In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
By Scott Atran
Book published in 2002
Description
From Amazon: "This is an attempt to explain the origins of religion using what we know about the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, the author argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements in the human condition - elements that have arisen through evolution."