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Recurring cultural, political, and theological rejection of evolution by religious groups [a] exists regarding the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. In accordance with creationism, species were once widely believed to be fixed products of divine creation, but since the mid-19th century, evolution by natural selection has been established by the scientific community as an ...
"Religious congruence" is the view that religious beliefs and values are tightly integrated in an individual's mind, or that religious practices and behaviors follow directly from religious beliefs, or that religious beliefs are chronologically linear and stable across different contexts.
The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion.As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain's functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution.
Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed by some religious groups, many other groups accept the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow for theological considerations. The positions of such groups are described by terms including " theistic evolution ", "theistic evolutionism" or " evolutionary creation ".
Freud asserted that religion is a largely unconscious neurotic response to repression. By repression Freud meant that civilized society demands that we not fulfill all our desires immediately, but that they have to be repressed. Rational arguments to a person holding a religious conviction will not change the neurotic response of a person.
The challenge for the psychology of religion is essentially threefold: to provide a thoroughgoing description of the objects of investigation, whether they be shared religious content (e.g., a tradition's ritual observances) or individual experiences, attitudes, or conduct;
either that religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage; or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, saw religion as an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words: religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.
Supporters of theistic evolution generally attempt to harmonize evolutionary thought with belief in God and reject the conflict between religion and science; they hold that religious beliefs and scientific theories do not need to contradict each other. [2] [3] Diversity exists regarding how the two concepts of faith and science fit together. [4]