The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion [Hardcover]

Pascal Boyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 1994

Why do people have religious ideas? And why thosereligious ideas? The main theme of Pascal Boyer's work is that important aspects of religious representations are constrained by universal properties of the human mind-brain. Experimental results from developmental psychology, he says, can explain why certain religious representations are more likely to be acquired, stored, and transmitted by human minds. Considering these universal constraints, Boyer proposes an exciting new answer to the question of why similar religious representations are found in so many different cultures. His work will be widely discussed by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and students of religion, history, and philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A detailed, exhaustive analysis of the similarity of religious ideas as they appear in different and differing cultural environments."--"IJCS

From the Inside Flap

"An excellent book, written in a distinctly new, different style. . . . Boyer has substantive claims to make about epistemology."--Tanya Luhrmann, University of California, San Diego

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; First Edition edition (February 3, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520075595
• ISBN-13: 978-0520075597
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,644,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Opaque and turgid., October 1, 2011

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David Marshall (Seattle area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (Hardcover)

Using George Orwell's old rule, let me see if I can translate some of Boyer's argument here into single-syllable words:

"As man comes from apes, he learns to see men's souls well. If you know man, you live: if not, you may die. Since to see men helps us live, we learn to see a Man in the Sky as well. And so come gods."

I learned less in forty pages of this book than four pages of William James, but suffered more in four pages than in 400 pages of James. Why do some "social scientists" seem to think they will be paid by the density of their language rather than clarity and fedundity of thought? An excellent reference text for Scrabble words, though.

Of course Boyer dismisses without thought the suggestion that religion might have a basis in any sort of evidence:

"I chose to ignore . . the theolgoical ecumenical approach . . . (which) holds that the assumptions on which many religious systems converge are in fact divinely inspired truths . . . " because he would rather "focus on more directly testable hypothesis."

Do I detech a wink and a nudge here? Of course, if you ignore the possibility of revelation, religioius ideas will appear natural by definition. But on what grounds do we reject a theory merely because the evidence for it may be indirect?

Anyway, I don't think you lose anything much by reading Boyer's more popular Religion Explained instead. It's not only far more readable, it's also one heck of a lot cheaper. I think he's largely mistaken there, too, but at least he is trying in that book to communicate with the reader.