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 [...]
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Ritual and religion are, as everyone knows, closely intertwined. So tightly linked are they that some scholars, such as Emile Durkheim, seem to have mistaken one for the other or at least conflated the two. For those who cannot accept Durkheim’s position, there are two competing explanations for the origin of ritual. The first is [...]
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Because supernatural beliefs giving rise to religion are nearly universal among humans, many researchers suspect — with considerable justification — that the propensity to harbor such beliefs and adhere to religions is the product of evolution and natural selection. Researchers disagree, however, on whether the cognitive architecture supporting supernaturalism and religion was itself selected for [...]
