Evolution

You ask whether ‘in principle’ a neurobiological theory on religion could “account” for the experience of the believers. The answer depends on what kind of an account you are asking for and what you have in mind when you say ‘in principle’. If you mean by ‘account’, whether it could predict or even explain, I do not think so. We know that, at the least, we are made up of atoms. Your question, in …

While re-reading certain passages from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (2006), I was so shocked by his combination of ignorance and arrogance. Forgive me for some Dawkins- bashing: In a memorable passage, Dawkins discusses the problem of Trinitarianism in Christianity and extends it to other forms of “polytheism,” such as the cult of the Virgin Mary and the saints in Roman-Catholicism. “What …

People like Scott Atran and Sloan Wilson abuse evolutionary biology to produce ad hoc explanations of an explanandum whose truth they presuppose: the universality of religion. Their explanations are no better than those discussed by Balu in chapter 5 of ‘The Heathen in his blindness: Asia, the West and the dynamic of religion. ’. Paraphrasing Balu, we may say that they consist of ’two quarters of …

It is very disappointing to see how these evolutionary theorists of religion lack knowledge of religions other than garden variety Judeo-Christianity (where they seem to have at least some factual knowledge, as in Scott Atran’s case, they reproduce standard textbook stories about Hinduism that have been left behind a few decades back). If they did a serious study, it would perhaps strike them …