Introduction
Summary prepared by Justin L. Barrett, February 2008
Dr Justin Barrett of Oxford University’s Centre for Anthropology & Mind and Prof Roger Trigg of Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre have teamed up to begin a new £1.9 million project on the natural foundations of religion. The Cognition, Religion, and Theology project is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and aims to develop the cognitive science of religion field - a rapidly developing area of interdisciplinary research - by providing training, web resources, and research funding for scholars wanting to become involved in cognitive science of religion research. The project seeks to support scientific projects that promise to yield new evidence regarding how the structures of human minds inform and constrain religious expression including ideas about gods and spirits, the afterlife, spirit possession, prayer, ritual, religious expertise, and connections between religious thought and morality and pro-social behavior.
Additionally, we desire to stimulate scholarship that explores the philosophical and theological implications of findings from the evolutionary and cognitive sciences as applied to religion. Does scientific evidence support or challenge specific theological propositions or worldviews? How do intellectual movements capitalize on natural predispositions?
The research team consists of experimental psychologist Dr Justin Barrett (Primary Investigator, Centre for Anthropology and Mind), philosopher Prof Roger Trigg (Co-Investigator, Ian Ramsey Centre), Dr Miguel Farais (Theology) and Dr David Leech (Theology). Ms Ann Cowie is Programme Administrator.
In addition to research by the project team, major elements of the project include
- a workshop to be held in Oxford in summer 2009;
- a one-year cross-training course in hypothesis testing in the area of the cognitive science of religion (2009-2010);
- web-based resources for identifying pressing scientific and philosophical needs of the field and instruments for addressing these needs;
- virtual poster-sessions in the cognitive science of religion and theology;
- a grant competition for focused projects in cognitive science of religion (£800,000 to award in total, first round of awards to be made summer 2008); and
- a project-ending conference in summer 2010 for presenting research findings.
Dr Barrett has recently begun research in China.
Dr Barrett at the Forbidden City, Beijing, October 2008.