Morality: How it Evolved, How it was Hijacked and Confounded by Religion - Paperback

by Charles E. Kupchella (Author)

From author, Charles E. Kupchella comes a new contender for one of the best book on evolutionary psychology, a book exploring the connections between evolution, ethics and morality. Religion is thought by many to be the source of morality. It isn't. Morality came to us through biological evolution and rudiments of it can be found in many other social animals. Morality-enabled collaboration reached its epitome in Homo sapiens allowing our species to thrive and to bring civilization to its present state -- such as it is. While other books have addressed the biological origins of morality, this one goes much further into the mechanisms of evolution and into what cultural-evolution and specifically religion did with morality as it arose biologically. This book makes the point that although cultural evolution, with religion as a component, gave us ways to reinforce our inborn sense of morality, but religion has also been divisive. Religious "fences" keep us from seeing ourselves as part of one family of humankind. Today, religious differences and the tendency of blind faith to thwart critical thinking and to work its way into and confound politics and even education stand in the way of humankind's continued moral-maturation.