Doctoral Degrees (Information Science)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Information Science) by browse.metadata.advisor "Van den Heever, Jurie"

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    Van Homo na sapiens: Die evolusionere rol van religie in die ontwikkeling van die mens
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Troskie, Sandra; Craffert, Pieter F.; Watson, Bruce W.; Van den Heever, Jurie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Information Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Studies in the health sciences have found overwhelming evidence for a positive correlation between religious practice and the life quality and life expectancy of religious practitioners. Given the strong indications that religious practice affects the way in which the brain processes feelings, one may reasonably assume that the processes of evolution have selected for religion because religious beliefs and behaviour has enabled the practitioner to cultivate his or her inner world of feelings to the benefit of personal wellbeing. If this is the case, these studies offer scientific support for one of the most common claims of religious traditions around the world, namely that unbridled feelings pose a threat to the welfare of both self and society. The fundamental problem with this assumption, however, is the fact that etiological and primatological research shows that feelings are not unique to humans, but are in fact physiological states shared by several social species. This is a strong indication that evolution has probably selected for feelings because these dispositions promotes the welfare of some social species. The question to ask is therefore why it is that humans are the only species for whom the processes of evolution found it advantageous to select for attributes that would enable us to cultivate not only our external environments, but also the inner worlds of our feelings? This question underpins the ultimate goal of this thesis, which is to utilise religion as a lens for conducting a neuro-cultural enquiry into the processes by which an "anatomical, neurological, genetic, physiological ape”, in the words of prominent neuroscientist Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran, becomes human. The focus is thus not on religion as a cultural phenomenon, but rather on what the emergence of this phenomenon — and its impact on both our evolution and personal wellbeing—reveals about the nature and existence of human life.