Cognitive Science Of Religion Research Articles

The Psychology of Religion in Brazil

Religiousness is an important aspect of the formation of Brazilian subjectivity. This raises the issue to be addressed in this article—the issue of the place of the psychology of religion in Brazil. This text presents the psychology of religion in Brazil based on three sources of information: the activities of the Psychology & Religion Working Group, a look at the postgraduate programs that have been developing research on psychology of religion, and an analysis of studies that have been conducted in this area since 2000. A brief examination of Brazil's religious context is performed, considering its impact on culture and behavior, followed by an overview of past developments and current trends in this field of research. Psychology of religion has been studied from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives in Brazil and has an interdisciplinary connection mainly to sciences of religion, theology, philosophy, and anthropology. Theoretical approaches go from cognitive psychology of religion to cultural psychology of religion, and to social psychology and psychodynamics. This study concludes with suggestions for future directions.

Possible Selves, Body Schemas, and Sādhana: Using Cognitive Science and Neuroscience in the Study of Medieval Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā Hindu Tantric Texts

In recent decades, historians of religions have turned to, and developed, entirely new methodologies for the study of religion and human consciousness. Foremost among these are a collection of approaches often termed the “cognitive science of religion” (CSR), typically drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, and contemporary metaphor theory. Although we are still “early” in this enterprise, I hope to show how a meaningful dialogue between religious studies and contemporary neuroscience and cognitive science can help us to better understand some intriguing mystical texts and practices from a tradition of medieval South Asian Hinduism. Known collectively as the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, these followers of transgressive and antinomian Tantric Yoga provide excellent examples for exploring the nature of religion, ritual, consciousness, embodiment, identity, gender, emotions and sexuality. This paper will show how the study of these rich materials from 17th through 18th century Bengal in northeastern South Asia can be enhanced using insights from the philosopher, Shaun Gallagher, and the neurologist, Patrick McNamara.

Testing the Spirits: Cognitive Science of Religion in Partnership with the Study of Religious Appeals

Previous articleNext article No AccessTesting the Spirits: Cognitive Science of Religion in Partnership with the Study of Religious Appeals*Steven G. SmithSteven G. SmithMillsaps College Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 94, Number 3July 2014 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/676027 Views: 38Total views on this site © 2014 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Belief and religion in barbarian Europe c. 350-700

This ground-breaking study offers a new paradigm for understanding the beliefs and religions of the Goths, Burgundians, Sueves, Franks and Lombards as they converted from paganism to Christianity between c.350 and c.700 CE. Combining history and theology with approaches drawn from the cognitive science of religion, Belief and Religion in Barbarian Europe uses both written and archaeological evidence to challenge many older ideas. Beginning with a re-examination of our knowledge about the deities and rituals of their original religions, it goes on to question the assumption that the Germanic peoples were merely passive recipients of Christian doctrine, arguing that so-called 'Arianism' was first developed as an 'entry-level' Christianity for the Goths. Focusing on individual ethnic groupings in turn, it presents a fresh view of the relationship between religion and politics as their rulers attempted to opt for Catholicism. In place of familiar debates about post-conversion 'pagan survivals', contemporary texts and legislation are analysed to create an innovative cognitive perspective on the ways in which the Church endeavoured to bring the Christian God into people's thoughts and actions. The work also includes a survey of a wide range of written and archaeological evidence, contrasting traditional conceptions of death, afterlife and funerary ritual with Christian doctrine and practice in these areas and exploring some of the techniques developed by the Church for assuaging popular anxieties about Christian burial and the Christian afterlife.

Whose Theology? The Promise of Cognitive Theories and the Future of a Disputed Field

AbstractWithin a general attempt to reconceptualise theology and its position in the modern university, the paper argues that the cognitive science of religion offers a great opportunity to modern theology to engage into interdisciplinary research that could be proven especially profitable to its future. By drawing examples from contemporary Greece and a religious ritual that is disputed by the official Christian Orthodox Church as well as from historical theology and the Arian controversy in the fourth century CE, I argue that Justin Barrett’s cognitive theory of religion, known as ‘Theological Correctness’, can provide to theology a useful tool in understanding the religious beliefs of everyday believers. Without discounting other methodologies, theories, and interpretations, this paper argues that there is space for cognitive theories within theological research that could only benefit theology and its future in the twenty-first century.

Van Slyke, James A. The Cognitive Science of Religion. Ashgate Science and Religion Series. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. 178 pp. $89.95 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessVan Slyke, James A. The Cognitive Science of Religion. Ashgate Science and Religion Series. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. 178 pp. $89.95 (cloth).G. Scott DavisG. Scott DavisUniversity of Richmond. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 94, Number 2April 2014 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/676614 Views: 18Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Arts Transform The Cognitive Science of Religion

The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is becoming increasingly experimental. Its methods are winning the hearts of next-generation humanities scholars of religion. Yet many present-generation humanities scholars of religion remain unaware of recent advances and have yet to participate. I hope to persuade such scholars that it is worth attempting collaborative science. CSR research will benefit from a fuller participation of mature humanities scholars of religion because their training affords a rich knowledge of religious facts. By the same token, humanities scholars of religion should be interested in scientific approaches because cumulative intellectual progress in every empirical discipline relies on hypothesis-driven research. My argument comes in three parts. First, I clarify the exciting possibilities for cumulative intellectual progress that hypothesis-driven research uniquely affords. Second, I describe recent advances from humanities/CSR collaborations, hazarding a few predictions about what to expect next. Third, I offer practical advice to humanities scholars about how to pursue productive CSR collaborations.

The Experimental Study of Religion

Within the last two decades, the cognitive science of religion has gained momentum, and this has led to a call for dedicated experimental studies addressing this level of explanation. However, what does such an experimental turn mean for the study of religion more generally? How does it affect what we study and the methods we use to study it? Does it alter with whom we cooperate, where we publish and what scholarly discussions we take part in? In this article, we discuss how the experimental study of religious phenomena changes the theoretical subject matter and how it involves a new relation between theoretical modeling, methodological reduction and generalization. We argue that, similar to all new approaches, an experimental methodology is likely to alter the study of religion in the short run, but in the longer perspective experimental approaches are likely to take their place beside other approaches that constitute the broader field of the academic study of religion.

On Faith and the Fear of Fatality

Although speculations about the role of fear—and fear of death in particular—in the evolutionary and psychological origins of religion have been around for millennia, it is only in the last decade or so that systematic empirical investigations on the matter have been undertaken. In this paper, we review this recent body of correlational and experimental research to assess theoretical developments in the evolutionary and cognitive psychology of religion, and in Terror Management Theory. While these existing theories about the anxiety ameliorating functions of religious belief are still significantly under-determined by data, the systematic and scientific study of religion has benefited greatly from insights about the multidimensionality of religiosity, the importance of implicit levels of cognition and affect, and the dangers of biased sampling.

Long-lost Brothers: On the Co-histories and Interactions Between the Comparative Science of Religion and the Anthropology of Religion

AbstractThis article briefly surveys and compares the histories of research in the comparative science of religion (beginning with Friedrich Max Müller) and the anthropology of religion. The article notes the close interactions between these two fields and argues that the comparative science of religion drew significant inspiration from anthropology and sociology during the twentieth century until about the 1970s when anthropology came under heavy fire from critics. The postcolonial, feminist, and postmodern wave did not have a significant impact on the comparative science of religion until the 1990s. But already during the 1980s a new approach to religion, championed by Jonathan Z. Smith, contributed to a theoretical and critical analysis of religion that neither bought into postmodernism nor into thesui generisapproach to religion. During the 1990s, another new approach began making an impact, namely, the cognitive science of religion, championed by E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley (both scholars of religion), and Pascal Boyer (anthropologist). The article suggests in conclusion that the two disciplines can once again meet in the growing fields of experimental anthropology and experimental science of religion and in the need to explore and address how culture affects and rewires the brain. Furthermore, evolutionary theory is also beginning to serve as a common framework for thinking about religion.

THE IMAGO DEI: EVOLUTIONARY AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

AbstractThis short article provides an introduction to a special section, consisting of six papers on human evolution and the imago Dei. These papers are the result of dialogue between theologians and philosophers of religion at the University of Oxford and the Catholic University of Leuven. All contributors focus on the imago Dei, and consider how this theological notion can be understood from an evolutionary perspective, looking at a variety of disciplines, including the psychology of reasoning, cognitive science of religion, paleoanthropology, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary ethics.

Revelation between Cognitive Science of Religion and Dialectical Theology

The article critically discusses the contemporary relevance and challenges of Rudolf Bultmann's theology of revelation in relation to the basic claims of cognitive science of religion. Underlying the analysis is the assumption that his theology still has some relevance when confronted with the claims from this scientific approach to religion. There are nevertheless also good reasons for arguing that his notion of revelation needs a wider and more experiential focus. The argument for such an experiential-based notion of revelation is provided by an analysis of what features qualified revelatory experience may consist in.

The cognitive science of religion and theism again: a reply to Leo Näreaho

AbstractIn this article we respond to Leo Näreaho's critique of our position on the relationship of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and theism, arguing that he misrepresents our position and assimilates our views to ones we do not in fact hold. The central issue we address has to do with how Näreaho construes what he takes to be our commitment to a ‘world-view neutrality’ thesis regarding the ‘assumptions and results’ of the new bio-psychological theories of religion (in the case at hand, CSR). We suggest that Näreaho has misconstrued us on what the neutrality thesis actually is and what follows from it. We conclude that his own proposal for compatibility is not an alternative to ours but rather one permissible metaphysical reading of CSR among others.

Yoking Gnosis and Logos: On the Knowledge Function of Some Exceptional Mental States for Well-Being

Earlier religious formations everywhere dynamically engaged in pursuit of knowledge. Of particular interest is direct experience of knowledge rather by learning through practice; former approximates gnosis and latter refers to logos. Study of transcendental experiences was an ambitious project of William James, the founder of modern psychology. The present paper makes it more explicit by looking into correlative thinking and paranormal experiences. Second, the advances in cognitive science of religion (CSR) indicate integration of gnosis and logos, and they perhaps access discrete cognitive processes analogous to Kahneman’s (American Psychologist 58:697–720, 2003) System I (intuition) and System 2 (reasoning). Third, gnosis, trance and intuition are correlated. Lastly, exceptional mental states have significance for psychological well-being.

The perception of religious meaning and value: an ecological approach

The perception of value is one of the most important dimensions of religious experience, and yet the cognitive science of religion has so far had little to say about it. This neglect may be the result of a widespread assumption that value is constructed, that is, a special quality added to sensory input by the mind. However, such a view not only divorces value from meaning, but it also cannot register the ways in which value is discovered and enriched through skillful engagement. Accordingly, it is proposed that the experience of value is better understood in ecological terms, as the richness of meaningful interaction between a skilled perceiver and a suitably complex environment. An ecological approach opens up new opportunities for the investigation of the environmental conditions of value-rich religious experience. For example, it may be possible to determine how the experience of divine presence is supported by the structural features of music used in religious settings.

McCauley, the maturational natural, and the current limits of the cognitive science of religion

Every place in the city is full of them: the alleys, the crossroads, the forums, the squares. Garment sellers, money changers, food vendors—they are all at it. If you ask for change, they philosoph...

Cognitive Science of Religion and the Study of Theological Concepts

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content biases that also underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts.

Cognitive science of religion and theism: how can they be compatible?

AbstractIn this article, I examine the compatibility thesis, according to which the assumptions and results of cognitive (and other bio-psychological) theories of religion are compatible with the theistic world-view. In particular, I analyse the conception of world-view neutrality concerning scientific theories of religion. I also investigate the nature of pro-theistic argumentation; one aspect of this is the role that various forms of naturalism have in theistic compatibility claims. I point out that the version of theism guiding the argumentation of the proponents of the compatibility thesis is seldom explicated. A commitment to classical theism is problematic because of the ultimate metaphysical separation of God and the world. Instead, I support the compatibility view with a notion of God construed as the structuring cause of the world.

An Exploration of the Functions of Religious Monumental Architecture from a Darwinian Perspective

In recent years, the cognitive science of religion has displayed a keen interest in religions' social function, bolstering research on religious prosociality and cooperativeness. The main objective of this article is to explore, from a Darwinian perspective, the biological and psychological mechanisms through which religious monumental architecture (RMA) might support that specific function. A frequently held view is that monumental architecture is a costly signal that served vertical social stratification in complex large-scale societies. In this paper we extend that view. We hypothesize that the function(s) of RMA cannot be fully appreciated from a costly signaling perspective alone, and invoke a complementary mechanism, namely sensory exploitation. We propose that, in addition to being a costly signal, RMA also often taps into an adaptive “sensitivity for bigness.” The central hypothesis of this paper is that when cases of RMA strongly stimulate that sensitivity, and when commoners become aware of the costly investments that are necessary to build RMA, then this may give rise to a particular emotional response, namely awe. We will try to demonstrate that, by exploiting awe, RMA promotes and regulates prosocial behavior among religious followers and creates in them an openness to adopt supernatural beliefs.

UNTANGLING FALSE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING ATHEISM AND HEALTH

Abstract In the past decade, the cognitive science of religion has worked to find an evolutionary explanation for supernatural belief. The explanations are convincing, but have created the stereotype that atheism is unnatural. In a similar way studies linking religious belief and health have vilified atheism as unhealthy. But belief is too complex, health is too nuanced, and the data are too varied to draw such a generalization. Catherine Caldwell‐Harris has developed a psychological profile to understand nonbelief as an expected outcome of individual difference and therefore natural. In a similar manner I argue that we should study the relationship between belief and health through the lens of individual differences. This approach is especially promising given recent research which indicates personality fully accounts for the relationship with well‐being previously attributed to belief. This approach has the added benefit of neutralizing the conversation by understanding atheism as the healthy expression of a natural personality.