In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Evolution and Cognition Series)

by Scott Atran (Author)

30 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0195149302

ISBN-10: 0195149300

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This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements that have evolved in the human condition.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In Gods We Trust is by far the best exploration so far of the evolutionary basis of religious behavior."--James Fox, Prof of Anthropology, Stanford University

"With almost 1000 references and discussions of most of human history and culture, from Neanderthal burials to suicide-bombers in the Palestinian anti-colonialist struggle, this book is consciously and truly encyclopedic in scope, and shows both breadth and depth of scholarship...the reader finds himself constantly challenged and provoked into an intellectual ping-pong game as he follows the arguments and the huge body of findings marshalled to buttress them...Atran managed to combine the old and the new by relating the automatic cognitive operations to existential anxieties. This combination will be a benchmark and a challenge to students od religion in all disciplines."--Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Human Nature Review

About the Author

Scott Atran is a senior research scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris. He is also Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Psychology, and Natural Resources and the Environment at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A respected cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, his publications include Fondement de l'histoire naturelle, Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science, and Folk Biology. He has done long-term fieldwork in the Middle East and has also written and experimented extensively on the ways scientists and ordinary people categorize and reason about nature. He currently directs an international, multidisciplinary project on the natural history of the Lowland Maya.

Series: Evolution and Cognition Series
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (November 14, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195149300
ISBN-13: 978-0195149302
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 1.3 x 6.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
Average Customer Review: 30 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,251,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1243 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Psychology
- #4295 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Philosophy
- #4541 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Religious

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Scott G

Academic, but Worth the Effort

February 22, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Heavily academic work. Command of basic sociological, anthropological, biological, and psychological terminology is helpful, if not necessary. A dictionary will be needed as a supplement. The writing style is approachable so as not to deter curious, non-academic readers. The author does take time to explain difficult concepts with clarity. Overall the book does not offer much by way of explanation of religion, but does offer a cognitive basis for the "fitness" of religious belief. An evolutionary framework is the assumption, however the author takes pains to clarify that the cause/presence of religion cannot be reduced to simple Darwinian principles (a la Dawkins). The author is keen to suggest that religion is here to stay based upon persuasive points of argument, especially that lack of any secular ideology's ability to confront and comfort in the face of "existential anxieties" and the human impulse to find "agency" and impose "metarepresentation" in random and natural events.

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February 6, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is raw, dry textbook but highly informative and full of facts. It tries to answer the age old question of why religion exists and nails it.

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July 27, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Writing style is awkward, a little obtuse.

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Adam D. Shomsky

A difficult read, but insightful

April 28, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

After reading In Gods We Trust, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained (in that order), I have to recommend my favorite on this topic, Religion Explained. Boyer covers a lot of the same territory as Atran, but Boyer's explanations are easier to understand, more compelling, and overall I'd say that book was a more enjoyable read. If you are only going to read one book on the topic I'd recommend Religion Explained. That's not to say, however, that In Gods We Trust is not a worthwhile read.

In Gods We Trust is a highly technical and thoroughly scientific book whose aim is to explain how humans have evolved to invent and practice religions. With nearly 1,000 references, Atran has encyclopedic knowledge of the literature on his subject and supports every argument with studies and experiments. In Gods We Trust is exemplary of the rigid objective scrutiny of the scientific method.

This is by no means an introductory book, nor is it easily accessible to the general reader. The language is technical and the vocabulary obscure; I was constantly consulting a dictionary for definitions of words like autochthonous, epiphenomenon, nomological, internecine, tendentious, profligacy, endogenous, fecundity, and pedagogic, to name a few. But those willing to make the effort will find a sophisticated objective analysis and striking insights into religious origins and behaviors.

Humans' religiosity presents an evolutionary riddle: all human cultures practice religions and religious practice is materially costly and always includes sacrifice on the part of believers. But natural selection tends to stamp out waste and produce highly efficient organisms, so how did the human race evolve to habitually form and practice religions? Atran rejects various previously proposed explanations for religion, while also denying that it is naturally selected as an adaptation with benefits which outweigh its costs. Instead, he suggests that some aspects are byproducts of adaptations while other aspects are plausibly adaptive; "both adaptations and by-products, in turn, have been culturally co opted...by religion to new functions."

The evolutionary byproduct I thought was most striking and explanatory is that of hyperactive agency detection. An agent is an entity that "instigates and controls its own actions," such as a person or an animal. Atran explains that humans have evolved generally advantageous abilities to recognize that other people and animals are agents as opposed to inanimate objects, which helps us to predict what they will do (IE a predator might attack us, prey will run away when attacked, a person could be a friend or foe). It makes sense that we would evolve this trait, since if you hear a rustle in a bush and you think there is an animal there but it turns out to just be the wind, then no harm done. But if there is a predator in the bush and you think nothing of the noise, you may not survive. Thus, there is little penalty for over-detecting agency but sometimes severe penalties for under-detecting agency, which leads to a "hair-trigger" on our agency detection abilities.

Uncertain and "emotionally eruptive" events such as earthquakes, floods, disease, and death prompt humans to search for a reason or purpose behind them. But since these important events have no apparent controlling force, they are quickly associated with supernatural agents. "In all cultures, supernatural agents are readily conjured up because natural selection has trip-wired cognitive schema for agency detection in the face of uncertainty." There is much, much more to religion than hyperactive agency detection, and Atran gives compelling explanations for a wide variety of other aspects as well.

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April 21, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Very interesting topic. Only a mild interest here got me to try it but I was sucked into wanting to know so much more, I read this years ago and only now got around to reviewing it - this boo, was responsible for a love of the topic I have now.

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T.A.L.

Wonderful insight on every page

January 14, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book might be the closest thing to a "grand unifying theory" of religion that I have read. Atran's scholarship and intellect shine as he explains the cognitive, emotional, evolutionary, and cultural basis of religion in human beings.

This is the second book that I have read on this topic (the other being Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained") and I am surprised that while notable intellectuals such as Steven Pinker and E. O. Wilson blurbed that book, such plugging is absent from Atran's work. Atran's is clearly the superior of the two. While Boyer's book is definitely worth reading, "In Gods We Trust" surpasses it by orders of magnitude in explanatory power and depth.

Consistently while reading this book, I felt like Atran was lifting up religion's skirt to show us its naked psychological underpinnings.

These things being said, I have one medium and one small complaint about this book. First, the style is extremely formal. It is not like reading something from Dawkins or Sagan. Secondly, (and this is really very minor) the charts and graphs in the book look they were drawn using MS-Dos running early 90's computer. It doesn't however, hurt their information conveyance. I hope the publisher corrects this in later editions.

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