Cambridge (Mass.). London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011. - 746 p.

Religion in Human Evolution is the opus magnum of the famous American sociologist Robert Bella, a book that, in general, sums up his many years of research. Accordingly, the goal that av sets for itself-

thor is more than ambitious: Bella wants to discover and record the birth and development of religion against the background of human biological and cultural evolution and in direct connection with it (while considering the colossal period from the Big Bang to "axial time"). But that's not all. Ultimately, Bella's research should lead to an understanding of how " religion creates other worlds and how these worlds interact with the world of everyday life."⁶. It is obvious that it is absolutely impossible to evaluate the grandiose work done by the author in a short review. Bella's work undoubtedly deserves a deep and detailed study (and I am quite sure that such research will definitely appear in the foreseeable future).

Nevertheless, I will take the liberty of making some very general observations about this-in all respects remarkable-book. To begin with, perhaps, Bell is an evolutionist, but his evolutionism is of a very different type from that espoused by militant atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens. If the latter view religion as a misunderstanding, a failure in the evolutionary process that needs to be addressed, then for Bella, on the contrary, religion is a natural consequence of human biological evolution, and therefore cannot be separated from it.

The biological history of the human species (i.e., evolution) is part of human history (which is why, by the way, Bella believes that the idea that the method of biology as a natural science should be fundamentally different from the method of anthropological disciplines is incorrect). Evolution is a complex process, and there is a certain meaning in it (here Bell once again emphasizes his divergence from Dawkins in understanding evolution); moreover, it can be said that it is meaning and purpose that evolve. Of course, this is not to be understood in the spirit of creationist teleology of one kind or another: Bella means that evolution is the development and realization of certain capacities, including cultural ones; humanity is not only an object, but also a subject of evolution. In this context, religions are also a kind of realization of possibilities, and it is as such that they can be embedded in the evolutionary order.

6. Bellah R.N. Religion in Human Evolution. Cambridge (Mass.), L., 2011. P. xvii.

But what, then, is the essence of religion? And how does religion evolve? Answering these questions, Bella turns to the cultural concepts of Clifford Geertz and Merlin Donald. As for the definition of religion, he, like Geertz, tends to understand it as a symbolic system: "Religion is a system of symbols that, when recognized by human beings, establishes powerful, long-lasting and all-encompassing moods and motivations that produce meaning in terms of the idea of a general order of existence."⁷. This" meaning-creating " function of religion is extremely important for Bella: religion is sociologically interesting not because it describes the social order, but because it creates it itself.

Bell tries to present the evolution of the so-called religion in the context of the scheme of Merlin Donald, who considered three stages of the development of human culture: mimetic, mythical and theoretical. The evolutionary process begins with the so-called "episodic culture" (in fact, a "protoculture" that is common to humans and higher animals and is in no way a symbolic system). Then (about 2 million years ago), with the appearance of the species "homo erectus", humanity enters the era of "mimetic culture", within which pre-linguistic symbolic traditions (dance, ritual, craft) are created. Then (250 - 100 thousand years ago) there is a language that makes a complex narrative possible; thus a "mythical culture" appears, which does not so much replace the "mimetic" one, but merges with it. Finally, in the 1st millennium BC, in the era of the so-called "axial time", a "theoretical culture" appears, which claims to eliminate the two preceding ones (hence "deritualization" and "demythologization" together with "rationalization"), but, in the end, does not completely destroy them.

Religion evolves according to the same general scheme (in such a way that the "mythological" stage of culture corresponds to tribal religion, and the" theoretical "stage corresponds, for example, to Buddhism with its "rationalistic" approach). At the same time, Bella emphasizes that "religious evolution does not imply progress from bad to better. We are not moving from the "primitive religion" of a primitive tribe to the "higher religions" of people like us... Religious evolution adds new capabilities, but doesn't say

7. Ibid. P. xiv.

we know nothing about how they should be used. " ⁸

Of course, for the most part, Bella is very convincing, and his argument seems impeccable. However, sometimes there are some questions. For example, when talking about the "practical goals" of her book, Bella writes: "as some of us know (and everyone should know), we are currently in the middle of the 'great sixth extinction event'... our level of adaptation has increased so much that it is difficult for us to adapt to our adaptations."⁹. Thus, Bella is sure that the catastrophe that will result in the death of humanity and most species of living beings is not only inevitable, but has already begun. Of course, modern anthropic pressure on the environment seems unprecedented, but there is still a significant difference between pressure and the apocalypse (a term used by Bella himself), and therefore I would like to see some more convincing evidence of the presence of a biological catastrophe than just a reference to the fact that "it has already happened, and five times".

In addition, I am somewhat surprised by the following point. When defining religion, Bella basically avoids phrases like "belief in the supernatural" or"belief in God." It is clear why this is so: he needs Confucianism and some other traditions, in which "faith in God" does not play a special role, to be among the religions. However, if the concept of the transcendent, sacred, etc. is excluded from the definition of religion, the characteristic feature that distinguishes religion from other cultural phenomena is only that "religions answer the ultimate questions" (for example, about the meaning of life). But with this approach, any doctrine that touches on Big Issues can be called religious - for example, Dawkins ' atheism. Indeed, Bella writes about him that "this is a variant of the religious position: the ultimate meaning of life is the absence of meaning." ¹⁰ Or, as he puts it in an interview, "secularism, which we are proud to support as non-religious, is actually a religion with ancient roots... A certain religious dimension is irremediable, in my opinion; and this applies even to Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Hitchens, although they would never admit it. " ¹¹

8. Ibid. P. xiii.

9. Ibid. P. 601.

10. Ibid. P. xiii.

11. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/09/08/rethinking-secularism-and-religion-in-the-global-age/

Of course, Bella's desire to avoid identifying " religion in general "with later religious traditions (such as Christianity) is quite understandable and justified, but it seems to me that the fundamental exclusion of such concepts as" transcendent "and" sacred " from the definition of religion completely destroys the object of religious studies. Bell, as a sociologist, may not care about this, but even as a sociologist, he can be asked what is the fundamental difference (if any) between Marxism and Islam, for example? And is there a fundamental difference between the American "civil religion" (a term coined by Bell in the 1960s) and the average Catholic's belief in the existence of a transcendent God? And if, according to Bella, "the words 'religion' and 'secularism' are used so chaotically and in such different senses that they are practically useless, " ¹² then-to avoid unnecessary associations - wouldn't it have been better to name your book something more neutral, such as Culture in Human Evolution?

12. http://blogS.SSrc.org/tif/2009/09/08/rethinking-secularism-and-religion-in-the-global-age/

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