The Origins of Religions opens with a look at prehistoric man's first steps on the planet, then moves on to examine the cultic rituals, artistic expression, and expanding mythology that developed throughout the Paleolithic and Neolithic epochs.

Many of our questions about religion, says renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, are no longer mysteries. We are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Religion Explained shows how this aspect of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. This brilliant and controversial book gives readers the first scientific explanation for what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and where it comes from.

This book, first published in 1935, collects together material on the origins of religion from two very different sources. South America, where the author spent six years studying the religious beliefs and customs of several Indian tribes representing different stages of culture; and the Finno-Ugrian area, where Finnish and Russian ethnologists had brought to light a new body of facts which formed an important addition to our knowledge of religious life at an early stage of cultural development. This book is a key work in the study of comparative religion, and is an essential reference source on the origins of religion.

Religions and mythologies from around the world teach that God or gods created humans. Atheist, humanist, and materialist critics, meanwhile, have attempted to turn theology on its head, claiming that religion is a human invention. In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods locates the origin of gods within the human brain, arguing that religious belief is a by-product of evolution. Based on an idea originally proposed by Charles Darwin, Torrey marshals evidence that the emergence of gods was an incidental consequence of several evolutionary factors. Using data ranging from ancient skulls and artifacts to brain imaging, primatology, and child development studies, this book traces how new cognitive abilities gave rise to new behaviors. For instance, autobiographical memory, the ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time, gave Homo sapiens a competitive advantage. However, it also led to comprehension of mortality, spurring belief in an alternative to death. Torrey details the neurobiological sequence that explains why the gods appeared when they did, connecting archaeological findings including clothing, art, farming, and urbanization to cognitive developments. This book does not dismiss belief but rather presents religious belief as an inevitable outcome of brain evolution. Providing clear and accessible explanations of evolutionary neuroscience, Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods will shed new light on the mechanics of our deepest mysteries.

Exploration of the Origins of Religion from an anthropological perspective with chapters on shamanism, psychology, Judaism Christianity, pretty story and altered states of consciousness.

THE BOOK: The book is an open-eyed journey through the mystic world of faith. It is an intellectually stimulating account of the birth of religions. As animal, for definite, have no religions and intelligence is the dividing line between man and animal, it should be amply clear that religions have risen out the thinking faculty of man. These are about God and His creation alright, but not from God, though human brain itself is a gift from God. The book traces the story of religions from the earliest times and tries to reach to the core of all major belief systems of the world. Towards the end, it draws a sort of balance-sheet of the religions to form an idea what good and bad these have done to the mankind. An effort has also been made to have a peep into their future.