Religion in Human Evolution

Bellah (sociology, emeritus, Univ. of California, Berkeley) examines the genesis of religion in human culture, artfully demonstrating how play, myth, and ritual developed during the Paleolithic era into the essential components that are still recognizable in religion today. He then examines the Axial Age (c. 800–c. 200 B.C.E.), with which we are more familiar: great philosophers in Greece, Israel, China, and India put forth ideas that were based on both the natural world and the spiritual plane; they effectively married the two. Bellah's book is an interesting departure from the traditional separation of science and religion. He maintains that the evolving worldviews sought to unify rather than to divide people. Poignantly, it is upon these principles that both Western and Eastern modern societies are now based. What strikes the reader most powerfully is how the author connects cultural development and religion in an evolutionary context. He suggests that cultural evolution can be seen in mimetic, mythical, and theoretical contexts. Ultimately, Bellah contends that our society is especially informed by our lengthy biological past.