Vojtěch Kaše and Tomáš Glomb contributed to the discussion on the relationship between affluence on the rise of moralizing religions in Religion, Brain & Behavior through the commentary of the target article by Peter Turchin, Harvey Whitehouse et al.
This is one of the results of their Czech Science Foundation project affiliated with Masaryk University and the University of West Bohemia (The Cultural Evolution of Moralizing Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Distant Reading Approach).
The article by Kaše and Glomb (Affluence, agricultural productivity and the rise of moralizing religion in the ancient Mediterranean, https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065350 is a reaction to the target article by Peter Turchin, Harvey Whitehouse et al. "Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank" (https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065345).
Kaše and Glomb claim that the authors of the target article are oversimplifying their approach to history when they model trends in prosperity and affluence as continuously rising throughout the past. Kaše and Glomb demonstrate on quantitative epigraphic analysis and on existing scholarship that there were significant fluctuations in affluence in the context of the ancient Mediterranean.
On the occasion of launching the course Religious Phenomena in Computational Modelling, we remind a strategy game inspired by cutting-edge research of Tomas Glomb and Adam Mertel. Based on the GEHIR project’s computer modelling of the spread of Egyptian cults, the game challenges players to test how ancient religions could conquer the Mediterranean and to outsmart rival deities such as Isis, Serapis, Anubis or Bastet.
On June 9, Tereza Menšíková has successfully defended her thesis Digital Mobilization: Ambedkarite Buddhism and Discourses of Change in Contemporary Anti-Caste Online Activism summa cum laude.
