God and Inevitable Belief
Overview:
The Naturalness Of Religious Thinking - Why (Almost) Everyone Believes In God
Dr Justin Barrett introduces the cognitive scientific study of cultural beliefs and practices, particularly those we call “religious.” He argues that human minds, in interaction with each other, naturally gravitate toward beliefs in at least one god. If this is true, what does it mean for whether we should hold religious beliefs and how we should understand our world and experiences.
51 The Speaker:
Dr Barrett was previously a senior researcher and director of the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at the Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford. He is now President of Blueprint 1543 and Honorary Professor of Theology and the Sciences at the University of St Andrews School of Divinity. Dr Barrett is a pioneer in the cognitive science of belief; he argues that the human mind naturally gravitates toward belief in a god.
Event Program:
Lecture 1: How do worldviews motivate scientific inquiry?
Barrett presents five ways in which one’s worldview — religious or not — motivates and inflects how one does scientific inquiry, particularly in the human sciences. What assumptions about human nature and about culture have animated this area of research and scholarship? How might these change the way we understand the interaction of cultural settings and individual minds?
Lecture 2: Is the supernatural cognitively “natural”?
Cognitive science suggests belief in superhuman beings may be the conceptual path of least resistance for human societies. It is argued that religious beliefs and practices are a predictable extension of human nature in typical human environments by virtue of their conceptual tendencies, drawing particularly on research in child development.
Lecture 3: Implications of the “naturalness of religion”
If it is true that from childhood we have propensities toward religious thought and practices, what follows from this? Should we be more or less inclined to believe in God? Barrett considers possible theological grounds for making sense of these findings including the Christian notion of the “sense of the divine” and the Muslim idea of the Fitrah.
This event is free to attend but registration is essential. Please register by filling out the form below:
Event Registration