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Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion PDF Author: James Cresswell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315415194
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion is the first book to bring together cultural psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Containing much-needed discussion of how good research should do more than simply follow methodological prescriptions, this thought-provoking and original book outlines the ways in which CSR can be used to study everyday religious belief without sacrificing psychological science. Cresswell’s pragmatist approach expands CSR in a radically new direction. The author shows how language and culture can be integrated within CSR in order to achieve an alternative ontogenetic and phylogenetic approach to cognition, and argues that a view of cognition that is not based on modularity, but on the dynamic connection between an organism and its milieu, can lead to a view of evolution that makes much more room for the constitutive role of culture in cognition. As a provocative attempt to persuade researchers to engage with religious communities more directly, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students, as well as psychologists interested in the cognitive science of religion, theological anthropology, religious studies and cultural anthropology.

An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion

An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion PDF Author: Claire White
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351010956
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
In recent decades, a new scientific approach to understand, explain, and predict many features of religion has emerged. The cognitive science of religion (CSR) has amassed research on the forces that shape the tendency for humans to be religious and on what forms belief takes. It suggests that religion, like language or music, naturally emerges in humans with tractable similarities. This new approach has profound implications for how we understand religion, including why it appears so easily, and why people are willing to fight—and die—for it. Yet it is not without its critics, and some fear that scholars are explaining the ineffable mystery of religion away, or showing that religion is natural proves or disproves the existence of God. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion offers students and general readers an accessible introduction to the approach, providing an overview of key findings and the debates that shape it. The volume includes a glossary of key terms, and each chapter includes suggestions for further thought and further reading as well as chapter summaries highlighting key points. This book is an indispensable resource for introductory courses on religion and a much-needed option for advanced courses.

How Religion Works

How Religion Works PDF Author: Ilkka Pyysiäinen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004496211
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Recent findings in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology provide important insights to the processes which make religious beliefs and behaviors such efficient attractors in and across various cultural settings. The specific salience of religious ideas is based on the fact that they are 'counter-intuitive': they contradict our intuitive expectations of how entities normally behave. Counter-intuitive ideas are only produced by a mind capable of crossing the boundaries that separate such ontological domains as persons, living things, and solid objects. The evolution of such a mind has only taken place in the human species. How certain kinds of counter-intuitive ideas are selected for a religious use is discussed from varying angles. Cognitive considerations are thus related to the traditions of comparative religion. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

The Cognitive Science of Religion

The Cognitive Science of Religion PDF Author: Asst Prof James A. Van Slyke
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409481654
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
The cognitive science of religion is a relatively new academic field in the study of the origins and causes of religious belief and behaviour. The focal point of empirical research is the role of basic human cognitive functions in the formation and transmission of religious beliefs. However, many theologians and religious scholars are concerned that this perspective will reduce and replace explanations based in religious traditions, beliefs, and values. This book attempts to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

Mental Culture

Mental Culture PDF Author: Dimitris Xygalatas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317546083
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
Why is the set of human beliefs and behaviours that we call "religion" such a widespread feature of all known human societies, past and present, and why are there so many forms of religiosity found throughout history and culture? "Mental Culture" brings together an international range of scholars - from Anthropology, History, Psychology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies - to answer these questions. Connecting classical theories and approaches with the newly established field of the Cognitive Science of Religion, the aim of "Mental Culture" is to provide scholars and students of religion with an overview of contemporary scientific approaches to religion while tracing their intellectual development to some of the great thinkers of the past.

Cognitive Science and Ancient Israelite Religion

Cognitive Science and Ancient Israelite Religion PDF Author: Brett E. Maiden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487785
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
Recent tools and findings from the cognitive sciences illuminate religious thought and behaviour in ancient Israel and the Bible. Primarily intended for scholars of the Bible and religion, it is also relevant to cognitive scientists, researchers, and graduate students interested in the intersection of cognition and culture.

The Cognitive Science of Religion

The Cognitive Science of Religion PDF Author: D. Jason Slone
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350033707
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
The Cognitive Science of Religion introduces students to key empirical studies conducted over the past 25 years in this new and rapidly expanding field. In these studies, cognitive scientists of religion have applied the theories, findings and research tools of the cognitive sciences to understanding religious thought, behaviour and social dynamics. Each chapter is written by a leading international scholar, and summarizes in non-technical language the original empirical study conducted by the scholar. No prior or statistical knowledge is presumed, and studies included range from the classic to the more recent and innovative cases. Students will learn about the theories that cognitive scientists have employed to explain recurrent features of religiosity across cultures and historical eras, how scholars have tested those theories, and what the results of those tests have revealed and suggest. Written to be accessible to undergraduates, this provides a much-needed survey of empirical studies in the cognitive science of religion.

Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not

Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not PDF Author: Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199341540
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.

Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology

Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology PDF Author: Justin L. Barrett
Publisher: Templeton Press
ISBN: 9781599473819
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology is the eighth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, well-known cognitive scientist Justin L. Barrett offers an accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, reviews key findings in this area, and discusses the implications of these findings for religious thought and practice. Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of minds and mental activity, and as such, it addresses a fundamental feature of what it is to be human. Further, as religious traditions concern ideas and beliefs about the nature of humans, the nature of the world, and the nature of the divine, cognitive science can contribute directly and indirectly to these theological concerns. Barrett shows how direct contributions come from the growing area called cognitive science of religion (CSR), which investigates how human cognitive systems inform and constrain religious thought, experience, and expression. CSR attempts to answer questions such as: Why do humans tend to be religious? And why are specific ideas (e.g., the possibility of an afterlife) so cross-culturally recurrent? Barrett also covers the indirect implications that cognitive science has for theology, such as human similarities and differences with the animal world, freedom and determinism, and the relationship between minds and bodies. Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology critically reviews the research on these fascinating questions and discusses the many implications that arise from them. In addition, this short volume also offers suggestions for future research, making it ideal not only for those looking for an overview of the field thus far but also for those seeking a glimpse of where the field might be going in the future.

Rethinking Religion

Rethinking Religion PDF Author: E. Thomas Lawson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521438063
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
This book is an ambitious attempt to develop a cognitive approach to religion. Focusing particularly on ritual action, it borrows analytical methods from linguistics and other cognitive sciences. The authors, a philosopher of science and a scholar of comparative religion, provide a lucid critical review of established approaches to religion, and make a strong plea for the combination of interpretation and explanation. Often represented as competitive approaches, they are rather, complementary, equally vital to the study of symbolic systems.

Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion PDF Author: James Cresswell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315415194
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
Culture and the Cognitive Science of Religion is the first book to bring together cultural psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Containing much-needed discussion of how good research should do more than simply follow methodological prescriptions, this thought-provoking and original book outlines the ways in which CSR can be used to study everyday religious belief without sacrificing psychological science. Cresswell’s pragmatist approach expands CSR in a radically new direction. The author shows how language and culture can be integrated within CSR in order to achieve an alternative ontogenetic and phylogenetic approach to cognition, and argues that a view of cognition that is not based on modularity, but on the dynamic connection between an organism and its milieu, can lead to a view of evolution that makes much more room for the constitutive role of culture in cognition. As a provocative attempt to persuade researchers to engage with religious communities more directly, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students, as well as psychologists interested in the cognitive science of religion, theological anthropology, religious studies and cultural anthropology.