Why do religious cultures evolve slowly? The cultural evolution of cooperative calling and the historical study of religions

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorBulbulia, Joseph
dc.contributor.authorAtkinson, Quentin
dc.contributor.authorGray, Russell
dc.contributor.authorGreenhill, Simon
dc.contributor.editorUro, R.
dc.date.accessioned2014-04-14T02:27:13Z
dc.date.available2014-04-14T02:27:13Z
dc.date.issued2014-04
dc.date.updated2020-12-27T07:36:56Z
dc.description.abstractCollective representations are the result of an immense cooperation, which stretches out not only into space but into time as well; to make them, a multitude of minds have associated, united and combined their ideas and sentiments: for them, long generations have accumulated their experience and their knowledge. A special intellectual activity is therefore concentrated in them, which is infinitely richer and complexer than that of the individual. (Émile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, [1912] 1965: 29)The languages and folkways of ancient peoples hold little relevance for us, except in one respect: the religions of the ancient world remain our religions. Though religions change, core features of the scriptures and rituals of the world's most popular religious traditions appear to have been conserved with remarkably high fidelity. We explain slow religious change from how religion facilitates cooperation at large social scales. At the end, we clarify how historians of religion, in collaboration with psychologists and computational biologists, might test and improve explanations such as ours.
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was supported by the John F. Templeton Foundation (Testing the Functional Roles of Religion in Human Society, no. 28745), the Royal Society of New Zealand ("e Cultural Evolution of Religion, no. 11-UOA-239
dc.format16 pages
dc.identifier.citationBulbulia, J., Atkinson, Q., Gray, R. & Greenhill, S. (2013). Why do religious cultures evolve slowly? The cultural evolution of cooperative calling and the historical study of religions. In I. Czachesz & R. Uro (Eds.). Mind, Morality and Magic: cognitive science approaches in biblical studies (pp.197-212). West Nyack, NY: Acumen Publishing
dc.identifier.isbn9781844657346
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/11569
dc.publisherAcumen Publishing
dc.relationhttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/de12010195
dc.relation.ispartofMind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies
dc.rights© The Authors
dc.source.urihttp://universitypublishingonline.org/acumen/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9781844657346&cid=CBO9781844657346A021en_AU
dc.subjectreligion
dc.subjectculture
dc.subjectevolution
dc.subjecthistory
dc.subjectstudy
dc.titleWhy do religious cultures evolve slowly? The cultural evolution of cooperative calling and the historical study of religions
dc.typeBook chapter
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage212
local.bibliographicCitation.placeofpublicationDurham
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage197
local.contributor.affiliationGreenhill, Simon, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University
local.contributor.authoremailsimon.greenhill@anu.edu.auen_AU
local.contributor.authoruidu5232172en_AU
local.description.embargo2099-12-31
local.identifier.absfor229999 - Philosophy and Religious Studies not elsewhere classified
local.identifier.absseo970122 - Expanding Knowledge in Philosophy and Religious Studies
local.identifier.ariespublicationu5234012xPUB53
local.identifier.doi10.4324/9781315728933-17
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByu5232172en_AU
local.publisher.urlhttp://universitypublishingonline.org/acumen/home.jsfen_AU
local.type.statusPublished Versionen_AU

Downloads

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
Bulbulia_et_al Why do religious cultures 2014.pdf
Size:
184 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

ANU Research Publications

DSpace software copyright © 2002-2024 LYRASIS