Science and spirits? Response to Amos Yong’s The Spirit of Creation

Review of Yon

Simulation, Science, and Stakeholders: Challenges and Opportunities for Modelling Solutions to Societal Problems

The article outlines an approach to computer modelling called “human simulation,” whose development has been explicitly oriented towards addressing societal problems through transdisciplinary efforts involving stakeholders, change agents, policy professionals, subject matter experts, and computer scientists. It describes the steps involved in the creation and exploration of the “insight space” of policy-oriented artificial societies, which include both analysing societal problems and designing societal solutions. A case study is provided, based on an (ongoing) research project studying “emotional contagion” related to misinformation, stigma, and anxiety in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with lessons learned about some of the challenges and opportunities facing scientists and stakeholders trying to simulate solutions to complex societal problems.publishedVersio

Studying close entity encounters of the psychedelic kind: Insights from the cognitive evolutionary science of religion

This article calls for a more robust mutual engagement between the science of psychedelic experiences (SPE) and the cognitive evolutionary science of religion (CESR). Greater collaboration between researchers in these disciplines could open up opportunities for producing new knowledge not only about the human brain and the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, but also about the evolution of our species and our prospects for creatively enjoying our minds and peacefully living in pluralistic groups in a rapidly changing global environment. However, there are at least three major challenges facing the recently renewed field of SPE: 1) articulating adequate theoretical grounding for its research in a way that can be communicated to neighbor disciplines, 2) developing experimental designs that provide adequate warrant for its cross-cultural and more historically oriented claims, and 3) avoiding psychological, political, and philosophical minefields that could lead to an (over)reaction to the use of psychedelics in research of the sort that almost destroyed the field in the 1970s. While expressing a hope for reciprocal interaction, this article focuses primarily on some lessons learned by scholars in CESR – in relation to material theoretical developments, methodological testing strategies, and minefield navigation experiences – that might provide inspiration for scholars in SPE as they work to keep the renaissance in their field from going “off the rails.”Studying close entity encounters of the psychedelic kind: Insights from the cognitive evolutionary science of religionpublishedVersio

A Germ of Tranquil Atheism

This article playfully inverts the theme of this special issue, exploring the relationship between the birth of "Christ" and the death of "Christianity." Its title is borrowed from a phrase found in the writing of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who suggests that Christianity contains "a germ of tranquil atheism." The first section highlights the significance of "the event" of Christianity for Deleuze, which has almost nothing to do with Jesus' death and almost everything to do with the secretion of atheism. Section two explains how Deleuze's critique of the repressive and oppressive mechanisms of Christianity (the poster child for the Despotic machine) and of the symbol of Christ (the poster child for the White Face) can be complemented and strengthened by insights from the bio-cultural sciences of religion. Like all religious assemblages held together by shared belief in imagined punitive gods, Christianity, along with its obsession with the religious Figure of Christ, will eventually die. Can we be worthy of that event: the death of Christianity, whose timely demise, ironically, is hurried along by that "germ of tranquil atheism" that it could not help but secrete

How to Survive the Anthropocene: Adaptive Atheism and the Evolution of Homo deiparensis

Published version of an article from the journal: Religions. Also available from the publisher: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel6020724Why is it so easy to ignore the ecological and economic crises of the Anthropocene? This article unveils some of the religious biases whose covert operation facilitates the repression or rejection of warnings about the consequences of extreme climate change and excessive capitalist consumption. The evolved defaults that are most relevant for our purposes here have to do with mental credulity toward religious content (beliefs about supernatural agents) and with social congruity in religious contexts (behaviors shaped by supernatural rituals). Learning how to contest these phylogenetically inherited and culturally fortified biases may be a necessary condition for adapting to and altering our current natural and social environments in ways that will enhance the chances for the survival (and flourishing) of Homo sapiens and other sentient species. I outline a conceptual framework, derived from empirical findings and theoretical developments in the bio-cultural sciences of religion, which can help clarify why and how gods are imaginatively conceived and nurtured by ritually engaged believers. Finally, I discuss the role that "adaptive atheism" might play in responding to the crises of the Anthropocene

Human Simulation and Sustainability: Ontological, Epistemological, and Ethical Reflections

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Human Simulation and Sustainability : Ontological, Epistemological, and Ethical Reflections

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Modern religion as vestigial structure: An evolutionary account of secularisation

This article offers a new solution to a theoretical problem facing scholars attempting to interpret religion and secularisation in light of biological evolution. Some scholars argue that the diversity of religious beliefs and rituals in contemporary societies is compatible with secularisation or even facilitates it by weakening the plausibility structures of any one religion. Other scholars argue that religious diversity is not evidence of a decrease in interest in religion but rather shows the ingenuity of religious entrepreneurs. Here we extend the former school of thought by outlining a theory of the vestigilisation of religion. We describe three key characteristics of vestigial structures (increasing variability, decreasing costliness and the appearance of novel functions) and identify shifts in these characteristics in some religious traits. We argue that this supports the idea that religious diversity is a predictable effect of secularisation.publishedVersio

Modeling the effects of religious belief and affiliation on prosociality

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