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Exploring the Cognitive & Psychological Foundations of Religion
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Exploring the Cognitive & Psychological Foundations of Religion

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2022) | Viewed by 19625

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Aria Nakissa

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 64089, USA
Interests: religion; law; anthropology; cognitive science; Islam; Middle East; Southeast Asia

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The past thirty years have witnessed an explosion of interest in Cognitive Science as an approach to the study of religion. Such an approach explores how evolved psychological mechanisms shape human thought, emotion, and behavior in religious contexts. Significant attention is also given to how psychological mechanisms interact with culture, technology, and economic institutions to produce different forms of religiosity in different societies and historical eras. Efforts are made to describe these interactions both qualitatively and quantitatively (e.g., how is religiosity affected by mode of subsistence, family size, literacy, urbanization, prevalence of cousin marriage, prevalence of warfare, prevalence of market transactions). Cognitive Science research is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on a diverse array of fields. These include biology, psychology, neuroscience, economics, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and history. Nevertheless, applying such an approach to religion remains controversial. Historically, scholarship on religion has been dominated by the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Figures within these disciplines are typically unfamiliar with Cognitive Science research, and often skeptical about its relevance to the study of religion. As a result, Cognitive Science research remains somewhat alien to mainstream scholarship in religious studies. The present special issue seeks to help address this problem. Thus, the issue will feature articles of all types which approach religion using insights from Cognitive Science and Psychology. Especially welcome are articles which integrate these insights with work in the humanities and humanistic social sciences (e.g., work which incorporates in-depth historical, textual, and ethnographic analysis). Through these articles, the special issue will demonstrate how Cognitive Science can complement and enrich all academic disciplines concerned with the study of religion.

Dr. Aria Nakissa
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cognitive science
  • religion
  • psychology
  • evolution
  • humanities
  • social sciences

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 546 KiB  
Article
Comparing Moralities in the Abrahamic and Indic Religions Using Cognitive Science: Kindness, Peace, and Love versus Justice, Violence, and Hate
by Aria Nakissa
Religions 2023, 14(2), 203; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020203 - 2 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 9513
Abstract
Recent cognitive science research indicates that humans possess numerous biologically rooted religious and moral intuitions. The present article draws on this research to compare forms of religious morality in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and the Indic traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism). Special [...] Read more.
Recent cognitive science research indicates that humans possess numerous biologically rooted religious and moral intuitions. The present article draws on this research to compare forms of religious morality in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and the Indic traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism). Special attention is given to moral teachings on kindness, peace, and love, as well as related teachings on justice, violence, and hate. The article considers how moral intuitions shape Abrahamic/Indic moral teachings, which, in turn, impact: (1) Abrahamic/Indic doctrines concerning politics, law, and war; (2) Abrahamic/Indic doctrines concerning individual ethics, and moral behavior proper to monastics and laypersons; and (3) Abrahamic/Indic doctrines concerning theological matters, such as the nature of the universe, souls, and deities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Cognitive & Psychological Foundations of Religion)
19 pages, 585 KiB  
Article
Ibn Taymiyya on Human Nature and Belief in God: Using the Cognitive Science of Religion to Study the Fiṭra
by Daniel Jou
Religions 2022, 13(10), 951; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100951 - 10 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4868
Abstract
Ibn Taymiyya proposes his unique epistemology by employing the concept of the fiṭra. When his statements describing the fiṭra are collected, we see that Ibn Taymiyya has presented a detailed view of human nature and how that nature relates to God and the [...] Read more.
Ibn Taymiyya proposes his unique epistemology by employing the concept of the fiṭra. When his statements describing the fiṭra are collected, we see that Ibn Taymiyya has presented a detailed view of human nature and how that nature relates to God and the universe as a whole. His fiṭra-centric theory of human nature can be usefully compared to other theories, not only within the Islamic tradition but also in theories of the self found in other religions or even contemporary scientific theories. As of yet, Ibn Taymiyya’s work has not been studied through the lens of Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). Ibn Taymiyya is an ideal candidate for applying CSR research to Islamic thought in order to reach broader insights about theories of human nature within the Islamic scholarly tradition. CSR findings are relevant to Ibn Taymiyya’s work specifically because Ibn Taymiyya claims that certain human emotions, intuitions, and behaviors are inborn and universal. By applying CSR, we can conclude that some aspects of Ibn Taymiyya’s theological perspective are grounded in deeper and more universal features of human cognition that are not specific to the particularities of his biases, his milieu, political pressures of his time, etc. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Cognitive & Psychological Foundations of Religion)
16 pages, 820 KiB  
Article
To Heaven through Hell: Are There Cognitive Foundations for Purgatory? Evidence from Islamic Cultures
by Riyad Salim Al-Issa, Steven Eric Krauss, Samsilah Roslan and Haslinda Abdullah
Religions 2021, 12(11), 1026; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111026 - 22 Nov 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4381
Abstract
The purgatory doctrine, which has played a vital role in Christian culture, states that most believers must experience afterlife punishment in order to be cleansed of their sins before entering Heaven. Traditional Islamic theology rejects the notion of purgatory (Al-Motahher) through [...] Read more.
The purgatory doctrine, which has played a vital role in Christian culture, states that most believers must experience afterlife punishment in order to be cleansed of their sins before entering Heaven. Traditional Islamic theology rejects the notion of purgatory (Al-Motahher) through the Balance doctrine (Mizan), which states that if the good deeds performed during a Muslim’s life outweigh their bad deeds, the person will enter heaven without suffering or punishment. This study hypothesizes that folk intuitions and cognitive biases (tendency to proportionality) explain, in part, the emergence and spread of the purgatory doctrine in the Islamic world. Drawing on a cognitive science of religion lens, the current study examines this hypothesis in an Islamic cultural context. Quantitative surveys (three studies) conducted in Jordan (n = 605, and n = 239) and Malaysia (n = 303) indicate that the doctrine of purgatory is prevalent (36% in Jordan and 69% in Malaysia) despite its contradiction with the Balance doctrine as defined by Islamic theology. To our knowledge, this is the first study documenting the phenomenon of theological incorrectness in Muslim afterlife beliefs by using empirical research. Implementation of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Cognitive & Psychological Foundations of Religion)
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