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The Development of Consciousness & the Origins of Religion
In Paleolithic times the development of consciousness gave humans great power, but it also separated them from nature. As this separation become more pronounced, humans needed to find a way to reunite with nature which initially could be accomplished with shamanistic religion. Yet as human civilization continued to grow the forms of religion changed, reflecting a greater separation from nature along with an increased awareness of death and also reflecting the structure of the culture.
The Emergence of Human Consciousness in a Religious Context
2017
This chapter discusses the role of sacrifice and sacrificial rituals in the development of human consciousness, both in terms of self-awareness and of moral outlook. The articulation of a theory of the evolution of consciousness from an archeological reading of the sacrificial matrix would help to chart a cluster of behavioral structures and cognitive elements which may have contributed to the development of proto-consciousness and conscience. This would include the attention-grabbing and strong emotional response elicited by ritual sacrifice; the cognitive and mnemonic reinforcements provided by repetition and ritualization; the employment of ecstatic practices and transcendental experiences; the emergence of symbolism and the “mythical” mind; the capacity to subvert kin affiliation and the emergence of codes of practice (morality) which overrun solidarity and personal attachments; and the later crystallization of mechanisms for “sacrificial creations of subjectivity” in the form o...
Tracing the Origin and Nature of Religion in Human Consciousness
California Institute of Integral Studies, Academia, 2022
Calling forth, thinking upon, and discussing an essential spiritual reality of our existence perhaps hold the key to our necessary and imminent global transformation as a species. Exploration of the nature of religion as a survival mechanism of the species.
Hierarchies of Consciousness and the Principle of Unity: Religion at Stake
European Scientific Journal, 2013
Recent research in the integrative area of consciousness studies mainly focused on the mind & body interaction, exploiting tools, methods and contents particular to natural sciences or cognitive studies. The resources available in the multidisciplinary field of religious studies are still precariously utilized. New research methodologies are to be configured in order to integrate the contribution of the religious studies area to the understanding of the phenomenology of the mind. The present study revisits, in this new light, the key-concepts of 'sacred', 'ultimate principle' and 'hierarchy' as theorized in philosophy of religion and comparative religion, aiming at highlighting the possible elements and triggers which might re-orientate the applied study of religion toward the exploration of human mind and its apprehension of reality. The assumption is that there is a link between different states of consciousness and different levels of reality, described or envisaged in the religious discourse as 'divine hierarchy.'
2021
In this MA thesis I outline a mapping of the so-called Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), by focusing on the works of three scholars: Stewart Guthrie, Pascal Boyer, and Ara Norenzayan. Despite the differences and the divergences among them, these authors are linked by the aim of exploring the evolved cognitive kit that might explain the prevalence of certain religious ideas and practices the world over. The humankind started to think about the existence of some sort of supernatural agent a long time ago – during the Upper Palaeolithic, following the archaeological reconstruction by Steven Mithen. Moreover, it has done so continuatively in history and in every corner of the globe. This fairly puzzling fact has been deepened by many different thinkers, each of whom has so far delved into his/her own field of research. From the 1980s, ahead of Edward Wilson’s attitude of consilience, more and more theorists have begun to realize the need to braid those perspectives in order to clarify such a complex phenomenon as religion.
In this article the author proposes nonscientific and nonanthropological resolution of " the problem of consciousness " and denies the possibility to explain the nature of consciousness with the help of physics, neuroscience, cognitive science and also analytic philosophy. The author stresses that 1) consciousness transcends Me (selfhood) and does not belong to it, 2) consciousness perceives being; being is consciousness. " The problem of consciousness " is not theoretical problem at all. In order to know what consciousness is, it is necessary to work with consciousness. Therefore, we do not theorize about consciousness. It is a practical task of a human being. The author argues that meditation, as a kind of practice, is the best way to work with consciousness and enter into it.
The Historical Genesis of the Cognitive Science of Religion
The scholarly and eventually scientific study of religion comes with complicated origins and includes intricate multi-and interdisciplinary features. Historians, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists have all found "religion" to be a subject worthy of interpretation and explanation. The discipline of comparative religion developed within the context of theological schools but in the twentieth century broadened to include departments of religion within secular academic institutions. This essay will focus primarily on the relationship between comparative religion and the newly, but rapidly developing cognitive science of religion which was initially suggested in a secular academic context but soon attracted the attention of scholars in a number of disciplines such as cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology and eventually evolutionary psychology. Recently neuroscientists have also joined the discussion. This essay will focus on the emergence of the cognitive science of religion by focusing on a series of questions, the first of these being… What problem was the discipline of comparative religion trying to solve? Every inquiry, whether scientific or not, begins with a puzzlement. In the case of the scientific study of religion from cognitive and evolutionary perspectives, the puzzlement was recognized long before scientifically minded scholars developed the means to solve it. The initial form of the problem emerged as soon as people, eons ago, recognized that certain forms of their own thought and behavior, which they took for granted, differed in both form and content from their