Why read Religion Explained?

Book cover of Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought

Book description

Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, are no longer mysteries. We are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Religion Explained shows how this aspect of human consciousness…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Religion Explained as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Harvey Whitehouse

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Why do humans everywhere imagine themselves to share the world with supernatural agents of various kinds? Many scholars have pointed out the usefulness of supernatural agent concepts in providing reassurance, political legitimacy, a rationale for suffering, or a theory of our collective origins or destinies. But this does not explain why we come up with those specific types of constructs in the first place.

Pascal Boyer proposes a surprising and compelling solution. The reason we entertain particular kinds of ideas about supernatural agents, he argues, is because of the way our cognitive systems evolved.

From Harvey's list on evolutionary origins of the modern world.