X-Message-Number: 29621
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: =?WINDOWS-1252?Q?Becker=92s_view__of_progressive_religion?=
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:41:39 +0200

Sheldon Solomon talks about Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death  
(1973) to explain how fear of death, and denial thereof, is a central  
determinant of human behavior. He and his colleagues created Terror  
Management Theory and demonstrated empirically that death denial  
underlies human prejudice and violent conflict. More important for  
this talk, however, is research suggesting that the enabling and  
ennobling illusions of religion/spirituality have psychologically  
beneficial effects. These findings are at odds with current thinking  
by evolutionary psychologists that supernatural religious beliefs are  
non-adaptive or intrinsically malignant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGIfgc_GTrk


See www.ernestbecker.org for more information:

<http://faculty.washington.edu/nelgee/newsletter/2007/0607/ 
clearinghouse.htm>



dss

David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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