Bücher der Reihe Cognitive Science of Religion

Presents a theory of magical actions based on an array of findings in the cognitive sciences. This book argues that focusing on the underlying cognitive processes not only explains why magical rituals look the way they do, it also supplies insights into the role of magic in the formation of institutionalised religion.

A demonstration of how religion and religious belief can emerge using computer simulations

Including evidence from cognitive science, this book shows that belief in God is an almost inevitable consequence.

What do evangelicals believe when they believe in the Bible? Despite hundreds of English versions that differ in their texts, evangelicals believe that there is a stable text - the Bible - which is the authoritative word of God.

A collection of essays which show how findings from cognitive science can offer directions to debates in religion. It demonstrates how knowledge of the mind's workings can help deconstruct such concepts as god, ideology, culture, magic, miracles, and religion. It is suitable for scholars of religion or for scholars of the mind-brain.

Religions_whatever else they may be_are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvious fact of religious transmission, Harvey Whitehouse goes on to construct a testable theory of how religions are created, passed on, and changed. At the center of his theory are two divergent 'modes of religiosity: ' the imagistic and the doctrinal

Historians bound by their singular stories and archaeologists bound by their material evidence do not typically seek out broad comparative theories of religion. But Harvey Whitehouse's 'modes of religiosity' theory has been attracting many scholars.

This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and religion.

Ethnographers of religion have created a vast record of religious behavior from small-scale non-literate societies to globally distributed religions in urban settings. This work features a range of ethnographers who grapple critically with Harvey Whitehouse's theory of two divergent modes of religiosity.

This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and religion.