Supernatural as Natural: A Biocultural Approach to Religion
Michael Winkelman
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0131893033
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book provides a general introduction to the biological and evolutionary bases of religion and is suitable for introductory level courses in the anthropology and psychology of religion and comparative religion.
Why did human ancestors everywhere adopt religious beliefs and customs? The presence and persistence of many religious features across the globe and time suggests that it is natural for humans to believe in the supernatural. In this new text, the authors explore both the biological and cultural dimensions of religion and the evolutionary origins of religious features.
there is no need for a religious explanation (belief) until there is a religious experience to be explained. As we saw in Chapter 3, a variety of natural processes—starvation, pain, injury, and sleeplessness—induce mystical experiences and the integrative mode of consciousness. Other means for producing altered states of consciousness have appeared during hominan evolution, specifically bipedalism and long-distance running, enhanced opioid systems, and enzymes for processing psychedelic plants
several central elements: • a sacred geography of the Universe, including its natural and supernatural components, • specific kinds of entities within the supernatural Universe, and • operating principles that govern the Universe and its entities and define how humans are affected by them. All cultures make statements about natural and supernatural places—the realm of supernatural beings and powers. This sacred geography provides a means to understand the nature of the Universe as well as
mutation a random change in a sequence of DNA natural selection the process by which species adapt over time in response to pressures from the environment open systems of language systems of communication in which a finite number of sounds can be combined to produce an infinite number of utterances participant-observation a research method in which a fieldworker lives with a group of people and takes part in their activities to understand the group’s culture from the insider’s perspective
are injected into the bloodstream and then accumulate in the areas of the brain that are most active when a person is performing a particular task. The amount of radiation being emitted from these regions is then read and assembled into an image of the brain. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) allows researchers to make real-time measurements of the changing amounts of blood flowing through the different regions of the brain over time. The relatively high resolution of fMRI devices
until they have run their course or until they are interrupted, usually by an inappropriate response from another animal. The specific sequences of fixed action patterns impart a rather rigid structure to the ritualized behaviors that animals use for purposes such as courtship, territorial defense, and challenges to the social order. The specific sequence of behaviors provides a series of checkpoints and filters which help ensure that all of the participants are indeed members of the same