Good-death Beliefs and Cognition in Himalayan Pilgrimage

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 402-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Nordin
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Selective Pressure ◽  
Good Death ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Cognitive Anthropology ◽  
Anthropology Of Religion ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Epidemiological Method ◽  
Science Of Religion

AbstractThis article discusses the notions of a good death associated with Hindu pilgrimages in the Nepalese and Tibetan Himalayas. Using theories and concepts from the cognitive anthropology of religion and from the cognitive science of religion—particularly the cultural epidemiological method—my objective is to explain why certain systems of thought and behaviour are favoured over others in cultural transmission. My thesis is that the apprehension of contagion and/or contamination, combined with prevailing cultural representations, exerts selective pressure on the formation of beliefs about good death. Pilgrimage sites are associated with intuitions about contagious and contaminating contact, avert the pollution of death, and provide links to supernatural agents.

The Zeus Problem: Why Representational Content Biases Cannot Explain Faith in Gods

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 383-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will M. Gervais ◽  
Joseph Henrich
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Santa Claus ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Science Of Religion

AbstractIn a recent article, Barrett (2008) argued that a collection of five representational content features can explain both why people believe in God and why people do not believe in Santa Claus or Mickey Mouse. In this model ‐ and within the cognitive science of religion as a whole ‐ it is argued that representational content biases are central to belief. In the present paper, we challenge the notion that representational content biases can explain the epidemiology of belief. Instead, we propose that representational content biases might explain why some concepts become widespread, but that context biases in cultural transmission are necessary to explain why people come to believe in some counterintuitive agents rather than others. Many supernatural agents, including those worshipped by other cultural groups, meet Barrett’s criteria. Nevertheless, people do not come to believe in the gods of their neighbors. This raises a new challenge for the cognitive science of religion: the Zeus Problem. Zeus contains all of the features of successful gods, and was once a target for widespread belief, worship, and commitment. But Zeus is no longer a target for widespread belief and commitment, despite having the requisite content to fulfill Barrett’s criteria. We analyze Santa Claus, God, and Zeus with both content and context biases, finding that context ‐ not content ‐ explains belief. We argue that a successful cognitive science of religious belief needs to move beyond simplistic notions of cultural evolution that only include representational content biases.

scholarly journals Minding the pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
Jonas Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Science Of Religion

This article analyses clusters of Muslim responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in a theoretical framework provided by the cognitive science of religion. The responses include theological reflections on the origin, nature, and religious significance of the disease, religious justifications for restrictions on communal worship, apologetics in the light of COVID-19, and how aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic relate to issues of purity, impurity, and contagion. This article places the responses in a wider theoretical context that contributes to explaining their emergence as cultural representations, and, as a consequence, may promote further comparative research into responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in other religious traditions. 

scholarly journals Extending Cognitive Science of Religion on Ethnographic Field Notes from the Archive of G.M. Vasilevich

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
Aleksandra D. Belova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Cognitive Anthropology ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
New Perspective

The article offers a new perspective on field materials collected by an outstanding ethnographer and Tungus studies specialist Glafira Vasilevich. The author of the article draws attention to the ideas in the field materials that are directly related to the thinking of the Evenks. During the work in the archives of the MAE RAS, it was noted that field materials relating to the Evenki imagination can be analyzed via cognitive anthropology and psychology. The article takes a variety of materials for analysis that refers to the thinking of the Evenks: hunting amulets, names, ideas of the appearance of birds and the image of fire. Ideas on implicit meanings (Douglas), the theory of mind (Gervais and others) and promiscuous teleology (Banerjee, Bloom and others) are taken as the methodological basis for the analytical commentary. Each of the selected concepts and all of them together allow to look at the imagination of the Evenks, which generates ideas about the supernatural based on everyday thinking. The article shows how linguistic, logical and moral categories are extended to the animal and natural world through misattribution.

Did a Little Birdie Really Tell Odin? Applying Theory of Mind to Old Norse Religion

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 280-308
Author(s):  
Declan Taggart
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Theory ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Theory of mind, the theory that humans attribute mental states to others, has become increasingly influential in the Cognitive Science of Religion in recent years, due to several papers which posit that supernatural agents, like gods, demons, and the dead, are accredited greater than normal knowledge and awareness. Using Old Norse mythology and literary accounts of Old Norse religion, supported by archaeological evidence, I examine the extent to which this modern perspective on religious theory of mind is reflected in religious traditions from the Viking Age. I focus especially on the extent to which superperception and superknowledge were attributed to Old Norse supernatural agents and the impact of this on expressions of religion; how the attribution of theory of mind varied with circumstances and the agents to which it was being attributed; and the extent to which features of religious theory of mind common in other societies were present in the historical North. On this basis, I also evaluate the usefulness of Old Norse historiography to Cognitive Science of Religion and vice versa.

The 7E Model of the Human Mind: Articulating a Plastic Self for the Cognitive Science of Religion

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 450-476
Author(s):  
Flavio A. Geisshuesler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Religious Mind ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Concrete Model

AbstractThis article proposes a 7E model of the human mind, which was developed within the cognitive paradigm in religious studies and its primary expression, the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). This study draws on the philosophically most sophisticated currents in the cognitive sciences, which have come to define the human mind through a 4E model as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended. Introducing Catherine Malabou’s concept of “plasticity,” the study not only confirms the insight of the 4E model of the self as a decentered system, but it also recommends two further traits of the self that have been overlooked in the cognitive sciences, namely the negativity of plasticity and the tension between giving and receiving form. Finally, the article matures these philosophical insights to develop a concrete model of the religious mind, equipping it with three further Es, namely emotional, evolved, and exoconscious.

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