ABSTRACT
Perhaps the first thing to be said is that it has nearly always been a good plan to follow in the steps of the preceding generation. Indeed, we may well be adapted to do so: after all, they did sufficiently well to reproduce, otherwise we should not be here. The religious practices which have served a community in the past may therefore reasonably be expected to do so in the future. However, as we have seen, there have been, and will always be, discordant voices. Not all religions place great emphasis on dogma, but for those that do, academic research has provided plenty of material for dissidents. The problem is why religion persists when the truth-value of its dogma has been undermined, when its rituals are abandoned by many, when its moral precepts are frequently disregarded.
