Cognitive Science of Religion Research Papers (original) (raw)

"The presentation guides you to discover in a fresh way how TESOL is a partial and integral expression of the Christian path to wholeness by virtue of the process of cultural, linguistic and identity paradigm shifts. What a meta-cognitive... more

"The presentation guides you to discover in a fresh way how TESOL is a partial and integral expression of the Christian path to wholeness by virtue of the process of cultural, linguistic and identity paradigm shifts. What a meta-cognitive model integrating TESOL and Christianity does, is build from the empirical to the realm of the mind, heart and spirit - which is core transformation. It’s a journey to an unseen and ideal place, much like Norton’s “imagined communities”. This can be translated, of course, to Abraham’s journey to a heavenly city. We meet our students there, in no-man’s-land as it were, and this model gives teachers and students a handle on how to move forward.

This paper examines the demons Pazuzu and Lamaštu from a cognitive science perspective. As hybrid creatures, the iconography of these demons combines an array of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic properties, and is therefore marked by a high... more

This paper examines the demons Pazuzu and Lamaštu from a cognitive science perspective. As hybrid creatures, the iconography of these demons combines an array of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic properties, and is therefore marked by a high degree of conceptual complexity. In a technical sense, they are what cognitive researchers refer to as radically "counterintuitive " representations. However, highly complex religious concepts are difficult in terms of cognitive processing, memory, and transmission , and, as a result, are prone to being spontaneously simplified in structure. Accordingly, there is reason to expect that the material images of Pazuzu and Lamaštu differed from the corresponding mental images of these demons. Specifically, it is argued here that in ancient cognition and memory, the demons would have been represented in a more cognitively optimal manner. This hypothesis is further supported by a detailed consideration of the full repertoire of iconographic and textual sources.

There is an emerging consensus among current, cognitive theories of religion that the detection and representation of intentional agents and their actions are fundamental to religion. By no means a monolithic theory, this is an argument... more

There is an emerging consensus among current, cognitive theories of religion that the detection and representation of intentional agents and their actions are fundamental to religion. By no means a monolithic theory, this is an argument with several separate lines of reasoning, and several different kinds of empirical evidence to support it. This essay focuses specifically on the notion that people tend to spontaneously make inferences about gods based on intuitive, ontological assumptions, and on one of the main pieces of evidence that is cited to support it, the narrative comprehension experiments conducted by psychologists Justin L. Barrett and Frank C. Keil. It is argued that the experimental data in fact do not support the conclusions that have been drawn from them.

Comúnmente se asume que la descreencia en Dios es el resultado, inequívoco y exclusivo, del análisis lógico-racional, en contraposición a la creencia en Dios, que se asume como asociada a las emociones, el aprendizaje, la imitación... more

Comúnmente se asume que la descreencia en Dios es el resultado, inequívoco y exclusivo, del análisis lógico-racional, en contraposición a la creencia en Dios, que se asume como asociada a las emociones, el aprendizaje, la imitación sociocultural, y la intuición. Como muchas asunciones inmediatas, que no han sido contrastadas científicamente, esto es un error. En este artículo se exponen recientes investigaciones sobre la composición cognitiva de la descreencia en Dios, que convergen en mostrar que (de manera muy similar a la creencia en Dios), la irreligiosidad, el agnosticismo, y el ateísmo, también dependen de la imitación sociocultural y las emociones, que éstas pueden ser más relevantes que la iluminación lógico-racional, y que, incluso, la propia creencia en Dios y el pensamiento mágico, pueden esconderse inconscientemente en una persona que verbalmente se autodeclara atea.

The longstanding philosophical discussions about the human reason and the rationality in anthropology have paradoxically revealed the ubiquity of irrationality in the human life. Findings in evolutionary psychology and cognitive science... more

The longstanding philosophical discussions about the human reason and the rationality in anthropology have paradoxically revealed the ubiquity of irrationality in the human life. Findings in evolutionary psychology and cognitive science are making it increasingly evident that the human mind has not been evolved for rational thinking in traditional sense. The haphazard evolution of the human mind as a ‘kludge’ can explain why the dichotomy of rationality/irrationality is not a genuine matter in epistemology. Consulting recent studies on the human mind and communication, this paper argues that the actual criterion of epistemological justification is cognitive relevance rather than rationality. In this respect, even the cross-culturally recurrent patterns of ‘irrational’ beliefs in supernatural agents can be naturally generated and distributed by the relevance-driven cognition and communication. Ideas and hypotheses to which this paper consistently refers are mainly those of the cognitive science of religion including the epidemiology of representations, the HADD, and the MCI-concepts.

New Religious Movements have intrigued scholars for decades. Oftentimes, people only research these groups when they find themselves at odds with their societies, resulting in a negative bias. This work presents a scientific approach that... more

New Religious Movements have intrigued scholars for decades. Oftentimes, people only research these groups when they find themselves at odds with their societies, resulting in a negative bias. This work presents a scientific approach that tries to answer the question: Why do new religions form? It tries to understand how humans interact with religious groups and their actions as a dynamic cognitive system. At all points, this work intends to be interdisciplinary, incorporating religious scholarship, anthropology, sociology, and evolutionary psychology. It proposes that specific types of religious leadership destabilize religious ritual systems in a specific way, which leads to the atrocities performed by some religious cults or to our great world religions. This work defends the cognitive science of religion as the best approach currently being utilized to study such complex human phenomenon.

Extreme rituals entail excessive costs without apparent benefits, which raises an evolutionary cost problem (Irons, 2001). It is argued that such intense rituals enhance social cohesion and promote cooperative behaviors (Atran & Henrich,... more

Extreme rituals entail excessive costs without apparent benefits, which raises an evolutionary cost problem (Irons, 2001). It is argued that such intense rituals enhance social cohesion and promote cooperative behaviors (Atran & Henrich, 2010; Durkheim, 1912). However, direct evidence for the relation between ritual intensity and prosociality is lacking. Using economic measures of generosity and contextually relevant indicators of group identity in a real-world setting, we evaluated pro- social effects from naturally occurring rituals that varied in severity.

The cosmological argument has enjoyed and still enjoys substantial popularity in various traditions of natural theology. We propose that its enduring appeal is due at least in part to its concurrence with human cognitive predispositions,... more

The cosmological argument has enjoyed and still enjoys substantial popularity in various traditions of natural theology. We propose that its enduring appeal is due at least in part to its concurrence with human cognitive predispositions, in particular intuitions about causality and agency. These intuitions seem to be a stable part of human cognition. We will consider implications for the justification of the cosmological argument from externalist and internalist perspectives.

An analysis of the concept of God in the Minnesota model and AA from the percpective of psychology of religion.

This article proposes to take George Lindbeck’s project forward into new territory by taking his account of the role of doctrines in the shaping of religious experience and emotion into the realm of concrete examples. It calls this... more

This article proposes to take George Lindbeck’s project forward into new territory by taking his account of the role of doctrines in the shaping of religious experience and emotion into the realm of concrete examples. It calls this strategy attending to the ‘affective salience of doctrines’, and demonstrates how it can be done in an historical as well as an empirical mode by examining specific strategies of theological argument that emphasize the perceived affective consequences of doctrines. It then applies this approach to Philipp Melanchthon’s classic articulation of the forensic model of justification in light of critiques of the doctrine as a propositional ‘legal fiction’, in particular the recent version of this argument by John Milbank. The article concludes by drawing on contemporary psychological and philosophical accounts of emotion and cognition to demonstrate the surprising psychological plausibility of Melanchthon’s description of the relation between justification and its affective consequences in ‘love’, ‘joy’, ‘peace’, and ‘consolation’.

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with... more

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Analytical thinking predicts irreligiosity across paradigms and contexts. Explanations for this association have included the likelihood that analytical cognition interrupts the expression of innate cognition biases, such as teleology and... more

Analytical thinking predicts irreligiosity across paradigms and contexts. Explanations for this association have included the likelihood that analytical cognition interrupts the expression of innate cognition biases, such as teleology and anthropomorphism, that lead to religious beliefs; or that analytical thinkers are better at discriminating between unrealistic and realistic beliefs. This chapter marshals research from many subfields in cognitive and social psychology, anthropology, and sociology to advance an alternative explanation, the "social foundations hypothesis," which posits that analytical cognition is associated with both individualism and with strategic, opportunistic defection on cooperative arrangements. Honestly held religious beliefs serve as indices of heuristic cognition, which in turn telegraphs a strong likelihood that the agent will unreflectively abide by social conventions and norms. The association between holistic thinking and religiosity is thus a product of the need for predictable social coordination and cooperation in high-context social groups.

In the field of Science of Religion and associated fields of the Human Sciences revisions about the limits of reality have begun, in response both to intercultural encounters as well as to a rising awareness of research on the complexity... more

In the field of Science of Religion and associated fields of the Human Sciences revisions about the limits of reality have begun, in response both to intercultural encounters as well as to a rising awareness of research on the complexity of reality in the natural sciences. These have elicited proposals that the perspectives of the "religious" and the "para-normal" should be distinguished. This resonates with traditions of empirical and theoretical research often marginalized by the prevailing Positivist ideology and by Cognitivism. It also resonates with suppressed cultural traditions. A cautious movement towards a wider and differentiated assessment of reality and of phenomena, to be approached in these two perspectives, can however be observed in scholarship of religion, and even in the fold of Cognitivist Psychology.
This presentation, held at the conference of the German Association for Science of Religion / DVRW in Potsdam in 2018 explores the field and argues for the validity and heuristic power of this distinction.

In the mid 1950s, a British taxi driver named George King claimed that Budha, Jesus, and Lao Tzu had been alien “cosmic masters” who had come to earth to teach mankind the right way to live. Sun Myung Moon claimed that Korean people are... more

In the mid 1950s, a British taxi driver named George King claimed that Budha, Jesus, and Lao Tzu had been alien “cosmic masters” who had come to earth to teach mankind the right way to live. Sun Myung Moon claimed that Korean people are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. Joseph Smith claimed that some lost tribes of Israel had moved to Americas hundreds of years ago. All three people successfully founded new religious movements that have survived to this day. How and why do some people come up with such seemingly strange and bizarre ideas and why do others come to place their faith in these ideas? The first part of this book develops a multidisciplinary theoretical framework drawn from cognitive science of religion and social psychology to answer these critically important questions. The second part of the book illustrates how this theoretical framework can be used to understand the origin and evolution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at founded by an Indian Muslim in 1889. The book breaks new ground by studying the influence that religious beliefs of 19th century reformist Indian Muslims, in particular, founders of the Ahl-e-Hadith movement, had on the beliefs of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at. Using the theoretical framework developed in part I, the book also explains why many north Indian Sunni Muslims found Ahmad’s ideas to be irresistible and why the movement split into two a few years Ahmad’s death. The book will interest those who want to understand cults as well as those who want to understand reformist Islamic movements.

Scholarship on ancient Greco-Roman magic, over time and place, has largely focused on the role and identity of ritual practitioners, investigating the nature and source of their perceived expertise and often locating it in their... more

Scholarship on ancient Greco-Roman magic, over time and place, has largely focused on the role and identity of ritual practitioners, investigating the nature and source of their perceived expertise and often locating it in their linguistic skills. Less attention has been paid to those identified as the targets of magical rituals, who tend to be described as passive recipients of the ritual or the social power of another. In contrast, drawing on the theory of ritual form developed by Robert McCauley and E. Thomas Lawson, alongside the ritualization theories of Catherine Bell, this article argues that victims of magic were also agents of ritual. Focusing on an experience of hostile magic reported by the fourth-century CE orator Libanius, it explores how conceptions of magical power were co-created by spell-makers and their so-called victims and should be regarded as relational, that is, as emerging from the interactions of people and groups.

The term ‘evil’ was viewed with suspicion in philosophy and generally avoided for most of the Twentieth century. In the early Twenty First Century it has been undergoing something of a revival. The philosophers who have contributed to... more

The term ‘evil’ was viewed with suspicion in philosophy and generally avoided for most of the Twentieth century. In the early Twenty First Century it has been undergoing something of a revival. The philosophers who have contributed to this revival tend to downplay or ignore the religious connotations of the tern ‘evil’. Here I argue for the importance of identifying a religious conception of evil and for the importance of distinguishing this from the secular conception of evil. I also provide a definition of religious evil action. In providing a definition of religious evil action I draw of recent work in the cognitive science of religion which identifies key aspects of natural human religion that are universal. I also consider the relationship between the universal religious conception of evil I seek to locate and particular theological accounts of evil.

I review Pascal Boyer's book 'Minds Make Societies'.

Introduction, methodology

To understand ancient Greek religion we must begin by asking what religion itself is, and why religious beliefs and practices are found in virtually every human culture. Understanding Greek Religion is one of the first attempts to fully... more

To understand ancient Greek religion we must begin by asking what religion itself is, and why religious beliefs and practices are found in virtually every human culture. Understanding Greek Religion is one of the first attempts to fully examine any religion from a cognitivist perspective, applying methods and findings from the cognitive science of religion to the ancient Greek world. In this book, Jennifer Larson shows that many of the fundamentals of Greek religion, such as anthropomorphic gods, divinatory procedures, purity beliefs, reciprocity, and sympathetic magic arise naturally as byproducts of normal human cognition. Drawing on evidence from across the ancient Greek world, Larson provides detailed coverage of Greek theology and local pantheons, rituals including processions, animal sacrifice and choral dance, and afterlife beliefs as they were expressed through hero worship and mystery cults. Eighteen in-depth essays illustrate the theoretical discussion with primary sources and include case studies of key cult inscriptions from Kyrene, Kos and Miletos. Additionally, Larson offers the first detailed discussion of cognition and memory in the transmission of Greek religious beliefs and rituals, as well as a glossary of terms and a bibliographical essay on the cognitive science of religion.

Theory of mind, the theory that humans attribute mental states to others, has become increasingly influential in the Cognitive Science of Religion in recent years, due to several papers which posit that supernatural agents, like gods,... more

Theory of mind, the theory that humans attribute mental states to others, has become increasingly influential in the Cognitive Science of Religion in recent years, due to several papers which posit that supernatural agents, like gods, demons, and the dead, are accredited greater than normal knowledge and awareness. Using Old Norse mythology and literary accounts of Old Norse religion, supported by archaeological evidence, I examine the extent to which this modern perspective on religious theory of mind is reflected in religious traditions from the Viking Age. I focus especially on the extent to which superperception and superknowledge were attributed to Old Norse supernatural agents and the impact of this on expressions of religion; how the attribution of theory of mind varied with circumstances and the agents to which it was being attributed; and the extent to which features of religious theory of mind common in other societies were present in the historical North. On this basis, I also evaluate the usefulness of Old Norse historiography to Cognitive Science of Religion and vice versa.

The present article explores the multileveled function of disgust in biblical purity discourse as an embodied emotion, a conceptual framework, and a rhetorical strategy. The methodological approach is broadly evolutionary... more

The present article explores the multileveled function of disgust in biblical purity discourse as an embodied emotion, a conceptual framework, and a rhetorical strategy. The methodological approach is broadly evolutionary (biopsychological) and cognitive-conceptual, including insights from neuroscience and linguistics (metaphor and blending theories). The texts referred to and analyzed represent a variety of genres (legal, narrative, prophetic) and are selected to illustrate different aspects and functions of disgust, ranging from ritual indexing and taboos, to moral indignation and general value judgments, to ostracism and ethnocentrism. The aim is to demonstrate how biological underpinnings and cultural constructions of disgust interact and thereby provide resources for a better understanding of impurity and disgust reflected in biblical texts. The argument builds on my previous studies on impurity and disgust and incorporates some of their analyses and conclusions.

In tandem with the professionalization of research on esotericism over the past two decades, another sub-discipline has risen to prominence within the study of religion: the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Both of these fields, CSR... more

In tandem with the professionalization of research on esotericism over the past two decades, another sub-discipline has risen to prominence within the study of religion: the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Both of these fields, CSR and the study of esotericism, have made significant impact on how we study religion. Research on esotericism, as Aries readers well know, has deepened our understanding of the historical complexities of religion and its others in the West (the European countries and their spheres of influence), identifying blind spots relating to heterodox religion, radically experiential practices, and overlaps between "religion" , "magic", and "science" that may look curious with the hindsight of history. Meanwhile, CSR is changing the way scholars think about and approach key aspects of religious thought and practice while adding new experimental and analytical tools to the scholar's toolbox, by grounding the study of religion in our best current theories of how the human mind works. This special issue is the first collaborative attempt to date at exploring the potential of bringing these two innovative fields together. Two questions motivate this endeavour. First, what can CSR approaches add to the study of empirical material from the field of esotericism? Secondly, and conversely, can key problems in the study of esotericism, such as the notion of experiential gnosis, correspondence thinking, the role of imagination, and the use of esoteric hermeneutical strategies applied to obscure texts contribute to the development of CSR approaches?

This chapter explores psychedelics as catalysts of spontaneous thought. Classic serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca can induce potent alterations in cognition and perception. The chapter reviews research on... more

This chapter explores psychedelics as catalysts of spontaneous thought. Classic serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca can induce potent alterations in cognition and perception. The chapter reviews research on these substances through the lens of cultural neurophenomenology, which aims to trace how neurobiology and sociocultural factors interact to shape experience. After a decades-long hiatus, the scientific study of psychedelics is rediscovering the potential of these substances to promote creative insight, evoke mystical experiences, and improve clinical outcomes. Moreover, neuroimaging experiments have begun to unravel the influence of psychedelics on large-scale connectivity networks of the human brain. Tapping perspectives from the social sciences, the chapter underscores how culture and context constrain the flexible cognitive states brought about by psychedelics. This integrative approach suggests that seemingly spontaneous psychedelic thought patterns reflect a complex interaction of biological, cognitive, and cultural factors—from pharmacology and brain function to ritual, belief, and expectation.

In Religious Affects Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and... more

In Religious Affects Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and poststructuralist theory, Schaefer builds on the recent materialist shift in religious studies to relocate religious practices in the affective realm—an insight that helps us better understand how religion is lived in conjunction with systems of power. To demonstrate religion's animality and how it works affectively, Schaefer turns to a series of case studies, including the documentary Jesus Camp and contemporary American Islamophobia. Placing affect theory in conversation with post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Schaefer explores the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In this compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics.

This paper provides background information about the shamanism of the Tungus-speaking peoples in northeast China, particularly the Oroqen. It describes in detail the life, initiatory illnesses, training and healing practices of the last... more

This paper provides background information about the shamanism of the Tungus-speaking peoples in northeast China, particularly the Oroqen. It describes in detail the life, initiatory illnesses, training and healing practices of the last living Oroqen shaman who practiced this craft prior to the communist Chinese abolishment of such "superstitions" in the region just south of the Amur River in June or July 1952. Over three anguishing nights, hundreds of Oroqen participated in dusk to dawn rituals and begged the spirits to go away. Public, overt shamanistic healing rituals ended at that point.