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Underlying this article are the questions of how to demarcate the phenomena to which the term ‘religion’ refers, and of how to differentiate between interpreting and explaining such phenomena – a matter to which David Chidester has offered guidance. These questions are approached by considering a different but closely related question: Does religion have a future, as answered in important recent books by two eminent scholars, both of them atheists, working in very different academic disciplines. These are the books of archaeologist, David Lewis-Williams, Conceiving God: The cognitive origins and evolution of religion (Lewis-Williams 2010) and philosopher of religion, J.E. Schellenberg’s more recent work, Evolutionary religion (Schellenberg 2013). These works provide divergent answers to whether religion has a future – a divergence arising from different views about what constitutes religion. This article refers to their respective views, then provides a critical discussion of both, and ends by engaging, where relevant, with ideas in the work of David Chidester.Keywords: future religion, evolution, brain science, unethical religion, explanation, interpretation

journal for the study of religion

Will Religion Survive? A Critical Discussion of the Divergent Answers of two Atheists: Archaeologist David Lewis-Williams and Philosopher of Religion J.L. Schellenberg