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Extreme Religious Behaviours eBook

Where Religious Practice And Biological Evolution Clash

by Johannes Bronkhorst
language: english
Publisher: De Gruyter, June of 2024 ‧
129,19€
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Certain religious behaviours clearly reduce biological fitness. These behaviours include celibacy along with various forms of asceticism, and rituals that harm the performer. Such behaviours are found in widely different cultures. How is this possible? This book shows that these behaviours (as is religion in general) are by-products of features of the human mind whose evolutionary fitness is beyond doubt and explores those features.

Which are those features? This book proposes a twofold answer. It draws attention to the layered nature of human consciousness, in which different manners of experience are superimposed on each other. This goes a long way toward accounting for the universal religious belief in some kind of transcendental world, a "higher" reality, different from "ordinary" reality. The layering of consciousness comes about in childhood and gains in prominence with the acquisition of a first language, which is the second feature highlighted in this book. Together, these features explain a variety of "normal" religious behaviours and beliefs, and account for the possibility of mystical experience. They also explain the occurrence of behaviours that do not augment evolutionary fitness.

Extreme Religious Behaviours

Where Religious Practice And Biological Evolution Clash

by Johannes Bronkhorst

Property Description
ISBN: 9783111374468
Publisher: De Gruyter
Release Date: June of 2024
Language: English
Format: eBook
File Format and Compatibility:
Collection: Religion And Reason
Categories: eBooks in English > Faith & Religion > Science and History of Religions
eBooks in English > Others
EAN: 9783111374468
Acessibilidade: Ver características de acessibilidade indicadas pelo editor

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