Cognitive Science, Evil and God (original) (raw)
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And Skepticism Regarding Religious Beliefs
2013
Recent work in cognitive science of religion (CSR) is beginning to converge on a very interesting thesis-that, given the ordinary features of human minds operating in typical human environments, we are naturally disposed to believe in the existence of gods, among other religious ideas (e.g.,
The Science of Religious Beliefs
Why have humans, throughout history and across cultures, shown a strong tendency to believe in the existence of superhuman intentional agents and attached this belief to notions of morality, misfortune, and the creation of the world? The answer emerging from the cognitive science of religion appears to be that explicit beliefs are informed and constrained by the natural and cross-culturally recurrent operation of implicit cognitive systems. Successful god concepts resonate with the expectations of these implicit systems but also have attention-demanding and inferentially-rich properties that allow their integration into various areas of human concern. Theological concepts may deviate from these natural cognitive moorings but require special cultural scaffolding, such as Whitehouse's two Modes of Religiosity, to do so and constitute additions to, rather than replacements of the religious beliefs supported by implicit cognitive systems.
"Knowledge and the Objection to Religious Belief from Cognitive Science"
Theism is no stranger to attack. In its long and checkered history it has faced a barrage of tough assaults on its veracity. Some of these challenges, like the problem of evil, remain unresolved. The scientific revolution marked the beginning of a particularly difficult period for theism, with these difficulties intensified by modern science. Today the science vs. theism debate is an industry of its own. In recent years a growing number of atheists have made recourse to some of the findings in contemporary cognitive science to formulate a novel challenge to theistic belief. According to several psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionary theorists, and cognitive scientists, the human mind evolved in such a way that it is naturally drawn towards belief in disembodied, supernatural agents, the God of monotheism being just one such agent. The belief that God exists, according to most defenders of this view, is an accidental byproduct of certain cognitive mechanisms that evolved for rather different adaptive purposes. Richard Dawkins (2006: 200-22) and Daniel Dennett (2006), for example, make use of this research in their case against theism. Whilst neither explicitly claims that in virtue of this research there is something epistemically suspect about the belief that God exists, the innuendo is obvious. Dawkins contends that these findings partly explain why it is that people acquire and maintain the delusion that God exists, whilst for Dennett this research breaks the spell that binds us to religious belief. Since no formal arguments are presented, it remains unclear how the research in the cognitive science of religion (CSR) can be used to undermine the epistemic status of the belief that God exists (hereafter the CSR objection). Some, e.g., Murray (2009) and Clark and Barrett (2010, forthcoming) have taken up the challenge of proposing different ways in which such arguments could be formulated to the conclusion that religious beliefs are irrational. This paper is a continuation of this line of work but differs in two respects. Firstly, we consider how the CSR objection might be understood in terms of Timothy Williamson’s knowledge-first framework. Secondly, in light of the significant role that testimony plays in the acquisition and transmission of religious belief, we consider the role the epistemology of testimony could play in the CSR objection. §2 begins with a presentation of the relevant aspects of the CSR research. Thereafter follows a brief explanation of Williamson’s claim that safe belief is a necessary condition for knowledge. A treatment of several epistemic terms of art concludes §2. In §3 we present two different ways in which the CSR research can be formulated into an argument to the effect that the belief that God exists is unsafe. We argue that neither version works.
Cognitive Science of Religion and Warranted Christian Belief
A Proposal for an Alternative Origin Narrative for Agency Detection Device and Theory of Mind Mechanism as portrayed by Tremlin based on Plantinga’s use of sensus divinitatis. The field Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) has largely been articulated within the scope of Evolutionary Theory. Although a lot of research is currently being done, the origin narratives have mainly been established taking Evolution as an a priori paradigm. Is it possible to disassociate contemporary research from evolutionary explanations in order to make CSR (Cognitive Science of Religion) useful for those who do not subscribe to an evolutionary view or even for those who embrace a mainly orthodox Christian belief? This paper suggests that this can be done at least in the chosen scenario, which has the potential of opening the door for other similar pursuits.
It is widely acknowledged that the new emerging discipline cognitive science of religion has a bearing on how to think about the epistemic status of religious beliefs. Both defenders and opponents of the rationality of religious belief have used cognitive theories of religion to argue for their point. This paper will look at the defender-side of the debate. I will discuss an often used argument in favor of the trustworthiness of religious beliefs, stating that cognitive science of religion shows that religious beliefs are natural and natural beliefs ought to be trusted in the absence of counterevidence. This argument received its most influential defense from Justin Barrett in a number of papers, some in collaboration with Kelly James Clark. I will discuss their version of the argument and argue that it fails because the natural beliefs discovered by cognitive scientists of religion are not the religious beliefs of the major world religions. A survey of the evidence from cognitive science of religion will show that cognitive science does show that other beliefs come natural and that these can thus be deemed trustworthy in the absence of counterevidence. These beliefs are teleological beliefs, afterlife beliefs and animistic theistic beliefs.
2022
This dissertation examines the implications of cognitive science of religion (CSR) from philosophical and theological perspectives. CSR is a multidisciplinary field that studies the recurrent aspects of religious belief and behavior and seeks to explain them with reference to pan-human cognitive dispositions and their evolutionary roots. This new science of religion has been widely seen as presenting both challenges and opportunities for a theistic worldview and for Christian theology. The study consists of an introduction and four journal articles. Article I “The naturalness of religion: What it means and why it matters” analyzes one of the core claims in CSR, namely that religion is natural. After differentiating cognitive naturalness from other kinds of naturalness and considering the evidence on which the claim is based, I argue that naturalness is a comparative concept. That is, folk religious concepts are more natural than, for instance, certain scientific theories (such as quantum mechanics) or theological concepts (such as the Trinity). The article also discusses the four marks of naturalness offered by philosopher Robert McCauley. Despite criticism that the naturalness thesis runs into similar conceptual problems as the concept of innateness, it can nevertheless serve as a popular shorthand for some of the basic assumptions of the byproduct model in CSR. A few theological and philosophical implications of the naturalness of religion are also mentioned. Article II “Debunking arguments gain little from cognitive science of religion” discusses four debunking arguments by philosophers Robert Nola, Matthew Braddock, John Wilkins and Paul Griffiths, and Taylor Davis. These arguments claim that CSR shows god belief to be epistemically unjustified, at least when the believer has no independent evidence for god(s). The paper begins by clarifying the nature of debunking arguments as undercutting defeaters. Such arguments typically aim to show that the belief-forming process underpinning god beliefs is unreliable. The paper makes two main observations. First, debunking arguments in which the unreliability claim hangs on a specific CSR theory (such as the HADD theory) are usually weak. Second, strong debunking arguments are often largely independent of CSR theories. Any viable naturalistic explanation of religion would seem to serve the arguments almost as well. Therefore, I conclude that CSR may not present such a novel threat to the rationality of religious belief as is often suggested. Article III “Cognitive regeneration and the noetic effects of sin: Why theology and cognitive science may not be compatible” considers the compatibility of CSR with the theological idea of God as the ultimate cause of theistic belief. Psychologist Justin Barrett and philosopher Kelly James Clark have suggested that God may have guided human cognitive evolution in order to give rise to minds prone to believe in supernatural agency. It has been previously argued that this suggestion faces two theological problems. First, false and idolatrous god beliefs seem more natural than theistic belief. Second, humans have a tribalism bias that seems to be a root cause of much moral evil but is also cognitively natural. The idea that God would guide the evolution of natural cognition is thus theologically problematic: why would a good God who wants people to know him personally give rise to the idolatry bias and the tribalism bias? A natural theological response to these worries would refer to the noetic effects of sin – a theological notion that philosopher Alvin Plantinga invokes in his religious epistemology. This article focuses on problems with this response. A theologically consistent application of the notion, it is argued, would also indicate the existence of a process that Plantinga calls cognitive regeneration. All true believers are said to undergo this process. While we should also expect to find empirical evidence of it, evidence against cognitive regeneration seems easier to find than evidence for it. The fact that even Christian believers entertain anthropomorphic intuitions of God might suggest that their minds do not undergo a cognitive regeneration. More importantly, sociological data on religious prejudice serves as evidence against the affective aspect of cognitive regeneration. Because of these problems, invoking the noetic effects of sin may not be a viable response to the problems of the naturalness of idolatry and tribalism. Article IV “Hell and the cultural evolution of Christianity” considers how the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion can further the theological debate on the doctrine of hell. The traditional view of hell as eternal conscious torment has been increasingly challenged by the proponents of universalism (according to which everyone will eventually be saved) and conditional immortality (according to which the unsaved will be annihilated). This article draws from the cultural evolutionary account of prosocial religions (the Big Gods account), the mind-body dualism theory, the emotional selection theory, as well as from sociology and biblical studies in offering an “error theory” regarding the success of the traditional view. This error theory can help explain why the view of hell as eternal conscious torment became the dominant paradigm in Western Christianity even if, as conditionalists and universalists argue, it was not the only view of the final fate of the unsaved among early Christian theologians nor necessarily the one best supported by scripture and reason. The traditional view, it is argued, could have enjoyed a cultural and cognitive advantage over the “softer” views of afterlife punishment.
Christian Faith and the Scientific Explanation of Religion
2016
The cognitive theory of religion seems to threaten to debunk religion, including Christianity, as irrational. The cognitive theory explains human religiosity as an accident, a mere byproduct, of the interaction of mental mechanisms evolved for other purposes. The threat to religion can be neutralized by finding good reasons for religious beliefs which can be identified independent of the operation of the cognitive mechanisms the theory posits. Christian faith should be understood not as sub-rational belief, but as trust in the God who resurrected Jesus Christ. Our natural religiosity, like our natural morality, has no necessary connection to God, but God finds aspects of it of use in his project of bringing humanity into fellowship with himself. Christian theology contends that the root human problem is not morally bad behavior, but unwillingness to trust God and the ensuing hopeless quest, largely through religiosity, for self-sufficiency and self-justification. God speaks his deci...
Science and Human Religiosity from the Perspective of the Cognitive Science of Religion
Analecta Cracoviensia, 2017
Science and human religiosity from the perspective of the cognitive science of religion Introductory remarks In its standard approach, the inquiry of the philosophy of religion relies on the assumption of the existence of God to assure the meaningfulness of its claims. Much of the explanatory effort within this discipline is devoted to the survey of the proofs of the existence of God. 1 In addition to this, another crucial assumption is made, namely, that man as the one who is the subject of the religious belief is capable of acknowledging the existence of the Absolute. In philosophical considerations this capacity is referred to as homo religiosus and has been in use since the 19th century in the works of such famous figures as Hegel, Kierkegaard, Otto, Eliade, Tillich and Fromm. 2 Since by its very nature philosophy of religion treats of the relation of man to a supernatural reality, it seems that it can hardly engage any scientific treatment for it tracks the human response to an entity that radically falls outside the scope of science. This is due to the principle of causal closure whereby any naturally occurring phenomenon must have a natural cause. So if one attempts to subject religion to the regime of the scientific method, one tacitly assumes