"Evolution: Its nature, its evidence, and its relation to religious thought" by Joseph Le Conte is a book on the nature and the evidences of evolution. The writer further describes that there is something exceptional in the doctrine of evolution as regards its relation to religious thought and moral conduct.
Excerpt from Evolution: Its Nature, Its Evidences, and Its Relation to Religious Thought In the other I take up very briefly The Relation of Evolution to the Doctrine of the Christ. In the discussion of this I restrain myself strictly within the limits Of the subject as stated above. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Many of our questions about religion, says the internationally renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, were once mysteries, but they no longer are: we are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" and "Why is religion the way it is?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Boyer shows how one of the most fascinating aspects of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. And Man Creates God tells readers, for the first time, what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and how it originates. It is a beautifully written, very accessible book by an anthropologist who is highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic. As a scientific explanation for religious feeling, it is sure to arouse controversy.
Excerpt from Evolution: Its Nature, Its Evidences, and Its Relation to Religious Thought The three years which have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of this work have been years of great activity of thought on many of the subjects treated therein. Some changes and additions seemed therefore imperatively called for. For example: There has sprung up recently among the foremost writers on evolution a warm discussion on the factors of evolution, their number and relative importance. I have therefore added a chapter (Chap. Ill, Part II) on this subject - not, indeed, to discuss it fully (for this would be impossible in the limits of a chapter), but to put the mind of the reader in position to understand it and to judge for himself. Again: Every reader of the first edition must have remarked that there arc many fundamental religious questions which I have not touched at all in Part III. I had avoided these because my own mind was not yet fully clear. I regarded what I then wrote as only a little leaven in a very large lump. I was willing to wait and let it work. In the mean time it has worked in my own mind, and I hope in the minds of others. I have therefore added two chapters to this part. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal