Science and Religion Studies

Science and Religion Studies

A Study of the Evolutionary Explanation of Religion from the Perspective of Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Document Type : .

Author
Amrollah Gholizadeh
PhD student , Theoretical Foundations of Islam, University Islamic Sciences
10.30465/srs.2022.38162.1899
Abstract
Richard Dawkins has taken an atheistic approach to the evolutionary explanation of the origin of religion. In this regard, he has used the hypothesis of "religion as a sub-matter" as well as the hypothesis of "Meme". Alister McGrath, on the other hand, criticizes his atheistic approach and finds his arguments deeply inadequate and unjustified. According to McGrath, a purely biological explanation of the origin of religion is incorrect and results from a confusion between biological evolution and cultural evolution. Incompatibility, lack of reason, cognitive bias, lack of distinction between the propositions of religion, lack of similarity between genes and memes are among the drawbacks of these two hypotheses. The problem with leading research is to visualize and measure the contrast between the two approaches. In this evaluation, we have used the library-documentary method in terms of collection and the analytical method in terms of arbitration. The results of the research show that although, on the whole, McGrath’s bugs are useful and effective; But in some cases, he has not provided a sufficient and comprehensive explanation.
Keywords
Dawkins
McGrath
The Origin of Religion
Meme
Hypothesis
Evolution
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