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"Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience" provides a comprehensive rejoinder to the challenges posed to science, scientific anthropology, evolutionary theory and rationality by the advocates of supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific perspectives and modes of thought associated with the current rise of irrationalism, antiintellectualism, and emboldened religious fundamentalism and violence. Drawing upon H. Sidky’s scientific anthropological background and ethnographic field research of supernatural and paranormal beliefs and practices in several cultures over three decades, the book answers several important questions: Why do humans have a proclivity for the supernatural and paranormal thinking? Why has humanity remained shackled to sets of ideas inherited from a violent past that have no basis in reality and which bestow an illusionary solace, promote bloodshed, endless cruelties and fervent hatreds, and have come at a high cost? Why have ancient superstitions been held as sacred, inviolate truths while other aspects of the archaic belief systems of which they were a part have long been discarded? Why have not humans outgrown religion and paranormal beliefs?
“I highly recommend this book for its excellent psychological and sociological analysis of virtually the entire range of supernatural and paranormal beliefs that continue to have a profound and deleterious influence in the modern world.”
—James Alcock, Professor of Psychology, York University, Canada, and Author of Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling
Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Problem with Religion: Preliminary Issues; 2. The Unreal Real: The Supernatural, Religion and the Paranormal; 3. Can Science Say Anything about Religion and the Supernatural?; 4. Ghostly Rappings, the Science of the Soul and the Religious Nature of the Paranormal; 5. Ghostly Encounters in the Field: Anthropology of the Paranormal or Paranormal Anthropology?; 6. Why People Think the World Is Haunted; 7. Cognitive Biases and Why People Think Eerie Thoughts; 8. Miracles as Evidence of God’s Actions in the World; 9. When God Talks to People: Religious Experiences as Evidence of the Supernatural; 10. Books Authored by God? Sacred Texts as Evidence of the Supernatural; 11. God’s Fingerprints in the Natural World: Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity and Cosmic Fine-Tuning; 12.The Miracles of the Bible: Quintessential Sources for Paranormal Phenomena in Western Culture; 13. Jesus the Miracle Worker, Magician and Sorcerer; 14. Jesus’s Empty Tomb, the Missing Body, and His Return from the Dead: Sources for the Tale; 15. The Post-Resurrection Appearances in the New Testament; 16. Coping with Failed Prophesy: A Socio-Psychological Explanation for the Rise of Christianity; 17. Conclusions: Why Religious and Paranormal Beliefs Persist and Their Dangers; References; Index.