User:Niese05/Cognitive science of religion

Lead

 * The cognitive science of religion emphasizes on the idea that religion falls back on the same systems. These systems and theories include cognitive byproduct, minimally counterintuitive concepts, hyperactive agency detection device, pro-social adaptation, costly signaling, and dual inheritance. (10/23/22)

(10/16/22)
 * Edit in top paragraph with "Cognitive science of religion": Cognitive science focuses on what and how does the human mind function as well as how people think. It looks into cognitive processes such as perception, attention, memory, conceptualization, communication, reasoning, learning, decision-making, and imagination. All of this helps in aiding on dissecting religion with the use of cognitive science. Scholars in this field seek to explain how human minds acquire, generate, and transmit religious thoughts, practices, and schemas by means of ordinary cognitive capacities. (10/16/22)
 * Edit in top paragraph with "Cognitive science of religion":"Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary area of scholarship that considers what the human mind is and how it functions; how people think," as Justin Barrett puts it. (10/16/22)
 * Edit in top paragraph with "Cognitive science of religion": This blend in perspective between cognitive science and religion "proposes that religious concepts are especially likely to arise and spread because they stem from ordinary cognitive processes that humans use to make inferences about other people and the world".

Article body

 * Edit in History: possibly remove "Since 2000, cognitive science of religion has grown, similarly to other approaches that apply evolutionary thinking to sociological phenomena. Each year more researchers become involved in the field, with theoretical and empirical developments proceeding at a very rapid pace." as there is no citation and the paragraph could work without these sentences. (10/16/22)

(10/16/22) (10/16/22)
 * Edit in History: Cognitive science involves and analyzes imagining, recalling, watching, wondering, pondering, and deciding.
 * Edit in History: This cognitive revolution can be traced back to Alan Turing's "vision of computing machinery and its realization in the computer was made possible by new developments in various fields of science from the 1940's onwards." This advancement in the fields of psychology, linguistics, and information theory led to Norbert Wiener's "cybernetics".

(10/9/22) *Fixed citations for owlcation 10/16/22
 * Edit in Cognitive Byproduct: Religion itself is something that captivates our minds' memory and attention, and in turn, our cognitive mechanisms. Pascal Boyer and Charles Ramble tested this idea by performing an experiment in which they compared how memorable an intuitive object and counterintuitive object was. It was concluded that people, from all different types of cultural backgrounds, were able to remember the counterintuitive objects more than the intuitive objects. Boyer and Ramble translated this idea to God(s)/deities as these "mundane characteristics" are what makes the God/deities more memorable as "it allows inferences to be drawn about what the god is thinking, how it will behave, and how it will impact human life." (10/9/22)
 * Edit in Theoretical Basis: This cognitive science of religion focuses on religion and spirituality through a cognitive point of view and the theories that are used go beyond "strictly cognitive variables." Cognitive science of religion focused on "applying the theories and methods of cognitive psychology" and applying this to the scenario of religion. While it is cognitive science, it also crosses paths with developmental psychology. Developmental psychology is another key part to the cognitive science of religion as, most of us have realized, our functioning and cognition changes as we grow up. An example with the theory of mind (ability to accurately attribute mental states to agents, including both human and supernatural beings) develops around the age of four years old and improves as we age.
 * Created new section titled "Teleofunctional Reasoning":
 * Teleofunctional Reasoning (10/9/22)
 * During our development, we attain something known as the "theory of mind". This allows us to assign a purpose even when there might not be none. Deborah Kelemen discovered that "people have a tendency to find function, purpose, and design throughout their natural environment, even when there is none to be found." This idea is sometimes known as "teleofunctional reasoning" and is the why it is thought that religion is created by people to explain natural phenomena.
 * Edit in Dual Inheritance: Dual inheritance suggests that the belief in religion is an adaptive social advantage. An example of this is the fact that if religion contains useful information and helps it survive then this information will be communicated more effectively. (10/9/22)