Religion was designed to handle a small scale social world, and is not terribly well adapted to handling a very large scale. It's surprisingly good at generalizing, but, you know, at the last turdle, it keeps failing. So almost all the sweeter protestant or churches, as we have them now, began life as small, carismatic sects with ecstatic experiences,. Sometimes they take off, and they give rise to brand new major religions. And that actually nicely brings this full circle. Because another part of the why religion evolved, theory that you have is is this idea of understanding other people's minds. By just wanting to put that hadn ther ther. Lots of
Robin Dunbar has been hailed as one of the most insightful and creative evolutionary thinkers of our time, famed for his work on human networks and communities (he came up with the Dunbar number, the idea that humans can have no more than 150 meaningful relationships). Now he turns his attention to religion, the subject of his recent book, How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures. Joining Robin in conversation on the podcast is Stuart Ritchie, Psychologist at King's College London, and author of Science Fictions.
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