Evolution, Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis comprises 41 chapters that push for a new way of conducting the study of religion, thereby, t

Attempts to understand the origins of humanity have raised fundamental questions about the complex relationship between cognition and culture. Central to the de

The study of religion by the humanities and social sciences has become receptive for an evolutionary perspective. Some proposals model the evolution of religion

This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas on the basis of common structures and functions of human thought. The first genera

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