Group items tagged ksuanth - Religion in Culture

Mike Wesch on 28 Aug 08

Wow! What makes this page so interesting is the dialogue. It starts with a good concise desciption of Freud's views with direct quotes from his own works. Then it finishes with a fascinating take on Freud from John Spong, a Christian trying to change/save Christianity.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Wow! What makes this page so interesting is the dialogue. It starts with a good concise desciption of Freud's views with direct quotes from his own works. Then it finishes with a fascinating take on Freud from John Spong, a Christian trying to change/save Christianity.</div>

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Review of McClenon's Wondrous Healing (on the origin of religion) - 0 views

moses.creighton.edu/...2002-r10.html

ksuanth618 mcclenon of origin religion shamanism

shared by Mike Wesch on 28 Aug 08 - Cached

it revisits the contention that biological evolution can account for both the origin and continuity of cultural elements in general, specifically, in this study, the origins of religion.
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McClendon claims that shamanism is the first religious form, theorizing that ritual healing "has had evolutionary impact, shaping the biological propensity for religious belief and ritual"
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those who were most susceptible to hypnotism would likely be cured by placebo and hypnotic suggestion offered by shamans.
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...6 more annotations...
Shamans themselves are individuals who are biologically predisposed to hypnosis and anomalous experience. Thus religion, which the author links in its primary form as intimately connected to healing, is ultimately genetically based, at least in its origins.
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Religion has an evolutionary impact according to this theory, because it provides a survival mechanism that favors those who are suggestible and therefore curable, more likely to live to maturity and pass on their genes.
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proof of his theory in the literature on human evolution, the study of primates, speculation about proto-humans, examination of ethnography, reflection on personal experiences such as fire walking, creating his own behavioral evolutionary scenarios, and analysis of data on paranormal experiences he himself has gathered in the field
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Historical particularists would clearly take exception to this assumption, pointing to the traceable diffusion of such beliefs as 19th century spiritualism.
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He also critiques anthropology as too particularistic and unable to look at the larger evolutionary picture and the consistency of this form of religion across cultures.
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The author replies that indeed shamanism was and remains universal and warns against the particularism that isolates this phenomenon.
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