St. gen.: Eine Primatologin vertritt die These, daß die psychologische Wurzel religiöser Gefühle im Zugehörigkeitsgefühl zu einer Gruppe begründet sind, sowie im Zugehörigkeitsgefühl zu nahestehenden Gruppenmitgliedern. Eine bestechende These. Ein weiblicher Beitrag zu Theorien der Evolution menschlicher Religiosität.

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Produktinformation

• Amazon-Verkaufsrang: #1438090 in Bücher
• Veröffentlicht am: 2007-01-16
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007-01-16
• Abmessungen: 9.52" h x 1.04" b x 6.42" l, 1.15 Pfund
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• 272 Seiten

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Biological anthropologist King contends that religion, conceived as a system not of beliefs but of actions, not as theology but as worship, is a consequence of primate evolution. It proceeds, she posits, from the sense of group membership that highly developed mammals, especially the great apes, demonstrate in many ways but most saliently for religion when they show concern for a group member that has died. Signs of such concern appear in the fossil record of human ancestors first at burial sites. Certain arrangements of the bodies of the dead, funerary articles, and choices of particular colors and designs indicate an expanding consciousness of the universe-in-time and speculation about creatures' places within it. Even before the famous cave paintings of early Homo sapiens, which increasingly are seen to express religious feeling, large Neanderthal ceremonial sites indicate worshipful attitudes--indicate, King insists, the emotions of religion. In conclusion, she weighs the popular debate over evolution, noting high skepticism about human evolution and high belief in God, and questions the compulsion to choose either evolution or belief. Anyone who recognizes that compulsion, internal or external, may profit from reading this brilliant book. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Kurzbeschreibung
This cutting-edge book—with echoes of both Jane Goodall and Joseph Campbell—adds a fascinating new dimension to the debate about the origins of religion.

The study of evolution has uncovered invaluable information about many aspects of human behavior and culture, from the physiology of our bodies and brains to the development of hunting, technology, and social groups. But an understanding of the intangibles of human experience, especially religion, lags far behind. Attempts to discover the source of religiosity through genetic analysis and neuroscience have so far yielded intriguing but incomplete insights. Evolving God represents an exciting breakthrough. Drawing on her own extensive investigations into the behavior of our closest primate relatives and the most up-to-date research in archaeology, anthropology, and biology, Barbara King offers a comprehensive, holistic view of how and why religion came to be.

King focuses on how the Great Apes, our human ancestors, and modern humans relate to one another socially and emotionally, and she traces the growing complexities of communication throughout the course of evolution. She shows that, with increased brain capacity, the scope and nature of socio-emotional ties began with one-to-one relationships and expanded to group relationships (families and communities) and then to connections with long-dead ancestors, animal spirits, and “higher beings.” Her incisive, highly readable narrative takes readers from the earliest common relative of humans and apes (more than 6 million years ago), through the Neandertal period and the Stone Age, to the dawn of religion in early human societies.

Evolving God explores one of the greatest mysteries in human history—the question of whether humankind is innately religious—and provides evidence that will have a tremendous impact on current debates about evolution, creationism, and intelligent design.

Über den Autor

barbara king is Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. A biological anthropologist, she has studied ape and monkey behavior in Gabon, in Kenya, and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park. She lives in Gloucester County, Virginia.