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On The Evolutionary Origins Of Religious Belief, Robert Duane Howard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Religious belief is a byproduct of evolutionarily designed cognitive mechanisms. The ubiquity of religious belief and experience across human cultures is explained by our common human psychology; our domain-specific cognitive mechanisms give rise, collectively, to the phenomenon of byproduct religious belief/experience. In this thesis, I will examine what I call religion-generating cognitive mechanisms, and I will argue that byproduct raw god-beliefs are developed by cultures into refined god-beliefs. These refined god-beliefs are co-opted by evolutionary processes and are cultural adaptations. My conception of “religious belief” in terms of raw and refined god-beliefs allows a disambiguation of the term “religion,” and …

An Existential Interpretation Of The Doctrine Of Holiness, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop

Wesleyan Holiness Books

The purpose of this book is three-fold. First, to analyze and evaluate the status of the "holiness" message today. In this analysis the problems raised by the preaching of holiness will be faced squarely. Then, a fresh examination of the Scriptures will be attempted upon which the holiness message is based. Finally, a constructive theological statement will be proposed in which, it is hoped, some of the most serious questions will find a satisfactory answer.

This is not a book for the scholar primarily though it is hoped he will find it worth his time to examine either to approve, …