Abstract

APUD, Ismael  and  CZACHESZ, István. Beliefs, Rituals, and Memory. An introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion. Psicol. Conoc. Soc. [online]. 2019, vol.9, n.1, pp.182-204.  Epub June 01, 2019. ISSN 1688-7026.  https://doi.org/10.26864/pcs.v9.n1.3.

The Cognitive Science of Religion is an interdisciplinary research field born in the 1990s. It combines different disciplines and methods, united by the common interest of explaining the cognitive processes underlying religious beliefs and practices, and situating them in the natural evolutionary history of the human species. In the current article, the essential features of this interdisciplinary field will be described, including a presentation of two of its most important research foci: the epidemiology of religious beliefs, and the cognitive study of religious rituals. Both lines of research are concerned with how religious ideas and practices interact with memory and other cognitive processes, trying to explain the widespread occurrence of religious phenomena around the world.

Keywords : Cognitive Science of Religion; religious ideas; religious rituals; memory.

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