Full Description
For ages the events of human experience were explained by recourse to supernatural agents and forces. Given the rudimentary intellectual tools then available to the human race, no better explanations were possible.
Over the ensuing centuries, the ideas and methods of empirical science came into being and were applied to all aspects of human experience. Conceptions of life, the world, the universe, and even of God were modified, with naturalistic interpretations challenging and supplanting supernaturalistic ones. Today the viewpoint of science is gaining ever-greater acceptance.
In his eloquent new book, The Evolution of the Human Mind, Robert Carneiro traces the history of this development—from the Paleolithic to the present—vividly describing the major events that have marked this great transition in human thought.
Contents
Chapter 1. The Emergence of the Supernatural
Chapter 2. The Spirit World Elaborates
Chapter 3. Origin Myths: Accounting for Things as They Are
Chapter 4. The Life of the Soul After Death
Chapter 5. The Later History of Soul Beliefs
Chapter 6. The Birth and Evolution of the Gods
Chapter 7. The Rise of Scientific Thinking
Chapter 8 The Impact of the Physical Sciences
Chapter 9. The Attenuation of the Concept of God
Chapter 10. The Rise and Demise of Idealist Philosophy
Chapter 11. The Expansion of Naturalism
Chapter 12. The Coming of Evolution
Chapter 13. The Impact of Evolution
Chapter 14. The Religious Views of Charles Darwin
Chapter 15. The Twin Specters of Atheism and Materialism
Chapter 16. Vitalism versus Mechanism in the Interpretation of Life
Chapter 17. Accounting for the Origin of Life
Chapter 18. Evolution and Emergence
Chapter 19. The Diminishing Role of God in History
Chapter 20. Free Will versus Determinism
Chapter 21. The Doctrine of the Two Magesteria
Chapter 22. The Scientists Speak Up: The Theists
Chapter 23. The Scientists Speak Up: The Non-Theists
Chapter 24. Trends in Belief to the End of the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 25. Secularism and Religion Continue to Compete
Chapter 26. Current Status and Future Prospects
References
Index
