Religion in Human and Cosmic Evolution: Whitehead's Alternative Vision (original) (raw)
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A Trans-Species Definition of Religion (2011)
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 5.3: 327-353, 2011
To advance knowledge of the evolution and prehistory of religions over the past two million years of human evolution, it would be useful to know whether other species, including great apes and extinct species of Australopithecines and Homo prior to Homo sapiens sapiens, exhibit behaviors that might be categorized as 'religious' or 'spiritual'. To determine this we need a precise and robust definition of religious behavior suitable for cross-species comparison. I develop a non-anthropocentric and non-anthropomorphic prototype definition of human religious behavior and then deconstruct it into a trans-species definition, which can be used to predict and identify religious behavior in other species.
Tracing the Origin and Nature of Religion in Human Consciousness
California Institute of Integral Studies, Academia, 2022
Calling forth, thinking upon, and discussing an essential spiritual reality of our existence perhaps hold the key to our necessary and imminent global transformation as a species. Exploration of the nature of religion as a survival mechanism of the species.
Intuition, and Theology, I have argued for the uniqueness of revelational experiences in the context of Whitehead's metaphysics, despite Whitehead's equally strong assertion that cosmology offers a rational scheme of all relations in the universe in which every (religious) experience is subsumed as an instance of the metaphysical system 2. My interest was to establish the non-metaphysical character of religious experience and revelation, in the context of Whitehead's metaphysics, especially regarding Religion in the Making's attempt to protect the uniqueness of religious experiences from any subsumation under a general metaphysical law.3
Robert Wright proposes reuniting scientists and theologians on the common ground of evolutionary theory, hoping for agreement that humans are hardwired with innate moral sensibilities. His naturalistic proposal is discussed, enhanced by offerings from complexity science, and significantly extended via self-regulatory dynamics that are perceivable through the human emotional system. 2 A Grander Evolution for a Grander Spiritual Bargain: A naturalistic theologian responds to Robert Wright As the new decade dawns, a cursory reflection of the last reveals a lot of God talk. Particularly portentous along these lines is Robert Wright's Evolution of God, the latest iteration of his long-running theme -the message that humans are hardwired to be moral creatures. In the New York Times editorial: A Grand Bargain over Evolution, he condensed his moral message and threw down a gauntlet of sorts. In this piece he brings good news -offering evolutionary theory as neutral intellectual territory for mediating the longstanding "war" between science and religion. He speaks of an "unseen order" that exists "out there," that if decoded holds the key to life's deepest secrets -whether they be laws of nature or God's supernatural design plan. Wright's hope in brokering peace turns on his conviction that this hidden order -no matter who is right about its source -includes an ethical design that yields our innate "moral sense."
Evolutionary Accounts of Religion within a Christian Account of Big History
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 2024
“Big History” is a mode of thought that seeks to integrate findings of the natural sciences, social sciences, and history into a coherent overarching story of the universe and of humanity. The humanity-related elements in Big History will necessarily include the emergence of “religion,” including Evolutionary Accounts of Religion (EAR). Here we review two programmatic contributions to EAR, by Dunbar and Torrey, then propose a theistic account of Big History through which to respond to their proposals. We accept their general argument that humanity’s religious capacities having emerged through the evolutionary history of the Homo genus, yet we offer a theistic alternative to their accounts of the evolutionary function of religion. We then argue for how one aspect of humanity’s evolved religious capacities, namely the proclivity of the Homo sapien brain to produce transcendent ambiguity (many gods, etc.), reflects not a flaw in God’s design but an evolutionary outcome intended by God—to facilitate humanity’s search for God.
The Evolution of Evolutionary Theories of Religion
This paper gives an overview about the development of evolutionary theories of religion. It distinguishes four types namely: (i) a common sense understanding of evolution, (ii) evolution as proceeding to higher levels, (iii) the teleological model of evolution, and (iv) the functional evolutionary notion of religion. Every category is illustrated by an important historical example. Examples are from: for category (i) antiquity and historicism; for category (ii) Schleiermacher, Hegel, Comte, Tylor, Frazer, Bachofen, and Bellah; for category (iii) Aristotle, Paley, and Chardin; and for category (iv) Jäger, Malinowski, D.S. Wilson, E.O. Wilson, Voland. A certain development in complexity of these theories can be observed. The sequence in this development is like this: (a) level of religious consciousness (Schleiermacher, Hegel); (b) correlation between religious consciousness and society (Comte, Tylor); (c) function of particular religions in particular societies (Malinowski). Though functional evolutionary theories of religion dominate the current discussion, their shortcomings are being discussed in Sect. 18.3 and a model is proposed to combine functional and essential features of religion in order to come to a comprehensive understanding of religion, which is not exhausted by its function . Various possibilities to understand the essence of religions are proposed, such as doctrines, transcendence , and experience.
THE EVOLUTIONIST ROLE OF RELIGION; SOME ARGUMENTS.pdf
In this article we analyze religion from the perspective of a stage necessary in the evolution of humanity, contributing to the birth of society, to the creation of specific dimensions of the human mind prior to the emergence of philosophy and then of science. We explore the possibility that mental religious resorts have facilitated the transition from group to society: the existence of a set of mental instruments that can be called the "religious package" has provided integrative meanings and goals, mediating the transition from small groups to large societies, from hunters-gatherers to agriculture and sedentariness. We bring some arguments for the state of religion of social survival strategy: through the cooperation it establishes in the multiple plans of human existence it favours the groups with the highest degree of coherence Several evolutionary advantages of religion: generates predictability through the systems of human classification and ordering of the possible relationships among the peers (social context stabilization), namely of ordering reality (cosmos), shaping existential models. Religion is an explanatory system of reality and normative for human existence, while ensuring the social framework necessary for outsourcing, thereby facilitating the development of the mind. Religion is an integrative meta-narrative: it is a reference framework for integrative narratives (contexts that make the meaning possible) that reduce the pile of information that invades the mind to some schemes of understanding. Religion could be the most appropriate example of geno-cultural co-evolution, clarifying this assumption being attempted through an appeal to anthropological and neuro-science research.