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Development of naturalistic views in psychology of religion
The article outlines how naturalistic views in the psychology of religion have been developing since their inception up to the present time. It is stated that the distinct manifestation of naturalistic views in the psychology of religion in the late 19th-early 20th century is connected not with the introduction of experimental method and laboratory research conditions, but with the attempts to find naturalistic explanations of religious phenomena. It is noted that the search for these explanations led scientists at the initial developmental stage of the psychology of religion to biological interpretations of religious phenomena, very reductionist and mechanistic. Historically, however, these interpretations have contributed to the formation of the psychology of religion as a scientific discipline, reinforcing the idea of religion as a product of natural life processes. This article shows how, after a significant historical hiatus, the 1990s-2000s saw a resurgence of research interest in the natural determinants of religiosity, fueled from several sources: genetics, neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionism. The field of neurotheology is critically examined, and the theoretical tools of neuroeconomics are described for the study of religiosity. The discussion of the evolutionary utility or futility of religious phenomena is briefly reviewed, and cognitivistic ideas about the counter-intuitiveness of religious representations and their limitations to the peculiarities of the cognitive "structure" of the mind are outlined. The extra-historical character of cognitive and evolutionary approaches in psychology of religion is critically evaluated, and a way out of the assumption of massive modularity in the form of a systemic-functional approach is proposed. The author sees the need to overcome rigid reductionist schemes and to reveal the role of cultural and historical factors in the development and functioning of religious mental phenomena as a perspective for the development of naturalistic views in the psychology of religion.