The Naturalness Of Belief

Author : Paul Copan,Charles Taliaferro
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781498579919

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The Naturalness of Belief by Paul Copan,Charles Taliaferro Pdf

Despite its name, “naturalism” as a world-view turns out to be rather unnatural in its strict and more consistent form of materialism and determinism. This is why a number of naturalists opt for a broadened version that includes objective moral values, intrinsic human dignity, consciousness, beauty, personal agency, and the like. But in doing so, broad naturalism begins to look more like theism. As many strict naturalists recognize, broad naturalism must borrow from the metaphysical resources of a theistic world-view, in which such features are very natural, common sensical, and quite “at home” in a theistic framework. The Naturalness of Belief begins with a naturalistic philosopher’s own perspective of naturalism and naturalness. The remaining chapters take a multifaceted approach in showing theism’s naturalness and greater explanatory power. They examine not only rational reasons for theism’s ability to account for consciousness, intentionality, beauty, human dignity, free will, rationality, and knowledge; they also look at common sensical, existential, psychological, and cultural reasons—in addition to the insights of the cognitive science of religion.

Author : Paul Copan,Charles Taliaferro
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Belief and doubt
ISBN : 1498579906

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The Naturalness of Belief by Paul Copan,Charles Taliaferro Pdf

This volume exposes naturalism's unnaturalness and defends theism's naturalness and greater explanatory power to account for wide-ranging phenomena in the world and human experience. A broadening of naturalism to accommodate these features means borrowing heavily from-and thus...

Author : Pascal Boyer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 679 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2023-12-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520911628

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The Naturalness of Religious Ideas by Pascal Boyer Pdf

Why do people have religious ideas? And why thosereligious ideas? The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important aspects of religious representations are constrained by universal properties of the human mind-brain. Experimental results from developmental psychology, he says, can explain why certain religious representations are more likely to be acquired, stored, and transmitted by human minds. Considering these universal constraints, Boyer proposes an exciting new answer to the question of why similar religious representations are found in so many different cultures. His work will be widely discussed by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and students of religion, history, and philosophy.

Author : Robert N. McCauley
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2013-11
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780199341542

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Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not by Robert N. McCauley Pdf

A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.

Author : Eric Dietrich
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2015-06-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231539357

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Excellent Beauty by Eric Dietrich Pdf

Flipping convention on its head, Eric Dietrich argues that science uncovers awe-inspiring, enduring mysteries, while religion, regarded as the source for such mysteries, is a biological phenomenon. Just like spoken language, Dietrich shows that religion is an evolutionary adaptation. Science is the source of perplexing yet beautiful mysteries, however natural the search for answers may be to human existence. Excellent Beauty undoes our misconception of scientific inquiry as an executioner of beauty, making the case that science has won the battle with religion so thoroughly it can now explain why religion persists. The book also draws deep lessons for human flourishing from the very existence of scientific mysteries. It is these latter wonderful, completely public truths that constitute some strangeness in the proportion, revealing a universe worthy of awe and wonder.

Author : Alan Levinovitz
Publisher : Beacon Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2020-04-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780807010884

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Natural by Alan Levinovitz Pdf

Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to act—naturally, just as nature intended. Appeals to the wisdom of nature are among the most powerful arguments in the history of human thought. Yet Nature (with a capital N) and natural goodness are not objective or scientific. In this groundbreaking book, scholar of religion Alan Levinovitz demonstrates that these beliefs are actually religious and highlights the many dangers of substituting simple myths for complicated realities. It may not seem like a problem when it comes to paying a premium for organic food. But what about condemnations of “unnatural” sexual activity? The guilt that attends not having a “natural” birth? Economic deregulation justified by the inherent goodness of “natural” markets? In Natural, readers embark on an epic journey, from Peruvian rainforests to the backcountry in Yellowstone Park, from a “natural” bodybuilding competition to a “natural” cancer-curing clinic. The result is an essential new perspective that shatters faith in Nature’s goodness and points to a better alternative. We can love nature without worshipping it, and we can work toward a better world with humility and dialogue rather than taboos and zealotry.

Author : Justin L. Barrett
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2012-03-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781439196571

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Born Believers by Justin L. Barrett Pdf

Infants have a lot to make sense of in the world: Why does the sun shine and night fall; why do some objects move in response to words, while others won’t budge; who is it that looks over them and cares for them? How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in a divine power of remarkably consistent traits––a god that is a powerful creator, knowing, immortal, and good—explains noted developmental psychologist and anthropologist Justin L. Barrett in this enlightening and provocative book. In short, we are all born believers. Belief begins in the brain. Under the sway of powerful internal and external influences, children understand their environments by imagining at least one creative and intelligent agent, a grand creator and controller that brings order and purpose to the world. Further, these beliefs in unseen super beings help organize children’s intuitions about morality and surprising life events, making life meaningful. Summarizing scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “natural religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source. For believers and nonbelievers alike, Barrett offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion, as he guides all parents in how to effectively encourage children in developing a healthy constellation of beliefs about the world around them.

Author : J. David Pleins
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2013-06-06
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781623562472

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The Evolving God by J. David Pleins Pdf

Offers a new appreciation of Darwin as a religion thinker and a better understanding of his positive contributions to the study of religion.

Author : Pascal Boyer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2023-12-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0520911628

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The Naturalness of Religious Ideas by Pascal Boyer Pdf

Why do people have religious ideas? And why thosereligious ideas? The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important aspects of religious representations are constrained by universal properties of the human mind-brain. Experimental results from developmental psychology, he says, can explain why certain religious representations are more likely to be acquired, stored, and transmitted by human minds. Considering these universal constraints, Boyer proposes an exciting new answer to the question of why similar religious representations are found in so many different cultures. His work will be widely discussed by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and students of religion, history, and philosophy.

Author : Frank C. Keil,Robert Andrew Wilson
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0262112493

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Explanation and Cognition by Frank C. Keil,Robert Andrew Wilson Pdf

These essays address basic questions about explanation: how do explanatory capacities develop, are there kinds of explanation do explanations correspond to domains of knowledge, why do we seek explanations, and how central are causes to explanation?

Author : Dirk Evers,Michael Fuller,Antje Jackelen,Taede Smedes
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2012-06-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567319128

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Is Religion Natural? by Dirk Evers,Michael Fuller,Antje Jackelen,Taede Smedes Pdf

How natural is religion? Is it a phenomenon written in our genes or brains, naturally developing with the development of the human race? The book considers the findings of evolutionary psychology from scientific, philosophical and theological perspectives and critically examines the relation between empirical, epistemological and theological notions. Chapters in the book deal with the naturalness of religion and religious experiences as based on genetics, biology and social psychology. Other authors examine the relationship between religion, science and theology with regard to the naturalness of religion from a more general perspective. The last part of the book includes views from a Muslim scholar and a historian.

Author : Helen De Cruz,Johan De Smedt
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2024-06-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262552455

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A Natural History of Natural Theology by Helen De Cruz,Johan De Smedt Pdf

An examination of the cognitive foundations of intuitions about the existence and attributes of God. Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality.

Author : John S. Wilkins
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 559 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781351927109

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Intelligent Design and Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by John S. Wilkins Pdf

Over the past decade a strident public debate has arisen about the nature and origin of religions. Controversies include how exactly religion evolved, whether by individual or group selection, if it is adaptive, and if not, whether and how it is a side effect of evolution. This volume focuses on the issue of naturalizing religion: on the ways in which cognitive science and social sciences have treated religion as a natural phenomenon. It questions whether religious behaviour, institutions, and experiences can be explained in natural terms. The editor brings together some of the best published work on the definition of 'religion', intelligent design and the evolution of religion.

Author : Francis Howe Johnson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 550 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1891
Category : Reality
ISBN : NYPL:33433068238595

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What is Reality? by Francis Howe Johnson Pdf

Author : Peter Byrne
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2013-05-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781135979775

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Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion by Peter Byrne Pdf

This study offers students of religion and philosophy introductory chapters concerning the concept of natural religion. It holds that we can’t engage in useful discussion about the present concept of religion without a knowledge of the philosophical history that has shaped that concept. This is discussed with reference to the notion of natural religion to illustrate certain aspects of deism and its legacy. Originally published in 1989.