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Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science

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Release : 2014
Genre : Psychology
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 087/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science by : Fraser Watts

Download or read book Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science written by Fraser Watts. This book was released on 2014. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This evolutionary cognitive science of religion is concerned specifically with exploring the relationship between the evolution of the human mind, the evolution of culture in general, and the origins and subsequent development of religion. This volume brings together specialists from different disciplines to reflect on these questions.

An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion

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Release : 2021-03-14
Genre : Psychology
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 956/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion by : Claire White

Download or read book An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion written by Claire White. This book was released on 2021-03-14. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, a new scientific approach to understand, explain, and predict many features of religion has emerged. The cognitive science of religion (CSR) has amassed research on the forces that shape the tendency for humans to be religious and on what forms belief takes. It suggests that religion, like language or music, naturally emerges in humans with tractable similarities. This new approach has profound implications for how we understand religion, including why it appears so easily, and why people are willing to fight—and die—for it. Yet it is not without its critics, and some fear that scholars are explaining the ineffable mystery of religion away, or showing that religion is natural proves or disproves the existence of God. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion offers students and general readers an accessible introduction to the approach, providing an overview of key findings and the debates that shape it. The volume includes a glossary of key terms, and each chapter includes suggestions for further thought and further reading as well as chapter summaries highlighting key points. This book is an indispensable resource for introductory courses on religion and a much-needed option for advanced courses.

How Religion Works

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Release : 2021-10-11
Genre : Psychology
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 211/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis How Religion Works by : Ilkka Pyysiäinen

Download or read book How Religion Works written by Ilkka Pyysiäinen. This book was released on 2021-10-11. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent findings in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology provide important insights to the processes which make religious beliefs and behaviors such efficient attractors in and across various cultural settings. The specific salience of religious ideas is based on the fact that they are 'counter-intuitive': they contradict our intuitive expectations of how entities normally behave. Counter-intuitive ideas are only produced by a mind capable of crossing the boundaries that separate such ontological domains as persons, living things, and solid objects. The evolution of such a mind has only taken place in the human species. How certain kinds of counter-intuitive ideas are selected for a religious use is discussed from varying angles. Cognitive considerations are thus related to the traditions of comparative religion. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science

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Release : 2014-03-20
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 443/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science by : Fraser Watts

Download or read book Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science written by Fraser Watts. This book was released on 2014-03-20. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is an inherently heterogeneous subject, incorporating theory and data from anthropology, psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of mind amongst other subjects. One increasingly influential area of research in this field is concerned specifically with exploring the relationship between the evolution of the human mind, the evolution of culture in general, and the origins and subsequent development of religion. This research has exerted a strong influence on many areas of religious studies over the last twenty years, but, for some, the so-called 'evolutionary cognitive science of religion' remains a deeply problematic enterprise. This book's primary aim is to engage critically and constructively with this complex and diverse body of research from a wide range of perspectives. To these ends, the book brings together authors from a variety of relevant disciplines, in the thorough exploration of many of the key debates in the field. These include, for example: can certain aspects of religion be considered adaptive, or are they evolutionary by-products? Is the evolutionary cognitive science of religion compatible with theism? Is the evolutionary cognitive approach compatible with other, more traditional approaches to the study of religion? To what extent is religion shaped by cultural evolutionary processes? Is the evolutionary account of the mind that underpins the evolutionary cognitive approach the best or only available account? Written in accessible language, with an introductory chapter by Ilkka Pyssiäinen, a leading scholar in the field, this book is a valuable resource for specialists, undergraduate and graduate students, and newcomers to the evolutionary cognitive science of religion.

The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution

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Release : 2019-12-09
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 553/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution by : Margaret Boone Rappaport

Download or read book The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution written by Margaret Boone Rappaport. This book was released on 2019-12-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious capacity is a highly elaborate, neurocognitive human trait that has a solid evolutionary foundation. This book uses a multidisciplinary approach to describe millions of years of biological innovations that eventually give rise to the modern trait and its varied expression in humanity’s many religions. The authors present a scientific model and a central thesis that the brain organs, networks, and capacities that allowed humans to survive physically also gave our species the ability to create theologies, find sustenance in religious practice, and use religion to support the social group. Yet, the trait of religious capacity remains non-obligatory, like reading and mathematics. The individual can choose not to use it. The approach relies on research findings in nine disciplines, including the work of countless neuroscientists, paleoneurologists, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and psychologists. This is a cutting-edge examination of the evolutionary origins of humanity’s interaction with the supernatural. It will be of keen interest to academics working in Religious Studies, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Evolutionary Biology, and Psychology.

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