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ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The religion and media field has grown strongly as an academic subject in recent years, especially regarding studies of religion in contemporary mass media, TV, film, internet, social media etc., and in relation to popular culture. Scholars of religion have also begun to pay attention to the important role that media, mediation, and mediatization have played in the history of religions. It is this growing awareness that we wish to examine here. Our focus is not intended to signal the abandonment of interest in contemporary religion, media and popular culture; rather we wish to place this development in the deep and broad perspective of the study of religion. Media, mediation, and the more recent phenomenon of mediatization, are processes that are inseparable from the ways in which religion functions and is passed on from generation to generation. Thus, from a general study of religion perspective, we promote the argument that media and mediation processes are central aspects of how all religions function because all communication, including religious communication, can be seen as mediated. In this article, we reflect on and discuss the roles that media have played in the deep history of religions and continue to play in the present by bringing religion and media studies in conversation with cultural evolution and cognitive perspectives. DANSK RESUMÉ: Religion og medier er blomstret stærkt op som emnefelt i de seneste år, særligt med fokus på religion i samtidens massemedier, tv, film, internet, sociale medier m.m. og i relation til populærkultur. Samtidigt er religionsforskere blevet opmærksomme på at medier og mediering har spillet vigtige roller for religionshistorien og det er dén udvikling vi her vil gribe fat i. Dermed ønsker vi ikke på nogen måde at signalere en opgiven af interessen for religion, medier og populærkultur i samtiden, men snarere at vi ønsker at indsætte denne udvikling i et langt og bredt religionsvidenskabeligt perspektiv. Medier og mediering er uadskilleligt fra hvordan religion fungerer og videreføres fra generation til generation. Derfor anlægger vi det overordnede perspektiv her, at medier og mediering udgør centrale aspekter af hvordan alle religioner fungerer, da al kommunikation, inklusiv religiøs kommunikation, kan anskues som medieret. I denne artikel reflekterer vi over og diskuterer den rolle medier, mediering og medialisering har spillet i religionshistorien og i samtiden bl.a. med inddragelse af kulturevolutionære og kognitive perspektiver.

Introduktion til et temanummer om Evolutionary Theories of Religion.

Engelsk summary: “Why, Wherefrom (and When) Did Religion Appear?” This article presents my reflections on the evolution of religion from the perspective of the cognitive science of religion and the neurobiology of religion. Two important features of the brain were crucial to our evolution, i.e. the expansion of the emotional and subcortical areas on the one hand and the cortex on the other. The former was essential to the development of viable social systems and the latter to the development of stone tool technologies and material culture. Furthermore, the growth of the brain was apparently due to the growing complexity of human social structures that culture brought with it. A key feature of the brain is that it is incomplete in human infants and is first fully matured after two decades of social and cultural life: the unfinished animal that becomes completed through a particular culture. Looking closer at the neuropsychological evidence of our brains and behavior, I have identified four key human features, namely, a finely honed social cognition, a drive to communicate and cooperate, a self-deceptive brain and a superstitious brain prone to unusual mental and/or emotional experiences. These traits, I argue, are prerequisites for religious behavior. In looking through the archaeological records, there is good reason to look beyond our species into the deep hominin past. A likely candidate that seems to have evinced proto-religious behavior is Homo heidelbergensis (between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago).Dansk Resumé: I denne artikel præsenterer jeg med udgangspunkt i den kognitive og den neurobiologiske religionsvidenskab mine refleksioner over religionens evolution. To aspekter af hjernen er afgørende for vores evolution. Den ene er udvidelsen af de emotionelle og indre dele af hjernen og den anden er udvidelsen af hjernebarken. Førstnævnte var en nødvendig forudsætning for udviklingen af levedygtige social systemer og sidstnævnte for udviklingen af stenredskaber og anden materiel kultur. Hertil kommer at hjernens udvikling hang kausalt sammen med den voksende social kompleksitet og den kulturelle udvikling, som denne kompleksitet førte med sig. Hjernen har den særlige egenskab, at den ikke er fuldt udviklet ved fødslen og først er “moden” efter to årtiers sociale og kulturelle liv, hvor også hjerneskallen først er vokset endelig sammen (for kvinder 18 år for mænd 21 år). Således bliver det ufærdige dyr færdiggjort inden for en specifik kultur. Når man ser på de seneste landvindinger inden for neuropsykologien, er der fire kendetegn, som jeg mener, er konstituerende for mennesket. Disse er: en finudviklet social kognition, en kommunikations- og samarbejdsdrift, en bedragerisk hjerne samt en overtroisk hjerne med tendens til ualmindelige mentale og/eller emotionelle oplevelser. Disse egenskaber er en nødvendig forudsætning for religiøst adfærd. Når man ser på de arkæologiske vidnesbyrd i jagten på det religiøse menneske, skal man gå betydeligt længere tilbage end Homo sapiens, ja, man skal langt tilbage i homininlinjen. De første proto-religiøse træk synes at komme til syne med Homo heidelbergensis (mellem 600.000 og 400.000 år siden).

En kort artikel om hjerneskanningseksperimenter med bøn udført af forfatterne som begge har tilknytning til Religion, Cognition and Culture Research Unit (RCC) om MINDLab.

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how assumptions about speakers’ abilities changed the evoked BOLD response in secular and Christian participants who received intercessory prayer. We find that recipients’ assumptions about senders’ charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network. Most notably, the Christian participants deactivated the frontal network consisting of the medial and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally in response to speakers who they believed had healing abilities. An independent analysis across subjects revealed that this deactivation predicted the Christian participants’ subsequent ratings of the speakers’ charisma and experience of God’s presence during prayer. These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well.

This essay sketches out a biocultural theory of religion which is based on an expanded view of cognition that is anchored in brain and body (embrained and embodied), deeply dependent on culture (enculturated) and extended and distributed beyond the borders of individual brains. Such an approach uniquely accommodates contemporary cultural and neurobiological sciences. Since the challenge that the study of religion faces, in my opinion, is at the interstices of these sciences, I have tried to develop a theory of religion which acknowledges the fact. My hope is that the theory can be of use to scholars of religion and be submitted to further hypotheses and tests by cognitive scientists.

En genudgivelse af en artikel med samme titel (udgivet i Historia Religionum, 11 (2), 2010, s. 21-37). Baseret på et konferencebidrag i 2009 ved European Association for the Study of Religion i Messina, Italien. Artiklen giver et alternativt bud på hvad kognition er og hvordan hjerne, krop og kultur påvirker hinanden.

After discussing evidence of irreligion and the rise of the so called "New Atheism", the authors refute the claim that this poses a problem for the cognitive science of religion and its hypothesis that religion is natural. The "naturalness hypothesis" is not deterministic but probabilistic and thus leaves room for atheism. This, the authors maintain, is true of both the by-product and adaptationist stances within the cognitive science of religion. In this context the authors also discuss the memetic or "unnaturalness" hypothesis, i.e. that religion is a "virus of the mind". The authors criticize accounts of atheism offered by cognitive scientists of religion as being based on unfounded assumptions about the psychology of atheists, and object to the notion that the natural aspects of religion by corollary make atheism unnatural. By considering human cognition in a semiotic framework and emphasizing its natural ability to take part in semiotic systems of signs, atheism emerges as a natural, cognitive strategy. The authors argue that to reach a fuller account of religion, the cognitive (naturalness) and memetic (unnaturalness) hypotheses of religion must be merged. Finally, a preliminary analysis of the "New Atheism" is offered in terms of semiotic and cognitive dynamics.

I dette bidrag til en bog om kulturel evolution beskriver forfatterne religionens kulturel evolution. Kapitlet forsøger ved anvendelsen af en bred vifte af metoder og data at forklare kompleksiteten og variationen i religion inden for og på tværs of grupper gennem historien.