The Roots of Religion: Exploring the Cognitive Science of Religion (Ashgate Science and Religion Series)
Language: English
Pages: 242
ISBN: 1472427319
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. The Roots of Religion deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive structures: religious belief is ‘natural’, in a way that even scientific thought is not. Does this new discipline support religious belief, undermine it, or is it, despite many claims, perhaps eventually neutral? This subject is of immense importance, particularly given the rise of the ‘new atheism’. Philosophers and theologians from North America, UK and Australia, explore the alleged conflict between truth claims and examine the roots of religion in human nature. Is it less ‘natural’ to be an atheist than to believe in God, or gods? On the other hand, if we can explain theism psychologically, have we explained it away. Can it still claim any truth? This book debates these and related issues.
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The Roots of Religion An outstanding set of authoritative essays, essential reading for all who are interested in the nature of religion. Keith Ward, Christ Church, Oxford, UK The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. The Roots of Religion deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive
of cooperative commitment” (2002, p. 172). These elements are apparently taken to have significant coordinative effects even apart from the influence of the sense of gods watching human conduct. The importance of religion for social coordination, then, does not depend entirely on fear of punishment as a motivator or indeed entirely on theistic elements of religion. The differential effects of these variables are, of course, a matter for pursuit through framing and pursuing testable hypotheses.
1998, p. 65); the texts are still being reconstructed. Meanwhile, other prominent Roman Epicureans included Cassius, Caesar’s assassin, and possibly Caesar himself (Sedley, 1998, pp. 64–5). Thus, if we include the period of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus, there was a vigorous and continuous anti-teleological tradition, well-known to (at least) cultured contemporaries, for an entire millennium of the ancient world. Moreover, this tradition died not through lack of support, but because it
after all, people’s ultimate good is clearly going to consist in union with God. But we know, goes the objection, that various evils we observe aren’t required to serve this connection (Schellenberg, 2007, pp.252–6).27 By contrast, if ultimism is true, we are not so sure what people’s greatest good might look like and so cannot be sure that evil frustrates or fails to facilitate our greatest good. This might be thought to lend plausibility to Schellenberg’s apparent view that anything stronger
– unable to fend for themselves for several years. Belief in what we might think of as morally interested and knowledgeable supernatural agencies would have strengthened the familial ties necessary for our ancestors to survive their first years better than belief in what we might think of as entirely morally disinterested/uninterested and/or ignorant ones; such beliefs would have better encouraged what has been called ‘pro-social’ behaviour. If we allow ourselves to consider group selection
