A Critical Analysis of Evolutionary Theories about the Prevalence of Religious Beliefs

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Quranic knowledge and House hold of prophet, University of Isfahan,

Abstract

Why religious beliefs and activities in many different cultures and at all times have been so widespread is a problem that has been addressed by many philosophers and scholars in the field of religion in the last few decades. Evolutionary ideas attempt to answer this question by studying religion as a natural phenomenon. There are two groups of evolutionary theories about this issue: by-product theory and group selection theory. In this paper, while analyzing the two aforesaid theories, we show that the two are not so much successful in answering the problem. Our analysis shows that these two theories are challenged on four main axes: (1) ambiguity in the concept of "evolutionary adaptation of religion" (2) the limited and incomplete definition of religion (3) explanatory limitations and (4) the lack of distinction between the natural and rational foundations of religious beliefs.

Keywords

References

[1] Atran, S. (2002), In Gods We Trust, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[2] Barrett, J. (2007), "Cognitive Science of Religion: What Is It and Why Is It?", Religion Compass 1/6, pp. 768-786.
[3] Barrett, J. (2009), "Science, Religion and Theology" in The Believing Primate, by J. Schloss and M. J. Murray (eds), New York, Oxford University Press
[4] Clark, Kelly & J. Barrett (2011), "Reidian Religious Epistemology and the Cognitive Science of Religion", Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, pp. 639-75.
[5] Henig, Robin M. (2007), "Darwin's God" New York Times, March 4.
[6] Hume, D. (1956), Natural History of Religion, ed. H. E. Root, Plato Alto, Calif, Stanford University Press.
[7] Lim, Daniel (2016), "Cognitive Science of Religion and Folk Theistic Belief", Zygon vol. 51, n. 4, pp. 949-965.
[8] Murray, M. (2009), "Scientific Explanations of Religion and the Justification of Religion Belief" In The Believing Primate, ed. By J. Schloss & M. Murray, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 168-77.
 [9] Nola, R. (2013), "Do Naturalistic Explanations of Religious Beliefs Debunk Religion?" in A New Science of Religion, by G. Dawes and J. Mclaurin (eds), New York, Routledge.
[10] Plantinga, A. (2011), Where The Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion & Naturalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[11] Schloss, Jeffrey (2009), "Introduction: Evolutionary Theories of Religion", In Believing Primate, ed. by J. Schloss & M. Murray, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 1-25.
[12] Thurow, J. (2013), "Does Cognitive Science show belief in god to be irrationals?" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74, pp 77-98.
[13] Wilson, D. S. (2002), Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and The Nature of Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Philosophy and Kalam
Volume 52, Issue 2
January 2020
Pages 189-206

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics