Kognitiivsete ja käitumisökoloogiliste religiooniteaduste kujunemisest ning praegusest uurimisseisust
Abstract
Review of the Current State of Research in the Ecological and Cognitive Study of Religion
This article is concerned with presenting a thorough overview of the research in the ecological and cognitive sciences of religion. Several different theories and research programs are analysed, among them the standard model of the cognitive science of religion, the costly signalling theory and the newer biocultural perspective. The supernatural punishment theory and modes of religiosity theory are also briefly analysed. The aim of the brief overviews is to assess the current state of research in the evolutionary approaches towards religiosity overall and see how they have tried to answer questions about religiosity as such. Special attention is given to the demonstration how these new approaches relate to the historical and more general discussions and questions of the study of religion. Overall it has been concluded that although a great amount of interesting research has been carried out and various different theoretical explanations of religion have been put forward, there remains still a lot of work to be done as none of the currently existing theories can be considered conclusively proven through empirical research or without theoretical or/and methodological problems.
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