Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

“This tendency is derived from the functions of a variety of innate human capacities (Boyer, 1992, 2001; Guthrie, 1993).”

“Stewart Guthrie (1993) proposes that most people who hear a sudden thud in the middle of the night instinctively would wonder who caused the sound, not what caused it.”

“For instance, when confronted with contingent movements of dots on a computer screen or a suspicious sound, our mind automatically infers the presence of agents (Guthrie, 1993).”

“The table contains subcategories of the third category (utility of belief) with quotations of representative examples resulting from suboptimal thinking (Atran 2002; Guthrie 1993; Haselton and Buss 2000).”

“The central argument in this account is that humans have evolved a hard-wired and dedicated system for agency detection, the HADD, which is by default overly sensitive to sensory input (Atran, 2002; Barrett, 2004; Guthrie, 1980, 1993).”

“…Brown, 2010; Puzakova et al., 2009), there needs to be a more comprehensive review that includes recent theory and research (e.g. Boyer, 1996; Epley and Waytz, 2010; Epley et al., 2008; Guthrie, 1993) in addition to the historical sources cited respectively by Aaker (1997) and Fournier (1998).”

“…itself requires exchanges of personally sensitive information, results in negative consumer evaluations is borne out from a variety of findings in the literature on theory of mind and mind perception (Dennett 1982; Guthrie 1993; Nass & Moon 2000; Ames 2004; Caruso et al. 2010; Waytz et al .”

“It may instead be a by-product of other evolved psychological mechanisms, variously known as ‘animistic bias’ (Guthrie, 1993) or ‘the agencydetector mechanisms’ (Atran, 2002).”

“28 In offering a targeted debunking explanation via an expertise defense for material object persistence, I am endorsing what Rose and Schaffer (2014) call the nuanced view: “the prospects for the expertise defense must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, in empirically disciplined ways” (p.”

“CSR, drawing on the work of anthropologist Stuart Guthrie (1993), posits a human perceptual bias for (nonreflectively) over-detecting agency in the environment.”

“…prominent explanation for the cross-cultural and historical ubiquity of these beliefs is that recurrent features of human cognition make these particular forms of supernatural beliefs intuitively compelling (Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Barrett, 2000, 2010; Bering, 2010; Boyer, 2001; Guthrie, 1993).”

“At present, the dominant evolutionary view of supernatural beliefs is that they are side effects of cognitive mechanisms adapted for other purposes*mechanisms such as HADDs (see Barrett, 2000; Guthrie, 1993).”

“Animistic language is common in thinking about inanimate objects (see, Guthrie, 1993”

“People have a tendency to anthropomorphise objects (Guthrie, 1995), such as seeing faces in the clouds, threatening an angry volcano, personify pets, or talking to a computer.”

“…most cultural manifestations conform to conventional anthropomorphism theories of the imposition of overtly human perspectives on the world (e.g. Guthrie, 1993), the films suggests that humans exist in a deeper relationship with the world that ultimately transcends this anthropocentric…”

“Not only unique to the branding and marketing field, anthropomorphism is the psychological tendency of all human beings to animate and humanize nonhuman objects such as animals and products (Brown, 1991; Guthrie, 1993).”

“It might be useful to refer to Guthrie who claims anthropomorphism is the cognitive central source for forming religion (Guthrie, 1995), the human’s perception of a robot as a person could be religious.”

“Guthrie (1993) points to the natural need some people have to talk to plants or how some see faces in clouds.”

“…common in fly fishing culture and echo the theoretical lineage of religious studies from Tylor’s discussions of animism to contemporary scholar of religion Stewart Guthrie, who insisted that the essence of religion is to be found in the anthropomorphizing of the non-human world (Guthrie 1993).”

“As we saw earlier, Guthrie (1993) proposes that humans have a pervasive tendency to anthropomorphize the environment and to see it as having agency – the animistic ontology that is characteristic of many small-scale societies.”

“One possibility is that, in the ancestral environment in which Homo sapiens evolved, it was adaptive to detect—and perhaps over-detect—agency [10,11].”

“belief, God, evolution, religion cues of humanlike agency (Guthrie, 1993).”

“In early years, anthropomorphism was considered an embodied and evolutionary aspect of human judgment that is invariant to situations and similar throughout all individuals ’ psychological process (Guthrie, 1993; see also Mitchell et al., 1997).”

“Additionally, Guthrie (1993) theorizes that anthropomorphism is a universal human tendency (see also Zawieska et al., 2012).”

“While the objects of anthropomorphism can include gods, natural entities, and man-made machines such as robots and computers (Guthrie 1993; Mithen 1996), nonhuman animals are the primary focus of anthropomorphic thinking for many people in the Western world today (Horowitz and Bekoff 2007).”

“One such psychological mechanism is the ‘hypersensitive agent detection device’, or HADD, which was proposed in large part by Guthrie ( 1993 ), although the term was coined by Barrett ( 2000 , 2004 ), who also expanded upon the idea.”

“Stewart Guthrie hypothesizes that anthropomorphism, which he defines as the attribution of human-like agency to inanimate factors, plays a fundamental, culture-independent role in organizing and maintaining religious cognition (Guthrie 1980; 1993).”

“This is in fact similar to the conception considering anthropomor-phism as an automatic and invariant psychological process [18,24].”

“From an evolutionary vantage, it‟s usually better to be safe than sorry (cf. Guthrie, 1993).”

“One view on the origin of religious belief is that it is an ultimate anthropomorphization: perceiving an almighty supernatural god as the embodiment of the machinations of the universe (Guthrie & Guthrie, 1995).”

“Agency-detection favors erring on the side of false positives to facilitate the escape from predators and, thereby, to enhance survival (Guthrie, 1993).”

“Such anthropomorphism reassures individuals because it helps them to fi nd meaning and explanations for their surrounding environment, allowing them to interpret the world and its components as ‘ humanlike ’ (Guthrie, 1995).”

“…remember details regarding dynamic forces such as predators, prey, social partners, and kin (all of which are animate) than details about inanimate objects we happen across (for various formulations of this insight, see Guthrie, 1995; Nairne et al., 2013; Scholl & Tremoulet, 2000; Tremlin, 2006).”

“As a term, animism fell into disrepute in the middle of the 20th century (albeit largely for spurious ideological reasons), although it has been rehabilitated to some extent more recently (Bird-David 1999; Guthrie, 1993).”

“…is located in theories of agency (Latour 2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2010) and at the intersection of material culture with anthropology and archaeology (Guthrie 1993; Bird-David 1999; Harvey 2005; Brown and Walker 2008; Alberti and Bray 2009; Haber 2009; Holbraad 2009; Malafouris and Renfrew 2010;…”

“Therefore, animism is deeply rooted in human culture, religion, and history and has been used by individuals for ages to identify potential allies, predators, risks, and opportunities at a minimum cost (Guthrie, 1993).”

“Humans readily apply mental state reasoning to a wide variety of non-human, non-mentalistic, and even inanimate phenomena to create an assortment of religious and other supernatural beliefs (Guthrie, 1993; Heiphetz, Lane, Waytz, & Young, 2015; Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010; Waytz et al., 2010; Willard & Norenzayan, 2…”

“The phenomenon of people “attributing human characteristics to nonhuman phenomena” (Guthrie, 1993) is common and is known as anthropomorphization.”

“For example, among earlier theories (e.g., Tylor, 1889), anthropologists hypothesized that religion has animistic roots or that animism itself is a religious phenomenon (Guthrie, 1995; Hunter & Whitten, 1976, p. 12).”

“Guthrie and Guthrie (1995) suggested three types of anthropomorphizing– including the partial, the literal, and the accidental.”

“…focus of some studies on evolution and religious cognition is that nonhuman agents have socially strategic knowledge and powers to reward or punish (Guthrie, 1993; Purzycki et al., 2012), so as to deter people from cheating or acting immorally (Shariff, Norenzayan, & Henrich, 2009; Shariff &…”

“since Francis Bacon, five centuries ago ( Guthrie 1993 p. 62; see also Povinelli and Preuss”

“From the technology design perspective, studies on computing technology as social actors cannot be separated from the concept of anthropomorphism, which is the attribution of humanlike traits to non-human agents (Guthrie, 1993) typically to simplify people’s understanding of technology.”

“These effects are notable because anthropomorphism has been a central focus of the cognitive science of religion (e.g., Barrett, 2004; Guthrie, 1993) and an influential cognitive hypothesis about the origin of superna-tural belief dating all the way back to Hume (1779/1981).”

“When we allow ourselves to look for them, there are, of course, innumerable interesting ways in which physical things seem to exert themselves upon us (Gell, 1998; Guthrie, 1993; Ingold, 2000).”

“Since time immemorial, we have anthropomorphized things in our everyday lives [1, 31], be they religious gods or animal figures, modern “toy stories” in movies, or even in the names we give our cars.”

“, a cognitive process of perceiving objects as alive but not necessarily human [77]).”

“(For a compelling argument about why humans as a species tend to anthropomorphize, see Guthrie 1993.)”

“…possibly because belief in higher powers, as a consequence of over‐inference of agency behind otherwise natural phenomena, may be part of evolved human nature (Atran, 2002; Boyer, 2001; Guthrie, 1993; Haselton & Nettle, 2006; Kirkpatrick, 2005), and atheism may therefore be evolutionarily novel.”

“As a result, for instance, we are tempted to see faces everywhere, such as in clouds, stones, and cars (Guthrie 1993) and we tend to treat our object environment socially.”

“Another important driver for anthropomorphism entails the need and wish for social connection with non-human agents (Aggarwal and McGill, 2007; Epley et al., 2007; Guthrie, 1993; Laurel, 1997).”

“Commonly, natural forces beyond human control are ascribed to anthropomorphized supernatural agents who can act helpfully and/or harmfully; and humans try to influence these agents through propitiation, magic or collective ritual (EvansPritchard 1937; Fortes 1987; Guthrie 1993; Malinowski 1954).”

“The anthropologist Guthrie (1993) maintains that religion is best understood as anthropomorphism.”

“They may interpret the “fleeting shadow… seen in a clearing” (Boyer 1994, p. 92) as an encounter with a ghost (see Boyer 2001; Guthrie 1980, 1993).”

“Cognitive scientists suggest that humans have a bias for detecting human-like agency and the agent detector may sometimes respond to a postulated agent who has unusual characteristics such as invisibility [12,13].”

“…that contribute to ghost beliefs: first, our mentalizing ability leads us to project humanlike mental states on nonhuman objects (Barrett, 2004; Guthrie, 1995), possibly conferring adaptive advantages (Bering et al., 2005); second, mind–body dualism, which refers to the intuitions that minds…”

“Guthrie [38] believed that anthropomorphism is a cognitive strategy for understanding the world.”

“In a further note, she credits Hallowell with having ‘come close to revisiting the notion’ of animism, and Stewart Guthrie (1993) with being a ‘liminal exception’ to the general failure to do more than cite Tylor.”

“As a result, we are lead to detect faces everywhere–even in inanimate objects, such as cars [1].”

“99) Latency (ms) P7 P8 P7 P8 Face-likeness FLOs 179 (28) 161 (19) 180 (19) 169 (21) Non-FLOs 170 (24) 168 (24) 179 (27) 168 (11) Roundness FLOs 179 (29) 168 (20) 180 (20) 171 (17) Non-FLOs 168 (23) 163 (24) 179 (19) 171 (14) Number of accepted trials Face-likeness FLOs 53.”

“The current CSR evidence indicates the following rough picture of our natural knowledge of God: there exist one or more supernatural agents, who have intentions, desires and beliefs (following Guthrie 1993).”

“Triggering one’s capacity to reason about other minds may therefore mean the difference between representing other entities as humans versus nonhumans (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007; Guthrie, 1993; Mitchell, Thompson, & Miles, 1997).”

“In a similar vein, Guthrie (1993) stressed that our cognitive system is biased toward detecting human-like agency in our environment (a hypersensitive agent detection device), triggered whenever sensory data are ambiguous or incomplete.”

“Supernatural beliefs may stem from a universal predisposition to interpret environmental changes as the product of an intentional agent (S. Guthrie, 1993) and unconscious cognitive tendencies, previously discussed, to impute self-knowledge (Nickerson, 1999) or project self-views on others (Newman…”