Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity by Neil Van Leeuwen
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- Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity
- Neil Van Leeuwen
- Page: 312
- Format: pdf, ePub, mobi, fb2
- ISBN: 9780674290334
- Publisher: Harvard University Press
Free download english audio books mp3 Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity by Neil Van Leeuwen
To understand the nature of religious belief, we must look at how our minds process the world of imagination and make-believe. We often assume that religious beliefs are no different in kind from ordinary factual beliefs—that believing in the existence of God or of supernatural entities that hear our prayers is akin to believing that May comes before June. Neil Van Leeuwen shows that, in fact, these two forms of belief are strikingly different. Our brains do not process religious beliefs like they do beliefs concerning mundane reality; instead, empirical findings show that religious beliefs function like the imaginings that guide make-believe play. Van Leeuwen argues that religious belief—which he terms religious “credence”—is best understood as a form of imagination that people use to define the identity of their group and express the values they hold sacred. When a person pretends, they navigate the world by consulting two maps: the first represents mundane reality, and the second superimposes the features of the imagined world atop the first. Drawing on psychological, linguistic, and anthropological evidence, Van Leeuwen posits that religious communities operate in much the same way, consulting a factual-belief map that represents ordinary objects and events and a religious-credence map that accords these objects and events imagined sacred and supernatural significance. It is hardly controversial to suggest that religion has a social function, but Religion as Make-Believe breaks new ground by theorizing the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Once we recognize that our minds process factual and religious beliefs in fundamentally different ways, we can gain deeper understanding of the complex individual and group psychology of religious faith.
Why Religions Seem to Involve Outlandish Beliefs
This exhibits what the philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen dubs the “puzzle of religious rationality” in his brilliant new book, Religion as Make-
Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination
Van Leeuwen argues that religious belief―which he terms religious “credence”―is best understood as a form of imagination that people use to define the identity
Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination
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Religion as Make-Believe — Neil Van Leeuwen
Van Leeuwen argues that religious belief—which he terms religious “credence”—is best understood as a form of imagination that people use to define the identity
David Hume: Imagination
The Natural History of Religion uses Hume's theory of the imagination to explain how human beings first came to have religious beliefs. b. Primary Sources
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