Neurotheology

The paper ponders over the phenomenon of religion from the standpoint of the modern neuroscience progress. The author claims that the emergence and expansion of different religions, as well as religious activity, has happened due to external (social and cultural) and internal (neurobiological) reasons. The results of neuroscience research testify to the ontogenetic sources and foundations of religion flourishing in a certain socio-cultural atmosphere. When social item grows, religion gains greater capacity to carry further expansion out. Within the society, religion plays an effective role of socialization, being the gluing factor and regulator of social relations. From the standpoint of social psychology and cultural neuroscience, the emergence of religion is conceived as the result of the process of human adaptation to the environment in which both neurophysiologic and socio-cultural factors are intertwined. The main reason is that the chances to survive of an individual in an environment that harbors a host of dangers increase significantly if he or she is a member of a particular social group and, therefore, can count upon help of its members in difficult situations

Cognition · Cultural analysis · Cultural neuroscience · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Flourishing · Phenomenon · Social cognition · Social neuroscience · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Cultural Differences and Values · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Neuroscience · Psychology · Religious, Philosophical, and Educational Studies · Social Psychology

• The need to believe

  Michael Inzlicht, Alexa M Tullett et al.•Religion Brain & Behavior•2011

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