Religion Explained
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Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought is a book by anthropologist Pascal Boyer that discusses the evolutionary origins of religious concepts. Through an examination of the mind's inference systems - how they work and how they have been shaped over time - Boyer suggests explanations of how it is that we have the religious concepts we do, and why they have been so culturally successful. Boyer presents evidence from many specialized disciplines including anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology to support the idea that a naturalistic explanation of religion is possible; and suggests that such an approach is necessary if the field and study of religion is going to make progress.
The book is 330 pages long and contains 9 chapters: What is the Origin?; What Supernatural Concepts are Like; The Kind of Mind it Takes; Why Gods and Spirits?; Why Do Gods and Spirits Matter; Why is Religion about Death?; Why Rituals?; Why Doctrines, Exclusion and Violence?; and Why Belief?
Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought was published in 2001 by Basic Books (ISBN 0-465-00696-5).
[edit] Reviews and Comment
David Klinghoffer in the National Review suggsts that "Boyer's talk of "religion" is suspiciously generic" and that his work is "professorial noodlings" that beg the question and that "debunkers like Boyer ...have their own unconscious motivations (to undermine religious faith, after all, is to set oneself free of its many inconvenient strictures)."[1]
