Extreme Religious Behaviours

Introduction

This¹ book is about human behaviours that should not be there. They should not be there, not for moral or legal reasons, but for scientific reasons. Living organisms (presumably all of them, wherever they occur) are the outcome of biological evolution, which implies that they have been selected for evolutionary fitness, generation after generation. There are few limitations to the activities such organisms can engage in, with some few exceptions. Organisms that do not procreate are clearly out of the running. But also organisms that systematically harm themselves reduce their fitness and will be selected away. In spite of this, human beings display both these behaviours. Many of these behaviours are of the kind we categorise ...