The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior

From the contents: Introduction.- Evaluating the Evolutionary Status of Religiosity and Religiousness.-Gods, Gains, and Genes.- How Some Major Components of Religion Could Have Evolved by Natural Selection.- The Correlated History of Social Organization, Morality, and Religion.- Is There a Particular Role for Ideational of Religious in Human Behavioral Ecology.- Talk and Tradition: Why the Least Interesting Components of Religion May Be the Most Evolutionarily Important.- The Reproductive Benefits of Religious Affiliation.- The African Interregnum: The “Where.” “When,” and “Why” of the Evolution of Religion.- Explaining the Inexplicable: Traditional and Syncretistic Religiosity in Melanesia.- Authoritarianism, Religiousness, and Conservatism: Is “Obedience to Authority “the Explanation for Their Clustering, Universality and Evolution?.- Cognitive Foundations in the Development of a Religious Mind.- Religious Belief and Neurocognitive Processes of the Self.- Neurologic Constraints on Evolutionary Theories of Religion.- On Shared Psychological Mechanisms of Religiousness and Delusional Beliefs.- Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity.- The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance.- The Evolution of Evolutionary Theories of Religion.- Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion – What They Can and What They Cannot Explain (Yet).- Author Index.- Subject Index.