God is great, God is good: Teaching god concepts in Turkish Islamic sermons

Abstract

Cognitive scientists have argued that concepts such as gods and ghosts are found the world over because they violate a small number of ontological expectations, making them distinct, memorable, and highly transmissible. These concepts are known as minimally counterintuitive (MCI) and are theorized to be essential components of religion. Previous studies have explored MCI concepts in Christianity, Hinduism, Ancient Rome, and a variety of imaginary alien civilizations, but none have addressed the world's largest religion, Islam. This study applies research on MCI concepts, together with work on theological correctness, to a dataset of 295 Islamic sermons from 2001 to 2006 prepared by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, a government agency in Turkey charged with managing the country's mosques and religious education. Using content analysis, this paper tests whether counterintuitive god concepts are as sparse as MCI theory would predict (they are) and whether god concepts vary as expected in contexts of prayer (they do). Comparison of god concepts in sermons written before and after the arrival of new leadership at the Directorate shows that institutional change has altered religious discourse, decreasing the presence of intuitive but not counterintuitive concepts.