A Trans-Species Definition of Religion

Bibliographic Data

ID12901746
AuthorsJames B Harrod (International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume5
Issue3
Pages327-353
Publication date2011-10-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915
PublisherEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jsrnc.v5i3.327
OpenAlexW2136650772
LanguageEN
Citations received10

To advance knowledge of the evolution and prehistory of religions over the past two million years of human evolution, it would be useful to know whether other species, including great apes and extinct species of Australopithecines and Homo prior to Homo sapiens sapiens, exhibit behaviors that might be categorized as ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’. To determine this we need a precise and robust de?nition of religious behavior suitable for cross-species comparison. I develop a non-anthropocentric and non-anthropomorphic prototype de?nition of human religious behavior and then deconstruct it into a trans-species de?nition, which can be used to predict and identify religious behavior in other species

Anthropocentrism · Biology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Evolutionary biology · Homo sapiens · Human evolution · Human species · Prehistory · Sociology · Anthropology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Philosophy · Primate Behavior and Ecology · Ecology · Paleontology

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