Religion as spandrel, the book June 27, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : supernaturalism , trackbackVia Mind Hacks, a link to a review at The Immanent Frame of a book written by Pascal Boyer which takes a cognitive science-based approach to religion, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.
The review seems mostly dismissive, but it’s description of the author’s explanation is one to which I am sympathetic:
“…we should understand religious ideas… and related practices… not as more-or-less functional (or dysfunctional) human responses to recurrent human conditions and experiences but, rather, as the effects of the automatic operation of a number of specific, highly specialized, innate and universal mental mechanisms.”
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