Overview

The battle between religion and science, competing methods of knowing ourselves and our world, has been raging for many centuries. Now scientists themselves are looking at cognitive foundations of religion--and arriving at some surprising conclusions. Over the course of the past two decades, scholars have employed insights gleaned from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and related disciplines to illuminate the study of religion. In Why Religion is Natural and Science Is Not, Robert N. McCauley, one of the founding fathers of the cognitive science of religion, argues that our minds are better suited to religious belief than to scientific inquiry. Drawing on the latest research and illustrating his argument with commonsense examples, McCauley argues that religion has existed for many thousands of years in every society because the kinds of explanations it provides are precisely the kinds that come naturally to human minds. Science, on the other hand, is a much more recent and rare development because it reaches radical conclusions and requires a kind of abstract thinking that only arises consistently under very specific social conditions. Religion makes intuitive sense to us, while science requires a lot of work. McCauley then draws out the larger implications of these findings. The naturalness of religion, he suggests, means that science poses no real threat to it, while the unnaturalness of science puts it in a surprisingly precarious position. Rigorously argued and elegantly written, this provocative book will appeal to anyone interested in the ongoing debate between religion and science, and in the nature and workings of the human mind.

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9780199341542

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<br> This is a long overdue history of the origins of secular public education. Green's carefully researched discussion of the relationship between separation of church and state and public education is a powerful answer to scholars and jurists who have made ideologically-based and historically shaky arguments in favor of state supported religious exercise in the public schools. Green's work reminds us of the importance of Jefferson's notion of a 'wall of separation' between the state and religion. <br>---Paul Finkelman, President William McKinley Professor of Law and Public Policy, Albany Law School <br><p><br> Steven K. Green has rapidly emerged as the leading historian of nineteenth-century church-state relations in America. Here he shows, in bold and brilliant colors, how the soaring debates over religion and education in the aftermath of the Civil War still shape our law and culture today, for better and worse. Deeply researched, smoothly written, and highly original, this book is a must-read for anyone who values religious liberty. <br>---John Witte, Jr., Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University <br><p><br> The Bible, the School, and the Constitution is an essential reinterpretation of the 'School Question' and its implications for church-state jurisprudence in American history. Repudiating recent accounts that attribute the emergence of 'secular' norms to anti-Catholic animus, Steven K. Green identifies a far more diverse set of motivations that converged to restrict religious practices in public schools along with public funding for religiously affiliated schools. In the process, Green implicitly defends these norms as constitutionally sound solutions for a diverse society. <br>--Tisa Wenger, author of We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom<br><p><br> Green reminds readers that modern Supreme Court rulings were not products of sudden secularizing trends in the 20th

Author Information

Robert N. McCauley is William Rand Kenan Jr. University Professor and Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture at Emory University. He is the co-author of Rethinking Religion and Bringing Ritual to Mind.

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