Gods Above: Naturalizing Religion in Terms of our Shared Ape Social Dominance Behavior
To naturalize religion, we must identify what religion is, and what aspects of it we are trying to explain. In this paper, religious social institutional behavior is the explanatory target, and an explanatory hypothesis based on shared primate social dominance psychology is given. The argument is th...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Netherlands
[2015]
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| In: |
Sophia
Year: 2015, Volume: 54, Issue: 1, Pages: 77-92 |
| IxTheo Classification: | AA Study of religion AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AE Psychology of religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Euhemerism
B evolution of religion B Phylogenetic bracketing B Social Dominance |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | To naturalize religion, we must identify what religion is, and what aspects of it we are trying to explain. In this paper, religious social institutional behavior is the explanatory target, and an explanatory hypothesis based on shared primate social dominance psychology is given. The argument is that various religious features, including the high status afforded the religious, and the high status afforded to deities, are an expression of this social dominance psychology in a context for which it did not evolve: high-density populations made possible by agriculture. |
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| ISSN: | 1873-930X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sophia
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11841-015-0461-5 |