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Lessons for Religious Education From Cognitive Science of Religion

Posted on: Saturday, 11 June 2005, 03:00 CDT

Abstract

Recent work in the cognitive sciences provides new neurological/ biological and evolutionary bases for understanding the construction of knowledge (in the form of sets of ideas containing functionally useful inferences) and the capacity for imagination (as the ability to run inferences and generate ideas from information) in the human mind. In recent years, a growing number of scholars are making use of cognitive science to understand and explain religious beliefs and behaviors in terms of these evolved cognitive capacities and structures of mind. Based on a literature review of cognitive studies of religion, this article examines relevant themes from cognitive science studies of religion toward drawing pedagogical lessons for religious education.

INTRODUCTION

In 2001, Pascal Boyer, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, published a book titled Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. This book has received much critical acclaim and has become the most visible example of a rapidly growing new sub-field in the study of religion that relies on cognitive science methodologies.1 The purposes of this article include examining and reflecting on a few basic claims from the cognitive science of religion in order to draw pedagogical lessons for religious education. Cognitive science seeks to understand and describe how the human mind works, and why it works that way (this used to be called philosophy of mind). Primary disciplines or research paradigms currently constituting cognitive science include neuroscience, cognitive psychology, linguistics, ethology, and artificial intelligence (Peterson 2003, 28). The rapidly advancing field of evolutionary psychology (a subset of the larger field of cognitive psychology) tends to be particularly relevant for the cognitive science of religion.2 Use of cognitive science for the study of religion attempts to understand and explain religious beliefs and behaviors in terms of evolved cognitive capacities that are understood to be structurally similar in nearly all humans (Pyysiainen and Anttonen 2002, 1).3

There are three primary claims of cognitive science of religion relevant to this article. These are understood as causally related. Working backward (or downward) from consciousness toward that which underlies consciousness, these claims may be summarized as follows:

1. Beliefs should be understood as attempts to rationalize intuitive sensibilities (in other words, beliefs derive most naturally from reflection on intuitions);

2. Intuitive sensibilities are governed bij unconscious mental processes (so, intuitions are outcomes of mental process, but those processes are largely unconscious, automatic, and instinctual in accordance with certain structures of mind); and

3. These unconscious mental processes and structures of mind are the result of long periods of evolutionary experience (so, the structures of mind that shape unconscious mental processes that govern intuitive sensibilities on which beliefs are based, are themselves shaped by human experience in the world over many millennia).

It should be noted that 'unconscious mental processes" in cognitive science refers to hard-wired neuro-biological processes that do not require conscious thought, as distinct from the more environmentally and psychologically determined machinations of the "unconscious" in psychodynamic psychology. It must also be noted that the claim that religious beliefs derive from basic human intuitions and that these intuitions derive from basic evolved structures of mind does not imply necessary determinism of beliefs by evolutionarily determined intuitions. Rather, it is merely being claimed that beliefs arise from reflections on intuition, which the belief may judge as accurate, or misleading, or irrelevant, or whatever. Further, intuitions are not to be viewed as fixed outcomes of structures of mind but may be honed, ignored, reformed, and so on.

It is, however, being argued that from the perspective of cognitive science, religious beliefs may be explained scientifically in terms of evolutionary experience. Further, religious beliefs may be understood as derived from intuitions acquired over 1000s of generations of evolutionary experience. And, most significantly for religious education, religious beliefs may be understood as acquired through and significantly shaped by (a) religious actions, (b) unconscious mental processes, and (c) non-personal and, therefore, largely inaccessible experience. To state this in the negative, beliefs do not readily result from conscious mental processes, and actions or behaviors do not derive from and are not readily governed by beliefs.

These are not brand new claims. Religious and moral educators, and philosophers and theologians have long debated the origins of beliefs and the relationships among beliefs and actions, theories and practices. And, increasingly, practical theologians and pragmatist philosophers do, in fact, assert that practices shape beliefs more so than vice versa. New developments in neuroscience and in evolutionary biology are providing new insights on some of these claims.

These "insights" of cognitive science need not be viewed as incontrovertible truths in order to be useful. Clearly, these theories carry at least as much bias or perspectival cultural contextuality as any other.4 Nonetheless, the emerging perspectives from the cognitive science of religion are intriguing and potentially useful for thinking pedagogic-ally about the roots of and relationships among religious intuitions, beliefs, behaviors, and practices. In short, there are important implications here for how we think about and approach religious education-or, in the terminology of cognitive science, the transmission and acquisition of religious beliefs and behaviors.

CENTRAL THEMES IN THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

Beliefs Are Rationalizations of Intuitions

A culminating assertion in Boyer's Religion Explained is that "what we usually call a 'belief is very often an attempt to justify or explain the intuitions we have as a result of implicit processes in the mental basement" (2001,305). According to cognitive science, and as has long been known by psychology, the vast majority of mental processes are implicit. That is, they occur unconsciously and govern actions intuitively, rather than occurring consciously and governing actions rationally. It should be noted that, although the cognitive science of religion focuses primarily on intuitions rather than instincts, the two are related closely and complexly in a way that is significant for understanding the derivation of belief. In a cognitive science understanding, instincts are behavioral outcomes of intuitions. Intuitions are cognitive, but operate unconsciously. Thus, intuitions as such are unavailable to consciousness examination, but may be surmised by means of reflection on instinctual actions (e.g., If I am cowering and covering my head at the sound of a loud noise it must be that I intuitively assume that loud noises may be caused by large objects and large objects may be dangerous to my head). The head covering action is instinctual. The association of loud noises with large objects and possible danger is intuitive. After the fact (assuming my head is not damaged), I may on reflection assert a belief that loud noises can be caused by dangerous events, such as explosions or large crashing objects. I might also report that the action was merely reflexive, and that I do not believe it necessary to cover one's head when a door slams. Beliefs are derived from intuitions, but they take shape in reflection on instinctual action.

Intuitive Sensibilities Are Governed by Unconscious Mental Processes

Explicit or consciously reflective mental processes are but the tip of the mental iceberg. There is always much more going on "downstairs" in the "mental basement" than is visible "upstairs" in the mental "living room." Further, what is going on upstairs in consciousness is actually a response to physical actions or reactions, caused by what has already gone on downstairs.

Here is an example that, initially, has nothing to do with religion, but may begin to clarify the basic argument. I spent most of my teenage years in northern Pennsylvania. It is a mountainous and heavily wooded area: a habitat well suited for black bears. There was often talk of bear sightings or of a bear having rummaged through someone's trash or having attacked someone's dog. I enjoyed hiking as a teen. Imagine this scene: I am hiking on the mountain across from our house and suddenly believe I see a bear at about 100 meters distance. I freeze in my tracks, my adrenaline spikes, my heart is racing and my pulse is pounding in my ears. And ... it is not a bear but an oddly shaped broken tree. I tell myself "don't be silly" and move on.

A cognitive science assessment of this scenario reveals that a lot was going on, instantaneously in my mental basement. I saw something in my visual field that did not seem to fit with the rest of the vegetation, so I considered my other mental templates for organizing or categorizing the things in the world around me. Besides plant or vegetation, other prominent mental templates according t\o cognitive science are person, animal, food, and tool. I may or may not have run the person template first, but what I saw would not match well with the person template. I ran the animal template and the object seemed to fit the shape of a fairly large animal. Within the animal template, I had the category "bear" stored in mind. Perhaps, like a computer, my mind ran through a hundred other options first (rabbit, wolf, dog, deer, cow, horse, antelope, etc.) before finding the match with "bear." The "bear" category carried inferences of danger-can move quickly, is strong, has claws and teeth. My body prepared for flight or fight exigencies. I thought briefly that it was a bear. On closer examination, it did not move at all, it did not have smooth but rather jagged features in places. It had bark instead of fur. My body relaxed. I now believed it was a tree. The category "tree" carries a very different set of inferences-primarily because trees do not have agency-they cannot willfully change location, cannot have and pursue intentions, and so on.

Unconscious Mental Processes and Structures of Mind Are the Result of Evolutionary Experience

The bear scenario is a good example of what cognitive science terms the "hyperactive agency detections program" (McCauley and Lawson 2002, 21ff). Cognitive programs are structures of mind that are the result of evolutionary responses to adaptive environmental problems (Cosmides and Tooby 1997, 1-2). This hyperactive agency detection program causes us to instinctively over-detect for agency. The evolutionary cause is fairly obvious. Mistaking a tree for a bear costs a bit of adrenaline, until the tree is verified as a tree. Mistaking a bear for a tree may cost ones life (ending ones capacity to pass on one's under-active agency detection genes). The point is that instinctual responses may be explained in reference to evolutionary experience, and that beliefs about the world around us may be understood as conscious explanations of instinctual responses. This order of events is important: first comes the physiological reaction (adrenaline rush, freezing in my tracks); then comes the reflexive thought in reference to the cause of the reaction (in this case, "bear"), which becomes a hypothesis ("there is a bear over there"), and then gets tested and verified, rejected, or revised into a belief.5 It is also important to note that in this scenario instincts are basically good, whereas beliefs may be good or bad-that is to say, beliefs may function well or poorly in guiding subsequent behavior and may hold up well or poorly to experiential testing. But the instinct cannot really be disparaged either way. In questionable cases, it is actually good to react to a tree as if it were a bear, even if it is really not a bear. So, in this case, the instinct and the instinctual reaction and the reflexive thought of "bear" are all justified, even though the belief in the bear is not.

The basic premise of the cognitive science of religion is that the religious reactions from which beliefs are generated are the result of cognitive capacities or cognitive programs that actually evolved for more mundane purposes. The hyperactive agency detection system is one example. Belief in gods and spirits may be explained as an outcome of hyperactive agency detection. Humans tend to instinctively assume agency behind events. When a child dies in a freak accident, we want to know why God would let this happen, or what evil spirit caused this to happen, or what the parents did to warrant such an outcome, and so on. All such questions are connected, presumably, to specific and well-developed belief systems. But the claim of the cognitive science of religion is that the assumption of agency of some sort is intuitive. The beliefs we then formulate are culturally influenced ways of making sense of our intuitive reaction. The intuition is natural. Beliefs based on the same basic intuition may vary widely and may or may not be warranted. Some caution about this claim is warranted.

Most of the cognitive science of religion theorists seem to conclude, or at least imply, that all beliefs in gods or spirits are unwarranted. Such beliefs are not considered silly, because they are understandably derived from common human intuitions. But they are also not accurate, or at least not warranted, because, in the perspective of most cognitive theorists, the belief does hold up in the face of testing.6 For example, the belief in evil spirits as the cause of misfortune is understandable in light of our human propensity to over-detect for agency. But a modern Western scientific thinker can readily observe no evidence of evil spirits, and can readily see the likelihood of other explanations.

But, of course, millions of people (in fact, a vast majority of people) do go on believing in various kinds of supernatural agents. This is, necessarily, the case precisely because the beliefs do hold up for those believers. For example, the believer in evil spirits readily observes the same belief in significant others, and may readily discern behaviors in him or herself or others that brought on the wrath of the evil spirit(s), that caused the misfortune. The eognitive pattern of coining to and sustaining a belief is the same for the believer or non-believer-it is just that the belief holds up for the believer and not for the nonbeliever. According to cognitive science, basic human intuitions are widely shared. For example, believers and non-believers will intuitively assume agency in all manner of events. Whether or not one actually believes in such agency and how one attributes this agency may be due to differences in cultural determinates in belief formation, or differences in the kinds of testing used to (in)validate the belief, or differing interpretations of the test results. In any case, beliefs only survive if they hold up to testing. Such testing may be empirical, logical, and/or social.

Decoupled Thinking Enables Imagination

This points to another basic premise in the cognitive science of religion: persons are able to hold and sustain beliefs and belief systems that include supernatural agents and other non-empirical phenomena because of our cognitive ability to run programs and inference systems in "de-coupled" mode; that is-we can think just fine and process information about things not in our present environment. For example, if we are told that Larry wishes for his boss John to not find out that he is having an affair with John's wife, we can infer a whole host of things about the relationships among these people. We can begin to infer about their personalities and may come to like or dislike them and have ideas about what they should or should not do and how they might react to something we might say or do-and all of this without any of them being actually present to us. In fact, it does not matter if they exist or are purely fictional characters. Our ability to take account of them and run any of our various mental programs and draw inferences from what we have heard about them is not dependent on their being present to us. In this sense, we are not bound by time and space.

We have a capacity for imagination that enables us to know and think far beyond immediate experience. This capacity of imagination is essential to human intelligence, as we know it. Unlike other animals, we humans gain information and knowledge from books and stories and all sorts of representational and metaphorical and analogical forms of communication. Our mental processes work very well in reference to persons and objects physically present to us and in reference to persons and objects never physically present to us. There is great evolutionary advantage in this capacity, because it allows us to strategize about events before they occur and about events unfolding at a distance from us, and in general it allows us to be intelligent about events beyond our physical location and outside the immediacy of the present. From a cognitive science perspective, this helps explain the widespread human phenomenon of religion. We have human "intelligence" about the "metaphysical" because of our evolved capacity for intelligence beyond the physical in everyday experience.

Beliefs Are Useful and Memorable

Specific beliefs will only become widespread and long-lived if they meet two basic criteria: they generate a rich supply of useful inferences, and they are memorable. Religious beliefs that are wide spread among many cultures give evidence of some common, widespread structures of mind that lead to such beliefs. Belief in disembodied spirits is considered one such widespread, common religious belief. The explanations of hyperactive agency detection and the capacity for thinking decoupled from physical experience make sense of this belief. However, this really only "explains" the general intuition of disembodied spirits.

Beliefs derived from intuitions will only spread and endure if they generate useful inferences, are memorable and repeatable, and resonate well with the intuitions underlying them. An infinite variety of beliefs are possible, and we may assume that multitudes of beliefs of all sorts do, in fact, pass through human minds. But they will not stick unless they matter-which is to say they generate implications with wide and/or vital applicability. As Boyer puts it, the notion of a god who exists only on Wednesdays and has no power to influence or control human lives is mildly interesting, but does not really infer anything important. Whereas, the notion of a god who is always present everywhere and knows everything and punishes evil and rewards righteousness infers a lot. If we behave in certain ways, we are likely to be punished or rewarded. If others are suffering or thriving, we may infer that some correlate behavior must have preceded, and so on. Humans pay attention to information that matters. Religious beliefs tha\t become widely accepted will be beliefs that matter. Because of our capacity for decoupled thinking, this does not mean the beliefs are true or not true, whether based entirely in actual experience or entirely in fiction or some combination thereof. All it means is that the belief triggers a supply of useful inferences-it is engaging and rewarding to think with this belief, and thinking with this belief "works" adequately well to enhance one's ability to live well.7

Prominent religious beliefs are also memorable. This point has an intriguing nuance. If a belief is completely intuitive-which is to say that it occurs to one's mind quite automatically, it is not likely to be memorable, even if it is important. This is because there is no need to store it in memory, because it is already stored in our unconscious intuitions. We do not need to remember to flinch when a bird flies toward us. We do need to remember to not swerve off the road when a cat runs out in front of our car. That which is counterintuitive requires remembering.

One more observation from the cognitive science of religion is relevant: religious beliefs tend to be counterintuitive. Or, actually, they are a combination of the intuitive and counterintuitive. Religious beliefs are counterintuitive elaborations on one or more spiritual intuitions. For example, a basic awareness or sense of the supernatural may be intuitive. Studies show, for example, that children of atheists (at least in the West) express a sense of God as readily as children of various religious believers (cf. Rizzuto 1981).8 As already noted, human beings have a natural intuitive sense of agency in the world at large. But all specific beliefs about God become counterintuitive. God is a being without a body, or a being who is all knowing, or a single being with three persons, or a being independent of existence, or whatever (even while we intuitively know that all beings have bodies and limited knowledge, and three cannot be one, etc.). Specific beliefs about God always have counterintuitive elements. Counterintuitive does not mean that something is non- sensical or not true, it simply means that it is not intuitive-it does not occur to mind automatically. Caterpillars becoming butterflies is counterintuitive. This is what makes butterflies fascinating and wondrous. Being counterintuitive is part of what makes religious beliefs both intriguing and important. If there were not counterintuitive elements, we would probably not bother remembering, or perhaps even be able to remember, the concept. Being counter-intuitive and containing lots of useful and significant inferences makes beliefs worth remembering.

Doctrinal and Imagistic Modes of Remembering and Transmitting Religious Ideas

How will we remember? This moves us more directly toward concerns for religious education. Two basic strategies in human communities for remembering and carrying on religious beliefs are doctrines or formal teachings, and rituals or routinized practices. Recent work by Harvey Whitehouse (2000, 2002, 2004) helps illumine the psychological and educational payoffs, as well as the pedagogical challenges of what he terms the two "modes of religiosity": the doctrinal and the imagistic. These "modes of religiosity" refer to basic forms of religious expression and revolve around patterns of transmission of religion. The doctrinal mode entails highly routinized ritual action, oft-repeated linguistic communications, and otherwise carefully regulated formal teachings. The imagistic modes involve low frequency but highly arousing ritual action that prompts creative and spontaneous interpretive reflection. The power of the imagistic mode is that vivid sensory stimulation may be associated with the experience, which aids with memory and provides rich materials to the mind for making relevant inferences. The problem is that meaning in the imagistic mode tends to be imprecise and/or readily variable. Thus, meaning is unstable in imagistic transmissions and expressions of religiosity. The power of doctrinal modes of religious transmissions and expressions is that meaning may be coherently preserved and reiterated across long stretches of time and space. The problem is that doctrinal religiosity can become boring or mundane. In Christianity, traditional catechisms are classic expressions of the doctrinal mode. The evangelical revival meeting is an expression of the imagistic mode.

The dilemma, as many working in the cognitive science of religion like to point out, is that repetition of non-imagistic doctrinal modes of religiosity tends to have a "tedium-based decay function"- that is, they become uninteresting and unimportant (Boyer 2001,284; Whitehouse 2004, 97-99), whereas repetition of non-doctrinal imagistic modes leads to richly innovative ideas that will soon bear little resemblance to the ideas initially meant to be carried in the ritual, as understood by the official interpreters of religious meaning. So, the successful transmission and preservation of religious ideas needs to include a balanced combination of the doctrinal and the imagistic. But before turning more fully to implications for religious education, there is one more piece of the cognitive science story to highlight.

Minds Work with Information to Construct Useful Knowledge via Inference Systems and Imagination

Human minds work with information continuously to make inferences and conclusions and projections of possibilities. As Boyer puts it, "people's minds are constantly busy reconstructing, distorting, changing and developing the information communicated by others" (2001, 33). This is the source of the innovation and distortion that tends toward continual evolution of imagistic meaning, as well as the source of the "tedium-based decay function" of doctrinal teaching. Our minds are not storage banks of information (cf., Paulo Friere's [1970] famous teaching against the "banking model" of education). Rather, what minds do is think. Human thinking functions in accordance with evolved structures of mind, but is not bound to any certain set of thinking outcomes. A virtually infinite number of inferences and conclusions are possible with any given set of information. Again, our thinking is not bound by time and space.

Central to our structures of mind are systems for running inferences and generating assumptions and ideas, even from relatively small pieces of information. We may think of these inference systems as our capacity for imagination. This "capacity of imagination," or "inference running and ideas generation" is at play at all times in human thinking. Ideas that are apparently passed on more or less intact from person to person across generations are actually not "passed on." Rather, ideas that hold sway among many persons and endure through generations are those that are widely and repeatedly reconstructed in a similar way to produce a similar idea. This reconstruction happens largely according to structures of mind understood as unconscious processes produced by natural selection in response to evolutionary experience. But, secondarily, the reconstruction also happens in reference to conscious memory understood as a collection of images and ideas from individual experience and in reference to cultural patterns of meaning making. In any case, the reconstruction of ideas is the constant work of human minds. Whether an idea is completely "distorted" or "received in tact," the idea now in the "receiver's" mind is always the outcome of the reconstructive work of that mind-"good transmission requires just as much work as does distortion" says Boyer (2001, 40). In this sense, imagination is actively involved in the faithful reconstruction of ideas, as much as in wildly innovative reconstructions. In this view, imagination is truth neutral. Minds run inferences and make images and ideas out of information. This is simply what minds do. Sometimes we make ideas remarkably similar to the ideas of others. Sometimes we make ideas that are very dissimilar from those of other minds under similar circumstances. The religious imagination will be at work in religious teaching and learning no matter what we do.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION-SOME PEDAGOGICAL LESSONS

I conclude by enumerating and reflecting on some provocative pedagogical implications I draw from the cognitive science of religion.

Teachers cannot govern the outcome of students' thinking, and actual, functional beliefs cannot actually be instilled in others. Human minds think and construct beliefs. Beliefs are constructed according to evolved structures of mind, using information received from the senses, from reflection on experience, from cultural patterns and assumptions, as well as from structured learning. Teachers can influence the outcome of students' thinking and belief construction by providing certain kinds of information with which students' minds may do their work (doctrines, images, stories, rituals, practices should all be considered "information" here) and by providing practice in and models of thinking with and constructing beliefs from given information. Doctrinal strategies may be engaged in attempt to "police" belief construction. But, ultimately and inevitably, functional beliefs are largely based on intuition and beliefs, in general, are constructed by, rather than received by, human minds. This implies a need for serious respect for learners of all ages constructors of religious understanding. This also raises questions about the meanings and functions of theological orthodoxy.

Functional religious beliefs are not readily derived from conscious cognitive processes. A common pitfall of theology (and all theorizing) is that of trying to instill certain beliefs in others via reason.9 Reason, and experience, as well as authoritative cultural factors, may serve to test out the viability of beliefs. But religious bel\iefs derive (via imaginative processes of idea construction) from religious intuitions, not from reason.

In a recent book entitled Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Should Not, D. Jason Slone (2004) shows that religious believers habitually, routinely, and persistently hold "functional beliefs" that contradict official theological propositions to which they consciously assent. This is because functional beliefs are actually derived from intuitively determined behaviors, not from theological reasoning. For example, persons who say they believe that God is all-powerful and not limited by ordinary laws of physics, will nonetheless report that in the hypothetical situation of being stranded on a deserted island with a broken life raft, they are more likely to pray that God would cause persons on a distant passing boat to see them and rescue them, than they are to pray that God repair the life raft. This is because it is intuitively more likely that a being not physically present (God) could influence or redirect other persons' attention, than influence or redirect physical matter. What seems to be going on here is that theological propositions acquired through conscious reasoning have been adopted as "beliefs," but are held dysfunctionally separate from behavior (what one would actually do is governed by the intuitive belief rather than by the prepositional belief). Theological reasoning is a second order reflection on belief. Functional beliefs derive from and must remain connected to intuitions. Thus, theological propositions will only be functional if the believer holding them has done the reasoning that creates the theological formulation from and connects the theological formulation to the intuitive belief, and has practiced using the theologically derived belief to guide behavior.

This suggests that a vital aspect of religious education ought to include practice in: (1) noticing one's instinctive reactions, (2) identifying the intuitions under those reactions, (3) examining professed theological convictions in relation to identified intuitions, (4) constructing and articulating conscious beliefs, and (5) using conscious beliefs to guide behavior. For example, a child may experience the urge to hit another child who has hit him or her first. This should be acknowledged as a natural response of self- preservation (based on the intuition that failure to defend oneself may lead to annihilation of the self). However, in Christian tradition, Jesus teaches that one should "turn the other cheek" (Matt 5:39; Luke 6:29). This may be seen as based in an ethic of love and rationalized as a way to stop an escalation of violence that could result in escalating harm to oneself and others. Thus, affirming a belief that Christians are called to resist retaliatory violence, one may develop a commitment to "turning the other cheek" and may review, rehearse, or enact strategies for action appropriate to this belief in scenarios where instinctual retaliation is likely to arise. A teacher may serve to guide learners through this process of reflection (on action or instinct), examination (of intuition or impulse), consideration (of relevant professed beliefs in the tradition and/or in oneself), construction (of conscious belief), and rehearsal (of appropriate actions). This is of course appropriate to persons at any age-the earlier scenario of a child facing playground conflicts, for example, is equally relevant to adult discussions of how a society should deal with terrorism.

Although this process of reflecting on instinctual actions toward shaping conscious beliefs and intentional, reflective action may seem relatively straight forward, acting in accordance with beliefs is surprisingly difficult and usually requires significant disciplined practice. Cognitive science helps explain this difficulty.

Behavior is not naturally based on belief. The bulk of human behavior is instinctive-which is to say that behavior is naturally based on intuitions. Whatever behavior is not instinctual must be learned and practiced-that is, it is disciplined (versus instinctual) behavior. Beliefs may function to rationalize disciplined behavior (making it sensible and explainable), in the same way that beliefs naturally function to rationalize instinctual behavior. In other words, belief derives from behavior (whether intuitive or disciplined), rather than vice versa. Beliefs can influence behavior via discipline and intentionality, but beliefs will only influence behavior via discipline and intentionality. In other words a sort of feedback loop is created, whereby a belief consciously formed in reflection on instinctual behavior may serve to shape disciplined behavior, which generates or reinforces a certain belief, which reinforces the disciplined behavior, which may (with practice) override instinctive behavior.

The religious educator must take seriously that, in the natural course of things, behavior is shaped by intuitions and beliefs are shaped by behavior more easily than the other way around. This means that actual (intuitive) beliefs and the actual behaviors rooted in those beliefs are likely to be recalcitrant and not readily changed by professed beliefs (the enduring and widespread acceptance of and engagement in both retaliatory and preemptive war by many Christians may be a good example of this). But it also means that intentional practices or disciplined behavior can lead to changes in beliefs. For example, insisting on non-retaliation on the playground is a good starting point toward reforming the intuitive belief that retaliation is necessary for survival. If children learn to behave non-violently, they may quite naturally move toward belief in nonviolence. If persons develop a discipline of caring for those in need, they may naturally develop a belief that the needy should be cared for. More fundamentally, belief in a loving God will come more naturally from disciplined loving practices than will loving practices come from an acquired conscious belief in a loving God.

This does not imply strict behavioralism, or mean that teaching is simply behavior modification. Rather, this may be a cognitive science angle on the fairly common contemporary Western educational assumption that learning begins in experience (Dewey) and action (Freire). A difference is that notions of experience and action in this cognitive perspective are construed more broadly in terms of evolved cognitive structures, rather than in personal or political terms.

Beliefs are not based in personal experience. It has become commonplace in liberal Protestantism to assume that differing beliefs must be rooted in different personal experiences, and, in fact, that in order for beliefs to be vibrant and real (functional) they must be rooted in personal experience. Cognitive science puts the concept of experience in a broader perspective. Ultimately, most beliefs do derive from experience in the sense that it is evolutionary experience that has shaped the structures of mind that shape our intuitions on which most beliefs are based. Personal experience then triggers beliefs rooted in evolutionary experience, and via intentional reflection and practice, may serve to modify or override the deep-rooted beliefs. In this sense, personal experience is not the primary source of beliefs. Further, beliefs, once adopted, may also influence the way we experience our experiences. So beliefs may influence experiences as much as experiences influence beliefs.

This puts the classic (educationally relevant) question of nature vs. nurture in an interesting light. A significant theme in contemporary cognitive science is the reclaiming of a notion of common human nature in the face of post-modern discourses of pluralism and constructivism (cf. Pinker 2002). However, human "nature," in the form of cognitive structures that govern intuitions and instincts, is seen as "nurtured" via evolutionary experience.

In my view, the "naturalism" of cognitive science is not "essentialism." The claim, against radical constructivism, is that the human mind is not a "blank slate" on which personal experience writes. Rather, there are structures of mind that significantly determine how we think and process experience, as well as the outcomes of that thinking. But these structures of mind are themselves constructed out of evolutionary experience and understood as dynamic rather than essential to human nature. Further, these structures of mind yield mental processes that work with personal experience, and culturally shaped assumptions and practices to construct actual particular thoughts and beliefs.

Religious practices may be understood as reflective responses to religious intuitions and the rehearsal of intended beliefs. Initial reactions to any given situation based on intuitions are instinctual or reflexive. As has already been established, beliefs tend to emerge from these reactions and then are tested (via experience, reason, and/or authoritative cultural criteria) and consciously revised, accepted, or rejected. Via this process of conscious reflection on belief, new (or revised) beliefs may be formed that include counterintuitive elements and that suggest we ought to respond differently than our initial intuitive reaction. Practices, therefore, may be understood as disciplined behavior that connects to the new consciously held belief and that constitutes rehearsal in responding to the instigating intuition in a somewhat counterintuitive manner consistent with the (new) belief. For example, although humans intuitively fear strangers, it is possible to develop a habitual practice of welcoming strangers, consistent with a consciously held belief that hospitality is a moral obligation. As Whitehouse puts it, "obedience to religious imperatives is often a matter of overriding ... implicit [or intuitive] decision making" (2004, 7). Religious pr\actices (here understood simply as religiously motivated intentional actions) are effective ways of overriding problematic intuitive sensibilities, and nurturing desired sensibilities. This makes clear the pedagogical value of well-chosen practices for effectively nurturing religious faith, and highlights the importance of the religious educator s role in fostering desirable religious practices. Given the ways the human mind works, fostering well-chosen religious practices may be the most natural means of helping persons learn to transform undesirable instincts toward more desirable ways of being in the world.

CONCLUSION

Recent work in the cognitive science of religion points to evolved structures of mind as the source of the basic human intuitions in response to which most religious beliefs are formed. Cognitive theories of religion are primarily aimed at explaining religion in terms of cognitive structures and systems that enable the construction, transmission, and reception of religious beliefs and behaviors. This article has sought to draw lessons from the cognitive science of religion relevant for religious education. One basic lesson is that instinctual behavior, driven by innate intuitions, is the most natural source of beliefs, and that conscious beliefs do not easily change instinctual behavior. This suggests that religious educators need to work at helping others identify and transform instinctual behaviors that contradict professed or consciously held beliefs. For this, I have suggested a five-step process of reflection (on action or instinct), examination (of intuition or impulse), consideration (of relevant professed beliefs in the tradition and/or in oneself), construction (of conscious belief), and rehearsal (of appropriate actions). Given the natural tendency of the mind to derive beliefs from behavior (and not vice versa), I have also suggested that religious practices (understood as intentional religiously motivated behaviors) should be considered pedagogically effective means of forming one's life (or shaping beliefs and behaviors) in accordance with consciously held beliefs.

1 Although some ground work was done in this area earlier ( Sperber 1974; Guthrie 1980), Pascal Buyer's Tradition as Truth and Communication (1990), and E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley's Rethinking Religion (1990) are generally pointed to as marking the beginning of the cognitive science of religion as a notable movement.

2 For a usefully succinct primer on evolutionary psychology see Cosmides and Tooby (1997), "Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer" (www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/ cep/primer.html).

3 The "similarity" here refers to basic cognitive capacities such as the ability to infer intentions in another person based on their actions, or the capacity for some level of abstract thinking. Individuals naturally exhibit these basic human cognitive capacities in varying degrees and varying culturally and individually particular forms and styles.

4 For example, many cognitive science theorists, almost all of whom are white males, seem thoroughly embedded in Western modernist epistemological assumptions with little or no apparent awareness of sociopolitical power dynamics in their own knowledge construction practices.

5 Theories of emotions follow as similar pattern-physiology comes first, leading up to instinctual emotions and finally conscious feelings (cf., Damasio 1999; Stern 1985).

6 Justin Barrett is an important exception to this generalization, arguing (2004) on the basis of cognitive science that belief in God makes more sense than non-belief. And D'Aguili and Newburg (2001) take a careful agnostic position. But these are exceptions.

7 Of course, functionality of a belief for enhancing one's ability to live well is essentially what makes a belief true in a pragmatist perspective. This may bear further consideration and development, but is beyond the scope of this article.

8 Barrett (2004) argues that a sense of the supernatural really is ubiquitous throughout the world. Although sophisticated Buddhist philosophers may argue against any supernatural assumptions in Buddhist philosophy, the vast majority of Buddhists exhibit beliefs in the supernatural in their everyday practice. Whitehouse (2004) makes the same case. Barrett also contends that sophisticated Western scientific thinkers deny their intuitive sense of the supernatural only by conscious and sustained effort.

9 I note that this article may easily, and correctly, be seen as a reasoned effort to convince the reader to view religion and religious education in certain ways based on cognitive science reasoning. It is in the nature of modern scholarship to engage in such discourse. It is in the nature of post-modern discourse to be aware of (and consciously engage in) such irony.

REFERENCES

Barrett, Justin L. 1999. Theological correctness: Cognitive constraints and the study of religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11(4):325-339.

Barrett, Justin L. 2004. Why would anyone believe in God? Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religious thought. New York: Basic Books.

Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. Evolutionary psychology: A primer." Santa Barbara, CA 1997 [cited 28 June 2004]. Available online from Center for Evolutionary Psychology: www.psych. ucsb.edu/ researclVcep/primer.html.

Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace.

D'Aquili, Eugene G., and Newberg, Andrew. 2001. Why God won't go away: Brain science and the biology of belief. New York: Ballantine Books.

Dewey, J. 1903. Religious education as conditioned by modern psychology and pedagogy. The Religious Education Association: Proceedings of the first convention, Chicago 1903 (60-66).

Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Gutherie, Stewart. 1980. A cognitive theory of religion. Current Anthropology 21:181-203.

Lawson, E. Thomas, and Robert McCauley, N. 1990. Rethinking religion: Connecting cognition and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McCauly, Robert, and Lawson, E. Thomas. 2002. Bringing ritual to mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Peterson, Gregory R. 2003. Minding God: Theology and the cognitive sciences. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Pinker, Steven. 2002. The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New York: Viking Putnam.

Pyysiainen, Ilkka, and Veikke Anttonen. Eds. 2002. Current approaches in the cognitive science of religion. London: Continuum.

Ramachandran, VS., and Blakeslee, Sandra. 1998. Phantoms in the brain: Probing the mysteries of the human mind. New York: Quill.

Rizzuto, Ana-Maria. 1981. The birth of the living god: A psychoanalytic study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Slone, D. Jason. 2004. Theological incorrectness: Why religious people believe what they shouldn't. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sperber, D. 1974. Rethinking symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stern, Daniel. 1985. The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. New York: Basic Books.

Whitehouse, Harvey. 2000. Arguments and Icons: Divergent modes of religiosity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

_______. Implicit and explicit knowledge in the domain of ritual, pp. 133-152 in Current approaches in the cognitive science of religion, edited by Pyysiainen, Ilkka and Veikke Antonen, 2002. London: Continuum.

_______. 2004. Modes of religiosity: A cognitive theory of religious transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Theodore Brelsford

Emory University

Theodore Brelsford is assistant professor of Religion and Education, as well as director of the Program in Religious Education at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. E-mail: theodore.brelsford@emory.edu

Copyright Religious Education Association of the United States and Canada Spring 2005

Source: Religious Education

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