Download or read book God Theology Cognitive Modules written by Lorin Friesen and published by . This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does God exist? It is possible to postpone dealing with this question and look instead at how the mind forms an image of God and how this image of God affects personal behavior. This book presents a model of the mind, based in cognitive modules which map onto brain regions, that was developed by studying personality. This book starts with the approach that is taken by the emerging field of cognitive science and religion but goes significantly further, analyzing religious doctrine in substantial detail. In addition, this same model of the mind is used to analyze scientific thought, including an extensive discussion of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions as well as Willard Quine's Web of Belief. This radically interdisciplinary book attempts to be reasonably rigorous while still explaining concepts clearly and simply. The more technical information has been placed in appendices. This 250,000 word volume presents a new integrated model of cognition, which views the human mind as a set of seven interacting modules: Two of these modules function emotionally, two handle knowledge and skills, one is related to the dopamine desire circuit, one controls planning and technical thought, while the final module adjusts the operation of the other six. This book uses the operation and interaction of these seven modules to provide a cognitive explanation for religious concepts such as an image of God, mysticism, conscience, blind faith, worship, monotheism, the trinity, incarnation, atonement, righteousness, a belief in heaven, a belief in hell, holy books, chosenness, fundamentalism, the supernatural, and the Christian 'prayer of salvation'. This same approach is also used to explain scientific concepts such as the basis for science, the paradigm, the paradigm shift, the exemplar, induction, hypothesis, analogy, logic, syllogism, algebraic manipulation, the function, and the physics of music and harmony. In addition, psychological and philosophical concepts are explained such as Piaget's stages of development, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, cognitive styles, Foucault's epistemes, Kant's categorical imperative, Plato's Forms, and Heiddeger's dasein and authenticity. The author has done almost thirty years of research in the area of personality and cognitive science. "Lorin Friesen deserves thanks for a volume which is innovative, unique, challenging, highly integrative, and mind-stretching. The serious reader will be greatly rewarded." John H. Redekop Ph.D. Professor Emeritus Wilfrid Laurier University

Download or read book Minding God written by Gregory R. Peterson and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does it make sense to speak of the "mind of God"? Are humans unique? Do we have souls?Our growing explorations of the cognitive sciences pose significant challenges to and opportunities for theological reflection. Gregory Peterson introduces these sciences -- neuroscience, artificial intelligence, animal cognition, linguistics, and psychology -- that specifically contribute to the new picture and their philosophical underpinnings. He shows its implications for rethinking longstanding Western assumptions about the unity of the self, the nature of consciousness, free will, inherited sin, and religious experience. Such findings also illumine our understanding of God's own mind, the God-world relationship, new notion of divine design, and the implications of a universe of evolving minds.Peterson is gifted at explaining scientific concepts and drawing their implications for religious belief and theology. His work demonstrates how new work in cognitive sciences upends and reconfigures many popular assumptions about human uniqueness, mind-body relationship, and how we speak of divine and human intelligence.

Download or read book Minds and Gods written by Todd Tremlin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas on the basis of common structures and functions of human thought. The first general introduction to the new "cognitive science of religion," Minds and Gods presents the major themes, theories, and thinkers involved in this revolutionary new approach to human religiosity. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book pursues the evolutionary forces that molded the modern human mind and continue to shape our ideas and actions today. Todd Tremlin details many of the adapted features of the brain - illustrating their operation with examples of everyday human behavior - and shows how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas. Tremlin provides a clear and comprehensive account of the developing field of the cognitive science of religion. This accessible and engaging volume is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the religious mind.

Download or read book Natural Cognitive Theology written by Lorin Friesen and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-18 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One does not normally relate neurology, cognitive theory, and Christian theology. We have been taught that psychological models of personality should replace outdated theological notions, while neurology uses solid, empirical data from the brain to re-examine psychological models. This book presents the thesis that these three fit together quite well, and that the resulting structure is consistent with the thinking of math and science. The starting point is a cognitive model known as mental symmetry. This model began as a list of seven 'spiritual gifts' from the Biblical book of Romans, was expanded into a system of cognitive styles through an extended study of biographies and then mapped onto brain regions, and has been tested with several decades of observation and analysis of human personality. A cognitive model makes it possible to ask how the mind could function and to work out the steps that are required to get all aspects of the mind to function in an integrated manner. It appears that embodiment causes the mind of the child to function in a manner that is fragmented and incomplete, as described by Piaget's cognitive stages. This book analyzes the process of reprogramming the childish mind so that it functions in a more complete manner. Interaction between different aspects of the mind will naturally cause a concept of God to emerge, and the type of divine concept that forms will depend upon how the various aspects of the mind are functioning and interacting-regardless of whether such a God actually exists or not. If the mind functions in an integrated manner, then the concept of God that forms is that of a Christian Trinity. Incarnation can be analyzed as an internal struggle to integrate abstract technical thought with concrete technical thought, illustrated by the deep relationship between math and science. Far from being an incomprehensible mystery, it appears that a concept of incarnation will naturally emerge when the most rational aspects of human thought are integrated. Similarly, the Christian 'prayer of salvation' can be analyzed from a purely cognitive perspective as a method of mentally viewing a concept of God indirectly through a concept of incarnation. The conflict between science and religion can also be seen from a cognitive perspective as a struggle between two incompatible methods of defining belief, reinforced by the system of thought that each side sets up in order to preserve its method of defining belief. If one distinguishes between the structure of the mind and how the mind interacts with the external environment, then it is possible to analyze life-after-death as existence as a disembodied mind, and one can also explain the spiritual and angelic realms as the same mind being placed within a different environment. The final section of this book contains a 70 page overview of the latest findings in neurology, covering all the major cortical and subcortical regions of the brain, and quoting from almost a hundred recent papers. It is shown that there is a detailed correspondence between the personality traits that were discovered using the theory of mental symmetry and the functions of different brain regions. This volume is a significant clarification and expansion of the previous book, God, Theology, and Cognitive Modules, that was written in 2012, and this cognitive model has been presented at several academic conferences since the publication of that book.

Download or read book Cognitive Psychology of Religion written by Kevin J. Eames and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is religion all in our heads? Whether you believe that to be true or whether you believe that religion has a corresponding external reality (i.e., God), religion at least begins with our heads, namely the cognitive architecture that predisposes human beings to belief in the sacred supernatural. Cognitive Psychology of Religion explores how research in neuroscience, perception, cognition, child development, social cognition, and cognitive anthropology provides insight into the development of the cognitive faculties of belief that facilitate the transmission of religion. Eames has organized the text into seven chapters that follow a clear and straightforward progression from the different theories of the origin of religion into an exploration on how our minds perceive the environment, form truths, spread beliefs, and take part in various rituals and experiences. Cognitive Psychology of Religion is a concise introduction to the cognitive science of religion and serves as an excellent primary or supplemental text for traditional psychology of religion courses.

Download or read book The Roots of Religion written by Roger Trigg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Cognitive Science of Religion written by James A. Van Slyke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is a relatively new academic field in the study of the origins and causes of religious belief and behaviour. The focal point of empirical research is the role of basic human cognitive functions in the formation and transmission of religious beliefs. However, many theologians and religious scholars are concerned that this perspective will reduce and replace explanations based in religious traditions, beliefs, and values. This book attempts to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

Download or read book The Cognitive Science of Religion written by Asst Prof James A. Van Slyke and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is a relatively new academic field in the study of the origins and causes of religious belief and behaviour. The focal point of empirical research is the role of basic human cognitive functions in the formation and transmission of religious beliefs. However, many theologians and religious scholars are concerned that this perspective will reduce and replace explanations based in religious traditions, beliefs, and values. This book attempts to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

Download or read book Religion Explained written by Pascal Boyer and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-03-21 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of our questions about religion, says the internationally renowned anthropologist Pascal Boyer, were once mysteries, but they no longer are: we are beginning to know how to answer questions such as "Why do people have religion?" and "Why is religion the way it is?" Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Boyer shows how one of the most fascinating aspects of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. And Man Creates God tells readers, for the first time, what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and how it originates. It is a beautifully written, very accessible book by an anthropologist who is highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic. As a scientific explanation for religious feeling, it is sure to arouse controversy.

Download or read book In Gods We Trust written by Scott Atran and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-09 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements that have evolved in the human condition.

Download or read book Why Would Anyone Believe in God written by Justin L. Barrett and published by Cognitive Science of Religion. This book was released on 2004 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because of the design of our minds. That is Justin Barrett's simple answer to the question of his title. With rich evidence from cognitive science but without technical language, psychologist Barrett shows that belief in God is an almost inevitable consequence of the kind of minds we have. Most of what we believe comes from mental tools working below our conscious awareness. And what we believe consciously is in large part driven by these unconscious beliefs. Barrett demonstrates that beliefs in gods match up well with these automatic assumptions; beliefs in an all-knowing, all-powerful God match up even better. Barrett goes on to explain why beliefs like religious beliefs are so widespread and why it is very difficult for our minds to think without them. Anyone who wants a concise, clear, and scientific explanation of why anyone would believe in God should pick up Barrett's book.

Download or read book In Gods We Trust written by Scott Atran and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-09 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements in the human condition.

Download or read book Can Science Explain Religion written by James William Jones and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2016 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that efforts by the anti-religious to explain and undermine religion through cognitive science are misguided and that these approaches can actually be used to support the belief in and practice of religion.

Download or read book The Cognitive Science of Religion written by James A. Van Slyke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is a relatively new academic field in the study of the origins and causes of religious belief and behaviour. The focal point of empirical research is the role of basic human cognitive functions in the formation and transmission of religious beliefs. However, many theologians and religious scholars are concerned that this perspective will reduce and replace explanations based in religious traditions, beliefs, and values. This book attempts to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

Download or read book Divine Minds written by Todd Tremlin and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Supernatural Agents written by Iikka Pyysiainen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is a rapidly growing field whose practitioners apply insights from advances in cognitive science in order to provide a better understanding of religious impulses, beliefs, and behaviors. In this book Ilkka Pyysiäinen shows how this methodology can profitably be used in the comparative study of beliefs about superhuman agents. He begins by developing a theoretical outline of the basic, modular architecture of the human mind and especially the human capacity to understand agency. He then goes on to discuss examples of supernatural agency in detail, arguing that the human ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others forms the basis of conceptions of supernatural agents and of such social cognition in which supernatural agents are postulated as interested parties in social life. Beliefs about supernatural agency are natural, says Pyysiäinen, in the sense that such concepts are used in an intuitive and automatic fashion. Two dots and a straight line below them automatically trigger the idea of a face, for example. Given that the mind consists of a host of such modular mechanisms, certain kinds of beliefs will always have a selective advantage over others. Abstract theological concepts are usually elaborate versions of such simpler and more contagious folk conceptions. Pyysiäinen uses ethnographical and survey materials as well as doctrinal treatises to show that there are certain recurrent patterns in beliefs about supernatural agents both at the level of folk-religion and of formal theology.

Download or read book Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare written by Mark Cobb and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirituality and healthcare is an emerging field of research, practice and policy. Healthcare organisations and practitioners are therefore challenged to understand and address spirituality, to develop their knowledge and implement effective policy. This is the first reference text on the subject providing a comprehensive overview of key topics.