Introduction

Abstract

It is often said that religious faith consists of three dimensions (belonging, behaving, and believing). Yet, beliefs have long been neglected in research on physical and mental health. This chapter provides basic information about the history of research on religion and health in the U.S. and the extent of this neglect, with respect to research on mental health, as background for understanding the book’s focus. It also explains the importance of the book’s historical perspective on the development of theories of organic evolution, religious and secular reactions to them, and the development of Evolutionary Psychiatry, which is based on Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution. This is followed by a discussion of the reasons for the author’s interest in religious beliefs and mental health (more specifically, psychiatric symptoms), the purpose of different parts of the book, and the religious beliefs examined in the book. A brief summary of the basic tenets of Evolutionary Threat Assessment Systems Theory is then presented, including the central premise that instinctive, emotional, and cognitive brain systems evolved at different points in our evolutionary heritage to assess the potential threats of harm posed by a dangerous world, and that psychiatric symptoms are the product of these brain systems. Finally, the chapter divides research on ETAS Theory into four different levels of analysis related to its propositions about behavior, the neural correlates of psychiatric symptoms, the specific neural organization and functioning of ETAS, and the evolutionary origins of psychiatric symptoms.