Religion and Neuroscience

This chapter considers two issues that have gained currency in contemporary philosophy because of the recent surge of liberal naturalist attitude that endeavours to place self, mind, consciousness and religious belief back into nature. The first issue, at the intersection of philosophy of religion and cognitive science, concerns the ubiquity and transmission of cross-cultural religious belief despite being condemned by sceptics as an evolutionary costly negative social force. The second issue, at the intersection of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, concerns whether Buddhist philosophy and its associated first-person methodologies can lead to reconceptualization and perhaps a richer understanding of the very notion of consciousness.