The cognitive science of religion is a rapidly growing field whose practitioners apply insights from advances in cognitive science in order to provide a better understanding of religious impulses, beliefs, and behaviors. In this book Ilkka Pyysiäinen shows how this methodology can profitably be used in the comparative study of beliefs about superhuman agents. He begins by developing a theoretical outline of the basic, modular architecture of the human mind and especially the human capacity to understand agency. He then goes on to discuss examples of supernatural agency in detail, arguing that the human ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others forms the basis of conceptions of supernatural agents and of such social cognition in which supernatural agents are postulated as interested parties in social life. Beliefs about supernatural agency are natural, says Pyysiäinen, in the sense that such concepts are used in an intuitive and automatic fashion. Two dots and a straight line below them automatically trigger the idea of a face, for example. Given that the mind consists of a host of such modular mechanisms, certain kinds of beliefs will always have a selective advantage over others. Abstract theological concepts are usually elaborate versions of such simpler and more contagious folk conceptions. Pyysiäinen uses ethnographical and survey materials as well as doctrinal treatises to show that there are certain recurrent patterns in beliefs about supernatural agents both at the level of folk-religion and of formal theology.

In Agents Under Fire, Menuge defends a robust notion of agency and intentionaility against eliminative and naturalistic alternatives, showing the interconnections between the philosophy of mind, theology, and Intelligent Design.

Although the scientific illegitimacy of supernatural design is typically asserted with enormous confidence and vigor, there has been surprisingly little actual work on such key foundational issues as even what design is and on specific criteria for assessing its legitimacy, or lack, as a scientific concept. However, intelligent supernatural design is again surfacing in discussions both of anthropic principles and of certain types of biological complexity. This book develops a definition of design, explicates the more specific concept of supernatural design, defends a general criterion for scientific legitimacy, and argues that in some cases the concept of intelligent supernatural design can meet the relevant requirements for scientific legitimacy.

Discover the Supernatural Retrieval Agency Team in this light-hearted urban fantasy romance, complete with a kickass crime-fighting harpy heroine, an up-beat and quirky cupid best friend, and a medium burn workplace romance. A harpy with a dream job...and a handsome new partner to work with. Harper has wanted to join the Agency for as long as she can remember, but even she never expected to be thrown in the deep end on her first day. After she helps uncover a secret crime ring within the city, she's sent on a rescue mission to get a vital witness to safety. But when the plan goes sideways, Harper and her partner have to work out why, and how they can fix it. Can this harpy complete her mission? - Harpy's Mission is book one of Supernatural Retrieval Agency, an urban fantasy romance series filled with harpies, cupids, action, and a hint of steam with a m/f romance. If you like your romance with unusual supernatural creatures, action-packed law enforcement plots, and a quirky best friend, try the Supernatural Retrieval Agency series today, starting with Harpy's Mission. Search Terms: urban fantasy, fantasy romance, urban fantasy romance, paranormal romance, pnr, supernatural suspense, light-hearted fantasy, law enforcement, police, cops, harpies, cupids, harpy, mythology, cupid, unusual paranormal beings, unusual supernaturals, workplace romance, steamy, steamy paranormal romance, forced proximity, shifters

This collection of essays by colleagues, former students, and friends illustrates something of the breadth and depth of subjects that have engaged the life and thought of the Reverend Doctor John Westerdale Bowker. His clerical and academic appointments in Cambridge, Lancaster, London, and North America further illustrate the integrative nature of his spiritual and intellectual way of being and acting.

Why are humans obsessed with divine minds? What do gods know and what do they care about? What happens to us and our relationships when gods are involved? Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, and applied anthropology, social psychology, religious studies, philosophy, technology, and cognitive and political sciences, The Minds of Gods probes these questions from a multitude of naturalistic perspectives. Each chapter offers brief intellectual histories of their topics, summarizes current cutting-edge questions in the field, and points to areas in need of attention from future researchers. Through an innovative theoretical framework that combines evolutionary and cognitive approaches to religion, this book brings together otherwise disparate literatures to focus on a topic that has comprised a lasting, central obsession of our species.

How do historians understand the minds, motivations, intentions of historical agents? What might evolutionary and cognitive theorizing contribute to this work? What is the relation between natural and cultural history? Historians have been intrigued by such questions ever since publication in 1859 of Darwin's The Origin of Species, itself the historicization of biology. This interest reemerged in the latter part of the twentieth century among a number of biologists, philosophers and historians, reinforced by the new interdisciplinary finding of cognitive scientists about the universal capacities of and constraints upon human minds. The studies in this volume, primarily by historians of religion, continue this discussion by focusing on historical examples of ancient religions as well as on the theoretical promises and problems relevant to that study.