Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist's Perspective (Cognitive Science of Religion) [Paperback]

Ilkka Pyysiainen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0759106630 | ISBN-13: 978-0759106635

Can scientists study religion? Ilkka Pyysiäinen says that they can. While the study of religion cannot be reduced to other disciplines, it must not ignore what other disciplines have learned about human thought and behavior. In this collection of essays, Pyysiäinen shows how findings from cognitive science can offer new directions to debates in religion. After providing a historical and theoretical overview of the cognitive science of religion, Pyysiäinen demonstrates how knowledge of the mind's workings can help deconstruct such concepts as "god," "ideology," "culture," "magic," "miracles," and "religion." For scholars of religion or for scholars of the mind-brain, Magic, Miracles, and Religion provides a helpful overview to this emerging field.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ilkka Pyysiäinen's scientific unweaving of magic, miracles, and religion illuminates these universal creations of the human imagination in ways that render them even more awesome to behold. (Atran, Scott )

Considering the inter-disciplinary nature of this text it is fair to say that it will prove useful to a variety of audiences. Scholars of phenomenology, folklore, the social sciences and humanities, as well as of Pyysiäinen's area of speciality (cognitive science), would all benefit from a consideration of this text. (Studies In Religion )

In Magic, Miracles, and Religion Pyysiäinen rejects as too subjective approaches to the study of religion directed to obtaining answers to personal religious questions or achieving an empathetic understanding of how it feels to be religious. He explains how an understanding of the cognitive origins of all human behavior can provide a much more sensible explanation of religion, and his analyses, arguments, and case studies provide persuasive accounts of religious thought, behavior, and experience. This is a genuinely new kind of introduction to the study of religion and it holds out promise for a renewal of the field of Religious Studies with an approach to it that has the capacity to integrate the natural sciences with the social sciences and humanities. (Donald Wiebe )

About the Author

Ilkka Pyysiäinen was educated in theology and comparative religion at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He earned his Ph.D. in 1993 with a thesis on Buddhist mysticism. Since that he has dedicated himself for the exploration of religious cognition. He has published numerous articles and among his books are How Religion Works (2001) and Current Approaches in the Cognitive Science of Religion (edited with Veikko Anttonen, 2002). He works currently at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0759106630
• ISBN-13: 978-0759106635
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,143,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Believers themselves are not conscious of the real nature of their religion", July 29, 2007

By 

Thomas Adam L. (WV, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist's Perspective (Cognitive Science of Religion) (Paperback)

Pyysiainen writes the above sentence on page 48 of this intellectually agile book and it could almost be seen as the underlying thesis for the whole field of cognitive science of religion. This book is in a way an overview of the scientific study of religion (however consciously incomplete) and a looker forward into the future studies of what Pyysiainen calls TEB (Thought, Experience, Belief) complexes.

Religion truly does have some real magic: its intricate interweaving of psychology, culture, biology, ethics, and emotions into a web of memes that ride parasitically on our evolved mental predispositions. The fact that it indeed is "True Fiction" (the title of chapter 8 and in my estimation, the core of this book's argument) is what makes religion such a delicious paradox to study.

Covered here are some core concepts in the cognitive science of religion such as agents, social causality, and counter-intuitiveness.

Listing the chapters may help clarify the truly wide scope of this book:
1. What is it Like to Be a believer?
2. A Cognitive-Scientific Perspective in the Study of Religion.
3. Breaking Boundaries.
4. Take the Buddha, for Example.
5. Religion: A Unique World, but in What Sense?
6. Explaining Miracles.
7. A New Theory of Magic.
8. True Fiction: The Philosophy and Psychology of Religious Belief.
9. Rituals: Why Indeed?
10. Singers of Tales.
11. Holy Book: The Invention of Writing and Religious Cognition.
12. Religion, Science, and Ideology.
13. `God' as Ultimate Reality in Religion and in Science.
14. Religious Experience across Cultures.
15. Do Cultures Exist?

The dauntingly complex and tangled web that modern religion has evolved into requires a scientist's method, a psychologist's training, and an anthropologist's eye to tackle and Pyysiainen seems to come equipped with all three. He brings the aforementioned qualities to bear here - a book that is a fascinating and rewarding read to the initiated layman and certainly a scholarly contribution to the field.