Transformation of Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, An Account of Behavioural Biology on the “Concept of Religion”
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Fieder, M., Danz, C., Deibl, J.H., 2023. Transformation of Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, An Account of Behavioural Biology on the “Concept of Religion”. Brill | Schöningh, pp. 111-117.
Abstracts
The research into behavior from an evolutionary comparative perspective faces principal obstacles as it is not possible to “ask” animals on attitudes, feelings. This “disadvantage” on one hand offers a large advantage on the other hand: the necessity to develop a description of behavior “beyond language” by quantification, mathematics and statistics. Hence to find commonalities that hold true for all living creatures. Hidden commonalities that would have never been apparent from verbal description only. The “quantificational approach” in the tradition of Galileo Galilei is standard in the natural sciences and meanwhile has found its way in the fields of biology.
As religious behavior in all cultures share characteristics, such as religious services, praying, the celebration of religious rituals and feasts; observing and analyzing these characteristics on basis of evolutionary assumption and by applying concepts and methods from behavioral genetics will enable us to develop concept natural sciences concept of “religion”.