Religion Evolving
Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics
Benjamin Grant Purzycki [+–]
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
Richard Sosis [+–]
University of Connecticut
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Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics, Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Introduction [+–]
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 1
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 2
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 3
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 4
What do Gods Want? [+–]
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 5
What do Gods Know? [+–]
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 6
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 7
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 8
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 9
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Conclusion
Conclusion [+–]
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
Chapter 10
Aarhus University
Benjamin Grant Purzycki is Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University.
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis is the James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The scientific study of religion has made significant advances in recent decades, explaining how the mind produces religious ideas, the motivations underlying religious behaviour, and the transmission of religious cultures within and across generations. In Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics , Purzycki and Sosis argue that further progress requires integration of isolated research findings on the various components – ritual, supernatural agent belief, myth, taboo, and so forth – that constitute religion. Religions, they contend, need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, they situate religious systems within their local socioecological contexts, showing how religious culture adaptively responds to economic, environmental, and human health problems, as well as costly threats to cooperation and reproduction. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781800500518
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781800500525
Price (Paperback)
£24.95 / $32.00
ISBN (eBook)
9781800500532
Price (eBook)
Individual
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
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ePub ISBN
9781800500549
Publication
01/02/2022
Pages
240
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
scholars
Illustration
9 figures
