The Generation And Spread Of Religions In The Perspective Of Cognition

Cognitive Science of Religion is a subject that studies the idea and behavior of religion from perspective of cognition and evolution.Cognitive Science of Religion devotes its efforts to explore the cognitive reasons of the origin and development of religious thought,by widely using the knowledge of cognitive psychology,evolutionary psychology,cognitive anthropology,artificial intelligence,cognitive neuroscience,neurobiology,zoology,ethnology etc.Attempting to look back the important theories of this region,the thesis discusses the theoretical value and the important significance of Cognitive Science of Religion in aspect of interpreting religion,as well as the influence on the relationship between science and religion,and the legality of existence of religion,then points out the inadequacies of cognitive science of religion and proposes corresponding solutions.The thesis is divided into four chapters.The introduction states the significance of the topic,briefly reviews the progress and problems of related researches both at home and abroad,and lists the key and difficult points of the essay as well as the insufficiency of innovation.The first chapter discusses the production of cognitive science of religion,which shows that,under the pressure of traditional religious explanation,there is inherent inevitability in the production of cognitive science of religion because of the development of cognitive science,while the universal characteristics of human cognitive mechanism and religion show that cognitive science of religion has its feasibility,and outlines the two main theoretical branches of cognitive science of religion,the by-product theory and evolutionary adaptation theory.The second chapter explores the cognitive by-product theory of religion.The first part explores the origin of religious concepts,analyzing the two most important basic modules of the human cognitive system concerning the generation of religious concepts,namely the 'hypersensitive agency detection device' for detecting the existence of agent and the 'Theory of Mind Mechanism' for understanding other agent according to themselves.The second part explores the memory and spread of religious concepts,which starts from the intuitive ontology and uses the 'minimal counterintuitive concept' to explain the advantages on memory and communication of the religious concept.Then it analyzes the role of religious ceremonies in the memory and dissemination of religious cognition,and focuses on Whitehouse's "ideological model" and "dogmatic model" theory.The third chapter investigates another theoretical branch of cognitive science of religion-evolutionary adaptation.By analyzing three popular religious adaptation patterns,namely group selection theory,signal transmission theory,and supernatural punishment theory,it seeks the role which cognitive attribute of human-being plays in it.The fourth chapter discusses the significance of cognitive science of religion.The emergence of cognitive science of religion means the progress of using science to explain religious issues and prompts people to re-examine the contemporary trend of the relationship between religion and science.Meanwhile,it causes scientific evaluation and reflection of the existence and rationality of religion in current context.The significance of cognitive science of religion is that it breaks a new path to research science of religion,and broadens people's modes of understanding about religious belief in epistemology.Also,in the sense of existentialism,it deepens philosophical reflection on limit and transcendence of human-being,which has the important value in current context.The epilogue points out the limitations of the cognitive science of religion due to the constraints of the development level of cognitive science and the limitations of naturalism.It also proposes through actively introducing the results of cognitive science research and the combination of scientific understanding and cultural interpretation,cognitive science of religion can have more vitality.Finally,it forecasts the future development of cognitive science of religion.