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This chapter discusses evolution of religion in terms of cultural evolution. We argue that there are good reasons to study religion in terms of cultural evolution. Basic concepts and theories within cultural evolution studies are discussed such as memetics, sociobiology or dual inheritance theory. This chapter also discusses the concept of religion as cultural niche, and the distinction between content biases and context biases.

This chapter shows how cultural processes can account for the emergence of religious components. We argue that cultural processes can shape the operations of cognitive mechanisms so that they easily and automatically produce religious components.

This chapter offers arguments for adaptationist explanation of religion. We argue that cognitive explanations are mainly proximate explanations that do not explain the long-term evolutionary context of religious components. Only adaptationist theories offer an ultimate explanation of evolution of religion.

This chapter presents the basic concepts of evolutionary biology that are applied in adaptationist theories of religion. We discuss concepts like the unit of selection, or individual selection versus group selection. This chapter also discusses the puzzling explanatory challenge of the evolution of cooperation.

After having discussed biological adaptationist and cultural adaptationist approaches, we lastly discuss sexual selection theory of religion. This chapter introduces the main concepts and theories in sexual selection. Then, possible applications to the evolution of religion are offered. While there are good reasons to explain at least some of religious components in terms of mating strategies, not all religious features evolved under direct sexual selection pressure.

This chapter presents some of the main theories and assumptions of cognitive science of religion (CSR). The main CSR theories and concepts discussed here include the concept of religion as by-product, the naturalness of religion, HADD, MCI hypothesis, theory of mind, and promiscuous teleology. Critical remarks on CSR refer to marginalized impact of social and cultural factors. We also discuss some objections to the notion of intuitiveness.

This chapter discusses adaptationist theories of religion which consider religious components such as beliefs and/or behaviors as adaptations. Such adaptationist theories of religion include Broad Supernatural Punishment Theory, Big God Theory, costly signaling theories of religion, the concept of religious coping and its positive impact on human health, and the idea that religious rituals foster cohesion. Such theories draw on two important distinctions: group versus individual selection of religion, and the concept of religion as old versus new adaptation.

This chapter explores the concept of naturalness of religion. Religious components may be regarded as natural in the sense of being intuitive and cognitively effortless. Such theories and concepts are critically evaluated.

In this contribution we explore how CSR relates to a core idea, important in mainstream Christianity, namely that sin and evil have certain cognitive consequences. The idea is the notion that sin, in addition to affective and existential consequences, has certain consequences for our knowledge, insight, and understanding. In particular, sin is believed to have diminished and distorted human knowledge of God. This is important, for, recently, a few authors in CSR, in particular Helen de Cruz and Johan de Smedt, have suggested that some CSR theories are in tension with the notion that sin has somehow diminished and distorted our human knowledge of God. According to them, it is problematic to claim that certain evolutionary explanations are correct and that sin has such cognitive consequences. After some terminological clarifications with respect to notions like ‘sin’, ‘cognitive consequences of sin’, the ‘Fall’, and ‘evolutionary explanations of religious belief’, we spell out in detail the argument developed by De Smedt and De Cruz against a historic Fall. Next, we pause a moment in order to ponder exactly what is at stake here. Subsequently, we discuss three possible solutions of how evolutionary explanations of religious belief can be wedded to a historic account of the Fall. We conclude that there is no tension between CSR on the one hand, and the ideas that human beings have fallen into sin and that that has had devastating cognitive consequences on the other.