Evolutionary Religion Research Articles

Discerning Progress in Schellenberg's Evolutionary Religion

John L. Schellenberg has suggested that the evolution of religion should be guided towards the goal of discovering the truth about transcendent reality. I argue that some way of discerning progress is needed if this project is to be practically feasible. In this article, I explore what discernible progress would require in some possible future scenarios. Focus lies on scenarios involving improved cognitive contact with the transcendent, but I also consider scenarios involving only cultural change and those where no transcendent reality exists. I conclude that whether progress can be discerned varies heavily between different versions of these scenarios and therefore suggest that humanity is currently too ignorant to begin this project.

A Faith for the Future

Abstract. In the philosophy of J. L. Schellenberg, “evolutionary religion” is a religious stance oriented towards the deep future. According to Schellenberg, the best form of evolutionary religion is non-doxastic faith in ultimism. I reject Schellenberg’s arguments for preferring ultimism and suggest that committing non-doxastically to traditional religion makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective. I argue that the alignment argument for traditional religion remains sound even when the deep future is considered. Furthermore, I assess Schellenberg’s claim that humanity is religiously immature.

Argument z ukrytości a religia ewolucyjna Johna l. Schellenberga

In this short essay, I discuss Schellenberg's hiddenness argument and try to answer the question of whether it can be treated as an argument for atheism. Juxtaposing it with the concept of skeptical evolutionary religion developed by the Canadian philosopher, I show that instead of proving the non-existence of God, what this argument does is rather opening the possibility of articulating a new vision of religiosity, appropriate for our species place in evolutionary time.

On evolutionary religion (in interaction with Rottschaefer, Elliott, Dumsday, and Palmqvist)

AbstractHere I explain the concept of evolutionary religion and consider its relations to what in previous work I have called sceptical religion. I also interact with five articles recently published in Religious Studies that respond to my work and address related themes – articles by William A. Rottschaefer, James Elliott, Travis Dumsday, and Carl-Johan Palmqvist.

Will Religion Survive? A Critical Discussion of the Divergent Answers of two Atheists: Archaeologist David Lewis-Williams and Philosopher of Religion J.L. Schellenberg

Underlying this article are the questions of how to demarcate the phenomena to which the term 'religion' refers, and of how to differentiate between interpreting and explaining such phenomena - a matter to which David Chidester has offered guidance. These questions are approached by considering a different but closely related question: Does religion have a future, as answered in important recent books by two eminent scholars, both of them atheists, working in very different academic disciplines. These are the books of archaeologist, David Lewis-Williams, Conceiving God: The cognitive origins and evolution of religion (Lewis-Williams 2010) and philosopher of religion, J.E. Schellenberg's more recent work, Evolutionary religion (Schellenberg 2013). These works provide divergent answers to whether religion has a future - a divergence arising from different views about what constitutes religion. This article refers to their respective views, then provides a critical discussion of both, and ends by engaging, where relevant, with ideas in the work of David Chidester.

Evolutionary Religion, written by J. L. Schellenberg

Evolutionary Religion, written by J. L. Schellenberg

Schellenberg's evolutionary religion: how evolutionary and how religious?

AbstractInEvolutionary Religion, J. L. Schellenberg synthesizes his previous impressive contributions to an understanding of religion by formulating an account of religion supported by a Darwinian evolutionary theory understood as a science of the deep future. Such a future enables the realization that our present understandings of religion are immature, that future understandings of divine reality may be radically altered and that religious practice may become the centre of human well-being. In this article, I argue that Schellenberg's evolutionary religion represents at best but half the evolutionary story, its epistemic side. Ontologically, it remains fundamentally non-evolutionary. Positively, I suggest naturalistic alternatives to Schellenberg's Ultimate. I conclude that Schellenberg's evolutionary religion is neither adequately evolutionary nor adequately religious.

ZYGON @ 50: HALF A CENTURY OF ZYGON: JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

<i>ZYGON @</i> 50: HALF A CENTURY OF <i>ZYGON: JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE</i>

Evolutionary Religion, by J. L. Schellenberg

Evolutionary Religion, by J. L. Schellenberg

Dangerous edges of Graham Greene: journeys with saints and sinners

Foreword. David Lodge Introduction. Mark Bosco, S. J. and Dermot Gilvary 1. Stamboul Train: Timetable for 1932. David R.A. Pearce 2. 'Ghost on the Rooftops': How Joseph Conrad Haunted Greene. Cedric Watts. 3. The Making of the Outsider in the Short Stories of the 1930s. Rod Mengham 4. The Riddles of Greene: Brighton Rock Revisited. Francois Gallix 5. 'Innocence and Experience: Condition of Childhood in Greene's Fiction. Peter Hollindale 6. Janiform Greene: Paradoxes and Pleasures of Power and the Glory. Cedric Watts 7. Sigmund Freud and Greene in Vienna. Brigitte Timmermann 8. Going Especially Careful: Language Reference in Greene. David Crystal 9. Prophecy and Comedy in Havana: Greene's Spy Fiction and Cold War Reality. Christopher Hull 10. Graham Greene and Burnt-out Case: Psychoanalytic Michael Brearley 11. A Touch of Evolutionary Religion. Darren J. N. Middleton 12. Inside and Outside: Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Robert Murray Davis 13. The Long Wait for Aunt Augusta: Reflections on Greene's Fictional Women. Judith Adamson 14. Graham Greene and Alfred Hitchcock. Mike Hill 15. The Plays of Greene. Michael Billington 16. Graham Greene and Charlie Chaplin. Neil Sinyard 17. The Later Greene: From Modernist to Moralist. Frances McCormack Afterword: Reading Greene in the Twenty-First Century Monica Ali For Further Reading Websites Relating to Greene Contributors Index.

Evolutionary Religion - W. Burkert: Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Pp. xiv + 255. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1996. £18. 95. ISBN: 0-674-17569-7.

Evolutionary Religion - W. Burkert: Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Pp. xiv + 255. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1996. £18. 95. ISBN: 0-674-17569-7. - Volume 48 Issue 1