The Neuropsychology of Religion
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: Consider religion to be a community‟s (1) costly and hard-to-fake commitment (2) to a counterfactual world of supernatural agents (3) who master people‟s existential anxieties, such as death and deception. This intellectual framework guides a research program that aims to foster scientific dialogue between cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology regarding a set of phenomena vital to most human life and all societies (Atran 2002). The present chapter mainly concerns the third criterion of religion (3), and its implications for neuropsychology. This introductory section, however, first summarizes the overall intellectual framework. The criterion (1) of costly commitment rules out cognitive theories of religion as sufficient, however insightful. Such theories lack motive (Atran & Sperber 1991, Boyer 1994, Barrett 2000). In principle, they can‟t distinguish nonreligious fantasy from religious belief. They fail to tell us why, in general, the greater the sacrifice to the apparently absurd – as in Abraham‟s willingness to offer up his beloved son- the more others trust in one‟s commitment (Kierkegaard 1955[1843], Weber 1946). The criterion (2) of belief in the supernatural rules out commitment theories of religion as sufficient, however insightful. Such theories disregard cognitive structure and its causal role (Irons 1996, Nesse 1999, Wilson 2002). They don‟t distinguish strong secular ideologies, such as orthodox belief in
Author: Scott Atran
Institution: Institut Jean Nicod
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1509735292