How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures (book review)
a natural part of human life
Book review:
How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures
by Robin Dunbar
New York: Oxford University Press, 2022
330 pp.
I think this is a fair although much too brief summary of Dunbar’s conclusions: people created religion because it feels good and it works for human beings in many ways.
Dunbar, an Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, doesn’t deal with faith.
How Religion Evolved explores the mental, emotional, social, and psychological dimensions of all the world’s religions, including the very early animist/shamanic religions and the more familiar doctrinal religions that dominate today.
An element of his discussion is the social bonding process and a particular foundation of the “set of cultural criteria that function mainly as cues of community membership, and hence trustworthiness” that Dunbar labels “the Seven Pillars of Friendship.” (p. 107)
These are: sharing the same language, place of origin, educational trajectory, hobbies and interests, worldview (religious, moral, and political views), musical tastes, and sense of humor.
Think about how your family members and friends match up with you on these scales.
Dunbar concludes that religion—the long and the short of it, the wide and the narrow of it, the shallow and the deep of it—is naturally a part of human life.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review:
American Scripture:
Making the Declaration of Independence
…basically, it’s trash talk to King George
by Pauline Maier
click here
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
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