Appraisal of recent evolutionary theories of religion: Cognitive theories of religion and socially and ecologically adaptive theories of religion

This dissertation presents relevant recent research and theoretical proposals for evolutionary theories of religion and socially and ecologically adaptive theories of religion. Those theoretical approaches are treated as a necessary precondition for religious studies and theology that are in conversation with natural sciences in general and scientific study of religion in particular. The specific contribution of this dissertation is research into theoretical approaches to religious behaviors that are emerging and are still not systematized and presented in a coherent form. Interpretation and critique of each theoretical proposal considered is offered throughout the dissertation by placing those proposals within the wider field of religious studies and theology. Most attempts to study religious behaviors trough evolutionary biology and related disciplines are still very fragmentary. This study presents an attempt at bringing those theoretical approaches in dialogue with religious studies and theology through interpretation and critique that centers on revealing hidden theological assumptions and interpreting theoretical leaps of those approaches to religion. This study contributes to our understanding of religion as a complex interplay of various capacities arising from and influencing our biological and cultural makeup. Our religious behaviors can influence our relationship towards each other and towards our environment in significant ways. Religious behaviors are a product of a complex interplay between human beings and their environment. This study shows how some aspects of complex religious behaviors can be understood better in light of human cognition and evolutionary biology. At the same time it interprets that knowledge as being preliminary and at times inadequate in its claims of completeness and exhaustiveness because religious behaviors are niched within other religious behaviors and dependant on factors that various mono-causal theoretical approaches cannot fully conceptualize.