links for 2007-03-06
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“Why, [Atran] wondered, did people work so hard against their preference for logical explanations to maintain two views of the world, the real and the unreal, the intuitive and the counterintuitive?”
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I can stop describing myself as of a mix of English, Irish, Scot and Welsh (along with German and Dutch) ancestry, I guess, as my derivation might, in fact, simply be Iberian.
...I think useful conversation on the topic of the first article would necessitate a working division between "religiousness" and "superstition."
The example with the African artifact box is more a study in people's reactions to authority -- the presenter is in one when he hands the box around -- and apparent belief in magic than any kind of real commentary on faith.