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In order to better understand the origin and current diversity of religious belief systems throughout the world, recent studies have attempted to focus on historical interrelationships and diversification of all major organized religions, applying modern evolutionary philosophy to the comparative analysis of putative ideological groups. [9]
either that religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage; or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, saw religion as an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words: religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.
This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny. There are various traditions in religion or religious mythology asserting how and why everything is the way it is and the significance of it all. Religious cosmologies describe the ...
Sociological, psychological, and anthropological theories about religion generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion. [1] These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice .
1893: Swami Vivekananda's first speech at The Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago, brought the ancient philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world. 1899: Aradia (aka The Gospel of the Witches ), one of the earliest books describing post witchhunt European religious Witchcraft , was published by Charles Godfrey Leland .
While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as [a] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations ...
Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life." [83] When religion is seen in terms of sacred, divine, intensive valuing, or ultimate concern, then it is possible to understand why scientific findings and philosophical criticisms (e.g., those made by Richard Dawkins) do not necessarily disturb its adherents. [84]
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. [1] [2] In its broadest sense, creationism includes a continuum of religious views, [3] [4] which vary in their acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations such as evolution that describe the origin and development of natural ...