[{"id":71,"title":"Religion and Terrorism: how to stop their affinity?","sha":"30eb598dc222be323423de5b2ef4750a","user_id":257,"state":"published","body":"Terror attacks sometimes and suicide terror attacks always direct our attention toward religion. It seems that maybe all religions in some sense have dangerous, lethal potential because they suggest another kind of reality which is always this better one. We could avoid this nightmarish application of religion when we changed our thinking about religion. Europe did it through philosophical Enlightenment, especially the French Lumière which ended religious conflicts in Europe. It seems that there is some correlation between critical approach toward religion understood as a fiction and the absence of religiously motivated conflicts. Religion is used to improve mental state of believers. Its aim is not to describe the real world but to provide a symbolic and metaphorical model of the reality for psychological purposes.\r\n\r\nWhen religion is understood in terms of truth and false about the world, it may cause lethal conflicts. This approach is a basic one among nations without Enlightenment period. The better one is a functional approach in terms of psychotherapeutic utility. Religion understood as a private psychotherapeutic tool, not as a source of the true knowledge about the world, will lose its lethal potential. \r\n","created_at":"2015-02-19T21:11:03.115Z","updated_at":"2021-10-12T15:36:19.274Z","zenodo_id":23168,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15537","subject":null,"tags":["religion","terrorism","fiction","enlightenment"],"vote_count":15,"view_count":1,"score":15.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":143,"title":"Naturalness of Atheism and Supernaturalness of Religion - A Role for Theological Science","sha":"c4fcf79b9c0be4b2b24ee2baa941a221","user_id":540,"state":"published","body":"Scientific approaches (\"science\" narrowly defined as the \"sciences of nature\") metaphysically exclude divine effects as appropriate--in other words, science itself is structured to exclude divine action (pragmatically). The problem with the \"natural\" study of religion is that religion cannot be reduced to its natural causes and effects. This is precisely because divine causes and effects are the source and telos of religious life, with natural causes being more appropriately \"effects which follow from divine causes\". Science can contribute, because of its structure, studying natural phenomena associated with religion understood as natural phenomena and not as divine phenomena. Therefore, the word \"natural\" must be defined here as \"strictly scientifically natural\", suggesting that atheism is a strictly scientifically natural belief (excluding divinity not only pragmatically but substantially), whereas religion, limited to strictly scientific investigation, is \"natural\" because of its natural effects, but points to something outside of strictly natural explanations. The word \"unnaturalness\" applied to religion by [konrad szocik](/users/76d3c51025e2ea94f969165c2ad98be7) signified the opposite of only a strictly scientific \"naturalness\". A more appropriate word than \"unnaturalness\" would be \"supernaturalness\". This word is more proper to the object of study (religion) and is not contradictory to \"natural\" but suggests explanatory plausibility \"outside\" or beyond the structure of nature, suggesting reality beyond nature. Here is where theology might begin to have significant input.","created_at":"2015-04-10T18:35:46.345Z","updated_at":"2015-04-12T06:01:06.958Z","zenodo_id":26806,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16762","subject":null,"tags":["religion","atheism","science","philosophy","evolution","biology","morality"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":140,"title":"Naturalness of Atheism and Unnaturalnes of Religion","sha":"4ed82f88af3d32867a5489847a4fb334","user_id":257,"state":"published","body":"The standard model of Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) explains religion as some kind of natural phenomenon. Religious ideas and beliefs are considered as natural not only in the sense of their foundation on cognitive processes and mechanisms, but also as obvious, intuitive, and in some sense inevitable. What is more CSR suggests that religious ideas and beliefs are more natural and evident than atheism. In consequence atheism is considered as unnatural cultural phenomenon which requires special conditions, first of all high development of education and science, in the modern times associated with the Enlightenment. However, biological and evolutionary approaches show that the human being is a species which focuses on natural, sensual information and behaviors which are strategic for survival. Therefore, how can we connect natural selection with religious beliefs which are counter-intuitive and unnatural? Here I would like to show that naturalness of religion hypothesis is not compatible with biological long-orientation perspective. Religion was useful tool after agricultural revolution – however, not for transmission of good moral behavioral patterns. Its main aim was consolidation and strengthening in-group trust and internal network for the purpose of inter-group conflicts and aggression at the level of large groups.   ","created_at":"2015-04-05T16:35:41.347Z","updated_at":"2015-04-10T19:22:24.186Z","zenodo_id":26413,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16628","subject":null,"tags":["atheism","religion","evolution","biology","morality"],"vote_count":2,"view_count":1,"score":2.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]