How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion

Pyysiainen, Ilkka/ Pyysiainen, Iikka

ISBN 10: 9004132732 / ISBN 13: 9789004132733

Published by Brill Academic Pub, 2003

About this Item

272 pages. 9.50x6.00x0.50 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __9004132732

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004132732
• ISBN 13: 9789004132733
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.52 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

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.

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About the Author

Ilkka Pyysiäinen, Ph.D. (1993), University of Helsinki, is Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland. He has published numerous articles and edited the volume Current Approaches in the Cognitive Study of Religion (Continuum, 2002).