Books About the Scientific Study of Religion

Claire White's book is an excellent introduction to this new field and the findings that have emerged from thirty years of research into the natural foundations of religion and the psychological mechanisms that dispose people to religious belief and behavior. 

Dominic Johnson's book explores the "supernatural watcher hypothesis," i.e., that believing in a watchful and punishing god causes people to behave more morally, increasing cooperation within a culture and the likelihood that the culture will survive. 

This textbook offers a thorough overview of the field. Now in its fifth edition, the book continues to add and integrate recent research. 

Bryan Rennie's book answers the question of why we expend time and resources on artistic endeavors. Rennie compares the evolution of art with the evolution of religion (introducing work from the cognitive science of religion) and draws significant parallels between the two. 

Pascal Boyer's book describes how all human minds have common ways of classifying, categorizing, and remembering objects, which bias us toward becoming religious. This "cognitive science of religion" book helps to explain why religions are similar across cultures. 

Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt's book thoroughly investigates the idea that a person's fear of death is what motivates them to become religious. Their book examines the history of the idea and reviews recent studies that have tested it in the laboratory. 

Jesse Bering's book explains how humans evolved to instinctively believe in a deity. Bering describes the evolutionary benefits that caused this instinct to be naturally selected, and the cognitive mechanisms that are hardwired into our brains as a result. 

Robert McCauley and Thomas Lawson's book examines the types of rituals that appear in the religions of the world. They find that rituals are remembered through either repetition or intense emotional stimulation. They describe how the features of these rituals appeal to human minds. 

Justin Barrett's book argues that we are predisposed from birth to believe in a deity with specific traits (e.g. a creator and controller) and that this intuitive belief shapes our morality and the meaning we find in life. 

Dan Sperber's book is a better explanation for the spread of religious ideas than the meme theory advanced by Richard Dawkins. Sperber explains how religious ideas are not transmitted intact between minds, and that the most transmissible ideas appeal to the ways in which our minds are hardwired. 

Several of the most prominent scientists in the field contributed to this work. It provides a comprehensive and recent examination of the field, covering the natural foundations of religion and the philosophical and theological implications of its study. 

Stewart Guthrie's book proposes a theory of religion that draws on the human tendency to see beings and entities everywhere, and to anthropomorphize all manner of forms, objects, and natural phenomena. 

Ilkka Pyysiäinen's book focuses on supernatural beings (or "agents") and how our minds are hardwired to detect and understand agency. Pyysiäinen explains how it is natural to extend agency to supernatural beings, and that this takes a similar form across cultures. 

Scott Atran's book covers much of the psychology of religion (cognitive, emotional, and social explanations) and attempts to weave it into an "evolutionary landscape of religion." 

Beate Pongratz-Leisten and Karen Sonik's book examines the functions and cross-cultural psychological appeal of art that materially represents deities.