Theory and Empiricism of Religious Evolution (THERE): Foundation of a Research Program. Part 1

Abstract

This two-part article presents the research program for a theory and empirical analysis of religious evolution. It is assumed that religion is primarily a co-evolution to societal evolution, which in turn is a co-evolution to mental, organic, and physical evolution. The theory of evolution is triangulated with the systems theory and the semiotically informed theory of communication, so that knowledge can be gained that would not be acquired by only one of the three theories: The differentiation between religion and its environment can be reconstructed based on the theory of evolution. The elements of the theory of evolution can be understood as the formation of systems. The semiotically informed theory of communication clarifies the conditions of the combination of both the systems theory and the theory of evolution as well as its objects. In turn, the combination of the systems theory and the theory of evolution can describe how communication – including religion and science – evolves and is structured.

The Syntactic Roles of Touch in Shared Festivals in Kerala: Towards an Analysis of Ritual Categories

“…All the touching events examined above, for example, are bound to predetermined and fixed spatial arguments within the ritual complex. Every ritual complex, with all its constituent events, is thus bound, differentiating in this way its event 'system' from its non-religious event 'environment' (see Krech 2018). It is, therefore, evident that identifying spatial and temporal properties is a prerequisite to ritual structure analysis.…”