The term Development of Religion is a generic term used in a variety of situations. The term is often used to describe the various stages in the evolution of any particular religion or religious system.
Development of religion can be applied to the following scenarios
- Origin of religion The evolutionary origin of religions refers to the emergence of religious behavior during the course of human evolution. When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era and possibly earlier
- History of religions Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, school of religious history was a 19th century German school of thought which was the first to systematically study religion as a socio-cultural phenomenon. It depicted religion as evolving with human culture, from primitive polytheism to ethical monotheism
- Prehistoric religion Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice since, as Philip Lieberman suggests, it may signify a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life."
- Paleolithic religion Religious behaviour is thought to have emerged by the Upper Paleolithic, before 30,000 years ago at the latest, but behavioral patterns such as burial rites that may be characterized as religious, or ancestral to religious behaviour, reach back into the Middle Paleolithic, as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo
- Evolutionary psychology of religion Evolutionary psychology of religion is based on the hypothesis that religious belief can be explained by the evolution of the human brain. As with all other organ functions, cognition's functional structure has been argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection. Like other organs and tissues, this
- Development of new religions
- Teleological development of religion
