Caldwell-Harris, C.L. (2012). Understanding atheism/non-belief as an expected individual-differences variable. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 2, 4-23. (original) (raw)
Related papers
2024
The cognitive science of religion (CSR) research program aims to deliver theories and mechanisms using scientific-style causal explanations for 'complex cultural concepts' (CCCs) deemed 'religious' by social actors. Their explanandum is the phenomena of CCCs deemed 'religion,' and their explanans cognitive theories and mechanisms. In this research report, an exploration of these cognitive theories and mechanisms will take form. The main focus of this exploration is the construction of theories and mechanisms in CSR using evolutionary psychology and anthropology. Regarding the evolutionary byproduct hypothesis, this includes Anthropomorphism Theory (1.1), Folk Theory (1.2), Theory of Mind (1.3), Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (1.4), Minimally Counterintuitives (1.5), and Ritual Form Hypothesis (1.6); regarding the dual-inheritance hypothesis, this includes Divergent Modes of Religiosity (2.1), Adaptative Prosociality (2.2), and Hazard-Precaution System (2.3); regarding the adaptationist hypothesis, this includes Group Cohesion and Kin Selection (3.1), Costly Religious Signalling (3.2), Sexual Selection Theory (3.3), and Supernatural Punishment Theory (3.4). This exploration tries to provide an up-to-date overview of the most explored theories and mechanisms of CSR-from the scholars who created them to contemporary CSR research that develops them.
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.
Religious thought and behavior
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2012
While earlier approaches to religious thought and practice searched for 'magic bullet' approaches to explain religious thought and behavior, seeing it as an example of irrationality, illusion, integrative force, symbolism, or false explanations of origins, cognitive scientific approaches have suggested that we see it rather as an aggregate of the products of various cognitive mechanisms. Studies in the cognitive science of religion, informed by experimental work, have converged on a standard model of explaining religious thought and behavior by focussing on the role of minimally counter-intuitive concepts, agent and animacy detection, ritual representations, notions of contagion and contamination avoidance, theory of mind, coalitions, and moral intuitions.
Current approaches in the cognitive science of religion
2002
Pascal Boyer - why do gods and spirits matter at all? supernatural gadgets and social mind adaptations Ilkka Pyysiainen - religion and the counter-intuitive Justin L. Barrett - dumb gods, petitionary prayer, and the cognitive science of religion Stewart Guthrie - animal animism: evolutionary roots of religious cognition Pertti Saariluoma - does classification explicate the contents of concepts? E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley - cognitive constraints on religious ritual form - a theory of participants' competence with religious systems Harvey Whitehouse - implicit and explicit knowledge in the domain of ritual Jeppe Sinding Jensen - the complex worlds of religion - connecting cultural and cognitive analysis Veikko Anttonen - identifying the generative mechanisms of religion - the issue of origin revisited Jesper Sorensen - "the morphology and function of magic" revisited Matti Kamppinen - explaining religion - cognitive and evolutionary mechanisms.
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.