ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a critical schema for understanding religions and the gods. It includes a list of fallacies the author has identified that can be considered preludes to laws of society (e.g., the transcendental fallacy that there are transcendental and supernatural realms that harbor gods and spirits), as well as classic fallacies from philosophy (e.g., the fallacy of misplaced concreteness). The discussion in earlier chapters of our social essence is grounded here in a narrative of the invention of the social in evolution. Once we recognize that we are always, already, and everywhere social it becomes apparent that touching is a critical feature of the human condition. The author demonstrates why loneliness and alienation are so devastating and why they can lead to violence. The fact that humans are essentially social means that religions and gods are eminently social.
