ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with discussions of the roles that religion plays in human lives, evolutionary processes in the development of religions, and the historical approach to the study of religion. It surveys the earliest human religions, followed by some comparative analysis of these. Religions play three principal roles in life. Most obviously, perhaps, religions provide a means of coping with the grief and fear associated with being self-conscious about our mortality. Ancient religions each grappled in their own way with the idea that the cosmos had emerged from nothingness. Farmers had different interests from hunter-gatherers, and urban populations and especially merchants and artisans likewise had different needs and desires. A religion that had focused on affecting natural processes could add ethical precepts to guide human interaction. World historians might be tempted to tiptoe around the question of religion lest they offend someone’s beliefs.
