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Reformed Epistemology is an influential view in contemporary philosophy of religion, according to which theistic beliefs that are the product of our native, non-inferential cognitive faculties often constitute knowledge if God exists. My aim in this thesis is to ascertain whether Reformed Epistemology is viable in light of contemporary scientific explanations of the mechanisms of religious belief- formation, especially the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). I argue for a qualified “yes.” To begin with, I attempt to carefully reconstruct and scrutinise some currently popular “debunking arguments” from CSR’s findings, which aim to show that non-inferential religious beliefs are not knowledge, even if true, given the causal origins that CSR ascribes to them. I try to show that in various ways these arguments fail. Subsequently, I attempt to find a better such argument. The strongest debunking argument, I contend, is one that focuses upon the diverse and mutually inconsistent outputs of the religious belief-producing mechanisms described by CSR. However, I go on to argue that even supposing that this argument succeeds in showing that religious beliefs that are partly the product of contingent cultural influences are not knowledge even if true, there remains a body of what I term “core propositions”—propositions concerning the existence of some kind of personal, supernatural creator and moral lawgiver, in which humans are naturally disposed to believe regardless of their particular cultural setting— that can be known if God exists. Finally, I try to show that merely having this core supernaturalistic knowledge would provide someone with the cognitive contact with God that is sufficient for having a personal relationship with God (if God exists), even if only de re relationship. I argue, moreover, that God would have positively good reasons for creating a world in which human beliefs about life’s most important matters, including religious matters, are significantly dependent upon testimony and hence subject to the ebbs and flows of cultural tides.

Die Theorien, die in dieser Arbeit verglichen werden sollen, stammen von exponierten Vordenkern der CSR. Sowohl Thomas E. Lawson und Robert N. McCauley als auch Harvey Whitehouse stellen eine stark um das Thema Ritual kursierende Religionstheorie vor, deren Fundamente von kognitionswissenschaftlichen und evolutionären Prämissen geprägt sind.:1. Einleitung 04 2. Die Ritualtheorie von R. N. McCauley und E. Thomas Lawson 05 2.1 Ziele der Theorie 06 2.2 Die Theorie der Kompetenz religiöser Rituale 07 2.3 Das System zur Repräsentation von Handlungen 10 2.4 Religiöse Rituale vs. religiöse Aktivitäten 11 2.4.1 Akteure, Handlungen und Objekte 12 2.4.2 Die zwei Profile von Ritualen 13 2.5 Wiederholbarkeit, Reversibilität und Variabilität 15 2.6 Strukturelle Tiefe und Zentralität 16 2.7 Epidemiologie 17 2.8 Stimulation und Frequenz 18 3. Die Religions-Theorie von Harvey Whitehouse 19 3.1 Erinnerung und Motivation 21 3.2 Der doktrinale Religionsmodus 22 3.2.1 Semantisches Wissen, religiöse Führer und Orthodoxie 22 3.2.2 Repitition, implizites Gedächtnis und Rituale 23 3.2.3 Anonymität und Verbreitung 24 3.3 Der imagistische Religionsmodus 25 3.3.1 Erregung, episodisches Gedächtnis und Reflexion 25 3.3.2 Diversität und Führungslosigkeit 26 3.3.3 Kohäsion und Verbreitung 27 3.4 Identity Fusion und Group Identification 29 3.4.1 Psychologische Mechanismen bei Identity Fusion 30 3.4.2 Psychologische Mechanismen bei Group Identification 31 3.5 Empirische Einordnung und Ursprünge 31 4. Interner Vergleich der beiden Theorien 33 4.1 Lawson/McCauley: Kritik an der Ritual Frequency Hypothesis 34 4.1.1 Lawson/McCauley: Beobachtung vs. Teilnahme 35 4.1.2 Definition: Teilnahme 35 4.1.3 Lawson/McCauley: Keine Frequency Hypothesis ohne Ritual Form 36 4.2 Whitehouse: Form und Frequenz 37 4.2.1 Whitehouse: Ritual Form als Hybrid 37 4.2.2 Whitehouse: Erinnerung und Motivation 38 4.2.3 Whitehouse: Semantisches Wissen vs. kognitive Prozesse 39 3 5. Anwendung der beiden Theorien 40 5.1 Die Lawson/McCauley-Theorie am Beispiel jüdischer Rituale 41 5.1.1 Beschneidung 42 5.1.2 Konversion 43 5.1.3 Kommentar zu Tamás Biró 45 5.2 Die Lawson/McCauley-Theorie am Beispiel von Nonnen im Theravada Buddhismus 46 5.2.1 Buddha als CPS-Akteur 48 5.2.2 Die Ordinierung als special agent-Ritual 48 5.2.3 Kommentar zu Slone und Mort 50 5.3 Religiöse Modi am Beispiel der Nazareth Baptist Church 51 5.3.1 Der sakrale Tanz 51 5.3.2 Heilungsgeschichten 52 5.3.3 Die Kirchenspaltung 53 5.3.4 Kommentar zu Echtler 54 5.4 Frequenzen und Profile bei Ritualen der Qumran-Bewegung 55 5.4.1 Rituelle Reinigung 56 5.4.2 Sabbat 58 5.4.3 Mahl und Studium 59 5.4.4 Kommentar zu Jokiranta 60 6. Die Methoden der Cognitive Science of Religion 61 6.1 Die Lawson/McCauley-Theorie im experimentellen Versuch 63 6.1.1 Die Variablen 63 6.1.2 Die Durchführung 64 6.1.3 Vorhersagen 66 6.1.4 Diskussion 66 6.2 Die Theorie religiöser Modi am Beispiel von eHRAF-Daten 69 6.2.1 Das Erstellen einer Datenbank für die modes-Theorie 70 6.2.2 Die Methode 71 6.2.3 Diskussion 72 7. Religionswissenschaftliche Reflexion 73 7.1 Alternative kognitive Modelle 74 7.2 Kritikpunkt: tedium-Effekt 76 7.3 Mentale Repräsentationen 78 8. Schlussbetrachtung 80 Literatur Quellen

This thesis intends to revise and update devoted actor theory (DAT) by introducing a neglected dataset—female suicide bombers. DAT provides one such theoretical framework for understanding extremist group behavior and, to a lesser extent, suicidal bombing. DAT is largely satisfying: its claims and conclusions address relevant issues and provide compelling answers to critical questions. However, it is not without its analytical and empirical gaps. Crucially, DAT does not explicitly account for the narratives and characteristic motives of female suicide bombers—which often differ in logic, content, and tone from those of their male counterparts. In addition, DAT assumes that people who are fused with extreme groups are willing to self-sacrifice for their group, but the theory does not account for how this fusion process transpires. Therefore, I propose two amendments to DAT that not only address theoretical issues, which arise partially from the lack of female terrorist accounts, but also creates a narrative that bridges the gap that would explain how an individual progresses from bonding to a group to making the decision to die for it. Accordingly, I also propose to theorize a psychosocial process that links the way in which individuals, specifically females, become fused to a group and edge closer to the most extreme of extremist decisions: to annihilate their bodies and selves, while at the same time annihilating or wreaking havoc upon the lives of others whom they have deemed enemies of themselves or their group.

Psychological research suggests that children acquire cultural concepts through early developing cognitive mechanisms combined with specific cultural learning. An understudied area of cultural acquisition is children’s understanding of non-human minds, such as God. This thesis gives evidence that young children need not anthropomorphize non-human minds in order to understand them. Instead, children have a general “theory of mind” that is tailored through experience to accommodate the various important minds in their cultural environment. The intuitive default is toward super-attributes, making children naturally inclined or “prepared” to acquire god concepts. Four empirical studies were conducted with 75 British and 66 Israeli preschool-aged children. In Study 1, children participated in an ignorance-based theory-of-mind task and were asked to consider the mental states of human and supernatural agents. Children at all ages attributed correct knowledge to the supernatural agents and ignorance to the human agents. In Study 2, children participated in two perception-based theory-of-mind tasks and were asked to consider the perspective of two super-perceiving animals, God, and two human agents. Three-year-olds attributed knowledge to the animals and God and, by age four, children could distinguish among agents correctly. Also, by age four, children recognized that aging limits the perception of human agents but not God’s. In Study 3, children participated in a memory-based theory-of-mind task in which they were asked to consider the memory of God and differently aged agents Children at all ages responded that God would remember something that the children themselves had forgotten. By age five, children responded that a baby and granddad would have forgotten. These results propose that preschool-aged children regard individual constraints when considering mental states. Study 4 focused on children’s notions of immortality. Cultural differences were found. British children attributed immortality to God before correctly attributing mortality to human agents, and Israeli children attributed immortality to God and mortality to humans more consistently than did British children. Collectively, these studies indicate that children do not have to resort to anthropomorphism to reason about non-human agents but instead have the cognitive capacity to represent other types of minds because of early cognitive capacities. It appears that concepts vary in their degree of fit with early-developing human conceptual systems, and hence, vary in their likelihood of successful cultural transmission.

[pt] A tese aborda criticamente questões conceituais e metodológicas ligadas ao estudo das bases neurais da religiosidade. No intuito de melhor inserir a neuropsicologia da religião em um contexto de estudos interdisciplinares, investigamos, num primeiro momento, as características metodológicas desse tipo de pesquisa, tecendo análises críticas acerca das suas virtudes e limitações. Posteriormente, apresentamos uma hipótese de classificação e uma revisão crítica da produção mais recente no campo. Num terceiro momento, desenvolvemos uma hipótese sobre a importância da prática ritual na evolução de capacidades cognitivas distintivamente humanas. Finalmente, apresentamos o delineamento de um experimento piloto em neurocognição religiosa cuja hipótese de pesquisa articula alguns dos resultados previamente desenvolvidos. / [en] This dissertation critically addresses conceptual and methodological issues related to the study of the neural bases of religiosity. The aim is to promote the neuropsychology of religion in a context of interdisciplinary studies. For this, we first investigate the methodological aspects of this kind of research, presenting critical analyzes about its virtues and limitations. Subsequently, we propose a hypothesis of classification and develop a critical review of the most recent results in the field. In a third study, we develop a hypothesis about the importance of ritual practice in the evolution of distinctively human cognitive abilities. Finally, we design a pilot experiment in religious neurocognition whose research hypothesis articulates some of the previously results.

Up to this date there are several scientific disciplines that deal with religion´s underlying mechanisms and certain functions of our consciousness, but there isn´t anyone who takes into account the entire aspect of consciousness. The aim of the present work is to bring the entire aspect of our consciousness into the scientific discussion of religion. To help in doing this, the philosophical concept of qualia is used. First the concept is problematized, then an examination whether the concept has explanatory value in the science of religion and in the understanding of religious experience is done.  The concept of qualia has in this manner been applied to several scientific theories of religion and place-related entity continuity has been used as an example of religious experience. The present work is developed as a literature study and uses literature and theories from de scientific disciplines of philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience, neurotheology, cognitive science of religion and psychology of religion. As an underlying method the epistemological theory of holistic coherentism is used because it enables such an interdisciplinary study as this work is.   What this work shows is that qualia have a high explanatory value in the science of religion and in the understanding of religious experience and how we form religious concepts. However, the concept of qualia is problematic and great care must be exercised when inferences are made.

Why is it that we humans have a tendency to construct transcendental entities? That is one of the big questions the scientific discipline Cognitive Science of Religion is trying to answer. In order to gain validation for the concepts used by this discipline neural correlates are needed. The aim of the present work is to investigate the concepts Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device ((H)ADD) and Theory of Mind (ToM) both in psychological, cognitive and neural aspects to see if those concepts are enough to explain the human tendencies to construct transcendental entities. This work is developed as philosophical a literature study and uses literature from the scientific disciplines of cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science of religion, cognitive science, neurotheology, psychology of religion and philosophy of religion. This means that the present work is interdisciplinary and stands on a bridge between the theoretical and empirical sciences. A word of caution: Regardless the findings this work presents, the explanatory value is limited as it is a theoretical study in an empirical scientific field. It is when the findings in this work are tested empirically that the findings sustainability are decided.              What this work shows is that neural correlates for ToM already exist in the form of the Mirror Neuron-Theory (MNT), but it is problematic because it can not show how higher orders of representations are possible. No scientific data about neural correlates to (H)ADD has been found for this study, but here the amygdala may play a prominent role. Furthermore this work shows that (H)ADD and ToM is not enough to explain why humans have a tendency to construct transcendental entities. We are in need of peripheral cognitive mechanisms such as intuitive knowledge modules, ontological categories, teleological thinking, our drive to seek causal connections and our ability for pattern recognition.

Contenu1) (Introduction) Parren, N. (2017). Le naturel cognitif (possible) des croyances de sorcellerie: une exploration de la littérature existante. Journal de la cognition et de la culture, 17 (5), 396-418.2) Boyer, P., & Parren, N. (2015). L'information liée à la menace suggère la compétence: un facteur possible dans la propagation des rumeurs. PloS un, 10 (6), e0128421.3) Parren, N., & Boyer, P. (Soumis). Préférence pour les sources d'informations liées aux menaces. PloS un4) Parren, N., & Boyer, P. (Soumis). L'effet de vérité: fluidité ou consensus implicite? Conscience et Cognition5) Parren, N., van Leeuwen, F., Miton, H., & Boyer, P. (manuscrit non publié) Mésaventure, Agence, et Contre-Intuitivité Minimale6) Conclusion chapitre / 1) (Introduction) Parren, N. (2017). The (possible) Cognitive Naturalness of Witchcraft Beliefs: An Exploration of the Existing Literature. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 17(5), 396-418.2) Boyer, P., & Parren, N. (2015). Threat-related information suggests competence: a possible factor in the spread of rumors. PloS one, 10(6), e0128421.3) Parren, N., & Boyer, P. (Submitted). Preference for Sources of Threat-Related Information. PloS one4) Parren, N., & Boyer, P. (Submitted). The Truth Effect: Fluency or Implicit Consensus? Consciousness and Cognition5) Parren, N., van Leeuwen, F., Miton, H., & Boyer, P. (unpublished manuscript) Misfortune, Agency, and Minimal Counter-Intuitiveness6) Conclusion chapter

The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) in recent years is beginning to become more popular. This project evolves around the development of the field as well as critiques of the field. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of CSR, it lends an interesting way to understand religion as well as religious experiences. One of those religious experiences, conversion, is examined and explored through the use of conversion narratives from western women who were formally Christian but converted to Islam. Many themes arise out of this research that paves the way for trying to understand religious experiences. Overall, the project focuses on interpreting the conversion narratives to gain a better understanding of religious conversions for the sake of anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive psychology.