Extreme Religious Behaviours

Where Religious Practice and Biological Evolution Clash
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-3-11-137421-5
Verlag: De Gruyter

Buch, Englisch, Band 70, 207 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 230 mm, Gewicht: 437 g

Reihe: Religion and Reason

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.

Zielgruppe

Scholars of religious studies, psychologists

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bronkhorst, Johannes

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Wissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Gottesdienst, Riten und Zeremonien
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Religionspsychologie

Über Autor(innen)

Johannes Bronkhorst, Universität Lausanne, Schweitz.

Johannes Bronkhorst, Universität Lausanne, Schweitz.