How we feel is as vital to our survival as how we think. This claim, based on the premise that emotions are largely adaptive, serves as the organizing theme of Why We Need Religion. This book is a novel pathway in a well-trodden field of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Stephen Asma argues that, like art, religion has direct access to our emotional lives in ways that science does not. Yes, science can give us emotional feelings of wonder and the sublime--we can feel the sacred depths of nature--but there are many forms of human suffering and vulnerability that are beyond the reach of help from science. Different emotional stresses require different kinds of rescue. Unlike secular authors who praise religion's ethical and civilizing function, Asma argues that its core value lies in its emotionally therapeutic power. No theorist of religion has failed to notice the importance of emotions in spiritual and ritual life, but truly systematic research has only recently delivered concrete data on the neurology, psychology, and anthropology of the emotional systems. This very recent "affective turn" has begun to map out a powerful territory of embodied cognition. Why We Need Religion incorporates new data from these affective sciences into the philosophy of religion. It goes on to describe the way in which religion manages those systems--rage, play, lust, care, grief, and so on. Finally, it argues that religion is still the best cultural apparatus for doing this adaptive work. In short, the book is a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them.

It is the purpose of this book to present religion as a normal product of man's conscious processes: his desires, his fears, and especially his planning for future contingencies. In order to understand the role a religion may or may not play in the civilization of the future, it is necessary to understand the roles that the religions of the past, from which religions of the present day have developed, have played in the cultures of which they were integral parts. Only through the study of these roles is it possible to discover what religion really is. This historical or genetic method is only one part of the full comparative method that is essential for a complete study of religion. The other part of the comparative method is the comparison of religions that exist contemporaneously and which have little, if any, genetic relation to one another. The religions of civilized peoples can be understood by tracing them back to their foundations in religions of ancient cultures from which our civilization developed. This genetic method at least gives a primary understanding of the nature and functions of religion, which suffices for the purpose of this volume; the religions of civilized peoples having borrowed little from either the religions of present-day savages or those of semicivilized peoples, the full comparative method is not essential for our purposes. That the psychological problems of religion are primarily problems for group psychology and that the problems of personal religion are secondary in importance should be evident from the principle that is now generally accepted by scholars in the field of the history of religion. This principle, which is explained and illustrated in the text, is that faith develops from ritual, rather than ritual from faith.

Offers a reflection on a series of ethical problems in the light of what the world's major faith traditions have to say about them. The author traces the consequences of religious views on morality by considering moral problems such as violence, human genetic modification and ethical concerns around the beginning and ending of human life.

A groundbreaking new theory of religion Religion remains an important influence in the world today, yet the social sciences are still not adequately equipped to understand and explain it. This book advances an innovative theory of religion that goes beyond the problematic theoretical paradigms of the past. Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and personalist social theory, Christian Smith explores why humans are religious in the first place—uniquely so as a species—and offers an account of secularization and religious innovation and persistence that breaks the logjam in which religious scholarship has been stuck for so long. Certain to stimulate debate and inspire promising new avenues of scholarship, Religion features a wealth of illustrations and examples that help to make its concepts accessible to readers. This superbly written book brings sound theoretical thinking to a perennially thorny subject, and a new vitality and focus to its study.

A belief is a judgment that we assume to be true when making life decisions. Our beliefs cannot conclusively be proven true or false. Beliefs can be as simple as our preference for food or as profound as our religious beliefs. How are beliefs different from knowledge or opinion? How do beliefs develop and change over time, and how do they become the foundation of our purpose in life? This book is divided into three sections. The first explains how beliefs are formed in childhood and modified and adapted when we become adults. The second section explores different types of belief and introduces the notion of moral beliefs about right and wrong and religious beliefs about the existence and nature of God. The final section of the book explains how beliefs are prioritized into a faith that becomes our framework for making life decisions. The beliefs we hold most dear form the building blocks of our purpose in life. We have the freedom to choose our beliefs, so we have the freedom to choose our purpose. The goal of this book is to help the reader think deeply about this process and explore the meaning of this freedom.

Drawing on a wealth of new evidence, pioneering research psychologist David DeSteno shows why religious practices and rituals are so beneficial to those who follow them—and to anyone, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof). Scientists are beginning to discover what believers have known for a long time: the rewards that a religious life can provide. For millennia, people have turned to priests, rabbis, imams, shamans, and others to help them deal with issues of grief and loss, birth and death, morality and meaning. In this absorbing work, DeSteno reveals how numerous religious practices from around the world improve emotional and physical well-being. With empathy and rigor, DeSteno chronicles religious rites and traditions from cradle to grave. He explains how the Japanese rituals surrounding childbirth help strengthen parental bonds with children. He describes how the Apache Sunrise Ceremony makes teenage girls better able to face the rigors of womanhood. He shows how Buddhist meditation reduces hostility and increases compassion. He demonstrates how the Jewish practice of sitting shiva comforts the bereaved. And much more. DeSteno details how belief itself enhances physical and mental health. But you don’t need to be religious to benefit from the trove of wisdom that religion has to offer. Many items in religion’s “toolbox” can help the body and mind whether or not one believes. How God Works offers advice on how to incorporate many of these practices to help all of us live more meaningful, successful, and satisfying lives.