Evolution of Religion

“The Myth of the Mythical Jesus” was the title of a 2016 Patheos.com blog posting written by the prolific Christian apologist Philip Jenkins, the author of more than 25 books. It spawned an entire school of apologetics that seems ubiquitous throughout the Internet of 2025. It attempted to refute scholars who have argued that “Jesus of Nazareth” was not a historical figure. According to Jenkins, “The ‘Christ Myth Hypothesis’ is not scholarship, and is not taken seriously in respectable academic debate.” “The Myth of ‘The Myth of the Mythical Jesus’” is a slightly edited consolidation of the numerous postings made by Frank R. Zindler on Kathleen Johnson’s NoGodBlog in order to refute Jenkins. It is an exhaustive deconstruction of Jenkins’ blog, submitting every paragraph and nearly every sentence to logical and evidentiary analysis. It shows that Jenkins has produced no evidence at all to show the likely historicity of the New Testament Jesus and, for good measure, it presents an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the Christ-Myth Theory.
The Myth of ‘The Myth of the Mythical Jesus’” was rescued from Internet Oblivion by Martijn Linssen of Leiden University, to whom the author is deeply indebted.

The scientific interest in spirituality has increased in recent years, paralleled by promising findings on the effects of spiritual experiences induced by psychedelics substances (PS), in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, these experiences may also bring challenges, depending on a variety of nonpharmacological variables. This article argues that an undiscerning use of PS to induce spiritual experiences, may facilitate the development of psychospiritual pathology, of which spiritual bypassing is a common example. This conclusion is based on a combination of three arguments: a) the ability of PS to trigger transcendental phenomenology; b) the unfamiliarity of the ruling mechanisticreductionist scientific paradigm with the nature and implications of spirituality; c) the influence of New Age beliefs promoting PS as vehicles for spiritual and psychological growth. Considering the common occurrence of transcendental phenomenology in psychedelic experiences, the use of appropriate tools of assessment and support should be encouraged. Bearing in mind that both Eastern and Western philosophical and spiritual traditions are living repositories of wisdom on how to address spiritual experiences, a possible solution points towards the selective incorporation of this millenary knowledge, from a secular, transcultural perspective, to support informed uses and practices in psychedelic research and therapy.

We wanted to draw attention to how men, who have been recklessly exploiting women's freedom for years, have kept women under control for thousands of years through insidious schemes. We wrote this book to spark a flame to rescue women from this straitjacket, to turn the fire created by this spark into a fireball with your valuable contributions, and to liberate women by breaking down the invisible walls surrounding them. Women's liberation will be the result of women's organized power. Long live women's organized power! Mehmet Yiğit AĞAOĞLU

The notion of God as an unknowable entity raises fundamental questions about the nature of belief, perception, and authority. If God is unknowable, the texts, doctrines, and symbolic frameworks intended to explain God cannot be conduits to truth; they are instead vehicles of imposition. Religious texts, such as the Bible, exemplify this mechanism: by codifying language and defining meaning from the top down, they create an artificial hierarchy of authority that shapes thought, behaviour, and societal compliance.

From the outset, we must ask: if the divine is inaccessible, why should we accord legitimacy to the linguistic structures designed to represent it? The answer, as we shall explore, lies in the symbolic and psychological power of language - its capacity to shape consciousness, enforce social hierarchies, and create self-reinforcing perceptual realities. In other words, the mechanisms of belief are less about apprehending truth than they are about installing compliance, embedding ideology, and codifying obedience.

This paper evaluates the claim that the Holy Spirit supernaturally indwells Christians and thereby imparts distinctive wisdom, righteousness, happiness, and miraculous ability. Framing the inquiry in likelihoodist terms, I ask which hypothesis better predicts the available evidence: (H1) an omniscient, omnipotent Spirit actively influences believers, or (H0) the observed phenomena are products of ordinary psychological and social processes. If H1 were true, we should expect measurable patterns: greater doctrinal unity, superior decision-making, unusually low rates of antisocial behavior, uniquely elevated well-being, and verifiable miracles. The evidence instead shows persistent doctrinal diversity, mixed or null behavioral advantages, comparable well-being, and non-replicable miracle claims. On the likelihoodist appraisal, these observations are far more probable given H0 than given H1. I conclude that the hypothesis of a supernaturally indwelling Holy Spirit is not supported by the balance of evidence, and that natural explanations better account for the data (Draper, 1989; Royall, 1997; Oppy, 2013).

Although, strictly speaking, it is not a religious festival, Father's Day gives us a chance to reflect on a familiar theme in our tradition. Jesus referred to God as Abba, Father. For this He chose the word in Aramaic (Abba) that implies something deeper, more direct than our abstraction (paternity). By calling God His Father, Jesus implied that we are individually created in the image of God. Our relationship with God is as close and direct as that between a father and his child. In the same way that I know my daughter personally, so Jesus gave new meaning to the idea that God is our Father. We know very little about Joseph. The early church did everything possible to suppress the memory of Jesus' human father. It is necessary to read between the lines in the Gospels to reconstruct one of the most important and interesting relationships in history. Although in early Christian art he is portrayed simply as a carpenter, we must remember that Scripture identifies Joseph as a descendant of David and Solomon. With this

Siying's monograph, A Study on the Ancestral Myths of the Tai-speaking Peoples of the Kam-Tai Language Family, represents a significant contribution to the fields of ethnology, comparative mythology, and Southeast Asian cultural studies. Grounded in extensive fieldwork and meticulous textual analysis, this scholarly work examines the mythological traditions of various Tai-speaking groups within the broader Kam-Tai language family. By interpreting these myths through both historical and contemporary lenses, Li (Associate Researcher, Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) provides a nuanced understanding of how ancestral narratives function as repositories of cultural memory, vehicles of identity formation, and dynamic tools for social cohesion and continuity.

Healing describes contemporary psychedelic therapies of indigenous cultures, mestizo adaptations, and emerging global traditions. Analysis of cultural contexts and ritual practices of diverse entheogenic traditions provides an understanding of their individual and common dynamics. A common framework situates the practices in cultural context, describes training of healers, examines preparatory and ritual activities, and analyzes the dynamics of healing. The chapters examine the roles entheogens play in healing, focused on the alterations of consciousness and spirit experiences produced, the forms of illness treated, the nature of the healing processes, and post-session integration practices. Their commonalities provide guidelines for the Psychedelic Renaissance.

One of the greatest synthesis of the twentieth century": this is how Edgar Morin depicted Raimon Panikkar, in the volume Ethics, in his Method, naming him along with other non-western intellectual authorities (such as Gandhi, Mandela, the Dalai Lama, etc.) who opened the contemporary consciousness to the Earth concern and to a lively interest in humanity. With equal admiration Panikkar referred to Edgar Morin, estimating his enlightened thinking of Complexity. We could think of a dialogue about Eco-sophy between Intercultural Philosophy and Thought of Complexity, between science and tradition. This was, indeed, a subject particularly dear to Panikkar as well as to Morin, both supporters, even if from different sides, of the need for a profound transformation in our times, aiming to the very survival of human beings and planet. In that regard Panikkar spoke of a "metamorphosis"(in its etymological meaning), using the metaphor of the chrysalis, which leaves the cocoon to a new form of life.

VI. Final Conclusion

The true timeline of human civilization begins ~12,025 years ago in ancient Sumer —

Supported by language, agriculture, population mathematics, and cultural continuity

Invalidating both Darwinian gradualism and religious literalism

This white paper presents the first unified, mathematically validated framework for humanity's origin — logical, empirical, and rooted in documented human behavior.

The human woman Inanna-later mythified as Ishtar-was the author of the first religious literature. Her writings were allegorical fiction, crafted to teach moral and spiritual lessons. Humanity mistook these metaphorical teachings for literal history, thus creating the first religion of man." 🔍 Context & Framework • Timeframe: ~4000 BCE (human reckoning) • Precedent Condition: ○ No temples. ○ No churches. ○ No deified figures. ○ Only government structures: record halls, grain storage, legal archives. • Event: ○ Inanna traveled to Eridu, acquired advanced knowledge (possibly from Enki), and authored symbolic epics. ○ Her most famous: the Descent into the Underworld-not a real journey, but a coded psychological drama. 🔥 Catalytic Outcome • The public, lacking symbolic literacy, interpreted fiction as literal. • Over time, Inanna was deified-removed from her mortal identity. • Her metaphorical stories became doctrine.

A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Introduction: Why This Matters
Myth vs. Science: Ancient texts describe genetic engineering in metaphorical terms.
Key Question: Were humans created by advanced beings using biotechnology?
Methodology: Cross-referencing Sumerian tablets, biblical Hebrew, and modern genetics.

Reciprocal altruism is the theory, developed by Robert Trivers in 1971, that this is a behavioral trait wherein an organism performs an action which is temporarily disadvantageous to its own fitness while simultaneously improving the fitness of another organism, with the expectation of future reciprocity of such acts. This concept forms one staple conceptual underpinning for complex social behaviors and, therefore, bears great importance within the bounds of religious psychology and behavioral studies.

The study explores the intersection of neuroscience, neurophilosophy, and indigenous knowledge systems to address systematic and empirical evidence about the interface between visible and invisible - unseen world - phenomena by examining the Pakasqa Nuna (subconscious) at the ancestral medical practices, providing highlights in the integration of indigenous knowledge into contemporary biomedical and neurocognitive paradigms. Drawing on ethnomedicine practices, the paper proposes a consilient and trandisciplinary approach that bridges cultural and scientific perspectives. It emphasizes the health and wellness as rooted in the interrelation of human, natural, and sacred communities. The study also critiques the limitations of reductionist views in neuroscience and psychiatry, advocating for the reconceptualization of mental health disorders. By exploring altered states of consciousness and their neurophenomenological impacts, the research offers new pathways for integrating spiritual dimensions into global health paradigms and
science development.

Religion is a cultural universal that has puzzled evolutionists since Darwin. The moral, social, emotional, and explanatory components that make up complex religious systems offer both evolutionary benefits and costs. Evolutionists who propose functional ...

Female believers in Christianity Stark (1995) states that in the early Christian churches, there were many more women compared to the pagan world. The great numbers of female believers is the result of the favourable Christian view of women, demonstrated in their “condemnation of divorce, incest, marital infidelity, and polygamy”. The New Testament states that (Ephesians 5:33) the husband is supposed to sacrificially “love his wife as himself”. Divorce is condemned in verse 32, it says that “let not the husband put away his wife”. So, the husband should love his wife just like Christ loved the Church. Jesus safeguards the rights of women, especially in His teachings on marriage (Matthew 5:27-32; 19:3-9). Just like the marriage supper, this Christian teaching is liberating for women the man must love, protect, and honour his wife in the same manner Christ demonstrated to His bride(Revelation 19:7-9). Stark further reinforces that the Christian teachings were the reasons for the great...

The frog festival is a cultural large-scale folk activity, centered on frog worship of the Zhuang ethnic group, which mainly live in Guangxi, China. Now the Zhuang ethnic group has the largest population of all the ethnic groups in China. Therefore their culture is an important part of Chinese civilization. Although there were some Chinese scholars studied the frog festival, but I have not found anyone studied it through the cultural meaning of frog worship for promote reproduction yet. This document-based research collect data from ancient document (the Epic of Buluotuo), archeological artifacts and other concerned archaeological research. The study concluded that the Frog Festival is celebrated annually by the Zhuang in Guangxi, China during the first month of the lunar calendar; the tradition has been handed down through generations of Zhuang. The cultural meaning of this festival, which focuses on 2 main objectives: (1) Frog Worship for rain and to a bountiful harvest, since the Zhuang significant ways of living is rice planting on seasonal rain. When the dry occurs, they must held a ritual as frog worship (2) Frog Worship for reproduction; historically the population and reproduction of the Zhuang had a low growth rate. The rituals of frog worship for increase their population. Importantly they hoped that the Zhuang population could have the ability to reproduce just as well as the frogs.

This concise essay examines the intricate and captivating intersection of archaeology and molecular genetics in revealing the evolution of human societies. Certain aspects of this intersection are unique to humans and have evolved rapidly over the past century. Additionally, the essay discusses the implications of advancements in molecular genetics and artificial intelligence for understanding human cognitive development.
This exploration raises important questions that necessitate acknowledgment and thoughtful responses.

Position of the Scholar in the Study of Religion

This article offers a thorough analysis of the issue of scholarly positioning in the study of religion. Positioning here means the issue of the relationship of the scholar and that or those what (s)he is studying. The primary focus of the article is the justifiability of the main conceptualizations (methodological agnosticism, methodological naturalism, neutrality, dialogical positioning) of the position of the scholar, followed by a comparative assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, similarities and differences. It will be shown why none of these conceptualizations offer a properly satisfying solution to the positioning dilemma. Based on that the latter part of the article discusses a couple of options how to cope with such a situation. Keywords positioning • method and theory • regulative ideals • methodological agnosticism • methodological naturalism • neutrality

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et a ̀ la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. The evolution of misbelief

The Evolution of Belief explores the historical and philosophical development of religious thought across civilizations. It investigates the origins, psychological foundations, and societal functions of belief systems, tracing the emergence of monotheism, polytheism, and dualist cosmologies. With an emphasis on human's search for meaning and the societal impact of religion, this article delves into the evolution of spiritual and philosophical ideas, from animism to the modern understanding of belief.

Siying's monograph, A Study on the Ancestral Myths of the Tai-speaking Peoples of the Kam-Tai Language Family, represents a significant contribution to the fields of ethnology, comparative mythology, and Southeast Asian cultural studies. Grounded in extensive fieldwork and meticulous textual analysis, this scholarly work examines the mythological traditions of various Tai-speaking groups within the broader Kam-Tai language family. By interpreting these myths through both historical and contemporary lenses, Li (Associate Researcher, Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) provides a nuanced understanding of how ancestral narratives function as repositories of cultural memory, vehicles of identity formation, and dynamic tools for social cohesion and continuity.

This article explores a novel, systematic approach to veridical afterlife communication facilitated by archetypal feedback practices. Archetypal feedback involves a resonant process between symbols (externally represented or internally visualized) and internal archetypal templates. External symbols, such as mandalas, serve as energetic conduits, drawing the practitioner into deeper transpersonal realms. Deep trance concentration on these symbols amplifies the energy in this feedback loop, reinforcing the resonance between personal unconscious structures and universal archetypal energies. Through two case studies, I demonstrate how archetypal feedback during highdose psilocybin and peyote sessions, using the mandala as the focal point, enabled intentional and verifiable interactions with the spirits of deceased individuals. Unlike previous research where veridical experiences were rare and unpredictable, our method employs archetypal feedback as a structured and repeatable process, yielding consistent results within a doubleblind experimental framework. Our findings build on early 20th-century afterlife research and suggest that integrating psychedelics with archetypal feedback could provide a reliable method for accessing and studying transpersonal realms and the continuity of consciousness after death. This technique, while demonstrated here in the context of afterlife communication, holds potential for accessing other transpersonal domains, such as archetypal realms, mystical states, or encounters with non-ordinary realities. However, this article focuses specifically on its application to veridical afterlife communication, based on the experimental results presented.

The relationship between religion and morality has been a steadfast topic of inquiry since the dawn of the social sciences. Researchers have expended considerable effort addressing questions such as how widespread this relationship is and what aspects of religion contribute to "moral" behaviour. This Element probes these questions and how the social sciences have addressed them by detailing how theory and method have evolved over the past few generations. It shows that much of our current knowledge about this relationship has been significantly shaped by our cultural history as a field. By critically examining the tools and theories specifically developed to answer questions about the evolution of morality, society, and the gods, it argues that-given the role religious beliefs and practices play on our social lives-the relationship between religion and morality is, despite considerable diversity in form, quite common around the world.

O ne of modernity's most provocative but disruptive intellectual battles has been the century-and-a-half-long blood-feud between conservative Christian theism and evolutionary naturalism. Although it is currently fashionable to gainsay "warfare" accounts of the interaction between science and religion, this tension between traditional religious constituencies and the pillar of contemporary biology has proven to be both crucial and enduring. Just scanning current book titles and newspaper articles reveals the elusiveness of a workable truce, much less a peaceful resolution to this conflict. Why is this? Ironically, it may involve a fight about love.

The question of whether a given trait qualifies as an adaptation must be answered on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, a strong case can be made for species as primarily adapted to their environments. A similar argument can be made for human cultures as primarily adapted to their environments at the group level. The reason that human cultures are primarily adaptive at the group level is because the capacity for culture is itself a grouplevel adaptation. Establishing a consensus on human cultures as primarily adapted at the group level will enable human cultural diversity to be studied in the same way as biological diversity.

Psychological and cultural evolutionary accounts of human sociality propose that beliefs in punitive and monitoring gods that care about moral norms facilitate cooperation. While there is some evidence to suggest that belief in supernatural punishment and monitoring generally induce cooperative behaviour, the effect of a deity's explicitly postulated moral concerns on cooperation remains unclear. Here, we report a pre-registered set of analyses to assess whether perceiving a locally relevant deity as moralistic predicts cooperative play in two permutations of two economic games using data from up to 15 diverse field sites. Across games, results suggest that gods’ moral concerns do not play a direct, cross-culturally reliable role in motivating cooperative behaviour. The study contributes substantially to the current literature by testing a central hypothesis in the evolutionary and cognitive science of religion with a large and culturally diverse dataset using behavioural and et...

If artificial intelligence (AI) programs start manifesting religious interest or behavior, how could we know whether it is genuine? This article explores the necessary conditions for robots to develop authentic religiosity from theological, evolutionary, and cognitive angles. Theology is more open to the hypothesis of religious robots than naturalistic approaches, which regard the emergence of human religion as highly contingent on the idiosyncrasies of our embodiment, needs, cognition, and evolutionary history. Drawing on Robin Dunbar's work and educated guesses about the mental world of future AI, I argue that common human intuition about potential robot religiosity-as captured in sci-fi and pop culture-is plagued by two fallacies: (1) a bias to equating religion with only its intellectual or doctrinal layer at the expense of the embodied, shamanistic dimension, and (2) a naïve assumption that intelligent robots will develop humanlike thoughts, aspirations, and concerns. Due to its alien type of intelligence, AI will likely not engage in something so typically human as religion.

This Azimuth special issue dedicated to the history, uses, and implications of psychedelic substances aims to advance research and philosophical debate on hallucinogenic experiences, substances, and their broader social context. The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of psychedelic research, and the flourishing studies on psychedelic states in cognitive sciences have earned the nickname "Psychedelic Renaissance". Psychedelic substances are increasingly used in therapeutic settings and seem to offer effective potential for treating many psychopathological disorders, such as depression, alcohol, drug, and tobacco addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and end-of-life anxiety that often affects cancer or terminally ill patients.

Research on using psychedelic substances for treating various psychological problems such as addiction, treatment resistant depression and death agony seem to indicate that under the right circumstances the use of psychedelics could have positive outcomes on mental health. Studies also suggest that the potentially positive outcomes on mental health cannot be reduced to pharmacological effects alone. Subjective spiritual experiences during the time of consumption seem to have an important role in outcome. Much of the research on psychedelic substances uses quantitative methodology to assess the substance's effectiveness in treating various mental disorders and illnesses. While the spiritual experience is considered significant and the importance of integration is mentioned, little focus is placed on understanding how the spiritual experience is related to changes in the consumer's mental health. The aim of this study is to establish the connection between the spiritual experience and the changes that occur in mental processes and physiological responses. Using semistructured chat-based interviews and thematic analysis, we examine subjective experiences during Ayahuasca ceremonies in 11 participants, recruited through an anonymous online discussion forum. An Ayahuasca intervention needs to be understood as a drug induced altered state of consciousness and spiritual experience, guided by a shaman, and influenced by context. The spiritual experience is intimately connected to mental processes and physiological responses. Such an understanding is vital for an appropriate integration of the medicine into a culture that may be skeptical of spirituality and the validity of subjective accounts. The expertise of the shaman in ceremonies seems to also carry great significance for the experience and should be paid detailed attention to.

The Logos concept has a major importance in theology,
philosophy and sciences. The main motivation for this dissertation
is the first verse in John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word
(Gr. Logos)’. Logos had more meanings, as (1) a designer’s
expressed thinking leading to the creation of a system, and logos
as (2) a system descriptor (system logos), containing the designs
(form in Greek thinking) of its components plus their logical
relations. A logos from the designer’s expressed thinking and the
system logos that corresponds to it are similar in essence. The
Universe Designer’s expressed thinking was considered the
Universe Logos. The first part is a study about the concepts of
Word of God and Wisdom from Old Testament as a possible
precursor of the Logos concept, about the development of the
concept by Greek thinkers, and about the presentation of Lord
Jesus as Logos by apostles and Christian apologists, to assert His
Deity. We study the Logos concept with the goal of making it
accessible in layman terms and to prepare for our discussion
about logos and science. In the second part, we present how
logos correlates with contemporary science that put emphasis on
information and relations, mostly in biology and physics. Also in
2
software, Object Oriented Modeling uses forms (as classes1
) &
their relations, thus supporting the logos culture.
Logos has a personal aspect, through the designer, and an
informational aspect, through the system description. We
suggest that the informational aspect could be discussed with
information science terms. We also suggest based on software
design, that for any systems’ design (man-made or natural) logos
is essential. This observation corresponds with John’s statement
‘all things were made through Logos’.

The Logos concept has a major importance in theology,
philosophy and sciences. The main motivation for this dissertation
is the first verse in John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word
(Gr. Logos)’. Logos had more meanings, as (1) a designer’s
expressed thinking leading to the creation of a system, and logos
as (2) a system descriptor (system logos), containing the designs
(form in Greek thinking) of its components plus their logical
relations. A logos from the designer’s expressed thinking and the
system logos that corresponds to it are similar in essence. The
Universe Designer’s expressed thinking was considered the
Universe Logos. The first part is a study about the concepts of
Word of God and Wisdom from Old Testament as a possible
precursor of the Logos concept, about the development of the
concept by Greek thinkers, and about the presentation of Lord
Jesus as Logos by apostles and Christian apologists, to assert His
Deity. We study the Logos concept with the goal of making it
accessible in layman terms and to prepare for our discussion
about logos and science. In the second part, we present how
logos correlates with contemporary science that put emphasis on
information and relations, mostly in biology and physics. Also in
software, Object Oriented Modeling uses forms (as classes) &
their relations, thus supporting the logos culture.
Logos has a personal aspect, through the designer, and an
informational aspect, through the system description. We
suggest that the informational aspect could be discussed with
information science terms. We also suggest based on software
design, that for any systems’ design (man-made or natural) logos
is essential. This observation corresponds with John’s statement
‘all things were made through Logos’.

The question of whether a given trait qualifies as an adaptation must be answered on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, a strong case can be made for species as primarily adapted to their environments. A similar argument can be made for human cultures as primarily adapted to their environments at the group level. The reason that human cultures are primarily adaptive at the group level is because the capacity for culture is itself a grouplevel adaptation. Establishing a consensus on human cultures as primarily adapted at the group level will enable human cultural diversity to be studied in the same way as biological diversity.