Talk:Cognitive science of religion

Merger proposal
I think this article should be merged with evolutionary psychology of religion, since they cover basically the same topic. Muntuwandi (talk) 07:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree for several reasons. (1) The evolutionary psychology of religion page doesn't really exist and instead is redirected to the Origin of Religion page which is not the object of study within the field of the Cognitive Science of Religion. (2) The EVP/OoR page is poorly written. (3) Cognitive Science is not limited to an evolutionary psychology perspective. Joelmort (talk) 17:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur, CSR is a distinct field that deserves its own page. A link to the ev. psych. of religion page is appropriate but not a merger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quickdraw74 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Lawson
Should Lawson be called "the" founder of CSR? Guthrie had presented his "cognitive theory" ten years earlier (1980), and Boyer says that, while working on a first version of Boyer (1994), he was informed that Lawson and McCauley had written on the "very same thing." It is my impression CSR has roots in a number of thinkers. Milkdemcows (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I too found that puzzling, I see no reason to privilege Lawson as "the" founder.

The main contenders for foundational status would be Guthrie and Sperber. I would tend towards Guthrie, since his article from 1980 explicitly develops a cognitive theory of religion: "A Cognitive Theory of Religion." Current Anthropology 21 (2) 1980, which was submitted for peer review in 1979. In all fairness, however, Lawson, McCauley and Boyer definitively put the cognitive science of religion on the table. So I think the opening lines of the paragraph should read something along the lines of this comment. I will do just that within a few days unless I hear otherwise. AWElmwood (talk) 14:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'm also interested in expanding this article. Maybe this summer I can get to work. Milkdemcows (talk) 00:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Expansion
Given that noone had done much with the page for more than a year, I took the liberty of expanding it greatly, taking into account the points raised in this discussion. This was my first bit of wikipedia editing so, if I have somehow inadvertently broken etiquette, I apologise and would appreciate an explanation. K.Talmont (talk) 21:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Title
Is it just me or is the article's author's use of "cognitive science of religion" without the definite article troubling? I edited one section but then realised the whole article refers to "cognitive science of religion" rather than "the cognitive science of religion" Bpdlr (talk) 19:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth I find the 'the' in front of 'cognitive science of religion' a bit offputting - which is why I did not put it in there. I suspect this may just be one of those things where the mileage does vary. 77.254.168.227 (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't logged in when I wrote the above comment. K.Talmont (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal #2
It has been suggested that this article be merged with cognitive psychology of religion. In a way this is even a worse suggestion than the one from a few years ago that this be merged with evolutionary psychology of religion. There is no such thing as cognitive psychology of religion. It would make much more sense to take what useful content is on that page and merge with this entry, given that cognitive science of religion is a definite, existing research tradition with an international society and annual meetings. More importantly, I do think there are too many closely related wiki pages in this area and they do need to be culled back to those that focus on particular research traditions, such as cognitive science of religions, and very general ones that simply discuss a range of approaches to explanations of religion and direct to the more detailed entries. K.Talmont (talk) 14:22, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Link to Guthrie's work is dead
The link to Stewart E. Guthrie's "A cognitive theory of religion" goes to a placeholder site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.44.8.78 (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

What are they discussing?

 * This article does not clarify what the subject 'Cognitive science of religion' is discussing.
 * Further, we ask regarding 'ANIMAL rights' whether gathering data from unconsenting sentient subjects is ethical. How is 'Cognitive science of religion' organized or designed, and then consented? MaynardClark (talk) 18:00, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Honors World Religions
— Assignment last updated by Jad Mada (talk) 05:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)