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 Invisible Agents A Non Secular Approach to World and Sensemaking in Pandemic Times written by Antonia Tungel and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 1,0, University of Freiburg (Institut für Ethnologie), language: English, abstract: Based on the topic of human-environment relation, I am going to delve into the question of who is subjectively identified as a ‘supernatural agent’ and what type and scope of agency is attributed. In the context of the seminar that also asks about the connection to COVID-related healing practices, I will then link the concept of supernatural agency with phenomena of health. Thereupon I want to present the methods and findings of my research following the guideline question: How do religious actors in Germany and Indonesia connect their belief with medical action against the Covid-19 pandemic?, focusing on Christian actors in Germany. Toward the end of 2019, a tiny entity given the name SARS-CoV-2, overpowered the world with a relentless ferocity that sharply exposed the vulnerability of modern human civilization. A belief in the superiority of our species, in the progressiveness of modern social systems, in the achievements in technology and medicine, could not save us from the power of “one of nature’s most miniscule members". With the ongoing spread and unpredictable mutation of the COVID-19 virus, a global war has been declared on something biologically not even classified as a living being, and states mobilize all resources to regain control. This ‘invisible agent’ challenges our personal lives and state action just as much as the postulated separation between humanity and ‘nature’. Not only must we acknowledge the virus as a more-than-human global actor in contrast to humans as being the only forceful agents “acting upon a passive world”, its assumed origin in zoonosis also marks a point of fusion between human and non-human realms, and therefore can be seen as a reinforcement of entanglement that transcends nature/culture dichotomy.
Download or read book Evil written by Luke Russell and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When asked to describe wartime atrocities, acts of terrorism, and serial killers, many of us reach for the word "evil." But what does it mean to say that an action or a person is evil? Some philosophers have claimed that there is no such thing as evil, and that thinking in terms of evil is simplistic and dangerous. In response to this sceptical challenge, Luke Russell shows that concept of evil has a legitimate place within contemporary secular moral thought. In this book he addresses questions concerning the nature of evil action, such as whether evil actions must be incomprehensible, whether evil actions can be banal, and whether there is a psychological hallmark that distinguishes evils from other wrongs. Russell also explores issues regarding the nature of evil persons, including whether every evil person is an evildoer, whether every evil person is irredeemable, and whether a person could be evil merely in virtue of having evil feelings. The concept of evil is extreme, and is easily misused. Nonetheless, Russell suggests that it has an important role to play when it comes to evaluating and explaining the worst kind of wrongdoing.
Download or read book Disbelief written by Will M. Gervais and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does God exist? This straightforward question has spawned endless debate, ranging from apologists’ supposed proofs of God’s existence to New Atheist manifestos declaring belief in God a harmful delusion. In Disbelief, Will M. Gervais, Phd., a global leader in the psychological study of atheism, shows that the ubiquity of religious belief and the peculiarities of atheism are connected pieces in the puzzle of human nature. It’s undeniable that religion is a core tenet of human nature. It is also true that our overwhelmingly religious species is also as atheistic as it’s ever been. Yet, no scientific understanding of religion is complete without accounting for those who actively do not believe. In this refreshing and revelatory book, Gervais argues that religion is not an evolutionary puzzle so much as two evolutionary puzzles that can only be solved together. First is the Puzzle of Faith: the puzzle of how Homo sapiens – and Homo sapiens alone – came to be a religious species. Second is the Puzzle of Atheism: how disbelief in gods can exist within our uniquely religious species. The result is a radically cohesive theory of both faith and atheism, showing how we became a uniquely religious species, and why many are now abandoning their belief. Through a firsthand account of breakthroughs in the scientific study of atheism, including key findings from cognitive science, cultural evolution, and evolutionary psychology, Disbelief forces a rethinking of the prevailing theories of religion and reminds both believers and atheists of the shared psychologies that set them on their distinct religious trajectories. In casual prose and with compelling examples, Gervais explains how we became religious, why we’re leaving faith behind, and how we can get along with others across the religious divides we’ve culturally evolved.
Download or read book Evolution Religion and Cognitive Science written by Fraser Watts and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 273 pages. 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.
Download or read book The Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society written by and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay written by Asiatic Society of Bombay and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. 1-new ser., v. 7 include the society's Proceedings for 1841-1929 (title varies)
Download or read book The Minds of Gods written by Benjamin Grant Purzycki and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-02-09 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are humans obsessed with divine minds? What do gods know and what do they care about? What happens to us and our relationships when gods are involved? Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, and applied anthropology, social psychology, religious studies, philosophy, technology, and cognitive and political sciences, The Minds of Gods probes these questions from a multitude of naturalistic perspectives. Each chapter offers brief intellectual histories of their topics, summarizes current cutting-edge questions in the field, and points to areas in need of attention from future researchers. Through an innovative theoretical framework that combines evolutionary and cognitive approaches to religion, this book brings together otherwise disparate literatures to focus on a topic that has comprised a lasting, central obsession of our species.
Download or read book Divine Action and Natural Selection written by Joseph Seckbach and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2009 with total page 1122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate between divine action, or faith, and natural selection, or science, is garnering tremendous interest. This book ventures well beyond the usual, contrasting American Protestant and atheistic points of view, and also includes the perspectives of Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics. It contains arguments from the various proponents of intelligent design, creationism, and Darwinism, and also covers the sensitive issue of how to incorporate evolution into the secondary school biology curriculum. Comprising contributions from prominent, award-winning authors, the book also contains dialogs following each chapter to provide extra stimulus to the readers and a full picture of this OC hotOCO topic, which delves into the fundamentals of science and religion."
Download or read book Religion Disease and Immunology written by Thomas B. Ellis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that religion has emerged over evolutionary time as a strategy for managing the transmission, contraction, and eradication of infectious disease. From purity and pollution codes to blood sacrifices and irrational beliefs, the book shows how religion supports not only the physiological immune system, but the behavioral and psychological immune systems as well. The book also addresses those moments when it appears that religion becomes maladaptive, that is, when religion causes “autoimmune problems,” such as celibacy and anti-vaccination. Engaging material ranging from evolutionary and social psychology to human behavioral ecology, biological anthropology, Darwinian medicine, and religious studies, the book proposes that in order to understand the human animal's enduring fascination with religion, one must take into account the enduring need to manage infectious disease.
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 Eight human skulls in a dung heap and more written by Annet Nieuwhof and published by Barkhuis. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of ritual practice in the past is an accepted part of archaeological research these days. Yet, its theoretical basis is still not fully mature. This book aims at making a contribution to the study of ritual practice inthe past by assembling a theoretical framework, which is tailored to the needs of archaeology, and which helps to identity and interpret the remains of rituals in thepast. This framework is applied in a special archaeological region: the coastal area of the northern Netherlands, a former salt marsh area. In the past, people lived here on artificial dwelling mounds, so-called terps. Preservation conditions are excellent in this wetland area. This study makes use of the well-preserved remains of rituals in terps, to examine the role of ritual practice in the societies of the pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age in this area.
Download or read book Chasing the Wind written by Neil H. Williams and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-11-12 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chasing the Wind covers a variety of ideas from Christianity, science, philosophy, ethics, and psychology. It starts with Socrates’s statement, “an unexamined life is not worth living” and asks how we might go about discovering what is a worthwhile life and what might motivate us to live such a life. It is a vast topic that is narrowed down to two principal areas: (1) a focus on relationships, which are central to providing fulfillment, worth, and purpose to our lives; and (2) an interaction with Christianity, which claims to have answers as to what is a worthwhile life. In summary, this book is a dialog between these two questions: What is a good life, and how does Christianity help or hinder such a life?
Download or read book Practicing Safe Sects written by F. LeRon Shults and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?
Download or read book Fact and Fiction written by Albrecht Koschorke and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-04-23 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we develop a cultural theory starting with the basic insight that human beings are "storytelling animals"? Within literary studies, narratology is a highly developed field. However, literary historians have not paid much attention to the large and small stories abounding in everyday discourse, guiding all kinds of social activity, and providing common ground for whole societies—but also fueling controversies and hostilities. Moreover, "narrative" is not only a scholarly category but has come into use in many fields of social activity as a tool for cultural self-fashioning. This book is based on the assumption that to a large extent, social dynamics is modeled in an aesthetic manner via narratives. It explores the narrative organization of cultural spaces and time-frames, the mythological shaping of communities and adversaries, and the co-production of narratives and institutions aimed at stabilizing social life. In this framework, the epistemological problem looms large of how an instrument as unreliable as narrative can participate in the creation of a social consensus regarding truth. This problem endows the general topics explored in this book with a particularly contemporary dimension.
Download or read book Belief in the Past written by David S Whitley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human actions are often deeply intertwined with religion and can be understood in a strictly religious context. Yet, many volumes and articles pertaining to discussions of religion in the archaeological past have focused primarily on the sociopolitical implications of such remains. The authors in this volume argue that while these interpretations certainly have a meaningful place in understanding the human past, they provide only part of the picture. Because strictly religious contexts have often been ignored, this has resulted in an incomplete assessment of religious behavior in the past. This volume considers exciting new directions for considering an archaeology of religion, offering examples from theory, tangible archaeological remains, and ethnography.
Download or read book Nature Design and Science written by Del Ratzsch and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the question of whether or not concepts and principles involving supernatural intelligent design can occupy any legitimate place within science.
