Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion

by Todd Tremlin, E. Thomas Lawson (Foreword)

Around the world and throughout history, in cultures as diverse as ancient Mesopotamia and modern America, human beings have been compelled by belief in gods and developed complex religions around them. But why? What makes belief in supernatural beings so widespread? And why are the gods of so many different people so similar in nature? This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas by looking through the lens of science at the common structures and functions of human thought.

The first general introduction to the "cognitive science of religion," Minds and Gods presents the major themes, theories, and thinkers involved in this revolutionary new approach to human religiosity. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book sets out to study the evolutionary forces that modeled the modern human mind and continue to shape our ideas and actions today. Todd Tremlin details many of the adapted features of the brain -- illustrating their operation with examples of everyday human behavior -- and shows how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead many people to naturally entertain religious ideas. In short, belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology, in powerful cognitive processes that all humans share.

In the course of illuminating the nature of religion, this book also sheds light on human why we think we do the things we do and how the reasons for these things are so often hidden from view. This discussion ranges broadly across recent scientific findings in areas such as paleoanthropology, primate studies, evolutionary psychology, early brain development, and cultural transmission. While these subjects are complex, the story is told here in a conversational style that is engaging, jargon free, and accessible to all readers. With Minds and Gods , Tremlin offers a roadmap to a fascinating and growing field of study, one that is sure to generate interest and debate and provide readers with a better understanding of themselves and their beliefs.

Genres: Religion, Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-scholarly musings on a Scholarly work

So it is then established that Gods, Religious concepts and Rituals are natural effervescences of the kind of mind that we posses, parasitic on our cognitive processes. It (our minds) is uniquely suited to imbibe them.

Mark though: We cannot (yet) make a claim that our minds WILL produce Gods and Religions and Rituals if left to themselves (though historical evidence might indicate that this could well be the case) but only that our minds cannot avoid the God Meme once exposed to it. Our society is very efficient at ensuring that.

An Atheist or an Agnostic is in this way, in this fundamental cognitive aspect of the nature of our cognitive construction, indistinguishable from a Theist - once exposed to a God concept they cannot but let their mind's velcro stick to those burs forever.

The Theist adheres to a theological notion, the Agnostic to a scientific/skeptic's credo and an Atheist to his own brand of faith in a new-found Religion of Science (reminding one of the Buddhists who tried to go nuclear (agnostic) and ended up as theistic in daily life).

But, we do have two brains inside us (yes, that is quite a 'new' finding too) as Daniel Kahneman elaborates in his new book (Thinking, Fast and Slow) and only our rational brain system (read pathway) can entertain these abstract concepts. Our emotional/instinctive (read pathway) brain will still repeatedly resort to the God Concept we are familial (thus familiar) with in most of our our “on-line” thinking - that is in our daily (non-abstract-thinking) life.

"Deal with it", the message is: We are all the same - Theists, Agnostics, Atheists or whatever we call ourselves, we are all in the same boat believing in the same agencies “on-line” and professing different versions of our pet abstractions “off-line”.

Not even managing to fool ourselves.

Disclaimer:

The above review is not a summation of the book but more a running with the ball tossed by it. The book is a study and an overview of the new Science of the Cognitive Study of Religion and deals with Religion in a new way - as a cognitive by-product of our psychology and our evolution. It is thoroughly fascinating and can lead to all sorts of ideas just as any new science should.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first book on the subject. It was an extremely thick read, it took me forever to get through the 200 pages. But I did take the time to understand the book and know all the details.

Tremlin slowly builds an argument in this book. He starts with prehistoric evolutionary evidence of developing minds (evolution). Giving as much detail as number of specimens and locations. And ends with how people modify religion.

I'll just say that Todd really does a good job solidifying his arguments, and doesn't leave much out. He chooses his words very carefully and draws heavily on previous peoples work (Justin Barrett, Ilka Pyysiainen, Pascal Boyer are constantly being referenced). His careful wording, in turn, requires that much more attention when reading. Sometimes I would get through 5 pages and feel totally wiped out mentally. But when I got done I felt like I had such a solid understanding of how religion works. I truly loved this book, despite how long it took me to understand.

My Summary:

Modularity: Tremlin describes that the brain is composed of several specialized locations. These specialized locations are called modules. The brain has a very large number of modules. One module might be in charge of mathematics, another area might be in charge of knowing who your mother is. There are lots and lots of modules in the brain, all of them combined give rise to consciousness.

Agency Detection Device (ADD): Tremlin describes our ability as humans to see agents. We know the lion is deadly when it's hungry. The shaking bush, could have a snake in it, makes us nervous. Our ability to see these "agents" is extremely widespread. Gods are always agents, actively influencing our lives.

Theory of Mind Mechanism (ToMM): Humans are extremely good at knowing what other people are thinking. When we see someones expression alone we usually have a handle on where their mind is at. But gods always know better. They are always aware of what we are thinking, and know our deepest secrets.





So the "folk" idea of religion, Usually involves a god that is a man, who takes care of your crops and brings good weather, and helps you win a football game/war. Gods are agents influencing the most important aspects of our lives. But there are gaps in logic that are ultimately faced, like why is god a man, who created him, etc. So theologians must find ways to explain these things, making god infinite say. But the "folks" rarely listen to theologians, they basically make the religion up to fit their everyday life. Which explains why most christians have no idea what's in the bible.

When the theologians take the religion too far away from the "folks", the religion usually splits. And this explains the large number of different churches there are today. And now that folk life is changing faster then ever, new religions are spreading along with it. Religion and society go hand in hand.

Tremlin also argues that Gods must have an intuitive attribute in order to be influential on people. For instance he must be a man, and he is your friend. And he has a set of rules for you to follow. But there also must be something counter-intuitive to him to make him seem magical. For instance he knows what you're thinking. Or he can control the sun. Or he makes earthquakes when he's angry. When the right mix of "intuitive" and "counter-intuitive" ideas come together, the reward is the "folks" spreading the idea and the religion prospering.

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a scene in one of the "Naked Gun" movies in which one of the characters asks another to tell him what happened, starting at the beginning. The other character then proceeds with the line "4.5 billion years ago Earth was a sphere of molten lava." I had used this line as a joke many times, although most people did not find it all that amusing. To my great shock and surprise, "Minds and Gods" starts off with the equivalent of this joke in full earnestness and for the first 40% of the book gives an excruciatingly prolonged background material on everything from human evolution to physiology and morphology of the brain. Most of this material is readily available in numerous other introductory texts, most of which would do it much better justice. At the very least this material should have been relegated to a couple of appendices. As it is, after the main theses of the book is briefly introduced at the very beginning of this book (religion is all about gods), we have to wade through a chapter after chapter of material that makes you wonder (sometimes aloud) where is it all going. Which brings me to another problem with this book: even the material on religion proper seems to rely too much on other secondary sources. There is very little in terms of original and unique contribution to the subject.

The one big thesis of this book is that religion is all about "gods" (loosely defined), and everything that deals with "gods" is religion. There are several major problems with that thesis. First of all, on one hand the author is forced to be flexible enough about what he means by "goods" when applying his template to such "atheistic" religious systems as Buddhism, while at the same time not giving any consideration to the all too frequent personification of non-human agents in physical sciences ("nature"), social sciences ("society") or humanities ("history"). No clear distinction between all of those anthropomorphizations is made, and we are left with a vague idea of the reasonableness of this categorization. In fact, the more deeply we get into the "Minds and Gods" the more we are convinced that the basic thesis of the book is nothing but a description of religion, rather than any kind of "explanation."

Another problematic feature of the book is the author's dismissal of theology and any deeper and systematized approach to religion. In the author's view, what really matters when it comes to the naturalistic study of religion are the low-level religious instincts, and not any definitive set of beliefs. This approach completely dismisses the fact that all of us can develop derived instinct from the more primitive ones through reflection and practice. What usually makes people want to study different religions is precisely this development of higher-level instincts. By dismissing them out of hand, the author removes one major motivational drive for wanting to study religion in the first place.

It is encouraging to see that there are researchers out there who are attempting to give a fuller account of religion as a natural phenomenon. However, all of the books that have been published thus far on the subject fall short of a more rigorous treatment of this fascinating subject. Most of the work in this field has more of a flavor of philosophy than a social science. We can only hope that we don't have to wait for a more rigorous treatment much longer.

[Jimmy Jansson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Är religionen skapad av hjärnan eller är hjärnan skapad av religionen? Den här boken visar iallafall hur hjärnan och det kognitiva tänkandet genom evolutionen utvecklats i förhållande till religionen! Tänkvärd bok!

[Adam Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the books out there on the cognitive science of religion, this is probably the best compromise if you were to read only one. It doesn't have the depth of Scott Atran's "In Gods We Trust" or Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained" but it also is lacking in what some would call nearly impenetrable prose. It has depth and substance and is carefully argued.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had not quite expected such a detailed description of the brain and its functions, however, Tremlin presents science in an accessible way. Well-written and with some very illustrative examples!

[Preston · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion (2006), Todd Tremlin argues that religion is the byproduct of human cognitive functions which have evolved for other purposes, such as survival and passing on one’s genes. Thus, Tremlin’s thesis fits broadly into the scientific approach to religion which Haag labels the spandrel approach, in which religion is not functional or parasitic so much as the side-effect of cognitive modules adapted for other purposes (Haag 2014: 21-22). Tremlin puts forth a bold thesis from the outset of his argument, and he unequivocally maintains this thesis throughout the book. As Tremlin claims, religion is ultimately the product of an individual’s belief in supernatural agents (Tremlin 2006: 4, passim). In maintaining this position, Tremlin exposes his argument to a few critiques, summarized briefly here. First, no matter how frequently he states this proposed definition or how matter-of-factly, there are many individuals who identify as religious but explicitly deny belief in supernatural agents. Further, Tremlin’s approach to religion resembles Eliade’s phenomenological approach, since whether religion is a structure “out there” to be studied or a belief “in here”—i.e. in the public world or in the private human mind—there is in each case a commensurability imposed upon various ideologies called religions which may then be compared, contrasted, and hierarchized. Lastly, Tremlin’s emphatic proposition that religion must involve supernatural beings begs suspicion, and indeed it requires very little reflection to conclude that an account of religion via the cognitive modules of theory of mind and agency detection relies on the individual human brain as the locus of the production of belief in gods. Therefore, just as so many other theories of religion, so Tremlin’s relies on circular reasoning, for his method and conclusion depend on his definitional assumption. This circularity, considered alongside the circularity of adaptive scientific approaches to religion, prompts a final question: Can so-called scientific approaches to religion surmount the obstacle that bedevils every methodological approach to the subject, namely the fugacious concept of religion itself?
According to Tremlin, “Around the world and throughout history…, religion shares at least one feature in common—belief in gods.” There are no qualifications to this rule in Tremlin’s mind, no concession. In fact, Tremlin doubles down on his Tylorian definition with a succinct and matter-of-factly stated hypophora. “Are there exceptions to this rule? No.” Of course, the “world religion” often cited as evidence against this definition is Theravada Buddhism, to which traditionally no belief in gods has been ascribed or expounded by its adherents. Tremlin, however, claims to know better.

“Theravada Buddhists interact with a complex cosmology filled with supernatural beings, and they openly treat the Buddha with the same reverence garnered by any god, despite a ‘formal’ belief that the historical Buddha is now dead and inaccessible to petition.” (Tremlin 2006: 5)

Over and against formal Theravada Buddhist beliefs, Tremlin claims to offer a more accurate representation of what these people actually believe, a representation which conveniently allows his own explanation of religion to overcome its most obvious challenge. Tremlin evinces his propensity to decide other peoples’ beliefs for them in other problematic ways. In differentiating agents from objects, Tremlin states, “Women adorn their bodies because they believe it makes them more appealing.” Of all the ways he could have chosen to demonstrate the relation between belief and action, Tremlin decides to speak for women and why they adorn their bodies. Even if Tremlin does not intend the misogynistic and androcentric undertones of this statement, it certainly reads as though only women adorn their bodies, and he knows the reason that motivates them to do so.
A further problem of Tremlin’s cognitive account of religion is that it perpetuates, if in a modified form, the phenomenological study of religion that has had historically oppressive consequences. To be fair, Tremlin does not claim that there is some sacred essence that is perceived by humans in different ways that produce the various world religions. Nevertheless, to suggests that all religions share a basis in real cognitive dispositions is to preserve the study of religion as a phenomenon. Thus, religions can be classified as such, be compared to each other, and ultimately be hierarchized. Tomoko Masuzawa has demonstrated in The Invention of World Religions (2005) how the phenomenological approach to religion has been used for Western imperialistic interests to impose a commensurability on ideologies in order to deem them inferior to Christianity. Cultural critics of religion like McCutcheon (2002) and Fitzgerald (1997) have successfully deconstructed the concept of religion and unveiled the socio-political motivations behind the Western construction of world religions. The cognitive account of religion reimposes this common source of all so-called religions and lends credence to the historically exploitative phenomenological approach to religion. It is clear that Tremlin himself views religion as a phenomenon, for he employs this language throughout his book. In fact, Tremlin states in Chapter 3, “…the subject of the rest of this book [is] the phenomenon of religious thought” (2006: 45).
Finally, Tremlin’s adamance that religion must involve belief in supernatural beings reflects the necessity of this assumption for the argument and conclusion he wishes to draw. Much of Tremlin’s argument follows the function of cognitive modulars like ToMM and ADD. In a religion without a god, these cognitive modulars would offer no explanatory value. Theory of Mind and Hyperactive Agency Detection only explain religions that have a god or gods which have minds and intentions. With such a god absent from any religion, Tremlin’s argument falls apart. Buddhism is not the only religion that presents a challenge in this regard. As Tremlin explains, ADD and ToMM cause religious ideas because “of all the objects in the environment, agents matter most. The connection?—Gods are agents” (2006: 86) It is the supposed activity of Gods that makes them a matter for human concern. However, there are obvious cases, such as in Deism, in which religious adherents hold a conception of god as wholly removed from and unconcerned with quotidian human affairs. Lastly, it must be asked, if ToMM and ADD are such effective mental modulars, why are there atheists at all? In short, the inadequacy of ToMM and ADD as explanatory tools for religious ideas coupled with the circularity embedded in the definition of religion weaken Tremlin’s cognitive explanation for religion. Furthermore, this phenomenological approach perpetuates a socially oppressive hierarchization of religions by preserving their commensurability through cognitive foundations.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, if you you are an atheist, and you wanted to construct an ironclad argument against the existence of God, there are only two books that you need. The first is Atheism: The Case Against God (the most clearly-articulated and best-argued of all the books on the subject), and the second is this book here, which provides a neat summery of the current state of science when it comes to the issue of consciousness and describes the evolutionary processes that have led human beings to believe in supernatural forces (and especially, Gods). The first books provides an unassailable case for the logical and philosophical stance of atheism, the second provides the (while incomplete it's already near-consensus) scientific foundation. One may want to include 'The Moral Animal' by Robert Wright for a more general and complementary summery of Evolutionary Psychology.

The author starts by cutting through all the bullshit when it comes to defining 'religion' by insisting that religion is a belief system that includes one or more gods. This is true of EVERY religion, even if somewhere along the way, people have modified or even done away with said god(s) over time. He then spends the majority of the book revealing the evidence for an evolutionary view of gods that stems from our early ancestors and the natural selection pressures that guided humans towards seeing intentionality in nearly everything that early humans saw of the world around them. I'll let the author give you the details.

The book has it's technical discussions, but is easily read by a general reader, as long as they have some knowledge of basic evolution and a passing knowledge of cognitive science.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in the last five years. Compelling, fascinating, and very well written.

[Keith Pinckney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating.

[Dave Schey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice introduction to the evolution of the mind and religion.