Lessons for religious education from cognitive science of religion

Recent work in the cognitive sciences provides new neurological/biological and evolutionary bases for understanding the construction of knowledge (in the form of sets of ideas containing functionally useful inferences) and the capacity for imagination (as the ability to run inferences and generate ideas from information) in the human mind. In recent years, a growing number of scholars are making use of cognitive science to understand and explain religious beliefs and behaviors in terms of these evolved cognitive capacities and structures of mind. Based on a literature review of cognitive studies of religion, this article examines relevant themes from cognitive science studies of religion toward drawing pedagogical lessons for religious education.