imperatives

July 13th, 2010 · No Comments · Ecology of Religion, Economy and Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Power and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Ritual and Religion

When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method.  So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality.  We can therefore trace the history of the [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Fourth Kind Encounters with Ancient Astronauts — The Origin of Religions?

April 21st, 2010 · 5 Comments · Archaeology and Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Daily Devolutions, History of Religions, Shamans and Shamanism

A few weeks ago, I watched “The Fourth Kind,” which fortuitously features Milla Jovavich as the main character.  Although supposedly based on “actual events” in small-town Alaska, my research turned up little by way of fact to support that assertion.  What intrigued me about the movie, however, was the Sumerian aspect (I won’t say more [...]

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