Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
DOI
10.5334/snr.121
Publication Title
Secularism and Nonreligion
Volume
9
Pages
6
Abstract
The abandonment of supernatural religious beliefs and rituals seems to occur quite easily in some contexts, but post-supernaturalist cultures require a specific set of conditions that are difficult to produce and sustain on a large scale and thus are historically rare. Despite the worldwide resurgence of supernaturalist religion, some subcultures reliably produce people who deny the existence of supernatural entities. This social phenomenon has evoked competing explanations, many of which enjoy empirical support. We synthesize six of the most influential social-science explanations, demonstrating that they provide complementary perspectives on a complex causal architecture. We incorporate this theoretical synthesis into a computer simulation, identifying conditions under which the predominant attitude toward supernaturalism in a population shifts from acceptance to rejection (and vice versa). The model suggests that the conditions for producing widespread rejection of supernatural worldviews are highly specific and difficult to produce and sustain. When those conditions combine, which is historically rare, a stable social equilibrium emerges within which post-supernaturalist worldviews are widespread; however, this equilibrium is easier to disrupt than equilibria whose cohesion is stabilized by supernatural religion due to persistent cognitive tendencies toward supernaturalism in evolved human minds.
Rights
© 2020 The Authors.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Original Publication Citation
Wildman, W. J., Shults, F. L., Diallo, S. Y., Gore, R., & Lane, J. (2020). Post-supernatural cultures: There and back again. Secularism and Nonreligion, 9, 1-15, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.121
ORCID
0000-0003-2389-2809 (Diallo), 0000-0003-4065-6146 (Gore)
Repository Citation
Wildman, Wesley J.; Shults, F. LeRon; Diallo, Saikou Y.; Gore, Ross; and Lane, Justin, "Post-Supernatural Cultures: There and Back Again" (2020). VMASC Publications. 114.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/vmasc_pubs/114
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons, Religion Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons