In a recent post on group level selection and the evolution of religion, I observed that if we assume such selection was operating on human groups during the Paleolithic, three factors play a major role in determining which groups come out on top. These three factors are: (1) group size, (2) technology, and (3) language. [...]
Tags:altruism·art·behavioral modernity·cooperation·differential fitness·evolution of religion·group agonism·group competition·group level selection·group size·intergroup conflict·language·modern human behavior·ornamentation·Paleolithic·proto-religion·reproduction·Richard Klein·ritual·survival·symbolic thinking·technology·The Human Career·Upper Paleolithic
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
Humans have been engaging with the supernatural for at least 50,000 years and perhaps much longer. Because humans have been writing for less than 5,000 years, this means that some 45,000 years of religious history reveals itself to us only through the archaeological record. For a long period of time, archaeologists were reluctant to investigate [...]
Tags:archaeology·burials·domestic·grave goods·Higgs·Jarman·monuments·neolithic·Richard Bradley·ritual·ritualization·sacred·shrines·soul·soul beliefs·writing
As Charles Choi reports, archaeologist Brian Hayden suggests that the Neolithic domestication of cereals may have been driven by the ritual desire for proto-Budweiser:
[His] argument is that Stone Age farmers were domesticating cereals not so much to fill their stomachs but to lighten their heads, by turning the grains into beer. That has been their [...]
Tags:alcohol·altered states of consciousness·beer·Brian Hayden·cereal grains·Charles Choi·ecstasy·emotions·neolithic·ritual·saints·shamans·Sorcerers
Here is an explanation for ritual that makes considerable sense: if you are about to perform some task, and think that engaging in some — indeed any — form of ritual will enhance your performance, there is a good chance the mental prime improves subsequent performance. My guess is that there is fine line between [...]
Tags:causation·luck·magic·magical thinking·mental prime·performance·ritual·superstition
Just the other day, I commented on the origin of ritual and noted that Jonathan Z. Smith sees “the thrill of coincidence” as at least a partial explanation. Before rationalists dismiss this thrill as mere superstition, Smith also notes that the same kind of coincidence resides at the heart of scholarship:
The discovery that two events, [...]
Tags:Africa·Assembly of God·Catholics·charismatics·charms·coincidence·evangelicals·exorcism·Foursquare Gospel·Geoffrey MacDonald·Glimpses of African Belief·indigenous beliefs·Johann Hari·Jonathan Z. Smith·Massachusetts·mediums·pagans·Pentecostals·possession·psychics·ritual·rituals·rosaries·saints·Salem·secret interconnection·spells·spiritual tourism·spiritualism·superstitition·The Gathering·The Masque of Africa·The Vault·transubstantiation·V.S. Naipaul·voodoo·Wicca·witchcraft
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 [...]
Tags:anxiety·augury·autoeroticism·Barbara Smuts·causal illusion·college football gods·college football religion·confession·corn husking·Cornhuskers·costly signaling·David Hume·Emile Durkheim·football·gods·guilt·Huskers·Immanuel Kant·John Watanabe·Jonathan Z. Smith·Joseph Bulbulia·male baboons·masturbation·mythology·narcissism·Nebraska·Nebraska Fan's Confession·omen·Onan·onanism·propitious coincidence·randomly connected events·Richard Sosis·ritual·ritualized greetings·rituals·Roman ritual·Roy Rappaport·serendipity·solipsism·Superstitition in the Pigeon·The Bare Facts of Ritual·thrill of coincidence
This is really cool — an elderly woman buried in the Levant 12,000 years ago with a plethora of grave goods and indications of a feast for her send off. As reported by Live Science, this was a critical transitional period from foraging to agriculture:
Prehistoric leftovers of a feast 12,000 years ago at an apparent [...]
Tags:feast ritual·grave goods·Levant·mortuary practices·neolithic·ritual·shaman
Reuters reports that “specialists” in prayer writing and ritual are doing a booming business in Iran. The whole business — or commodification of prayer — reminds one of the prayer and dispensation trade that existed in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, and which so incensed Martin Luther:
In Islamic Iran where clerics rule, [...]
Tags:Catholic Church·dispensations·doctrine·Imam·intercession·interpretation·Iran·Islam·Islamic law·legitimacy·magic·Martin Luther·Mullah·Muslim·prayer·prayer sellers·prayer selling·ritual·sharia·Stanley Fish·superstition·supplication
In keeping with the themes from my previous posts on prayer/probabilities and supplication/statistics, it would be remiss not to discuss B.F. Skinner’s classic 1948 study in which he demonstrated that the regular delivery or occurrence of something — or what might be called consistency of experience over time — can result in the (mistaken) perception [...]
Tags:B.F. Skinner·causation·chance·contingency·correlation·David Hume·magic·pigeons·prayer·probability·ritual·rituals·statistics·superstition·supplication
