Over at HuffPo Religion, Dr. Rustum Roy — a geochemist — accuses the media of criminal conduct in its reporting of the non-existent war between science and religion. In the course of doing so, Roy tilts at several windmills and claims special authority for “hard” or “classical” science.
Roy begins by touting his credentials as a [...]
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Over at HuffPo Religion, Wray Herbert asks whether religious belief soothes the worried mind and reports on some new research suggesting it does. Scholars have been asking this question for quite a long time, and many have simply assumed that religion does in fact sooth troubled minds. Freud reached this conclusion in Future of an [...]
Tags:Alexa Tullett·anxiety·burials·calming effects·deliberate burials·explanation·Freud·Future of An Illusion·hominids·Michael Inzlicht·Neanderthals·order·parsimony·Pascal Boyer·purpose·Reflecting on God·Scott Atran·souls·spirits·Wray Herbert
In 1993, the anthropologist Stewart Guthrie published his seminal book Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. One of Guthrie’s primary points was that humans have an innate tendency to perceive intentional agents in the environment, even when there are no agents. A rustling of leaves, shadows in the forest, movement of clouds, [...]
Tags:agency attribution·Ara Norenzayan·causal attribution·deception·Faces in the Clouds·HADD·hyperactive agency detection device·Justin Barrett·Pascal Boyer·pattern imposition·Scott Atran·Stewart Guthrie·theory of mind
There is a substantial body of research on the origins of religion which suggests that supernatural thinking arises, at least in part, from what is often called a “hyper-active agency detection device.” Evolutionary psychologists, such as Scott Atran (In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion) and Pascal Boyer (Religion Explained), assert that this [...]
Tags:agency detection device·autism·Pascal Boyer·Scott Atran·theory of mind
Because supernatural beliefs giving rise to religion are nearly universal among humans, many researchers suspect — with considerable justification — that the propensity to harbor such beliefs and adhere to religions is the product of evolution and natural selection. Researchers disagree, however, on whether the cognitive architecture supporting supernaturalism and religion was itself selected for [...]
