Featured Resource: What is Cognitive Science of Religion and What’s It Got to Do with Me?

If you read the title of this post and thought, “What are they even talking about??”… read on!

STAR’s chief project developer, Justin Barrett, is a cognitive scientist. This basically means he’s an expert in how people use their minds (note: not their brains) to think and learn. He helped to establish a sub-discipline called “cognitive science of religion” (CSR) that particularly studies the way humans think about God and religious matters, and how we acquire beliefs of a religious/spiritual type. Here at STAR, we have a front row seat to innovations in this relatively new field of thought.

And you are in luck… I’ve got your entry points into the field right here. First off, here are a couple of short videos, where Justin kicks off the conversation:

But if your appetite for CSR was just barely whetted by those videos, I highly encourage you to check out this podcast, featuring philosopher Myron Penner (an academic contributor on our Conversations in Community project, and TheoPsych scholar). This captivating conversation with Dan Koch explores Myron’s approach to CSR and how it’s affected his own faith. Enjoy!