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Beautiful Reflections: The Cognitive and Evolutionary Foundations of Paradise Representations
- Source :
- Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. 20:339-365
- Publication Year :
- 2008
- Publisher :
- Brill, 2008.
-
Abstract
- In addition to god beliefs, belief in life after death or in a nostalgic era when everything was perfect is a widespread phenomenon in world religions. In this paper, my aim is to explain how and why paradise beliefs have emerged and why they have survived over generations. Using recent theories and results from the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion as well as from studies of environmental preferences, I suggest that the answer lies in pan-human unconscious motivations, the architecture of mind, and the way human mind processes information.
- Subjects :
- Unconscious mind
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
Religious studies
050109 social psychology
Cognition
Evolutionary psychology
050105 experimental psychology
Epistemology
Phenomenon
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Paradise
Afterlife
Sociology
Cognitive science of religion
Cultural transmission in animals
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15700682
- Volume :
- 20
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........20242f855f07e4f0574247f0654d1e9e
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1163/157006808x371815