CONTENTS -- Dedicatory Preface -- List of Contributors -- INTRODUCTIONS -- A Brief Intellectual Biography of E. Thomas Lawson -- Religion as a Human Capacity -- PART ONE THEORETICAL STUDIES -- 1. Out Of Africa: Lessons From a By-product of Evolution -- 2. Is Religion a Rube Goldberg Device? Or Oh, What a Difference a Theory Makes! -- 3. Why Do We Need Cognitive Theories of Religion? -- 4. Can Science Fabricate Meaning? On Ritual, Religion, and the Academic Study of Religion -- 5. Pathways to Knowledge in Comparative Religion: Clearing Ground for New Conceptual Resources -- 6. Comparative Religion in the State of Nature -- 7. Toward a Discourse Between Cognitive and Critical Theoreticians of Religion: Open Dialectic Between the Religious and the Secular -- 8. Dispatches from the "Religion" Wars -- PART TWO STUDIES IN RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR -- 9. Exploring Theories of Religious Violence: Nigeria's "Maitatsine" Phenomenon -- 10. What Does Jerusalem Have to Do with Amecameca? A Case Study of Colonial Mexican Sacred Space -- 11. Different Vibes: Rethinking Religion, Yet Again -- 12. Ritual Competence and Mithraic Ritual -- 13. Bringing Data to Mind: Empirical Claims of Lawson and McCauley's Theory of Religious Ritual -- 14. Communities, Ritual Violence, and Cognition: On Hopi Indian Initiations -- 15. On Credulity -- 16. What is the "Bible"? (Analysis of a Text Concept) -- 17. Luck Beliefs: A Case of Theological Incorrectness -- 18. Cognition and Credence -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Index of Subjects -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.